I should have thought our sense of liberty were proof against contamination, but apparently not. As the first sign of Prussianism we seem to have curtailed free speech. In a dozen cities where I have been a man need only get on a soap-box and he will land in jail. The corner orators who used to act as safety valves for over-heated brains don’t dare show themselves. Men have gone to jail for reading sections from the Declaration of Independence. I admit they did it with mocking or malicious intent, but what of it? Since when, has the democracy of America grown so weak it needs policemen to protect it? In the West a man need only carry an I. W. W. card in his pocket to get arrested. They say in Seattle, “The Red Squad has driven the cards into the shoes.” There are 3,000 “Reds” in jail for various causes. The most important ones are serving long prison sentences. There seems to be a common impression that the Imprisonment of “Reds” is suppressing Bolshevism in the United States. =My observations lead me to the belief the only chance of revolution, and that not immediate, might come from continuing to keep these men in prison.= Those who are under prison sentence were convicted under the extraordinary conditions developed by war. These extraordinary conditions no longer exist, but these men are still under sentence. =The longer they stay in prison the stronger grows the resentment at their imprisonment. I find an undercurrent of bitterness, not very wide but deep, that can breed trouble.= The small minority that is thinking about revolution is thinking about it hard. If these so-called revolutionists were turned loose without further ado, under a general amnesty, it would ease off on that hard thinking and would be helpful to the liberal movement in industry that is trying to “work this thing out another way.” The same spirit in the country which is backing the red squads of the police seems to be actuating a Nation-wide, open-shop campaign. Men with any liberalism at all—and there are liberals managing great industries—are not in favor of either. They do not want the closed shop, but the ruthless way many employers’ associations and groups of associated industries are trying to use the present reaction as well as the existing depression to “break the back of labor” is regarded by them as the madness of power and wealth. I find only two groups of rebels against democracy who view with favor this knock-down-and-drag-out fight for the open shop. I might call them roughly Bolshevik employers and Bolshevik employees.