[7] As an instance of this I note the following example: "No severer critic of Socialists ever lived than Karl Marx. No one more bitterly attacked them and their policy toward the trade unions than he.... And yet Socialists regard him as their patron saint." Mr. Samuel Gompers, in _The American Federationist_, August, 1905. [8] Preface to _The Communist Manifesto_, by F. Engels, Kerr edition, page 7. [9] _Quarterly Journal of Economics._ CHAPTER II ROBERT OWEN AND THE UTOPIAN SPIRIT I As a background to modern, or scientific, Socialism there is the Socialism of the Utopians, which the authors of the _Manifesto_ so severely criticised. It is impossible to understand the modern Socialist movement, the Socialism which is rapidly becoming the dominant issue in the thought and politics of the world, without distinguishing sharply between it and the Utopian visions which preceded it. Failure to make this distinction is responsible for the complete misunderstanding of the Socialism of to-day by many earnest and intelligent persons. It is not necessary that we study the Utopian movements which flourished and declined prior to the rise of scientific Socialism in detail. It will be sufficient if we consider the Utopian Socialism of Owen, which is Utopian Socialism at its best and nearest approach to the modern movement. Thus we shall get a clear view of the point of departure which marked the rise of the later scientific movement with its revolutionary political programmes. Incidentally, also, we shall get a view of the great and good Robert Owen, whom Liebknecht, greatest political leader of the movement, has called, "By far the most embracing, penetrating, and practical of all the harbingers of scientific Socialism."[10] Friederich Engels, a man not given to praising overmuch, has spoken of Owen with an enthusiasm which he rarely showed in his descriptions of men. He calls him, "A man of almost sublime and childlike simplicity of character," and declares, "Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers, links itself on to the name of Robert Owen."[11] And even this high praise from the part-author of _The Communist Manifesto_ who for so many years was called the "Nestor of the Socialist movement," falls short, because it does not recognize the great influence of the man in the United States at a most important period of our history.