Seated in the general office of my department that morning running over the columns of the Co-opolitan, I noticed an editorial copied from the Boston Transcript of recent date entitled “A Menace to Liberty.” I immediately read it and found that it was a direct attack on the Co-opolitan Association. It classed the movement with the Mormon occupation of Utah; declared that it was hostile to a republican form of government; asserted that the men who had become most prominent in pushing it to the front were designing and ambitious persons who sought only their own aggrandizement and alleged that it had become so powerful in Idaho as to threaten to take control of the state and set up a government which the constitution of the nation forbade. It was particularly severe on John Thompson. “This man,” it said, “is reported to be an illiterate but able man, possessed of great executive force, who has conceived the entire plan and has superintended with remarkable diligence and ability the details of its development. As President of the company he is the practical uncrowned king of Idaho. This scheme to embrace a state within the dominion of one company is the most daring and dangerous yet attempted by corporate greed. Should it succeed, grave constitutional questions will arise and congress will be called upon to deal with this new menace to liberty and good morals as it did with the Mormon question. “There is this difference, however, that the monopolistic octopus now threatening Idaho is entrenched behind an unfortunate system which recognizes the independence of states and the obnoxious doctrine of state rights, while the Mormons, being in a territory which was directly within the jurisdiction of congress, were struck down by the sentiment of the entire Union made effective by national legislation. But as our people found means to rend the veil of this obnoxious doctrine, to strike down slavery in the South, so it will find a way to rend it again and strike down such institutions as this so-called Co-operative Commonwealth or Co-opolitan Association.” I threw the paper down upon the floor with an expression and feeling of indignation. I knew that our movement had attracted wide attention, but never before had I seen any indication of hostility. The newspaper press of the United States had generally treated the undertaking as an experiment which would teach a useful lesson if successful, but waved it aside as purely idealistic and not likely to succeed. Now one of the most conservative and reputable metropolitan dailies in the country, ignoring all its former expressions of approval, had deliberately reversed itself, suppressed facts, falsified the truth, and, on the eve of the success of the co-operative programme in Idaho, had begun a campaign for its destruction. So entirely consumed was I, for the moment, by my own passion that I did not notice the entrance of President Thompson and was somewhat startled when he saluted me.