When the Empress of Austria was assassinated in 1898 newspaper reporters, seeking “color,” asked the settlement’s direction to anarchists who, in the excitement of the time, were believed to form a considerable portion of the East Side population. I recalled two men who, in a cellar in Grand Street, had a few rows of books for sale which advertised them as “Dealers in Radical Literature.” One partner proclaimed himself a State Socialist, the other a Philosophic Anarchist. The latter, mild and gentle, devoted disciple of Prudhon, with whose writings he was familiar, was almost pathetically grateful, and showed not altogether complimentary surprise when we purchased Kropotkin’s “Fields, Factories, and Workshops,” Tolstoi’s “My Life,” and Walt Whitman’s poems. In his naïve simplicity he assumed that only those unsure of food and shelter found interest in such literature, and later he and his partner, in all seriousness, proposed, with our co-operation, to reform society. They had decided, after much thought, that the reason the people they met at the settlement seemed to sympathize and understand was because of the books they read. They felt sorry for the people on Fifth Avenue who, living so far away from the poor, could not know how things might be remedied. Their plan was that I should rent a store opening on the avenue, place comfortable chairs and tables upon which books could be spread. These books the merchants would loan,—their whole stock, if necessary,—and then people passing on foot or driving by could stop and read. Such naïveté could hardly be met with to-day, for education and discussion of themes of social interest have widened the minds of the community and contact with people of different positions in life is much more general. Police interference with free speech and free assemblage in our country has stirred vigorous protest from sober people and has had the effect of kindling enthusiasm for propaganda of ultraradical philosophies among those who might otherwise never have given thought to them. In some quarters mere radicalism has become perilously popular. The spirit of adventure, a kind of generous devotion not always balanced with knowledge of definite issues or the constructive processes that are under way, deflect forces that might be employed for immediate advances in social welfare.