paign. It published a weekly in English, and one each in
Bohemian and German; also there was a monthly published
in Chicago, and a cooperative publishing house, that issued
a million and a half of Socialist books and pamphlets every
year. All this was the growth of the last few years --
there had been almost nothing of it when Ostrinski first
came to Chicago.

Ostrinski was a Pole, about fifty years of age. He had
lived in Silesia, a member of a despised and persecuted
race, and had taken part in the proletarian movement in the
early seventies, when Bismarck, having conquered France,
had turned his policy of blood and iron upon the "Inter
national." Ostrinski himself had twice been in jail, but
he had been young then, and had not cared. He had had
more of his share of the fight, though, for just when Social~
ism had broken all its barriers and become the great political
force of the empire, he had come to America, and begun
all over again. In America everyone had laughed at the
mere idea of Socialism then -- in America all men were
free. As if political liberty made wage-slavery any the
more tolerable! said Ostrinski.

The little tailor sat tilted back in his stiff kitchen-chair,
with his feet stretched out upon the empty stove, and
speaking in low whispers, so as not to waken those in the
next room. To Jurgis he seemed a scarcely less wonder~
ful person than the speaker at the meeting; he was poor,
the lowest of the low, hunger-driven and miserable -- and
yet how much he knew, how much he had dared and
achieved, what a hero he had been! There were others
like him, too -- thousands like him, and all of them work~
ing-men! That all this wonderful machinery of progress
had been created by his fellows -- Jurgis could not believe
it, it seemed too good to be true.

That was always the way, said Ostrinski; when a
man was first converted to Socialism he was like a crazy
person, -- he could not understand how others could fail to
see it, and he expected to convert all the world the first
week. After a while he would realize how hard a task it
was; and then it would be fortunate that other new hands

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