How can I ask you to go into the peril, the dirt, and
disease of this struggle? And how can I refrain from
going in myself? Let me see you once more. Do not
deny me that. And understand that through life my
love will follow you ... a love greatened, I trust, by
what little I do in the great cause....

Ever yours, JOE

He waited for an answer and none came, and he felt during those days
that the life was being dragged out of him. Feverishly then he buried
himself in his tasks and his books, he went on cramming himself with
theories until he reached the bursting-point and wanted to go out on
fire with mission, almost a fanatic, an Isaiah to shake the city with
invective and prophesy change. What could he do to spread the tidings,
the news? The time had come to find an outlet for the overbearing flood
within him. And then one evening in the Park like a flash came the plan.
He must go among the poor, he must get to know them--not in this
neighborhood, "a prophet is not without honor, etc."--but in some new
place where he was unknown. He thought of Greenwich Village. Did not
Fannie Lemick tell him that Sally Heffer lived in Greenwich Village?
Well, he would look into the matter. He was a printer; why not then
print a little weekly newspaper directly for the toilers, for his
neighbors? He could tell all that way, pour out his enlightenment, stir
them, stand by them, take part in their activities, their troubles and
their strikes and lead them forth to a new life. He was sure they were
ripe for the facts, powder awaiting the spark; he would go down among
them and make his paper the center of their disorganized life.

The more he thought of the plan the more it thrilled him. What was