reply to the proposition that the social relation thus established
proceeds to create principles, ideas and categories as merely
historical and transitory products.

Of course I use the term "socialism" technically and do not wish
to confuse it with the growing sensitiveness which recognizes
that no personal comfort, nor individual development can
compensate a man for the misery of his neighbors, nor with the
increasing conviction that social arrangements can be transformed
through man's conscious and deliberate effort. Such a definition
would not have been accepted for a moment by the Russians, who
then dominated the socialist party in Chicago and among whom a
crude interpretation of the class conflict was the test of faith.

During those first years on Halsted Street nothing was more
painfully clear than the fact that pliable human nature is
relentlessly pressed upon by its physical environment. I saw
nowhere a more devoted effort to understand and relieve that
heavy pressure than the socialists were making, and I should have
been glad to have had the comradeship of that gallant company had
they not firmly insisted that fellowship depends upon identity of
creed. They repudiated similarity of aim and social sympathy as
tests which were much too loose and wavering as they did that
vague socialism which for thousands has come to be a philosophy
or rather religion embodying the hope of the world and the
protection of all who suffer.

I also longed for the comfort of a definite social creed, which
should afford at one and the same time an explanation of the
social chaos and the logical steps towards its better ordering. I