There were
several who sang, and one who played the flute and caused all the
others to tear their hair. There was a boy fresh from the country,
who declared that he had run away from home because the family sang
hymns all day Sunday, and never sang in tune.
From people such as these you would hear the most revolutionary
utterances; but Peter soon realized that it was mostly just talk
with them. They would work off their frenzies with a few dashes of
paint or some ferocious chords on the piano. The really dangerous
ones were not here; they were hidden away in offices or dens of
their own, where they were prompting strikes and labor agitations,
and preparing incendiary literature to be circulated among the poor.
You met such people in the Socialist local, and in the I. W. W.
headquarters, and in numerous clubs and propaganda societies which
Peter investigated, and to which he was welcomed as a member. In the
Socialist local there was a fierce struggle going on over the war.
What should be the attitude of the party? There was a group, a
comparatively small group, which believed that the interests of
Socialism would best be served by helping the Allies to the
overthrow of the Kaiser.
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