and the upholders of reaction and oppression.

The National Free Speech Committee, whose membership, as is well known, covers a wide range and variety of economic faiths, have recommended Miss Goldman to test free speech in cities where the right seemed in jeopardy. As Worcester authorities went on record on the wrong side, as the Committee sees it, in the Berkman case, it was felt advisable to give them another opportunity to take the American position. Miss Goldman and her manager, Dr. Ben L. Reitman, arrived in Worcester on September fourth, and the only morning paper, The Telegram, the next morning announced that she "wanted to talk to her followers." It is a pleasure to commend the fair and temperate treatment accorded by the morning paper all through the episode of Miss Goldman's visit.

One of the two evening papers, The Post, for the most part maintained rigid silence; the other, The Gazette, in a leading editorial of September sixth, declared that Miss Goldman was seeking, not free, but "unlicensed" speech, and proceeded to take away from her, as far as it was able, all possibility of her reinstatement in respectable" opinion, by asserting that even if she should seem to "couch words in a temperate way," yet they would be an attempted incitement to "riots and the use of dynamite."

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As the only representative of the Free Speech Committee in Worcester, I hurried from my cottage on Cape Cod and sought an interview with Mayor James Logan. He had been away, and the only satisfaction he would offer was to say that Chief of Police D. A. Matthews, who had already declared that Miss Goldman. must not speak on Anarchism in Worcester, would be left by him as sole judge of the whole matter. then went to the Chief and told him that I as chairman of the proposed meeting would agree that if he, who would be one of the auditors of Miss Goldman's address, at any point of the lecture raised his hand to signify

that violence and riot were being incited, I would do my part to stop the whole proceedings instantly. I thought him inclined to yield the point, but a reporter of The Gazette, who saw him immediately afterward, said in the afternoon issue that the Chief stated that he would take such steps as might seem necessary to "prevent the woman from addressing a gathering on any subject whatsoever."

Dr. Reitman and I spent a laborious day scouring the city for a hall; many were the excuses offered, and pathetic the blind fear manifested. At the last a janitor agreed to let his hall. He was told whom it was for, and after thinking said he did not care for possible trouble; he accepted half the money required and gave a receipt. In a few hours he telephoned that his "boss" decided the hall could not be let, as he was afraid his license would be revoked."

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In the meantime my wife, Mabel R. White, had written a letter which The Telegram printed September eighth, offering our Worcester apartment and the grounds about it (which she owns") for Miss Goldman's use, in case all public places were closed to the lecture. That evening, to make sure that the hall engaged was refused, Miss Goldman, Dr. Reitman and myself went to the door, which we found locked. A crowd in the street was kept on the move by the police, and Miss Goldman, standing at the entry of the building, quietly told those interested to go to 35 Catharine Street - the "last resort."

We got rid of the inquisitive idlers by taking a street-car, and the distance to the home-over a mile - prevented any but those genuinely interested from following. So determined and categorical seemed the refusal of all permission to Miss Goldman by the police, to speak within the city, that I told her beforehand that I feared they would prevent the lecture, even on my lawn. I shall not soon forget her reply: "You can kill little children in mills and mines in this country; you can kill and maim men and women,

without much fear of interference; but if you raise a hand against the 'rights' of private property, you will have the whole country aroused against you. No, the police will not stop me on your lawn; they know that if they did they would hear a protest from every city in the land." She was nearer right about it than I.

Arrived at my home, I found a few people standing quietly on the steps and grass. The throng that came with us, who were apparently without exception well-dressed, peaceable citizens, also began to move on to the lawn. Suddenly a squad of police whom I had not yet noticed began to shove the people off the banking and down the steps in what seemed an unwarrantably rough manner, even thrusting them over the sidewalk and curbing into the street. I saw several men pushed backward by the policemen's arms at their chests, and there were some narrow escapes from bad falls in consequence down the steps. It would have been a phlegmatic observer whose blood did not start in his veins with indignation. I called loudly to the evicted ones to come back, expecting as I did so to receive a warning in no uncertain terms from the lieutenant who was commanding officer of the police attachment. To my surprise, he turned a smiling face and said: "O, certainly, Mr. White, if you wish them to; we were simply sent up here to protect property." The squad consisted of four "gum-shoe" men from the liquor patrol, three detectives from the inspector's department, a sergeant, and ten patrolmen, some of them called in from distant beats. These, with the lieutenant, made nineteen defenders, whereas in time of calm, property in this region is protected largely by an almost superannuated patrolman who has difficulty in climbing the hill on his occasional visitations.

The crowd of perhaps three hundred would-be listeners returned to the lawn, Miss Goldman bidding some of the more zealous to “look out for the flowers; they want to live as well as you." Dr. Reitman in an incisive, half

Miss

jocose, yet impressively serious, introduction presented the speaker of the evening, whom citizens and police listened to for an hour, without disturbance or protest of any sort. Goldman had not announced which of her lecture-subjects she would choose, but concluded the one most needed here was "What Is Anarchism?" and this she proceeded to treat in a selfcontrolled, logical and truly inspirational manner. However those who heard may have differed with her on specific points, I believe there was no one who could have given reason why such an address, taken in good faith, should render the speaker liable to the denial of the right of free speech and all the petty and monstrous indignities and humiliations which this heroically courageous little woman meets in so many parts of this country.

Surely it would have been hard for a dweller in Russia, who might have been suddenly transported hither to New England, that Mecca of libertylovers, to realize that this was a Massachusetts city, where one who was refused the smallest opportunity to tell what she does believe and preach, and denied entrance to any public rostrum, had been able to utter her convictions only on the grounds of a private citizen, surrounded by a platoon of police.

The

The lecture ended, the audience quietly dispersed, and the guardians of the law "relieved the mind" of the Chief by reporting to him that although Miss Goldman had spoken, she had not once trenched on "anarchy." next morning's paper gave an excellent report of the address, neither omitting important explanations of crucial points, nor attributing what the speaker did not say. The Gazette the next afternoon, while declining to comment editorially on the outcome, stated in its news columns that Miss Goldman won her battle with Chief Matthews and Mayor James Logan."

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The Worcester Free Speech Committee, hurriedly organized in the emergency on September fifth, passed the following Resolutions on the day after the lecture, September ninth:

of

Resolved: That as citizens Worcester, we seriously regret that the Mayor should have abdicated his office recently in favor of the Chief of Police, on a question so vital not only to Worcester but to the country at large, as the denial of the constitutional right of free speech in this city. And, that we hereby register our thorough disapproval of the procedure of the Chief of Police and acting mayor, in arbitrarily refusing his permission to Miss Emma Goldman to exercise a right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution to all the

people without discrimination. And, that we regret the absence of Mayor Logan and Chief Matthews from the lecture on Anarchism delivered in this city by Miss Goldman, where it would have been possible for them to gain personal knowledge of the doctrines of the speaker and the spirit in which she sets them forth; such knowledge being, we believe, very necessary for dealing intelligently with possible situations in the future, similar to that just handled in such an un-American and unconvincing manner."

I.

This great creation, considered by many scholars to be the noblest short religious poem in our literature, is a monologue at once lyrical and dramatic. It is a masterpiece, whether considered as an artistic creation, as an ethical message, or as a philosophical delineation of life in its physical expression and spiritual outreachings and aspirations.

From the standpoint of art, "Saul" holds a front rank among our great poems. The true poet is a man of rich imagination, of profound insight, and not unfrequently one of the chief charms of his creations is found in the splendid pictures that rise constantly before the mental vision of the reader as he peruses the lines, sometimes following each other in rapid succession, like a splendid panorama. This is one of the artistic charms of "Saul." There is also here a rhythmic swing and musical quality that has led one critic to aptly characterize it as "a Messianic oratorio in words;" while for those whose dearest wish is to help humanity onward, to increase the happiness of all God's children through the development of the higher potentialities of the soul or the unfolding of all that is finest, tenderest, purest and best in the heart of man, the chief charm and value of this work will be found in its profound philosophy and the master spiritual truth so splendidly emphasized. Seldom if ever before

in the brief compass of a few pages has been presented such a vivid picture of the sensuous life and the life spiritual, in which the reader is led upward, step by step, from plane to plane, until the veil is drawn aside and the prophet poet reveals to the world's consciousness the vision he beholds,-a vision that is only vouchsafed to him who is pure enough in heart to see God in all His works; whose mind has been purged from selfishness, baseness and ignoble motives and desires, and whose vision is so clarified that he no longer sees the eternal realities as through a glass darkly or from behind the veil of sensuous perception, but face to face. The poem teaches the essential unity of life, the reality and supremacy of the good as opposed to the unreality and ephemeral character of all that is not in harmony with the Cosmic Mind.

It may be divided into two parts: one shadowing forth the joy of living,-a vivid and wonderful picture of the pleasures and delights of an uncontaminated normal youth in the realm of sensuous experience; the second concerned with the spiritual nature, its potential supremacy and the possibility of its drawing from the reservoir of Infinite Light and Power.

Here it is that Browning sounds the profoundest depths and reaches the loftiest heights of philosophic concepts as they relate to man, created in the image and likeness of

God. This has been a favorite theme with the poets of the interior vision and the mystics and metaphysical philosophers throughout the ages. One of Robert Browning's contemporaries, Gerald Massey, a minor poet whose popular lays have deeply stirred the heart of the common people, in his most ambitious poem, “A Tale of Eternity," thus touches upon the thought so splendidly brought out in the poem we are considering:

There is no pathway Man hath ever trod, By faith or seeking sight, but ends in God. Yet 'tis in vain ye look without to find The inner secrets of the Eternal mind, Or meet the King on His external throne. But when ye kneel at heart, and feel so lone, Perchance behind the veil you get the grip And spirit-sign of secret fellowship; Silently as the gathering of a tear The human want will bring the Helper near: The very weakness that is utterest need Of God, will draw Him down with strength indeed."

II.

The character of David as self-revealed in the poem is a master poetic creation, idealized, yet essentially true to the finer and truer side of the life of the youth who should not only become Israel's most loved and revered king, but one of the immortal psalmists and singers of Christian civilization. His life had been simple and wholesome. From early childhood he had been a shepherd lad, but his ear for music was so acute that he early became a harpist whose fame had reached the king's court. Reared away from the blighting artificiality and the narrowing influence of conventionality which ever marks town and city life, he was a thoroughly normal and unsullied youth, gifted with the rich imagination of a true poet and the intense religious aspiration that was a pre-eminent characteristic of the Hebrew race. It is not strange that David became spiritually clear-visioned, for the life of the shepherd was essentially a solitary life as compared with most other vocations. The shepherds of Palestine traveled far during the year, from the valleys that bordered the streams in Judea northward, beyond where the Jordan receives its waters of the Lake of Galilee; even at times to the emerald-mantled mountains of Lebanon, where Hermon's snow-clad peak keeps sleepless vigil o'er the land. During the long days and star-jewelled nights the youth had been drawn strangely near to the pulsing heart of the All-Father.

Here he was impressed with what the primal man first notes,-an all-powerful Force governing the universe. But to the order-loving mind another fact was soon equally apparent. Not only was the Soul of the Universe a manifestation of power and majesty, but it was a Power that expressed itself in law and order. It was not a blind, erratic and capricious force that marshalled the stars and guided the sun; that awakened the flowers and ripened the fruits. It was no blind, reasonless power that held the sun and stars to their courses or that placed reason and love in the heart of man. The youth beheld with ever-growing wonder and delight the panorama of day and night. The splendor of sky and earth threw a mystic spell over his imagination. To him the heavens declared the glory of God and the firmament showed His handiwork. Often he was in perplexity and dogged by danger, but the confiding sheep who turned to him at all times of want or peril taught him a lesson of trust; and his trust and confidence were well voiced in such pastoral psalms as "The Lord is my Shepherd.” He loved to weave his thought into song; sometimes simple, joyous nature lays; at other times noble religious hymns that voiced the prophet's cry and the philosopher's deep insight. And thus the days passed, until one morning a messenger came from the royal camp. The youthful harper was wanted to medicine the heart of King Saul, who was in the dark of a fearful bondage thought to be an enslavement by an evil spirit.

III.

At the opening of the monologue, we find David communing with himself, after the manner of one accustomed to be alone in the solitude of nature. It occurs on the morning after his visit to the king's tent, where he has experienced one of those wonderful spiritual awakenings that at rare intervals come to the souls of the prophets, the seers and poets of progress, come sometimes in the blinding light such as that which smote Paul to the earth when he journeyed to Damascus and transformed his whole thoughtworld; sometimes as the fruition of a life of pure and lofty aspiration, even as was David's experience in the tent of the reasondarkened king.

The wonder of the awakening, in which his soul passed as it were behind the veil and