When in 1903 we presented the first edition of "Socialism. The Nation of Fatherless Children" to the public we had only a very few friends, true blue. 

The public press paid but little attention to socialist propaganda; and to the general public the movement was known by a phrase or two which signified condemnation without understanding or by those of approval which rested upon equally unknown ground. This indifference had given to socialists a foothold in the nation. Abnormal fortunes were matched by abnormal ambi

- tions that had been aroused here and there amongst the members of the working class. These proletarian comrades in association with their intellectual leaders were preying upon the hopes and fears of their fellow workers, many of whom were receiving an un-ust wage and were even so in constant dread of unemployment. 

On the other hand, the occasion was ripe for interesting the ill-educated middle class in the science of poverty — that it is all due to the system — and for enlisting its sympathy for the underdog, as their own fortunes were feeling the blight of "the trusts."