By EDLINGTON MOAT

RIMFUL and bubbling over with energy-whistling, singing, dreaming-working hard for sheer delight of swift action-ramming the sheets into the "eighth medium” with an exaggerated motion that might better befit a juggler-now "throwing in"-now jogging stock-now sweeping up now running errands-but always whistling and singing and dreaming; such was the devil at the end of his first year with Getit & Holdit, Printers and Stationers. Whether the presses were time-worn, or the type face-worn, or the men care-worn, the devil paused not to consider. Did the fulljowled pressman complain of foul air? The devil slammed open the window-and sniggered. Did the consumptive "comp." damn God's fresh air as it played about his bald head? The devil jammed up the window, and incidently snorted his disgust, noting the while the contrast between these two-just like the "before and after" pictures gotten up to advertise quack nostrums!

So it seemed to him. The gin-engendered puffiness of the one passed for health; the slow, consuming fever of the other he was as yet incapable of understanding. No chiaroscuro of human joy and sorrow found place in his canvas. Enough for him was the reward of each day, with its rhythmic pulsing of machinery that seemed attuned to his own abounding vitality; with its probabilities of pie and ice-cream when he should take the proof of the bill-of-fare to the baker at the hotel around the corner; with its possibilities of swimming the mud-pond, or of batting the ball with "Sheeney" Rowley; or of reading the adventures of some impossible hero when the day's work was done.

But like the majority of devils just out of swaddling clothes, the specimen in question was doomed to learn sad realities by experience. In the midst of his working and his whistling, he heard much talk about "hard times." That they were mysteriously connected with the occasional weepings of his mother and the swearings of his father, he soon surmised, especially as his younger brother was taken from school and set to work. Then, suddenly, the pressman disappeared. The devil found himself doing the pressman's work. Needless to say, it "Devil"-A printer's apprentice.

pleased him not a little to find himself thus promoted. Later, it struck him that the pressman had been getting $15 a week. So he asked the boss for a raise, and received his first lesson in economics. The boss told him of a young hopeful who would consider $4 a week a very satisfactory wage.

Did the devil find another position? Not exactly. The position. found him. At that time there were still a few vacancies-a few jobs looking around for wiry youngsters willing to be engulfed in murky pits to be warped and worn by machinery-for a few ounces of silver. And this particular job, at the prospect of lassoing, and swallowing, and digesting piecemeal so tempting a morsel as the faithful, unsophisticated little devil, through the medium of its business manager choked down its glee, rubbed its hands, and said:

"* * * Ah! Yes, yes. There's every possible chance here. Of course you'll find it rather close shaving to get along on $4 a week, now that you have left home. But others have done it. You can, if you are economical. And as I said before, your advancement is only a question of time, providing you are industrious and faithful, as your references and your appearance lead me to believe you are This concern is growing rapidly. We want you to grow with it. We want you to stay with it, not for a month or a year, but for ten, twenty, thirty years * *"

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As for the devil, poor innocent that he was!-a stranger both to axe-grinders and flesh-grinders, unaware of the subtle influence of environment, or of the chaining power of habit-he thanked his nativity for being taken in by so beneficent a job.

And taken in he soon discovered himself to be, much to his enlightenment enlightenmnet in spite of the dark, gleaned through chilling months beneath the sickly flame of smoking gas jets; behind unwashed, unopened windows-abode of vitiated, dust-laden air; under fragments of colored posters that vainly strove to hide decaying walls; amidst the time-yellowed stock, and the rheumatic old machines that creaked and moaned in dismal cadence; amongst the stink of ink, of type, of benzine and of gasoline; and amongst the unlovely men-the "fixtures"-who frowned hideously at "pi," and swore impotently because of their benumbed fingers.

Nor was that all. He experienced the inconvenience of chilblained. fingers. He came to know how it feels to be cheated out of a week's pittance on an ingenious pretext; to have your hand battered by a machine and your wages cut down for the time you spend at the hospital; to say nothing of eyes dimmed for want of proper light, or of lungs pronounced diseased by supposedly competent physicians.

Then for the first time the devil began to take stock of himself. And with the stock-taking came his decision to escape. But alas! What will-buttressed resolve can withstand the battering-ram of hunger? The next moon saw him ready to be swallowed up by another job. But as he valued himself more highly, and as he appeared less robust than formerly, the jobs seemed less eager in their pursuit of him; so that he almost despaired of being captured-unless it were by the undertaker.

By and by, however, being chased by hunger to a bigger city, the devil fell plump into the clutches of a bigger job-an up-to-date job-where the double rows of cylinders-huge drums of steel-rolling round and round with a snoring hum, seemed effectually to submerge his natural buoyancy, and to plough deeper convolutions in his brain. Then, too, the cranky Harris presses, and the clattering "Hoe's," and others still, such as he had never dreamed of, served for a time to feed his curiosity. What a pandemonium their combined voices did kick up! And how they did "deliver the goods"-reams upon reams of it, ceiling high, like windowless miniatures of down-town skyscrapers! * * * And the men, some of them, why did they rush about in that half distracted manner? Why that peculiar sharpness of feature, that unwonted brightness of eye? It struck the devil as rather strange. Moreover, it troubled him, Speed he had always admired, in both man and machine. It was the heritage of youth, one of the means of victory. Yet these men, with concrete floors to walk upon, and electric arcs for sunshine, and modern machinery to conquer by-these men, though they worked with speed. and precision, took no apparent pride or pleasure in their dexterity, in their ability to breast the untiring pace of steam-driven wheels. Nor did it seem the joy of victory, nor even the prospect of the week-end wage, that spurred them on. There must be some pivotal force behind it, some fetish of ear or favor to which they all bowed. What could it be?

Long the devil pondered. Then, little by little, the delusive magic which kept these plodders plodding made itself plain to him. Result: A new point of view, followed by a revulsion of feeling. His faith sickened, his hope grew suddenly anemic, as it dawned upon him that men could be tricked, bribed, and intimidated into committing all sorts of unworthy follies; into thinking by proxy and worshipping at the behest of authority; into voting for masks and championing their best enemies; and out of it all expecting good to come These machines were the incarnation of the spirit of the age; these men, the servitors, some willing, some unwilling, each working for himself, but each giving more than he got, and all together surren

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dering themselves a pabulum at the shrine of property. Slaves they were, the young among them straining their utmost; the old, jealous alike of generations swift of hand and eye, and of the pace-making machine-of its indifference to human slaughter-of its power to feed and clothe or to send forth naked into the dungeon or the wilderness. To work for it and with it meant strife among themselves, meant the matching of muscle against muscle, of nerve against nerve, of mind against mind. What if a muscle became paralyzed now and then, or a nerve wrecked, or a mind unbalanced? What of it? How poor, how limited are the potentialities of the mere homo! How much less worthy of development is his coarse and crude mechanism in comparison with the smooth-running machine and the great Thing it stands for. Should not body, mind and soul be dedicated to that, and to that alone? soul be dedicated to that, and to that alone?

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Right or wrong, the devil fashioned a new resolve, which he cinched with an oath. Others could bow if they liked, but henceforth he would bow only in semblance Good-bye, pride of speed! good-bye, industry! good-bye, faithfulness in the interests of the job! Sisyphus' lot is yours. Yours also is the tenement, and Potter's field. * * * * From now on the slogan should be selfthe development of self by hook or crook-self always and all the time. The contempt of the behemoth of property he would counter with his own, insignificant by comparison though it might be. And then, in the ripeness of time, should heaven vouchsafe him the gift of tongue or pen, or the power of office, he would use that gift to propagate his doctrine of self-development-development not of a few selves at the expense of the many, but of all for all; and that power he would try to harness to the Niagara of machines, and the slaves of machines, for the purpose of profit-profit not in soulless coin or dividends, but in a nobler race of men and women.

Magnificent dream of a nameless devil! Base notion of a vulgar mind that seeks development "by hook or crook!" But hold. It was merely a measure of self defense, only a means to start the ball arolling. Not to cloak his guilt, after the manner of the oppressor, did the devil use deceit, fraud, and hypocrisy, but as a crutch, until he should be strong enough to do without. When a "permanent" job offered to shelter him if he would only sell himself at a low price, the devil agreed-with reservations. When a "big future" was held out to him if he would only overwork himself now in the interests of the job, the devil appeared to believe. But for permanent enslavement, with a big future several leagues ahead, always ahead, like a mirage in the desert, he cared not at all. Instead, he acquired a passion for con

sulting the books, and, what was evidence in part of his deceit, fraud, and hypocrisy, for consulting them during the hours that the job was trying to get its money's worth out of him. Always did his overalls bulge with pocket-editions of the classics, and his mind with ideas. serious and fanciful. Hands were raised in horror at such methods of self-help; tongues lacked not that predicted a sorry future for himas a devil; while the jobs, one and all, when they became aware of his passion, and divined his purpose, got rid of him without delay.

According to recent accounts, the education of the devil was progressing rapidly. Certain it is that that part of it which was seared in as with a hot iron can never be forgotten. And not less certain is it that destiny must cast his lot with those whose combined weight shall one day so tilt the balance as to bring the magnificent dream down to earth.

This system of capitalism has played its part -an important part-in the development of society. Now it is no longer necessary nor adapted to the needs of social development. Moreover, it is plainly and rapidly disintegrating, and it is, Socialists believe, possible to end it without bringing upon society any of the lamentable evils which follow upon attempts to abrogate, or interfere with, the great universal laws of evolution.-John Spargo, in The Socialists.