BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE John Macy was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1877. He graduated from Harvard in 1899 and taught English there for a year. For seven years he was on the editorial staff of the Youth's Companion, and for two years was literary editor of the Boston Herald. He became a Socialist in 1909; in 1912 he was for some months secretary to Doctor Lunn, the Socialist mayor of Schenectady, New York. In 1905 he married Anne M. Sullivan, the teacher of Miss Helen Keller; he compiled the biographical supplement to Miss Keller's "Story of My Life." He has written a "Life of Poe," a "Guide to Reading," and "The Spirit of American Literature." PREFACE THIS book is an informal sketch of the Socialist movement intended for readers who know little about the subject. It is not a come-toSocialism tract designed to convert non-Socialists. Most of the arguments are inter-Socialist, that is, they are on one side or another of questions on which Socialists disagree among themselves. The outsider may step in, see what the row is about, and then step out again. I am a member of the Socialist party and of the Industrial Workers of the World, but I have no official position in either. I express only my own opinions or the opinions of others which happen to appeal to me. Since I did not invent Socialism, I have drawn most of my ideas from other people, but I have not thought it necessary in a short essay to make specific acknowledgments. I take this occasion, however, to praise and recommend to the general reader "Socialism As It Is," by William English Walling, and |