Page:Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.djvu/385

The Wise Men of the East with sticks, singing, howling, cursing and looking for somebody to hit.

The walls were covered with huge Liberal and Tory posters which showed in every line the contempt of those who published them for the intelligence of the working men to whom they were addressed.

When Owen got round to the back of the platform, he found the man with the scarred face standing alone, gloomily silent, in the shadow. Owen gave him one of the Socialist leaflets, which he took, and after glancing at it, put it in his coat pocket without making any remark.

'I hope you'll excuse me for asking, but were you not formerly a Socialist?' said Owen.

Even in the semi-darkness he saw the other man flush deeply and then become very pale, while the unsightly scar upon his forehead showed with ghastly distinctness.

'I am still a Socialist,' he replied. 'No man who has once been a Socialist can ever cease to be one.'

'You seem to have accomplished that impossibility, to judge by the work you are doing at present,' remarked Owen.

'No one who has once been a Socialist can ever cease to be one,' repeated the other. 'It is impossible for a man who has once acquired knowledge to relinquish it. A Socialist is one who understands the causes of the misery and degradation around us; who not only knows the remedy, but knows that that remedy must eventually be adopted; but it does not follow that everyone who has sense enough to acquire that amount of knowledge, must, in addition, be willing to sacrifice himself in order to help to bring that state of society into being. When I first acquired that knowledge,' he continued, bitterly, 'I was eager to tell the good news to others. I sacrificed my time, my money and my health, in order that I might teach others what I had learned myself. I did it willingly and happily, because I thought they would be glad to hear, and that they were worth the sacrifices I made for their sakes. Now I know better.'

'Even if you no longer believe in working for Socialism, there's no need to work against it,' said Owen. 'If you don't want to help to bring about a better state of affairs, there's no reason why you should help to perpetuate the present system.'

The other man laughed bitterly. 'Oh, yes there is, and a very good reason too.' 373