When
such a rebel poses for a reformer, his shortcomings are heralded
to the world, and his downfall is cherished as an awful warning to
those who refuse to worship "the god of things as they are."
And yet as I recall the members of this early club, even those
who talked the most and the least rationally, seem to me to have
been particularly kindly and "safe." The most pronounced
anarchist among them has long since become a convert to a
religious sect, holding Buddhistic tenets which imply little food
and a distrust of all action; he has become a wraith of his
former self but he still retains his kindly smile.
In the discussion of these themes, Hull-House was of course quite
as much under the suspicion of one side as the other. I remember
one night when I addressed a club of secularists, which met at the
corner of South Halsted and Madison streets, a rough-looking man
called out: "You are all right now, but, mark my words, when you
are subsidized by the millionaires, you will be afraid to talk like
this." The defense of free speech was a sensitive point with me,
and I quickly replied that while I did not intend to be subsidized
by millionaires, neither did I propose to be bullied by workingmen,
and that I should state my honest opinion without consulting either
of them.
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