I met him at Napa, Cal., after the meeting. His name was Mueller; a tall, fine old German. He had been through the Bismarck “exception law” persecution and was well informed in all that related to that period. I asked him how it came about that the German movement was so well posted and unified.

He answered, “Well, Bismarck did that for us. You see, before Bismarck interfered, we were all split up into little inside factions, as it is here, to some extent, now. That was because we had scores of papers, each teaching its own particular brand of Socialism. Every little business man who became a Socialist and had a little money in the bank started a paper and gave the world his notion of Socialism. Bismarck changed all that; he put them all out of business in a single day. Then the Socialists had only one paper, published outside Germany, on very thin paper, and mailed in sealed envelopes. This paper was edited by Bernstein, one of the ablest Marxian scholars, and this uniform reading of sound literature was a very powerful factor in clarifying the German Socialist movement.”

A lecturer must get his data from the very best authorities. He must get his knowledge of “natural selection,” not from the pages of some ill-informed pamphleteer, but from “The Origin of Species.” His statements as to what constitutes the Socialist philosophy should be based on a careful study of Marx, Engels and the other writers who have produced Socialism’s classic literature, and not on some ten-cent pamphlet by a new convert, published, not on its merits, but because the author had money enough to get it printed.

The Japanese in this country show their superiority in this respect. I had a friend in San Francisco who was a bookseller, who told me it was quite impossible to sell a Jap a book on any subject unless it was by the greatest authority on that particular question. I had charge of the Socialist literature of Local San Francisco nearly a year, and during that period the only books bought by the Japs were works by Marx, Engels and Labriola.

This is why the Jews play so tremendous a part in the Socialist movement of the world. The Jew is almost always a student and often a fine scholar. The wide experience of the Jewish people has taught them (and they have always been quick to learn) the value of that something called “scholarship,” which many of their duller Gentile brethren affect to despise. “Sound scholarship” should be one of the watchwords of the lecturer, and as he will never find time to read everything of the best that has been written, it is safe to conclude that, except for special reasons, he cannot spare time or energy for books of second or third rate.

Of course, in the beginning it is usually better to approach the great masters through some well informed, popularizing disciple. A beginner in biological evolution would do well to approach Darwin through Huxley’s essays and John Spargo has been kind enough to say that Marx should be approached through the various volumes of my published lectures.

The lecturer must be familiar with the very best; he must plunge to the greatest depths and rise to the topmost heights.