Los Angeles herald., 1906-09-28
SEES PROFOUND
DAN GER AHEAD
SPEAKER DESCRIBES MENACE
OF SOCIALISM
Newman Club Members Hear sehol-
arly Paper Read by Flagstaff Man
Who Makes Observations In
San Francisco

"Some Observations OH the Labor
Question" was the title of the paper
read by NJ. j. Riordan of Flagstaff,
Ariz., before the monthly meeting of
the Newman club at Levy's.
Mr.. Rordans review of sociological
questions was listened to with deep
interest by those assembled. 1t was
the belief of his hearers that the solu
tion which Mr.. Riordan offered for the
widespread and constantly growing
discomfort among the working classes
is the only practical one.
He believes education of the igno-
rant masses will solve the great ques-
tion.
Mr.. Riordan believes the people are
today on the brink of pending social
industrial revolution, and he looks to
the church to save the day.
Mr. Riordan's lecture follows in part:
81 happened to be in San Francisco
few months before the great calam-
ity. In passing Grant avenue my at
tention was attracted to a crowd of
people filing the street from curb to
curb, listening attentively to street
speakers stationed at intervals along
the thoroughfare. There were various
speakers expostuating on different
subjects. The audiences were made
up almost entirely of laboring men. 1
was struck by the number of young
men ranging from Is to 35 years of
age, the class that one would expect
to find at very different places of
amusement. They were not loafers
or low-browed degenerates seeking a
convenient place to avoid the police.
On the contrary they appeared to be,
for the most part, very intelligent,
serious set of men, spending their
hours of rest in an endeavor to ac-
quire knowledge to enable them to bet
ter their condition or at least to un-
derstand it. 1 estimated that there
were probably $500 men on the street
giving their individual attention to the
orators, whose chief topic seemed to
be socialism and the labor problem.
Disturbed by Experience
"When preached my room I found
it impossible to go to sleep. Some way
the picture of that street with it's sea
of earnest faces would not vanish
from before my eyes; sentences of the
street speakers kept ringing in my
ears and my spirit struggled to grasp
the hidden meaning back of it all.
"I was sure of one thing, and that
was that 1 had not been amused by
my evenings experience. Neither had
1 been diSguSted, but most certainly
1 was disturbed. And so I tossed
through the hours until out of the
darkness it began to appear to me that
1 had witnessed the operation of one
of those social forces which, if allowed
to acquire momentum, has within it
self power to sweep away social order
and leave in its wake a ruin and de-
struction appalling to contemplate;
while, on the other hand, if it be wise
ly governed, it may be made to pro-
duce wonderful results in the way of
human betterment.
80 ell tryl,, to- I,ot
mately $500 able-bodied, intelligent
working men were ON that street
listening to various eXpounders of So
cialistic doctrines. Was it because it
amused them? No. The majority of
them could find more convenient
sources of amusement nearer home.
Was it because they were natural-born
cranks? No, again. Degenerates? No.
Loafers? No. They were none of
these so far as might judge, but Or
dinary hard-headed workmen in search
of something, and here they thought
they had found it. What were they in
search of? Simply light; just as the
tree is when it lengthenS itself out to-
ward the sun. 1t was their yearning
to know the causes of the difference
in their condition from that of other
men; the reason why they toiled while
so many around them, like the lilies,
labored not, neither did they spin, and
yet were clothed like Solomon in all
his glory They knew there was
something crosswise in their lives as
compared with others, but they them
selves could not tell why and none
others could they find who would tell
them except the street spouters on
Grant avenue.
School in the Streets
"Here, then, was the school with
teachers and pupils-a public school in
the widest sense of the word, without
fee and without qualification for ad-
| mission. All were welcome and on
equal footing. No creed, color nor
nationality was recognized. One had
only to listen and knowledge became
his portion. The startling truth was
| forced on me that here was the larg-
est and the most efficient public school
in San Francisco, and without our
taxes to support it or statutes to pro-
| tect it.; a Veritable school of the peo-
pie, for the people and by the people.
And Grant avenue was not the only
school of it's kind in San Francisco. 1t
J might better be called the university of