Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-02

| find. "
He worked by day In the ONCE and
attended night school, coaching himself
Tor the examination which opened the
door TO the state service. He passed
Win honors In open competition; and
at the same time escaped forever from
the class Of the manual workers into
the class OF the brain workers (He
does not and never has belonged to
any labor union) And he began to
think.
Youths Chased rs Thinkers
1t was time when such young men
| (of q class which previously had been
denied the benefit--the landed gentry
and the employers Of labor called 1t the
curse-of free education and a chance
IN life) all over England were thinking.
H. G. Wells, a harried apprentice boy
in dry goods store, was thinking.
Shaw was not only thinking but ha-
ranguing crowds from the vantage post
Of soap box. Macdonald was a three
dollar-a-week clerk. and thinking. Jim
| Thomas was small boy, getting ready
to clean engines in the big sheds. The
youthful Lloyd George was denouncing
the squire and parson of his native VII
lage and preaching home rule for
Wales. Trade unions were In their in
fancy. There was no organized Labor
party and not single representative of
Labor sat in the British Parliament
Young Snowden had little time to go
into the question of Socialism thor
oughly and no opportunity at all at that
time to get mixed up in the new young
Socialist movement which was upset.
| ting the Squires and Wears, the feudal
lords of the villages. For he was now,
at %, an official in the customs and
excise department and working in the
Orkney Islands.
But he was destined not to evolve
| and rise in the narrow rut of the reve-
nue. department of state. One day
accident which laid him up for a long
time, caused him years of suffering,
crippled him for Life and ended his ca
reer as q salaried state servant He
walks now with two sticks, but he car
ries the real mark of his malady in his
scared face.
Makes Study Of Socialism.
It was while he was lying on his back
for a year and during his prolonged
convalescence that young Snowden read
almost everything that had been writ
ten UP to that time about Socialism
and anti-Socialism. He applied his class
views and his mathematical mind to the
arguments for and against and was
converted to Socialism-or, rather, con-
WINGED that his early feelings could
stand the test Of reason.
He cut his Socialist and political eve
teeth on the affairs of his native VII
lage of Cowling, whittier his parents had
now returned. AS his health slowly
came back and he wheeled himself
about in an invalid chair he found a
vent for his intellectual and Organizing
energies in the Wesleyan Sunday school
for his Socialism Is of the type which
flnds It's basis in the Christian teaching
He became q teacher in the Sunday
school and active In the mutual i'm
provement class held In connection
with It.
This mutual improvement class under
Snowden's guidance became rather too
pink in color to please the local Wes-
leyan punditS, and his little group had
to move out of the school premises and
into the village hall. He had been re-
tired from the state service for three
years when Z new law was passed which
enabled him To stand for seat on the
(cOntinus1 O. Fourth Pase,l