I was led to realize the greatness of
obligation under which the whole world is placed by the
industry, ability and devotion to duty which characterizes by
far the larger portion of the working classes.
At the same time, through relations intimate and confidential,
I became conscious that certain foreign ideas--the natural
outgrowth of excessive poverty and despotism in the Old
World--were insinuating themselves into the hearts and minds
of American labourers to an extent perilous to their own
prosperity and to the very life of the republic.
In this country political corruption and the grasping spirit
of corporations are constantly affording the demagogue or the
dreamer opportunity to preach the destruction of civil order
with great plausibility, giving scope to reckless theorists
who have so often, in the world's history, baffled the
endeavours of the rational and patient liberalists of their
day.
This excited in me an ardent desire to do what little I could
as a dramatist to counteract what seemed to me the poisonous
influences of these hidden forces: to write a play which might
throw some light on the goal of destruction to which these
influences inevitably lead, whenever the agitation between
capital and labour accepts the leadership of anarchism.
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