At first father laughed.  Then he became angry—­tonic angry.  Then came the suppression of his book.  This suppression was performed secretly, so secretly that at first we could not comprehend.  The publication of the book had immediately caused a bit of excitement in the country.  Father had been politely abused in the capitalist press, the tone of the abuse being to the effect that it was a pity so great a scientist should leave his field and invade the realm of sociology, about which he knew nothing and wherein he had promptly become lost.  This lasted for a week, while father chuckled and said the book had touched a sore spot on capitalism.  And then, abruptly, the newspapers and the critical magazines ceased saying anything about the book at all.  Also, and with equal suddenness, the book disappeared from the market.  Not a copy was obtainable from any bookseller.  Father wrote to the publishers and was informed that the plates had been accidentally injured.  An unsatisfactory correspondence followed.  Driven finally to an unequivocal stand, the publishers stated that they could not see their way to putting the book into type again, but that they were willing to relinquish their rights in it.

“And you won’t find another publishing house in the country to touch it,” Ernest said.  “And if I were you, I’d hunt cover right now.  You’ve merely got a foretaste of the Iron Heel.”

But father was nothing if not a scientist.  He never believed in jumping to conclusions.  A laboratory experiment was no experiment if it were not carried through in all its details.  So he patiently went the round of the publishing houses.  They gave a multitude of excuses, but not one house would consider the book.

When father became convinced that the book had actually been suppressed, he tried to get the fact into the newspapers; but his communications were ignored.  At a political meeting of the socialists, where many reporters were present, father saw his chance.  He arose and related the history of the suppression of the book.  He laughed next day when he read the newspapers, and then he grew angry to a degree that eliminated all tonic qualities.  The papers made no mention of the book, but they misreported him beautifully.  They twisted his words and phrases away from the context, and turned his subdued and controlled remarks into a howling anarchistic speech.  It was done artfully.  One instance, in particular, I remember.  He had used the phrase “social revolution.”  The reporter merely dropped out “social.”  This was sent out all over the country in an Associated Press despatch, and from all over the country arose a cry of alarm.  Father was branded as a nihilist and an anarchist, and in one cartoon that was copied widely he was portrayed waving a red flag at the head of a mob of long-haired, wild-eyed men who bore in their hands torches, knives, and dynamite bombs.