thus add to
their income.

Thus he made ready. But he was not yet prepared to get subscriptions
(one dollar a year or twenty-five cents a quarter), feeling that first
he must have a sample paper to show.

The labor on that first number was a joy to him. He would jump up in the
middle of the night, rush into the office, light the gas, and get to
work in his nightgown. He was at it at all hours. And it proved to be an
enormous task. Eight pages eight by twelve do not read like a lot, but
they write like a very great deal. There was an editorial, "Greetings to
You," in which Joe set forth in plain words the ideas and ideals of the
paper, and in which he made clear the meaning of the phrase
"nine-tenths." Then he found that there were two great strikes in
progress in the city. This amazed him, as there was no visible sign of
such a condition. The newspapers said nothing of it, and peace seemed to
brood over the city's millions. Yet there were thousands of cloak-makers
out, and over in Brooklyn the toilers in the sugar refineries were
having little pitched battles with strike-breakers in the streets. Three
men had been killed and a score wounded.

Joe dug into these strikes, called at the union headquarters, spoke with
the men, even called on some of the cloak-makers' bosses and learned
their grievances. Then he wrote accounts of the strike without taking
sides, merely reporting the facts as fairly as he could.

In this way, and with the aid of clippings, and by printing that poem by
Lowell which was his mother's favorite, wherein was the couplet already
quoted,

"They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three,"

he made up a hodge-podge of a magazine.

Up in the corner of the editorial page he ran the following, subject to
change:

THE NINE-TENTHS

A WEEKLY WORD ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN

* * * * *

MY MOTTO

I ACCEPT LIFE LARGELY, BUT NOT IN DETAILS

* * * * *

SOME OF THE DETAILS NOT ACCEPTED
ARE

Anything that prevents a child from being well born
and from fulfilling its possibilities.

Anything that prevents a woman or man from using
every good side of her or his nature.

ABOUT THESE DETAILS NO DOUBT:

DISEASE
EXCESS
WANT
OVERWORK