politician, and who was prevented by threats of exposure and scandal
from accepting the Socialist nomination for President. I know a dozen
others who were shadowed and spied upon; I know one case--myself--a
man who was asking a divorce from his wife, and whose mail was opened
for months.

This subject is one on which I naturally speak with extreme
reluctance. I will only say that my opponent in the suit made no
charge of misconduct against me; but those in control of our political
police evidently thought it likely that a man who was not living with
his wife might have something to hide; so for months my every move was
watched and all my mail intercepted. In such a case one might at first
suspect one's private opponent; but it soon became evident that this
net was cast too wide for any private agency. Not merely was my own
mail opened, but the mail of all my relatives and friends--people
residing in places as far apart as California and Florida. I recall
the bland smile of a government official to whom I complained about
this matter: "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear."
My answer was that a study of many labor cases had taught me the
methods of the agent provocateur. He is quite willing to take real
evidence if he can find it; but if not, he has familiarized himself
with the affairs of his victim, and can make evidence which will be
convincing when exploited by the yellow press. In my own case, the
matter was not brought to a test, for I went abroad to live; when I
made my next attack on Big Business, the Taft administration had been
repudiated at the polls, and the Secret Service of the government was
no longer at the disposal of the Catholic machine.

#Tax Exemption#

Today the Catholic Church is firmly established and everywhere
recognized as one of the main pillars of American capitalism. It has
some fifteen thousand churches, fourteen million communicants, and
property valued at half a billion dollars. Upon this property it pays
no taxes, municipal, state or national; which means, quite obviously,
that you and I, who do not go to church, but who do pay taxes, furnish
the public costs of Catholicism. We pay to have streets paved and
lighted and cleaned in front of Catholic churches; we pay to have
thieves kept away from them, fires put out in them, records preserved
for them--all the services of civilization given to them gratis, and
this in a land whose constitution provides that Congress (wh