THERE is an old tattered pamphlet entitled Science and Workingmen, written by Ferdinand Lassalle. You may find a copy in archives of some bookseller who has preserved radical literature of a bygone generation. On title-page it states: Translation of Die Wissenschcaft und die Arbeiter by Thorstein Veblen, University of Chicago. Many have regarded Veblen as solely a detached observer of human affairs. But translator of a socialist propagandist tract was engaged in activity highly suspect for a university tutor in year 1900. pamphlet was published as part of a series The Best Socialist Literature, which included such works as Karl Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Paul Lafargue's The Right to Be Lazy, and Lissagaray's History of Commune of 1871. A socialist publishing house, International Library Publishing Company of New York, issued series. Lassalle's essay was a powerful speech on behalf of freedom of and expression for socialist thinkers. A subtitle stated its purpose succinctly: An argument in his own defence before Criminal Court of Berlin on charge of having publicly incited unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of propertied classes. It defends the instinct of free thought and those who seek the laws of historical development. Lassalle had a vision of a world in decline and reconstruction. As Veblen translated: .... In general decay which, as all those who know profounder realities of history appreciate, has overtaken European history in all its bearings, there are but two