Allan Seager, They Worked for a Better World. 1939. The People's Library, Macmillan: New York. Hardcover 16-mo with original dust-jacket.
The explicit lesson urged on students is that political freedom depends upon critical thought and continual activism:
"If you believe that the work these five people did is valuable – and you cannot disbelieve it any more than you can deny your eyes or teeth or anything that is a part of you – then it might be a good idea if Americans looked around and tried to identify the real benefactors of our own time. Admittedly, this is hard to do . . . From the lives of these five examples, the 'good' seems to mean the right of people to live together with decency, freedom, and dignity. All people, that is. Black or white, Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant, mere humanity should be enough to guarantee the right . . . It would not have been a bad thing to have helped them in their work, and it would not be a bad thing to hunt out, recognize, and help the men and women like them who are living now."
This copy was found in a thrift shop in Roanoke, Virginia.