Rabindranath came to Philadelphia on 25th Dec and read some poems in Orgontz School for Girls in the evening.Here he also met with journalists.
North America wrote on 26th Dec;
" He sat in a room in the Bellevue-Stratford while a band of enthusiastic young reporters regaled him .with their profound opinions of the meaning of life, and in long hypothetical questions gave him their formula for the solution of its difficult problems."
He defined Nationalism as the organized states selfishness and said;
" The present conflict in this country between capital and labour is another manifestation of it. The unrest of women, as manifested in the agitation fo suffrage and inthe lager feminist movement, is not merely dissatisfaction with their present economic and political conditions, but with their relation with men. And this dissatisfaction grows out of this same mania for organisation on material grounds. It is taking menout of the home life and keeping them out. The family is the foundation of civilization, and your materialism is taking men out of the family.That is why women are dissatisfied and unhappy."
He refused to say anything about India on repeated request by the reporters.All of the reporters went away excepting the reporter of North America. Ignoring his presence he thought loudly;
" They had no right to disarm India. They did it only that they might rule without risk. If they rule they should take the risk of rule.But now India is chained for all time. It has been deprived of the instrumentality with which it it could redeem himself. Its manhood is forever destroyed. A whole race is robbedof its natural might to defend itself."
