In college, Mildred awakened to the idea that the political left provided an answer to the problem of poverty. What began at UW as a spirited debate with the Friday Niters soon hardened into a heartfelt conviction that the rich in America were too rich, the poor too poor. “If capitalism keeps on the path it is going,” she wrote, “the coming years will bring the enormous wealth of a very few and the misery and want of the common people.”
