Logic is not the truest guide' - R.S. Ross: Rationalism, Vision and Socialism in the Evolution of a Labour Editor

Whether the cup with sweet or bitter run, The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one. Robert Samuel Ross, was born in 1873 and raised in Brisbane. A printer's son, a printer's apprentice, he went to work at seventeen. On his twenty-first birthday his journal records a solemn promise: 'Now I must commence to take life seriously .... One must have some knowledge in life. Get knowledge, for knowledge is power!' 1 The next year, at the age of twenty two, he became a founding member of the Australian Socialist League with Ernie Lane. At twenty five he read the 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' .... Myselfwhen young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument. .. With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; And this was all the Harvest that I reaped- "I came like Water, and like Wind I go."