area, and in connection with this event a week's lecture series was given. The speakers for these lectures were Taavi Tainio, editor of the Raivaaja, Kaapo Murros, editor of the Työmies, Dr. A. F. Tanner, Ida Pasanen and the Reverend Matti Lehtonen.

Up to this point, the temperance hall had been used as the meeting place of the socialists, but friction soon became apparent, and before long the temperance society voted out all socialists from membership in its lists, although those who had been expelled showed up at the next meeting to protest their expulsion as being contrary to the by-laws, which stated that no one could be ruled out on religious or political grounds.

The issue remained unsolved, but in any case socialist activities expanded to the point where the finding of quarters for themselves became crucial. With 76 members in 1906, the group was able to rent 'Korpi's Hall,' which had a small stage, but since even this proved too small, a hall was built that same year on Walnut Street (now, First Street

North.) Opponents of the socialists labelled the place `The Stable,' but it attracted an ever larger membership : 181 in 1910, then up to 196 in 1912, making even the `Stable' too small for the Virginia Finnish Workingmen,, Association. The hall was torn down and a new large brick building began to rise in its place, financed in part by a loan from Klemens Kivelä, who had raised the money by taking

a mortgage on his own home. While the hall was being built, meetings and program evenings were held at a hall across the street, the Italian-owned Roma Hall. However, in April 1913 the new hall was ready, and for a name this one got, The Socialist Opera.

The Opera was a three-story building, with a big restaurantmeeting room, kitchen and cloakrooms on the ground floor; an

Virginia's Socialist Opera Hall.

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