San Francisco's troubles provided an abundance of grist for the mills of the pundits and editorial writers, who turned out virtually instant volumes of exegesis and explanation, counsel and condemnation. In the main, they ignored the view of the general strike as basically a sympathetic protest. Rather they clung to the image of a political strike with serious revolutionary intent. To columnist Walter Lippmann the general strike, "a political weapon," could succeed only if it paralyzed the whole life of the community. The leaders of the San Francisco strike appear unwilling, he thought, to make it really general. That they are unwilling to starve the public only means they will incur all the disadvantages of angering the public without achieving its only possible success-that is, replacing the government. The unwillingness of these "ordinary American trade unionists" to use it as it can only be used insures its increasing ineffectiveness and ultimate defeat. 5