Leaders in religion and in public life came to Arcadian Way to consult. Several came regularly each week to check the movement of history and to probe with Harry Ward its meanings for action. Private profit making, an unethical "sin" for Ward as well as for many noted and "common" people, was made more sacred, to be accepted unexamined on pain of social ostracism and sometimes imprisonment and even death if resisted. In the social atmosphere everything Ward had advocated seemed to be denied. The economy was so powerful that any advocacy of a cooperative commonwealth with rights for the poor, the blacks, the women, or the trade unionists was radical, socialistic, or communistic—was unacceptable. The guiding figure in the national organization, though in the wings, was again Ward, who avoided the stage lights and any assertion of himself.