in the Review unless the donors have special reasons for keeping their names in the background.

THE AMERICAN ESPERANTO BOOK.

Arthur Baker, editor of America Esperantisto, has prepared a text-book for the study of Esperanto which contains exercises, grammar, and copious vocabularies, all in one volume, so that the purchaser will not find himself obliged to buy other books before he can learn the language. Comrade Baker's book contains 316 pages, bound in the same style as our editions of Capital and Ancient Society. The price including postage to any address is one dollar, with the usual discount to stockholders.

REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION.

This book by Karl Marx is one of the most interesting and readable of his works. Unlike most of them, it is not a translation, being written by Marx himself in the English language. The subtitle, Germany in 1848, indicates the scope of the book. It is made up of letters which Marx wrote, in the early days of his exile in London, to the New York Tribune, giving a graphic history of the brief successness and ultimate failure of the Revolution of 1848 in Germany. These letters were edited after Marx's death by his daughter, Eleanor Marx Aveling, and published in the Social Science Series. We have sold many copies in that edition at $1.00, and the steadily increasing demand has led us to bring the book out in the Standard Socialist Series at 50c. The book is full of lessons for the revolutionists of today, and at the reduced price should have a rapid sale.

THE INTERNATIONAL

SOCIALIST REVIEW

VOL. VIII' SEPTEMBER, 1907

The Stuttgart Congress."

NO. 3

From every point of view the last International Socialist Congress was greater than any ever held. Not only in the number af delegates and their representative character, but in a host of different points, some of which will appear in the course of this report, the meeting at Stuttgart was one of which the International movement may well be proud.

There were about 900 delegates present. The exact number cannot be stated until the final report is accessible as there were several arrivals after the preliminary statement of the International Secretary Huysmans.

The preliminary arrangements for the Congress were marvelously perfect and were significant of that wonderful power of organization and attention to detail so characteristic of the German mind. Every convenience that could be devised to add to the comfort of the delegates and the effectiveness of the work had been foreseen and provided. All the little items in the way of stationery which had been prepared for the delegates were inclosed in a roomy portfolio that formed at once a great convenience during the proceedings and a valued souvenir when the Congress adjourned.

There was a machine-like character to some of the arrangements that amused the delegates who had been used to the free and easy (and confusing) way of conducting an American political convention. When the Germans make a rule they have the strange habit of enforcing it, and when they said that none but delegates would be permitted upon the floor of the convention they proceeded to effectively exclude all others. As a consequence most of the delegates soon became accustomed to going about with these "Legitimations" in their hands ready to display them to the ever vigilant ushers.

*) From report submitted to National Secretary, Socialist Party.

THE GREAT MASS MEETING.

This

The first Sunday is one which it is safe to say will never be forgotten by any one who experienced its events. The Volksfestplatz (Peoples Festival Place), ordinarily used for military manouvers, had been secured for a great mass-meeting. place is located on the banks of the Neckar a little more than a mile from the center of the city, and for two hours before the time set for the meeting every street and road leading there was filled with a solidly marching mass of men, women and children. Standing on the beautiful Neckar bridge which overlooks the place a wonderful sight presented itself. An almost perfectly level place, some twenty or thirty acres in extent was one solid mass of closely packed humanity. The estimates of those present varied between fifty and one hundred thousand persons and the latter figure was in all probability not far from the truth. At six different points on the place gayly decorated speakers' stands were located.

From these places the greatest orators of the Socialist movement, and some of these stand unrivalled among the world's orators of whatever political belief, sent forth the message of international solidarity and brotherhood to the vast multitude, that in turn sent great waves of cheering rolling across the mighty human sea. The very names of the speakers will convey an idea of what an event it was better than volumes of description. There were Bebel and Singer and Vollmar from Germany, Jaures and Guesde and Vaillant of France, Adler of Austria, Hyndman of England, Ferri of Italy, Vandervelde of Belgium, and so on through the list of those whose names are a part of the working class history of today.

In spite of the vast crowd and the great enthusiasm there was never the slightest disorder, and the German government found no cause to use the large body of police and troops which we afterwards learned had been assembled to meet the "emergency."

BEBEL'S REPORT.

The next morning the Congress assembled for its opening session, the principal feature of which was the speech of Bebel, which was largely a report of progress since the Congress of Amsterdam three years before. And it was a wonderful report of progress. At the previous Congress the quarrels of the French delegations had taken up a large portion of the proceedings and left a feeling of discouragement as to the future of socialism in France. But today the French delegation comes as a unit from a single solidified rapidly growing party. The Amsterdam Congress met in the midst of the Russo-Japanese war

and with Russian workers almost motionless beneath the autocracy. Today the Russian revolution is in full swing and all realize that the days of Czardom are numbered. Austrian socialists have gained universal suffrage since the last International meeting and used it so well that they are now the first party in the Austrian government.

Finland was scarcely upon the Socialist map at the Amsterdam meeting, but took its place at Stuttgart close to the first rank, with the proud distinction of being the first European country to secure genuine universal suffrage, with even the distinction of sex abolished. It too had used its new gained privileges so effectively as to conquer a larger measure of power for the proletariat than is possessed by the workers in any save one or two parliaments of the world.

England too, that has so long been the discouraging exception to socialist progress has taken a great leap in the last three years and now bids fair to be henceforth one of the foremost countries in the socialist army. In Germany Comrade Bebel assured us that while the opponents of socialism spoke of the defeat of the Social Democrats at the last election, they spoke with fear in their hearts and a knowledge that a few more such "victories" would sound the doom of German capitalism. The United States, too brought its message of cheer by the victory in the Haywood case and the growing solidarity displayed in that struggle.

When all these advances were presented simultaneously it conveyed to the hearer a new idea of the resistless, world-wide, onward march of the proletarian army, and gave renewed confidence in the early coming of the day of international victory.

After a few other preliminary speeches, and the report of the International Secretary, the Congress set about its work. Before discussing this work, however, mention at least must be made of the splendid concert furnished to the delegates by the Stuttgart comrades on the evening of the opening day. Soloists that would have done credit to Grand Opéra, supported by a magnificent orchestra and Männerchor, provided an evening of musical enjoyment such as it would have been hard to duplicate in any country but Germany.

The real work of the Congress is done in the numerous committees, one of which is formed for each of the questions on the order of business. There were five of these committees at Stuttgart-one each on Militarism, Relation of Trades Unions and Political Parties, Immigration, Colonization and Woman's Suffrage. Eeach country was entitled to four members of each committee. This made the committees rather large, in fact they were each miniature Congresses, and their deliberations proceeded rather slowly, especially since each speech had to be trans

lated into two languages, after having been delivered in the original.

MILITARISM.

The main fight of the Congress centered around the military question. As this was one in which the American delegates were perhaps least interested, they could take the position of spectators and enjoy the battle. And it was a royal battle, into which the European countries sent their best representatives. Here were Bebel, and Jaurès, and Adler, and Vandervelde, and Rosa Luxemburg and a long list of other tried and able warriors on the socialist battlefield.

But the figure that attracted the most attention was one hitherto largely unfamiliar to the International Socialist movement, but one of which it is safe to predict much will be heard in the future. This was Gustav Hervé, one of those electric dashing figures of which France has produced so many. This man, almost unheard of at the time of the Amsterdam Congress, has added a new word to the Socialist vocabulary-Hervéism, and whatever we may think of his position and tactics, has given a sort of electric shock to the whole European Socialist movement.

It had always been taken for granted that while Socialists were opposed to war and militarism, yet that they favored an "armed people" democratically officered on something resembling the Swiss plan. But Hervé declared that socialists should declare immediate and relentless war on every manifestation of militarism, nor did he believe that this war should consist simply of official resolutions and editorial denunciation. Borrowing a leaf from the "direct action" tactics now so popular among a portion of French trade unionists, he called upon the soldiers in the present standing armies to desert, for the drafted to refuse to serve, while he demanded that in case of war the organized laborers should declare the general strike and use eevry other means in their power to prevent war. Such tactics as these were bound to produce some sort of result, especially in a country where the cry of revenge for Alsace and Lorraine is still a sure phrase with which to gain the applause of the populace, and Hervé was soon serving a term in prison.

So far from this dampening his ardor or weakening his influence it but placed the martyr's crown upon him, and gave him a ten-fold larger and more sympathetic audience. It was reported that disaffection was spreading in the French army and that the refusal of the troops to act against the wine growers and in some cases against workingmen was cited as an evidence of the growth of Hervéism.

So it was that he was able to secure what was practically