ment, the money it controls and expends, the number of people it employes, and place it beside Sir Anthony's Universal Trust, the same pea and the same cocoanut will do to show how the one shrinks in importance beside the other. Anthony, then, would be richer and more powerful than the Government; he would have a larger majority of its voters on his pay roll, and he intended to have the Government run to suit himself. The milk in the cocoanut, to say the same thing differently, was in no way designed for the fattening of the despicable little pea; but on the other hand, to extend the figure of speech a little further, the cocoanut had certain little designs whereby the pea was to serve its ends. The sun, huge as it is, and the earth, small as it is, are of mutual benefit in our vast solar system, and both help to keep the whole in motion. Surely if the cocoanut is kind enough to keep its place and distance, and does not roll over and crush the pea out of existence, the latter ought to show its thankfullness by sundry little deeds of kindness. The right kind of tariff, taxation and laws, were all the pea was asked to give for the privilege of existing. But why poke fun at Anthony? Why belabor and scold him? Was it his fault, was he too blame, if we prostrate ourselves.and gave him stilts to stride over us like a Colossus."

When Things were Doing, By C. A. Steere.

& Co., Cloth, 279 pp. $1.00.

Charles H. Kerr

If you were an orthodox Marxian Socialist, believing in a classconscious political revolution, and you read a utopia that was deuced interesting, but which presupposed all sorts of violent, sudden, reconstructions of society through an autocratic semi-secret organization, and if you had just worked your indignation at the author up to the proper point, but couldn't stop reading the book until you had finished it, and then were told on the last page that it was all a sort of a cross between a pipe-dream and delirium tremens,-well it would jar you, wouldn't it. That is just what this book does. It is well, cleverly written, is full of suggestions, but depends upon a deus ex machina, or rather upon several of them, and the only danger is that it will be taken as a serious program for socialist parties. After having brought about his revolution by these very questionable means the author sketches a very life-like utopia. He puts into tangible form the dreams which many of us have had, and if now and then he throws in a touch of the night-mare just to break the monotony, we must remember that he is telling a story first, and writing a treatise on Socialism only incidentally. And he certainly does tell a very good story. It is funny, it is alive, it is interesting, and what more do you want?

The Scarlet Shadow, A Story of the Great Colorado Conspiracy, By Walter Hurt. The Appeal to Reason. Cloth, 416 pp. and Appendix, $1.50.

All.

In the form of fiction the story of the battle between laborers and capitalists in the Rocky Mountain states, is told once more. the principle actors in real life appear again in the story, sometimes thinly disguised, sometimes under their own. names. There are numerous embellishments of the facts to make the situations more dramatic, something which was scarcely needed. Some rather remarkable hypotheses are propounded under the guise of fiction,for instance it is suggested that Steunenberg was the son of Mc Partland, but on the whole no more liberty is taken with the facts than might be granted to "novelistic license." The style is decidedly melodramatic and sometimes crude.

Toilers and Idlers. By John R. McMahon. Wilshire Book Co. Cloth, 195 pp. $1.00.

Of the writing of Socialist novels there is no end, nor will be until Socialism shall be here and men's minds shall be reaching out for something more This is distinctly better than the mass of Socialist stories. It is a strong, well-written work to begin with. The writer knows the craft at which he works, something which cannot be said of many Socialists who will try to write novels. He also understands Socialism, something that cannot be said of many writers who try to put Socialism into their novels.

Otis Rensen, living upon an income whose very source is scarcely known to him, blase, and worn out for lack of something to do, is strolling by a foundry and decides to apply for a job. He gets it, and discovers he is working in his own establishment, which he has never visited. He becomes more and more enamored with his work, or rather with the problems with which his work is surrounded, joins the union, enters into the class struggle from the side of the men, and then at the dramatic moment steps onto the other side of this same struggle and establishes a co-operative foundry.

So much for the sociological plot. On the whole it has one grave defect in that it looks for leadership and guidance to the proletarian movement to come from the capitalist side. It may. Stranger things have happened, and the age of miracles may still be with us. But we have our doubts.

The characters are not mere dummies upon which to hang lectures. Rensen has real blood in him, meets and discusses and solves some real problems. One of the strongest figures is Sonia, the anarchist organizer of the "Ladies Shirt Waist Union." She is a distinct contribution to the characters of literature. So is Zienski, her anarchist lover, whose philosophy is most sadly mixed, but who makes one like him and regret the author's action in killing him in an endeavor to blow up Rensen's foundry.

There is a thumb nail sketch of "Bohemia" that is refreshing in its truthfulness in comparsion with most of the rot that is printed about this famous locality, or atmosphere. The cheap tawdry posing of those who make such a pretence at being sincere, and the tinsel slap-stick character of actors and dialogue are excellently displayed.

There is a romance, of coure, and it has features enough to give it interest by itself, aside from the moralizing that runs through the book.

On the whole the work is a distinct addition to the literature of the Socialist movement.

PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT

THE BRAINS BEHIND THE VOTE.

The year 1908 is the year of a presidential election in the United States. In a few months the country will be in a whirlwind of excitement over how the people shall vote in November,

The issues of the campaign are still to be shaped. It seems reasonably certain that Taft or whoever is the Republican nominee will defend the mild policy of trust-busting which has been practiced by Roosevelt. Bryan will doubtless be the Democratic candidate, but the unknown quantity in our forecast is his platform. Will he advocate government banks and railways, thus appealing to the small individual producers and petty capitalists against the big capitalists, or will he choose a platform hard to distinguish from that of the Republicans?

The size of the Socialist vote this year will probably turn on this. In the former case, the chances are that it will be relatively small; in the latter case it will probably be much larger than four years ago.

But the real strength of the socialist movement of the United States, when the smoke blows away, will not be measured by the vote but by the brains behind the vote.

We are not going to elect a socialist president this year. But with millions of interested voters listening to our arguments, we have the chance of our lives to start new brains to applying the socialist philosophy in a way that will count later on.

By all odds the most important means to this end is the circulation of immense quantities of socialist books that are really scietific and will give people with brains the clue to using their brains in an effective way. The object of the co-operative publishing house of Charles H. Kerr & Company is to put such books within the reach of the working men and working women of America at the lowest possible prices.

OUR RECORD FOR 1907.

During the year just closed, we circulated books to the amount

of $22,168.31 as compared with $17,086.03 for the year 1906. And during the year we increased our capital stock from $22,430 to $26,380.

Both of these figures can and should be doubled during the year 1908. We have passed the stage of experiment. We no longer have to urge socialists to send us their money in the hope that possibly it may enable us to supply the socialist books that are needed. We have the books now, and our co-operative plan offers more of the best socialist books for a given amount of money than can possibly be obtained in any other way.

Without the work that we have done, few of the most important writings of European and American socialists could be bought by American workingmen. We now offer an excellent library at prices far below those at which other sociological books are sold.

We have now published two of the three volumes of the greatest of all socialist books, Marx's "Capital." And Ernest Untermann has nearly completed the translation of the third volume, a larger book than either of the others. To print this book involves a cash outlay of two thousand dollars. A profit-making house, if it were to publish this book at all, would probably charge $5.00 for it. We intend to publish it at $2.00, with our usual discount to stockholders, But only a small part of the necessary money can be raised from the advance sales of the book. For the rest we must depend on new stock subscriptions, and the sooner these can be secured, the sooner the volume can be published.

NEW BOOKS IN PRESS.

American Communities and Co-operative Colonies. By William Hinds. Second revision, cloth, 600 pages, $1.50.

Of the first revision of this work, published five years ago, Morris Hillquit said in his "History of Socialism in the United States," it is "altogether the most elaborate and complete account of American communities." The present revision is still more deserving of this high praise. The author has amplified or rewritten many of the descriptions in the earlier edition, to make them more complete and up-to-date. He has added accounts of two new cooperative experiments in Massachusetts, one in Wisconsin, one in Michigan, one in Georgia, one in Illinois, one in New Jersey, one in Washington, D. C., two in New York and three in California. The number of illustrations has been doubled, sources of information on most of the experiments have been added, together with a full index in which are included the names of persons who have founded colonies or have been prominent in promoting the colony movement. There are not less than 170 pages of new matter. Of the newly described colonies, the following will attract most attention:

The House of David, at Benton Harbor, Mich., with its membership of over 700, and their peculiar doctrines and customs.

The Roycrofters of East Aurora, N. Y., of which Elbert Hubbard of world-wide notoriety is the founder.

The Helicon Home Colony of Englewood, N. J., with its plans for solving the "servant problem," and making a children's heaven, founded by Upton Sinclair, author of "The Jungle."

A Polish Brook Farm in California, founded more than twenty years ago by Madame Modjeska and her Polish friends, including the author of "Quo Vadis."

Admitting that the greater number of colony experiments have utterly failed to realize the hopes of their founders, and that political Socialism now largely absorbs and will continue to absorb the interest of those striving for better social conditions, the author of "American Communities" tells us of existing experiments that have continued for 64, 120, 175 years, affirms that such colonies antedated political Socialism, and that their history forms an integral part of the general history of Socialism. He is fully persuaded that they are yet to be greatly multiplied, for as soon, he says, as political Socialism becomes dominant in any country, "there will be a grand hustle for congenial conditions and associations," which can best be realized in communities and co-operative colonies.

We may concede all this while still holding that the active agents in the overthrow of capitalism must be the revolutionary trade unions and the Socialist party, or whatever party is the political expression of the united struggle of the working class. We recommend and circulate this book of Mr. Hinds because it is full of interesting and valuable data regarding the economic conditions which must be reckoned with in the work of tearing down and rebuilding.

Copies of this book will be ready by the time this issue of the Review is in the hands of its readers, and orders should be sent at

once.

Evolution, Social and Organic. By Arthur Morrow Lewis. Cloth, 50 cents. We expect to have this ready for delivery before the end of January. It will contain ten of the lectures delivered by Mr. Lewis at the Garrick Theater, Chicago, and a large sale is already assured for the book among those who have heard the lectures. But the demand should be ten times greater from those who have been unable to hear them.

This is distinctively a socialist book. It is a survey of the progress of scientific thought from the time of the early Greek philosophers down to our own day, but if any reader does not see the connection between this line of thought and socialism, he had better read it and find out. In the book the connection is shown plainly enough. We have an occasional complaint to the effect that we should confine ourselves to the publication of books intended to "make socialists." Now as for this, books don't make socialists; it is economic conditions that make them. But when economic conditions have brought a man to the point where he is ready to join the Socialist Party, it becomes a matter of some importance that he be able to get hold of books that will give him a clear idea of what socialism is, and fit him to talk about it intelligently. A few good propaganda books like those by Spargo, Vail, Blatchford and Ladoff are enough to convince a doubting inquirer that he should vote the socialist ticket, but a man who stops with such books will not be likely to understand socialism in a way to fit him to talk on it intelligently.

For socialism is not a scheme that can be tried on when a majority of the voters happen to take a notion some day. Socialism is the organized movement of the working class of the world for