rooms, assembly halls, etc. The Socialist party in Spain is still weak, but the labor movement is going forward by leaps and bounds.

Belgium. A new ministry has been made necessary in Belgium by the fight concerning the disposition of the Congo Free State. King Leopold has offered to give this great province to the people of Belgium providing they will allow him to keep as much as he chooses. In Parliament both the extreme right and the extreme left are opposed to this arrangement. Thus the new ministry has a delicate problem on hand.

Russia. Russian reactionists have recently been flooding Europe with reports that the peasants have at last come to their senses and lost faith in the revolutionary leaders. Everything will soon sink back into its old track, we are told. And it is undeniable that Russian affairs appear to be abnormally quiet. The Duma goes on talking and taking no definite action: the government seems to feel that it once more has the reins safe in hand. But we are assured by the revolutionists that this is merely a temporary lull. The former disturbances lacked the popular backing, the concentration of force which is necessary to success. Now a vigorous propaganda is being carried on so that when matters again come to a crisis the Russian people will shake off their stolid indifference and assert their power.

Japan. The most noteworthy feature in the socialist movement in Tokio is a gathering called "Kinyo Koven" or the Friday Lecture meeting which meets every Friday evening in Yoshidaya Hall, Kanda, Tokio. Though they are yet small in number the attendants of the meetings consist not only of Japanese but of Chinese, Hindoos, Filipinos and Koreans as well. It is very interesting to observe that these revolutionists of Asiatic countries gather together in one hall and talk about Socialism and the betterment of their respective countries. This is the first practical attempt ever undertaken by the Japanese Comrades to unite and co-operate with the Socialists of all Asia. There are hundreds of Chinese socialists who are studying in Japan at present and we find a good many women among them. Comrade T. Sakai has been adding an excellent contribution to the Japanese Socialist literature recently by translating and compiling a series of popular scientific works, especialy those which relate directly to the rise of socialism in the light of the modern evolutionary theory. Comrades Kotoku, Yamakawa, Shidzuno and Sakai will be the authors of this socialist scientific series. The Heimin Shinbun which is practically the successor of the famous "Daily Heimin Shinbun" is planning to move its office to Tokio this spring in order to make it a central feature and help along the entire movement in Japan. A little sheet called "Rodosha" (The Laborer) which comes out once is a month is edited by Comrades Sakai and Yamakawa. It seems to have struck the demands of the workers there. Every Socialist is now interested in the paper and is circulating it among the factory workers, miners, farmers, and day laborers. This little four page sheet is not a regular magazine or paper. It only contains a few well prepared articles on socialism in the plain language-the language of the laborers. It has already proved a great success and is welcomed by the workers, for it tells the truth in their own language and carries the message direct to their heart.

WHISPERINGS IN THE LIBRARY

BY JOHN SPARGO

The ordinary Socialist has, I suppose, little patience with much that passes under the name of "Christian Socialism", and the temptation is strong to echo a famous remark that it is neither Christian nor Socialist. There is good historical reason for this attitude of suspicion and distrust. The Socialist who has read the history of the Socialist movement in Europe, especially in Germany and Austria, will naturally think of Pastor Stöcker and his Christian Socialists, so-called, with their Mucker-Socialismus, anti-semitism and attacks upon the Social Democracy. Or, they will think of the Christian Socialists of England, Kingsley, Maurice, Ludlow, and others, who were most admirable men, stalwart friends of the poor and oppressed, but most certainly not Socialists in the modern sense of the word. They were reformers and philanthropists to whom no one would nowadays give the name Socialists.

But we have to-day to face the fact that there is a Christian Socialism which is genuinely entitled to the name. At least, many Christians do advocate straight Socialism-and it is not our business to pronounce upon their right to call themselves "Christians". In England we have Christian Socialists definitely accepting Marxian Socialism, and in this country we have active and uncompromising members of the Socialist Party formed into a Christian Socialist organization to preach Socialism to their fellow Christians. Germany, the land where a generation ago, the Socialist movement made war upon all forms of religion, we have this very thing encouraged and Bebel giving his benediction to Pastor Kutter's book They Must!

In

The times have changed. Socialism has changed and Christianity has changed a statement which will probably cause both Christian and Socialist to brand me as a heretic! What I mean is that, partly as a result of the "higher criticism" and partly as a result of the agnostic's challenge, modern Christianity has largely divested itself of its theological trapping and become once again an ethical movement. True, there remain some of the old ceremonials and theological phrases, but by the progressives they are not regarded as a vital and essential feature of Christianity. On the side of the Socialists it may be said with equal truth that the movement has largely passed from the influence of the philosophic materialism of the middle of the nineteenth century. The onslaught of the latter upon Christian dogma has had its effect. On the whole, I am about as much amused by those belated rationalists who keep on attacking a Christianity which has ceased to exist, as I am by the belated critics who keep on making against the Socialist movement of to-day the criticisms

which applied only to the utopian Socialism, so-called, of fifty years

ago.

I am led to these reflections just now as a result of a careful reading and re-reading of two notable books, frank and unflinching advocates of Socialism, written from the Christian point of view. They are: Christianity and the Social Crisis, by Prof. Rauschenbusch, and Christianity and the Social Order, by the Rev. Dr. R. J. Campbell, of the City Temple, London, Joseph Parker's famous pulpit. The author of the first of these books is. I believe, a member of the Socialist Party, while the author of the second has definitely joined the movement in England, and, it is said, will be a Socialist candidate for parliament next election. Both volumes are published by the Macmillan Company.

The two books have much in common besides the striking similarity of titles. They agree in the main, though they reflect the widely different intellectual habits of the writers. The English book reflects the mind of the expositor, the popular preacher, whose success depends upon a simple and forceful presentation of his subject. He must perforce take the results of scholarship and research and popularize them for his auditors. Professor Rauschenbusch, on the other hand, is an academician. He has the scholastic bent of mind and demands time to lay his case before you. He is a teacher whose business it is to give his pupils a thorough knowledge of the subject. I would not by this distinction imply that Dr. Campbell's book lacks scholastic merit or Prof. Rauschenbusch's clarity. Neither of these criticisms would be just. All that I would imply is that the one was born of the pulpit while the other was born of the class

room.

Prof. Rauschenbusch goes back and traces the historical roots of Christianity in a chapter which, not so many years ago, would have caused his banishment from the Church. Jesus emerges out of that historical background as a stern moralist, to whom religion was a social thing, a matter of relations and not of creeds. He was not a Socialist, simply because the economic conditions of his time were not productive of Socialist thought. But he was one of the line of prophets of social righteousness to which belonged Isaiah, Micah, Amos and Joel. Always ready were they, to defend the oppressed and to scourge the oppressor with words of withering rebuke. One gathers from Prof. Rauschenbusch a concept of Christianity which would justify most men who now call themselves Atheists and Agnostics being included in the category of Christians. Theological Christianity is dead!

With masterly skill, he traces the corruption of Christianity and the grafting upon it of the creeds and theological beliefs about which the nations have warred so long. He is as candid as Truth itself; and, while he does not mention it, the Socialist who is familiar with Marxian philosophy will recognize the skill with which the historical method of Marx has been applied to the unravelling of the tangled threads of religious history. Strangely enough, this is not sustained through the closing chapters in which the author makes his plea to the Christians for Socialism. Here his inherent idealism carries him along, so that his appeal is mainly to the idealism of his readers. Yet, upon the whole, it is a striking and effective plea for Socialism. and one lays down the book with the feeling that such a presentation of Socialism cannot fail to do good. There is none of the upbraiding of Socialists for their "crass materialism" common to much of the literature of Christian Socialism, nor any attempt to rest the case for Socialism upon textual bases. He sees in Socialism the greatest

spiritual force of the age, and would have the churches shake off the incubus of dead formalisms and join in the movement.

Dr. Campbell's book can be more briefly described. The substance of the book seems to have been preached to his congregation. More briefly than Rauschenbusch, he sketches the historical roots of Christianity, and his picture of Jesus is very likke to that outlined by our American comrade. Everything of the miraculous and supernatural is cast aside, except the resurrection. This he is unable to discard. Something-he is at a loss to know what-must have occurred. At any rate, the first Christians must have believed it and been inspired by it. He, too, reduces the whole of the teaching of Jesus to a social ethic and, while pointing out that Jesus was not a Socialist, claims for modern Socialism and the teachings of Jesus a common objective-equality of opportunity, fraternity and social justice.

From this point, Dr. Campbell plunges into a whole-hearted advocacy of Socialism. The latter part of the book reads like a collection of arguments for Socialism compiled from the party press from such writers as Blatchford, Hyndman, and others. He cites figures to illustrate the shortcomings of the present system, în pages as simple and virile as Merrie England. Then he passes on to outline the Socialist programme, accepting it all, balking at nothing. He answers all the old hoary objections to Socialism and gives a lucid and interesting chapter to the discussion of various problems which are of especial importance in England from the Socialist viewpoint.

To understand just what this book signifies, the reader must remember that it was only four years ago that Dr. Campbell made an attack upon the labor movement in England. He was challenged to appear at a mass meeting of labor men and repeat his attack, which he did with characteristic courage. At that meeting his education in Socialism really began, and two years later he declared himself a Socialist in a sermon preached at City Temple.

Leonard D. Abbott has written a charming little sketch of the life of Ernest Howard Crosby, which the Ariel Press, of Westwood, Mass., has issued in a most attractive booklet. The sketch takes up only thirty-two pages and there are several lengthy quotations from Crosby's writings, so that Comrade Abbott has confined himself to very narrow limits. It is a friend's tribute to the memory of a friend, a tender valuation of his character. It is the best bit of work that Comrade Abbott has yet given us, and will doubtless be welcomed by many of Crosby's friends and admirers.

THE WORLD OF LABOR

BY MAX S. HAYES

Labor is being treated to object lessons thick and fast these days. That old relic of a past age, the Hon. Joe Cannon, not only refuses to permit any labor bill to be reported to the House and the fossilized Senate yawns and looks bored whenever working class interests are even mentioned in whispers, but the few so-called labor laws that are on the statute books are being wiped of by the Supreme Court. First the seamen of the Pacific coast, who demand the modification of an injunction that ties them hand and foot at the solicitation of a powerful corporation, are given an icy glare and told in so many words to "get to hell out of here," then, secondly the employers' liability law is crippled for life at the behest of the railways, and, thirdly, the laws existing in various states prohibiting blacklisting are declared unconstitutional at the solicitation of other corporations. Now, to cap the climax, having informed the capitalists of the nation that they can proceed and blacklist (or boycott) every workman who dares to dream of having a grievance, the court of last resort has reversed all previous decisions and declared a boycott of capitalists by laborers to be an unlawful conspiracy. Along about the time the Supreme Court has had its inning, congress can start grinding out more privileges for the "best" people, such as ship subsidies, tariff revisions; asset currency, and the like. Thus while the poor boycotters find jails yawning to receive them, the rich boycotters will receive their usual hand-outs of pie from the merry gangs of grafters who hang about Washington like vultures surrounding a carcass. Yet there are thousands of doughfaced workingmen who will howl themselves hoarse this fall and cheer on the "bunk" game in which they themselves are being the aggrandizement of capitalism. Probably the foolkiller became disgusted and committed suicide.

The cheap-skate plutocrats and all-around snobs who have been running things with a high hand at Goldfield seem to be up against a stiff proposition. Briefly, the situation is about like this: Many of the Goldfield operators have been heavy borrowers on the strength of the tales of fabulous mineral wealth in the district. Bonds were put up as security in San Francisco, New York and other places. But while on the one side the showers of gold did not drop into the hats of investors that were promised, which caused the latter to become pessimistic and refuse to invest in more stocks, the bondholders, by depressing the market, hoped to acquire control of the properties. Thereupon the operators fell upon the miners to make a reduction of a dollar a day, thus hoping with this spoil to feed the hungry bondholders and keep them quiet, and then, again, it was figured that when the bourgeoise heard wages were reduced and