PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT

HELP MAKE A BETTER REVIEW.

Readers of the International Socialist Review will observe some changes with this issue. We hope they will be found improvements, but if not, the publishers want to know. Other changes will be made from month to month, if we find that changes will improve the Review. Send on your suggestions. They will not all be accepted but they will all be considered.

The Review was started nearly eight years ago. In a year from the time of starting it had about three thousand subscribers. At that time we attempted to supply copies returnable to newsdealers, and this took three thousand more, but so many of them were returned unsold with bills from the wholesale news company for double postage, that we lost money on every copy put out in this way, and were obliged to cut off the return privilege. We still have just about three thousand subscribers and the sales of copies each month bring the edition up to a little over four thousand, which has been our average for the past year.

This month we are increasing the edition to a little over five thousand copies and we want our subscribers, and especially our stockholders, to see that every copy is sold. The price is ten cents. a copy, to stockholders five cents. The subscription price is a dollar a year, and the price to stockholders, provided at least two subscriptions are sent at once, is 60 cents a year.

All present and future changes will have just one purpose, and that is to make the Review as valuable, interesting and enjoyable as possible to socialist workingmen and working women. Editorially the Review will as in the past support the principles of International Socialism and the tactics of the Socialist Party of America. And as before the Review will be distinctively educational rather than a propaganda magazine. It will not appeal for the votes of those who know nothing of socialism. This work can better be done by the Daily Socialist, the Appeal to Reason and Wilshire's Magazine. What the Review will try to do is to print the things most wanted by the

average party member or the new socialist convert who wants to work for socialism. The editor can perhaps do a little toward making the Review realize this, but the readers can do a great deal more, and we want their help. Most of the matter in the Review is written without pay to help the work along. More articles are already sent in than we have room for, but still more are needed so that we can select only the best. And some writing must be paid for because some of those who can do the best work have to live from what they write, and if we can not buy their labor-power they must sell it to capitalists. Double our subscription list and the money will be ready to pay for making the Review twice as interesting as it has ever been. Remember that it is owned by a co-operative association of working people, and that not a dollar of its receipts will go to pay dividends. Last year and every year it has cost more than it brought in, the difference being made up by the sale of books and stock. This year let us all take hold and help, and make it pay for itself.

NEW BOOKS, READY AND NEARLY READY.

American Communities and Co-operative Colonies. By William Alfred Hinds, Ph. B. Second revision, 608 pages of text with 33 fullpage illustrations, cloth, $1.50. Now ready; a review by John Spargo will appear in next month's Review.

Evolution, Social and Organic, by Arthur M. Lewis, will be ready for delivery by the time this issue of the Review is in the hands of its readers. Cloth, 50 cents. We published an extended notice in this department last month, as we did also of the book next mentioned.

Human, All Too Human, a Book for Free Spirits, by Friedrich Nietzsche. This will be ready about Feb. 15, and will be the eighth ; volume of the Library of Science for the Workers. Price 50 cents.

Perfecting the Earth: A Piece of Possible History. This latest work by the author of "The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand" is a propaganda work that will be af great value among those who realize that social changes must come, but hesitate to vote for socialism because they can not imagine how the world. can be run without capitalists. In this book, beautifully printed and illustrated, Dr. Wooldridge starts with a panic of 1903, for all the world like the panic of 1908, though he wrote the book some time ago, and shows how an intelligent application of human labor would quickly abolish poverty and provide comfort and luxury for all. The book is printed and bound expensively, but we have secured a few hundred copies which we offer while they last at $1.00, with our usual discount to stockholders.

Goethe's Faust: A Study in Socialist Criticism. By Marcus Hitch. Standard Socialist Series, Vol. 26, cloth, 50 cents, ready about March 1. This book, by a socialist writer, who will be remembered as an able contributor to the pages of the Review, is an application of the Marxian method to the field of literary criticism. It is often

said, too often in fact, that writers like Shakespeare and Goethe are "not for an age but for all time". It can be shown, however, that the ethical standards which are taken for granted by "great" writers as well as other writers are definitely related to the economic foundations of the society in which they lived and wrote. This statement may seem a commonplace to socialists, but to others it seems startling and improbable, and therefore Mr. Hitch has not contented himself with making the statement; he has also proved it. In so doing he has written a very interesting little volume, which we recommend especially to those of our comrades who still think that socialism is a "purely economic" question, with no relation to art or to ethics.

The Russian Bastile. By Simon O. Pollock. Cloth, illustrated, 50 cents, ready about March 1. This will be a graphic picture of the horrors of the prisons in which many of our Russian revolutionary comrades are confined at the present moment. It will be an important link in the history of the revolution.

OUR FINANCIAL SITUATION.

Other important works are in preparation and will be announced in the near future, but we hope to receive orders for all these at once from every reader of the Review who can possibly afford them. The year 1907 was the most successful in the history of the publishing house. We increased our capital stock by $3950.00 and the miscellaneous receipts of the year exceeded the expenditures by $2018.53, so that we are nearly six thousand dollars better off at the end of the year than at the beginning. It should be remembered, however, that for years past we have been carrying a crushing load of debt, and that while we now only owe about $2,000 to others than stockholders there is a debt of about $8,500 to stockholders still to be paid. When this is accomplished we shall without doubt be able to reduce the prices on all socialist books, thus increasing their circulation immensely, and shall also be able to bring out new socialist books at a more rapid rate than before. Millions of books will be needed by socialist inquirers in the United States within the next few years, and we must get this publishing house in shape to provide them. Our receipts for the month of January included a contribution of $8.10 from H. Culman of Hawaii and $100 from the estate of Frank Kostack of Ohio. The receipts from the sale of stock were $245.20, from the Review $316.96 and from book sales $1,425.06. The total is about a thousand dollars short of what we ought to have received but for the panic. We have met all bills promptly and have returned the loans of all stockholders who needed their money, but we are now paying interest on a bank loan which should be taken up so that the money required to pay interest on it can be used to pay for publishing socialist books.

There are probably five hundred readers of the Review who intend some time to send five dollars for a share of stock. Why not do it now? This is the time it will help the most, and if you send at once you will get both volumes of "Capital" or their equivalent in other books free with your certificate.

The

CHICAGO DAILY SOCIALIST

Every reader of the REVIEW should also be a reader of the CHICAGO DAILY SOCIALIST. The REVIEW can comment on the changing world of capitalism only once a month. But these are eventful times and any day may bring forth new and startling developments. The Socialist who depends on capitalist dailies for news of what is happening will be misled. He needs the

DAILY SOCIALIST.

And the DAILY SOCIALIST needs him. A co-operative association of workingmen, with plenty of courage but little money, have attempted something that a millionaire would hesitate at, unless he were prepared to risk several of his millions, the establishment of a new daily paper in Chicago. They made the start in October of the year 1906, not so many months ago, and they have nearly won out; they have nearly closed up the gap between the weekly receipts and the weekly expenditure. Ten thousand more subscribers will make the Daily safe. We want every subscriber of the REVIEW to help.

The Daily alone is $2.00 a year; the Review alone $1.00. We will send both periodicals one year for $2.25; six months for $1.15.

This offer applies to renewals as well as to new subscriptions, but it applies only to subscribers IN the United States and OUTSIDE Chicago. Subscribers in this city must get the Daily through a carrier, paying 6 cents a week, and foreign subscribers must pay extra postage.

Don't put off the matter. The panic is going to make millions of new Socialists, but just now it makes extra efforts necessary to keep our publications going. Let us hear from you now.

Charles H. Kerr & Company,

264 E. KINZIE STREET, CHICAGO

Classics of Socialism in handy volumes, just right either for the pocket or the library shelf. Price 50 cents a volume, including postage to any address.

For $1.15 we will send the INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW one year and any one of these books postpaid. All are now ready.

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY,

(CO-OPERATIVE)