LITERATURE BY JOHN SPARGO We were seated in the comfortable observation car of the California Limited, rushing away from Kansas City toward Chicago. The Stranger, sleek, well groomed and obviously at ease with the world, was reading an evening paper. Somehow-was it a lecturer's vanity? I knew that he was reading the report of my own lecture. Suddenly, with a gesture which seemed to indicate a baffled mind, he threw down the paper. Then he spoke as one hungry for consolation and sympathy. "What's happening to America? The papers are full of Socialism, just as if no one cared for anything else. And as for books on the subject, why the shops and the public libraries seem to be full of them". And then, with simulated impartiality, I listened to an interesting discussion of the stranger's impressions of my own lecture as reported in the evening paper! To the mighty torrent of Socialist books my friend Robert Hunter contributes a suggestive and interesting volume entitled "Socialists at Work", published by the Macmillan Company. By his former work, "Poverty", Hunter contributed to the indictment of capitalism a tremendous arsenal of facts which Socialist propagandists have found of immense value. In the present volume he contributes rather to the interpretation of the Socialist movement of the world, and every Socialist worker will be more able to understand the movement after reading it. Some parts of the book have already appeared in the pages of The International Review, and my readers will, therefore, be familiar with at least a portion of the work. It is only fair, however, to add that the author's revisions have been so numerous and extensive as to preclude the possibility of these chapters being regarded as "twice told tales" by any reader. The serial publication bears to the work in its present form the relation an artist's rough sketch bears to his finished picture. I use the simile of the artist and his work advisedly, for the literary art of the book is unquestionable. The author deals with theories hardly at all. His aim is to describe the actual movement as he found it in the principal countries of Europe. There are vivid descriptions of policies and excellent word portraits of the leading exponents of all such policies and tendencies. Concerning the actual movement in the various countries I am scarcely able to speak with any degree of authority; the greatest part of a decade has passed away since I was privileged to know it intimately, and in the interval stupendous changes have taken place. Upon the whole, however, I am inclined to accept Hunter's interpretation of the international Socialist movement as being singularly discriminating and wise. Of his portraiture of the leading men-there are none of the women!-in the movement I can speak with greater confidence, and to the great mass of our comrades who will never have an opportunity of knowing such European comrades as Bebel, Ferri, Kautsky, Jaures, Guesde, Hardie, Hyndman, Turati, Vaillant, Anseele, Vandervelde, Labriola, and many others, I can cordially recommend the book as the best account of these men and their work in the movement ever published. Of course in such a volume, dealing with many different nationalities, with lands of varying political and economic conditions, there must needs be room for much divergence of opinion concerning the conclusions reached. Take for example the English movement. Upon the whole, I find myself forced, at this distance, to agree with Hunter's view of the situation there. As an old member of the Social Democratic Federation, having taken a small part in the propaganda and organization work in the stirring days when "bricks were more plentiful than ha'pence", and having fought side by side with the brave men and women of the S. D. F. in many a forlorn fight, all my sympathies go out to the S. D. F. I shall never be able to adequately express my love and admiration for the men and women who have been in the very forefront of the fight for more than twenty years. Still, it must be admitted, I think, that the S. D. F. has failed, politically. Perhaps Engels was right when he predicted that the Independent Labor Party would become the real Socialist movement of England. Certainly, there has arisen a new working class movement which has left the S. D. F. far in the rear. But whether this Socialist Labor Party is, or is to be, the Socialist movement of England, is not yet very clear. I confess to a sense of disappointment, at times bordering upon impatient disgust, at its lack of aggressiveness, its constant truckling to the Liberals. A writer in the "New Age", which has never been friendly to the S. D. F., being in general more of an I. L. P. organ, recently described the Socialist Labor Party as "a refractory tail to a most tiresome dog"-the Liberal Party. I am inclined, as I say, to accept Hunter's view of the situation, but not without grave doubts. In England, doubtless, I should see things more clearly than at this distance. I think of a memorable afternoon spent with Keir Hardie in a small "pub" at Porth, South Wales, years ago. Had that meeting come a few years earlier, I think I should have joined the Independent Labor Party. "Keir" then was dreaming of the great united party of the workingmen to-be, Now the dream of the party has been realized, but even "Keir", I imagine, must find its work very disappointing. And one thing I am sure of: whatever mistakes they may have made, the men of the Social Democratic Federation-Hyndman, Burrows, Quelch, Williams, and the rest-have done for Socialism in England a great and invaluable work. Not only did they pave the way for the I. L. P. and make it possible, but they have educated the I. L. P. itself to Socialism. I deplore their pin-pricking policy of these days, their constant assaults upon the I. L. P. and their withdrawal from the Labor Representation Committee, but I honor them none the less for the courage with which they have kept the torch of Socialism burning. For this digression I must crave the reader's pardon. It remains only to be added that "Socialists At Work" is a book which every Socialist ought to read and re-read. In connection with the foregoing, I am prompted to add a brief notice of "The Socialist Movement in England", by Brougham Villiers, a handsomely printed volume of 330 pages, published by T. Fisher Unwin, London. Mr. Brougham Villiers-I suspect the name is a pseudonym-writes from the viewpoint of the newer English Socialist movement. His defense of Socialism is interesting and sincere and his observations concerning the present tendencies of British Socialism are often suggestive and illuminating. The great central fact in the author's mind is that while "there is an international aspiration in Socialism; there cannot be an international method"-a lesson which Liebknecht was wont to emphasize during his later years, but which we in America are only just beginning to learn. We have taken our methods as we took our theories from Germany and only lately have we begun to attain a consciousness of the fact that our methods must be born of our own experience. The present unsettled and perplexing condition of affairs in the English movement may be, after all, only incidental to the transition from an artificial to a natural and spontaneous Socialist movement. Like most of the newer Socialists, the author fails to do justice to the pioneers of the movement, the men and women of the S. D. F. His "respectability" prejudices his view. He does not manifest the slightest sign of a recognition of the vast difficulties under which the little group of Marxists worked during the "eighties", nor of the work they did in laying the foundations of a great and virile working class Socialist movement. At times he is positively unjust, as,, for example, in his statement that the Federation has never "long retained the services of any original mind, or managed to incorporate any new creative conception into its work and policy". As a matter of fact, the surprising thing about the Federation is the steadfastness of the "Old Guard". Hyndman, Burrows, Quelch, Bax, Irving, Thorne, Hunter, Watts, Williams, Mrs. Despard, "Jimmy"Macdonald -the list could be indefinitely extended-are a few names which occur to one as refutations of this statement. Whoever turns to this book with the expectation of finding accurate and reliable information will be disappointed; but as an interesting discussion of the development of Socialism from the viewpoint of the newer movement the book has considerable value. There is a bibliography at the end of the volume more remarkable for its omissions than for its contents. Edmond Kelly's little book, "The Elimination of the Tramp", published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, is a type of the "intensive" sociological studies which Socialists are making and publishing, a sign of the growing tendency to apply Socialist principles to the study of American conditions. Here we have an army of half a million tramps in the United States, a large percentage of them being between sixteen and twenty-one years of age. The figures are a guess, not wholly justified, I think, by the author, but the number is probably not an over-statement of the problem. Thousands of these are killed or injured each year while stealing rides upon the railroads, and it is estimated that they annually cost the railroad companies twenty-five million dollars. Then there is the cost to society, to our cities for police, prisons, courts and reformatory agencies. Such, very briefly stated, is the Tramp Problem. Comrade Kelly's solution is one that all Socialists are, or should be, familiar with-Labor Colonies. The establishment of such colonies has long been advocated by Socialists and in various European countries our comrades have secured their establishment. An interesting account of these European experiments is given and modifications necessary for American conditions suggested. No single issue, of Our useful "Standard Socialist Series" published by Charles H. Kerr & Company, has given me greater pleasure and satisfaction than Marcus Hitch's little book, "Goethe's Faust", which the author modestly describes as a "fragment" of Socialist criticism. What Comrade Hitch sets out to demonstrate is that, just as the popular psychology is determined very largely by economic conditions, so is the psychology of the masters of literature; that, in a word, the ethical standards of such great writers as Goethe reflect the economic conditions of their time. A few years ago the late Ernest Crosby, who, it will be remembered, was bitterly opposed to the Marxian theory of the materialist conception of history, shocked the bourgeois world by an onslaught upon Shakespeare, exposing his utter contempt for the working classes and the influence of his environment upon his work. Tolstoy took the matter up and with some vigor carried Crosby's criticism a good deal further. In somewhat the same fashion, but more clearly, with a more fully developed consciousness of the relation of cause and effect, Comrade Hitch has done the same thing in this admirable criticism of "Faust". It is to be hoped that we shall have a good deal more of this kind of writing—especially with reference to the great writers of our own time. The Liberators-by Isaac N. Stevens. Published by B. W. Dodge & Company, New York. $1.50. Isaac N. Stevens belongs to the new school of young writers, among whom are Charles Edward Russell, Lincoln Steffens and Ray Stannard Baker, whose function it appears to be to reveal the skeletons that have long been carefully concealed in the political and industrial closets of America. We socialists may sometimes wonder that they do not sooner come over into our ranks, but they might well say the ground has not yet all been plowed and that if somebody had not worked before we appeared with our books and pamphlets, our seed would doubtless never have taken root. Mr. Stevens has given us an excellent story of the struggles of a young lawyer, George Randolph, of New York, who seeks to inaugurate clean politics in the New York and national political quagmire. Incidentally he gives us one vivid sketch after another of the present methods of capitalistic control. Bribery, cheating and lobbying are revealed in all their insidious power, but young Randolph remains true to a promise made to his father and stands by what he believes to be the Right. At the risk of losing not only his reputation as an efficient and capable attorney but the young woman whom he loves, as well, George Randolph plunges into reform politics and finally succeeds in defeating the old and extremely rotten Machine and becoming state senator of New York. Ultimately he succeeds in winning over the people, and a majority of the stockholders, to Government Ownership of Railways, and other long-agitated reform measures. We do not believe conventional thinkers can read Mr. Stevens' book without receiving a series of wholesome shocks. And if they lose a portion of their respect for those institutions that have come to exist for the sole purpose of enriching a few at the expense of the many, the ground will be the readier for us socialists. M. E. M. BY WORLD OF LABOR MAX S. HAYES Contrary to general expectations the long threatened contest between the capitalistic interests and organized workers on and along the lakes has commenced. The open shop, or open ship, has been made the issue by the Lake Carriers' Association, who, during the past month, held a convention in Cleveland and made a demand that the marine engineers sign individual contracts and assist in establishing open shop conditions on board ship. Pending the submission of the proposition to a referendum vote about 300 engineers signed the death warrant of their organization, but after a poll of the locals was taken it was found that an overwhelming majority of the membership favored repudiating the open shop and union-wrecking system their employers sought to impose and declared their readiness to fight for the preservation of their association to the last ditch. In discussing this crisis with the writer one of the prominent officials of the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association said: "It is not improbable that if the carriers had merely asked us to sign individual contracts our men might have complied. But when they insisted that we aid them to establish the open shop on shipboard-when they virtually demanded that we become union-smashers and strikebreakers and betray our organized fellow-workers in other branches of marine transportation-we were forced to draw the line tight. Our members have been naturally conservative, a good deal like the railway engineers, but we are not quite reactionary enough to become traitors in the eyes of the laboring people of the country." The scheme of the vessel owners is quite transparent. The old, old divide-and-conquer tactics are to be tried over again. They hope the split the M. E. B. A. and non-unionize the engine rooms with the aid of professional strike-breakers, then the seamen are to be wiped from the map as an organization, and finally the longshoremen, the most powerful of the marine unions, will be attacked and put out of business, for the demand also has been made of them to yield to open shop conditions. If all the marine organizations were affiliated in a close federation they could withstand almost any onslaught from their organized employers, but unfortunately some of the alleged leaders have been afflicted with the big head and are classified as the most persistent of the craft autonomists. Naturally the vessel owners saw the opportunity this season, aided by dull industrial conditions, to deliver a smashing blow at "Bro. Labor." And it is worth noting that those interests in the forefront of the war upon the marine unions are represented in the National Civic Fakiration, the aggregation of eminently respectable hypocrites and pharisees who, assemble in New |