risen from humble beginnings as a "pit boy" in a coal-mine to a comfortable position in life, able to enjoy the aristocratic six penny weekly which Mr. St. Loe Strachey edits, and bitterly opposed to Socialism, it does not require very distinctive ability as a logician, nor very profound' knowledge of the subject, to convince him that his opinion of Socialism is a just and wise one. Mr. St. Loe Strachey may be said to have just the necessary equipment for that particular task. He could, no doubt, convince Mr. Roosevelt that he is quite correct in his opinion of Socialism, or Mr. Post that the "Labor Trust" is bad and dangerous. He seems to be admirably fitted to convince eminently respectable gentlemen that they are very wise and just.

Mr. St. Loe Strachey_trots out the French National Workshops of '48 and the English Poor Law of the days prior to 1834 as examples of the failure of Socialism in application! He, too, argues that Socialism will destroy the family and the home. He is fair-minded enough to acknowledge that modern Socialism has nothing in common with Plato's community of wives, that no considerable number of intelligent Socialists want to destroy the family. But he insists that the family will be destroyed by the feeding of hungry school children, the endowment of motherhood and old-age pensions. He does not for a moment face the alternative: suppose, for the sake of argument merely-for I would not for a moment make the concession seriously-that we admit the contention. Then the question arises whether starving school children, so that they must grow up inefficient as citizens and parents, neglecting motherhood so that the race-stock perishes, and leaving the veterans of industry to end their days in misery, to fill pauper graves, are not worse evils than the admittedly serious evil he fears? Honesty compels attention to that side of the argument upon which Mr. St. Loe Strachey is suggestively silent.

common

If old-age pensions will destroy the family, it is strange that the families of the horde of England's pensioners are not destroyed. Her Prime Ministers and, I believe, some other Cabinet members, retire upon pensions; so do her judges; so do her military officials as well as her soldiers and sailors. Mr. St. Loe Strachey gets over this difficulty by the very amusing expedient of calling the big pensions to the titled pensioner "deferred pay." As such, apparently, it will not hurt the family. Very well! I presume there would be no great objection to calling he pensions for workers by that same name. Personally. I like it a little better! Endowed motherhood has not yet gone very far. In some cities in Germany and France it is believed that the bearing of a child is a service to the State, and that it is important to the State that the children born be kept alive and as healthy as possible. President Roosevelt could not consistently oppose that, I think. But his English worshiper fears that any grant to a poor mother which would enable her to bring her baby into the world in decency, and to start it fairly in life instead of leaving it to die while she works in a factory, would destroy the family. But never a word has he to say concerning the sums voted by Parliament for every princeling born! He does not quote the House of Wettin, whose mothers have been amply endowed, to show that the family has been destroyed or even injured.

The editor of The Spectator is like the little boy in the street_under my study window as I write. He is beginning to celebrate the Fourth of July several days in advance. He is impatient and disgusted, I see, because he cannot make noise enough. His squibs and firecrackers seem to be damp. And Mr. St. Loe Strachey's firecracker is likewise damp and powerless!

Morris Winchevsky's little book, Stories of the Struggle, was well

worth publishing. The volume, which is one of the most satisfactory from a mechanical point of view yet published by Charles H. Kerr & Company contains fifteen little storiettes and sketches, all relating to the proletarian movement, most of which have appeared in various English and American Socialist papers. Comrade Winchevsky is a Russian Jew, one of the pioneer workers in the Socialist movement. To write his history would be to cover a very large part of the history of the Jewish Socialist movement. He has served it in every conceivable capacity-as street speaker, lecturer, editor, organizer and man-of-all-work. Generous to a fault, he is one of the most loveable men in the Socialist movement. He is a poet and a humorist and some of these sketches are delightful examples of his whimsical viewpoint. The book should have a good market. As an inexpensive gift-book it will doubtless prove very acceptable. It is to be hoped that a similar collection of his best verse will follow.

Our English comrade, Edward Carpenter, the poet upon whom the mantle of Whitman seems to have fallen, has just published, through the Macmillan Company, New York, a volume of miscellania, poems and sketches, entitled Sketches From Life. There are about a dozen prose sketches, including an interesting account of the International Socialist Congress held at Paris in 1889. There are also a number of poems, both original and translated, of which a majority have been published in an earlier volume. The famous song, "England Arise!" is here given in full. As usually printed, five stanzas only are given in place of the twelve stanzas here printed. Carpenter has done nothing better than this stirring song of battle.

The Carcer of a Journalist, by William Salisbury, published by the B. W. Dodge Company, New York, is a somewhat inconsequential volume. The author describes his experience as a newspaper reporter in various large cities: Kansas City, Omaha, Chicago and New York. It is a commonplace story enough, told without any particular literary merit, but is not without a certain interest. There is a great deal of the kind of gossip one hears in the offices of great newspapers and in "joints" patronized by the lesser lights of newspaperdom. Each chapter contains the usual amount of boasting about "scoops,' "beats" and "fakes," though none of these can be said to be of a sensational order. Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book, for the average Socialist reader, are those which describe the workings of the great Hearst newspaper machine. One lays down the book with the feeling that Mr. Salisbury has, in the main, told the truth about the Hearst methods, and that his picture of the intellectual anarchy and moral hypocrisy is fairly reliable. One also gets the impression that real "reporting" is on the decline, that it is fast becoming a lost art. The newspapers have become purveyors of misinformation and disseminators of ignorance.

BY

WORLD

OF

LABOR

MAX S. HAYES

There is going to be inaugurated another confidence game and period of "prosperity." Several factors are co-operating to produce industrial activity in the near future. The action of the United States Steel Corporation in cutting prices of iron and steel 50 cents to $4 per ton, the enforced reduction of wages in the textile industry and resumption of operation in many mills, the decision of the anthracite coal barons to push work during the next ten months to accumulate a surplus, the wage reductions in the coke district, the production of "bumper" crops by the farmers of the nation, and last, but not least, the nomination of Taft and Sherman to lead the Republican party in the national campaign, are all signs that point to an early resumption of business by the captains who hold the industrial forces of the nation in the hollow of

their hands.

"There are ten men in this country who can bring about a panic whenever they chaase," Senator Depew declared in a speech several years ago. The late Governor Pingree of Michigan made the statement shortly before he died that the time had practically arrived when a few men could sit in their New York offices and set in motion or close down the important industries of the nation upon a moment's notice. Congressman Bourke Cochran said in a speech in New York last winter that in reality five men-Rockefeller, Morgan, Harriman, Hill and -are masters of American industry. Probably if this question is closely studied it will be found that John D. Rockefeller is to-day the real monarch on American soil who issues orders to any and all capitalistic subalterns.

Armour

Iron and steel production is the cornerstone of American manufacturing. Over a year ago many of the railroad corporations began to cancel their orders for rails-partly to "teach a lesson" to certain Republican politicians who started to run amuck, and partly to inaugurate their campaign to squeeze water out of their stocks and get rid of the sucker element of would-be capitalists who invest a few hundred or thousand dollars in the hope of getting rich quick and becoming big plutocrats. The lowering of prices by the steel trust will cause the railroads to again place their orders, and the magnates are looking forward to a busy fall to haul the "bumper" crops that will tend to depress prices for the farmers, but will not cause the milling and other combines to suffer to any appreciable extent.

The anthracite coal barons are anxious to pile up a surplus of 10,000,000 tons by April 1, 1909, when the wage scale with the miners expires, and upon which date they can lean back in their office chairs and announce to the men that they can quit work and come back again when they have starved long enough. The textile barons, on their part,

introduced a highly scientific scheme by which they couldn't lose in "restoring prosperity." First, they decided that they would not lower the prices of their goods: then they voted to restrict production to strengthen their price list, while at the same time those employes who would be laid off would become more docile if they saw the soup-houses staring them in the face again. Lastly they informed their already underpaid, half-starved workers that they would be privileged to come to work if they would accept a reduction of 182 per cent in their wages. And the thousands of employes flocked back. What else could they do? They said a half loaf is better than no bread.

Now it can be readily understood that when a million or two iron and steel, railway, mine and textile workers are permitted to resume their toil to produce more profits for their masters then industry will revive rapidly, and the building, clothing and other trades will follow the "prosperity" procession in sympathy. Now come the politicians to point out to those who are lucky enough to have employment that they are enjoying the blessings obtained from the magnates by the Republican party, and to assure those who are standing idly in the labor market waiting for purchasers to bid for them that they, too, will be allowed to return to work if they will have faith and confidence in the grand old party.

So, through this combination of circumstances, all indications point to a general increase of business activity. The powers that be will bend all their energies to furnish work for the workingman, believing that dissatisfaction with the capitalistic system will be largely minimized if labor is allowed to enter the treadmill. Of course the question of wages is important, but not as important as the great boon of being permitted to stand before the fiery furnace or burrowing in the bowels of the earth, or risking life and limb on the railways, or sweating in the stuffy mills. When John, meets Bill carrying a dinner pail and is asked, "Are you working?" it is a great comfort to reply, "Sure!" The wage proposition is secondary and need not be discussed for fear that the bird of "prospertiy" may take fright and fly away.

Just how long "prosperity" will continue, how long "free" labor will be permitted to work, after election is another question. If wage reductions, as introduced by the textile manufacturers, are to continue, and the purchasing power of the workers cut 15 to 20 percent, the forced "prosperity" of the plutocrats and their politicians cannot last very long, for the less money the laboring man receives the less he can spend and the less needs to be manufactured. The trust magnates are systematizing industry so thoroughly that it is doubtful whether, except in anticipation of strikes, as in the case of the mine barons, the captains in control will pile up much of a surplus stock in any line of business. The tendency is to hold the supply within the limits of immediate demands in order not only to maintain prices and ward off criticism, but to hold a club over labor that threatens intermittent or chronic lay-offs if organization is persisted in and "unreasonable demands" are made.

Intelligent workingmen should understand that capitalism is evoluting much more rapidly than labor, and that its trained captains are introducing scientific schemes that are all to the merry in benefiting the capitalist class, which class regards labor as a commodity, to be bought like everything else. And since a few men are now in control of industry and can spring panics or introduce "prosperity" almost at will, the mass of workers are becoming as powerless as slaves. Therefore, they must not only organize to deal with the questions of wages in the most effective manner, but they must also carry their fight to the polls and down the system that degrades, robs and enslaves them and the parties

that uphold that system. The Socialist party holds the key to the situation and ought to receive the support of every honest, thinking workingman in the country.

That the leading officials of organized labor are beginning to appreciate the fact that they cannot stand still and that progress must be made if unionism is to remain alive is demonstrated by the fact that the international bodies in the various branches of industry are displaying a genuine desire to adjust their jurisdictional controversies and get together. The iron trades and crafts have just perfected an alliance which will be known as the Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor. It includes nearly 400,000 working people and will embrace every branch of the metal industry. The new department is formed on the lines of the Allied Printing Trades Council and the Building Trades Department of the A. F. of L. It will issue charters to local councils and endeavor to adjust all questions that are peculiar to the metal trades.

Negotiations are under way among the clothing trades to form a similar department. It is proposed to include the journeymen tailors. the garment workers, shirt waist and laundry workers, cloakmakers and perhaps several other organizations. The combined membership of the clothing alliance will be in the neighborhood of 200,000.

About the time that this number of the REVIEW reaches its readers the Western Federation of Miners will be in session at Denver. The Western men will be addressed by a committee chosen at the last convention of the United Mine Workers in Indianapolis. W. D. Haywood addressed the latter and advocated a closer alliance between the coal and metaliferous miners, with the result that the Indianapolis convention appointed a committee to visit the Western men and endeavor to arrange a plan to get together and make one common cause. If unity is accomplished between the two organizations and the coal men are successful in reorganizing the anthracite miners the new order would have a combined membership of nearly 500,000. The marine workers are not yet showing any signs of coming together. Probably the present battle in which they are engaged with their open-shop masters will have the effect of arousing the rank and file sufficiently to cause them to instruct their officials in no uncertain tones to work out a plan of federation to include every toiler on or along the waterways of this country. It is only fair to say that the seamen are almost wholly at fault that there is no close federation among the marine and longshore workers. The sailors are living in the past and their officers, with one or two exceptions, are ultraconservative to the reactionary limit.

The railway brotherhoods are also coming nearer to each other, although it is doubtful whether the engineers and conductors will ever consent to enter a close federation. I have received a tip, by the way, that at the coming convention of the Brotherhood of Railway Firemen a proposition will be pressed by influential members that Eugene V. Debs be reinstated and accorded all the privileges of full membership. Debs withdrew fifteen years ago and organized the A. R. U., which was destroyed by the combined efforts of the railway magnates, aided and abetted by Grover Cleveland. Debs has a warm spot in the hearts of the railway workers, and, while this contemplated move has no political significance, still it is a straw showing that there is a progressive wind blowing along the railway tracks.

Samuel Gompers and his fellow-politicians are not even having potluck with their punish-your-enemies-and-reward-your-friends party. Except in isolated places the working people are not taking very kindly to