liberato | December, 1918 15 Cent)

Drawn by Maurice Sterne @

THE BIRTH OF THE RUSSIAN SOVIET! ‘An eyewitness account of the BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION and of the founding of the first Socialist State in the world READ SIX RED MONTHS IN RUSSIA By LOUISE BRYANT.

Imagine! If you had been alive at the end of the 18th century what would you have given for a book describing the day-by-day drama of the great French Revolution telling how Mirabeau, Marat, Robespierre, Charlotte Corday, looked, how they acted, w said—al told by a first class, wide-awake unprejudiced reporter. You who live now at a time when the great Russian Revolution, more tremendous by f Revolution, is shaking a hostile world to its foun s, have the opportunity to walk w through the streets of Petrograd and Moscow, to bu d Kerensky in the W the fall of the Provisional Government, the dissolu You can see Lenine, Trotsky, Spirodonova, Kollant yy others, watch thi You can get an intimate picture of the women soldi gged Red Guard A\ ARE THE BOLSHEVIKS PRO-GERMAN? A IS THE SOVIET A DEMOCRACY? CAN RUSSIA HELP AMERI( This book answers these questions

Read—SIX RED ‘MONTHS IN RUSSIA—32.10 Postpaid LIBERATOR BOOK SHOP, 34 Union Square, East

December, 1918

TO A PAGAN POET G IETING in your stuffy room, The Liberator Strewn with cigarette stubs Purchase the And empty beer bottles, | “Reconstruction Number” Book — Stale evidence of dingy carnival, of 5 You write... in verse The first 10 issues, March to | ‘More or less free, The Intercollegiate December, bound in one vol- Of “Fawns” and “Purple Grapes” ume, including: And “Brown-limbed Bachantes,” Socialist While the lusty wind rattles John Reed’s amazing stories ‘Your closed window, ‘Table of Contents of the Russian Revolution, ‘THE MINIMUM OF EDUCATION Unheeded. . . . Ellen Hayes Floyd Dell’s penetrating ar- Mary L. Gruening. AMERICAN CO-OPERATION — ITS ticles on American Educa- FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION, tion, the cartoons and draw- ‘Agnes D. Warbasse ings of Boardman Robinson, LAWN PARTY ‘THE ORIENTATION OF BRITISH Art Young, Cornelia Barns, ATRONS, massive, LABOR Richard Roberts Albert Sterner, Maurice Peerlessly gowned, HE FARMER AND RECONSTRUC- Converse with other matrons ‘TION Robert J. Wheeler Sterne and others, | WAR-TIME CONTROL QF INDUSTRY Of varying circumferences, farry W. Laidlor and ‘On the suave and flawless lawn: HEALTH CONSERVATION AS A SO- vivid, illustrated reports of Exchanging middle-aged amenities, CIAL PROGRAM the three great free speech Sprinkled with light laughter, James P. Warbasse trials of the year—the I.W.W. Never too loud or too real. The I. S. S. Conference of “Recox- trial, the trial of Eugene V. ‘They form the nucleus, solidly static, sreuctiox Arte THe War” Summaries Debs, and the trial of our own Of the encompassing confusion. of addresses of W. P. Montague, Madel- ‘Masses editors. Bulwarks of good form, ine Doty, Percy Dearmer, Katharine ‘They seem to chaperone the very trees. Anthony, S. Nuorteva, Benton Mackaye, Jessie W. Hughan, Ordway Tead, Bed- The bound volume of The Mary Gruening. ros Apelian, Norman Thomas, Roswell Liberator is a lively, illus- Johnson, George Nasmyth, Morris trated history of a remarkable Cohen, C. G. Hoag, Evans Clark, Rich- period in the annals of the ard Kitchelt and others. world. Simplified Four Times @ Year Do you know that 17 Liber- Stenography ator poems have been re- Te. ngs come to gtay—aimpliied short printed as ‘“2 star poems” in hand—sfust'vas. surely an the typewriter Purchase also “Puntic Ownensiir Braithwaite’s Annual Review aieptone ral ete cate af Way blanable, Which ‘Tanovonour tHe Wont,” by Harry W. ee‘ate pits acknowledged by persons Laidler. 48 pp. 10 cents, and. of Verse? And that one of aio have’ made. tents hat," aunplited don't forget our short stories is reprinted ‘5 docs arithmete onomtry OF Tog: in O'Brien’s Best Short Stor- Tea Sie’ guthutetie “ioe nerds puspones eres notte fit tie THE TENTH, ANNUAL ies of the Year? Ghie the slgdate EP eateee mga’ eit "ie ison" Sound this pe ith CONVENTION, L. S. S., mpiste its practic Bean‘ peodue, that shore to be held in New York City, Friday and The book, bound attractively Saturday, December 27 and 28, 1918, in dark red cloth, costs— Speed son can f learn etn KL by" eaay Shorthand, prtetce after unt wlieh Convention Dinner, December 27, at $3.00 (postpaid). ie tne wate ke fase 2's prea rd eager Polat Wecldetiy'in favor at 10. Subject: With a year’s subscription to Sonal sietwen or Feapondence acyuisng spent ta on and which parleuany ie ye “SOCIALISM—A The Liberator (now, $1.50, fal ‘adapting Noeation. this "Oe wonderful hoy system aretee to one's at GROWING WORLD POWER” after Jan. 1, $2.00)—$4.00. ‘erenf) netas almerent spect futon fron Membership in Society $2, $5, $25 a year, open to all interested in the world |

wide movement toward industrial Hpondesds how easy, Yatton tle important saat obtainea®™ feature of corre Seto democracy. For information concern= Two Christmas Bente. ‘Bhocthata Hehe tse neta ing the convention and other activities presents for beni’ SG; Tiatod eel wade auy"caah of the expense Hiberator 1. wl ay of the Society apply to $4.00 Ihkay"to tag Mec enrol 'fs Sunes" of ome persons Full information including free proot INTERCOLLEGIATE

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Drawn by Art Young A Reminiscence of the Second Masses Trial

EYMOUR STEDMAN, attorney for the defense, in set of criminals! I ask Mr. Barnes to tell you when his eloquent summing up, referred as follows to the fact before in his experience, men in the City of New York that the Masses editors asked an injunction compelling the came in and filed an appeal, opening all their proof and all Post Office to mail the very magazine for publishing which their evidence and all their testimony and said, ‘ If the Court they were later indicted: on the right to continue this deep, dark, in- “Do men who are committing a crime g into a Federal acy, and have it sanctified by an advocate of Court and face a District Attorney and Ke the privilege the United States Court.’ History finds no parallel that 1 of continuing it? A strange set of burglars! A strange know of in any criminal procedure which has ever taken set of footpads! A strange set of smugglers! A strange plice.” Vol. 1, No. 10

EDITORIALS S67 THE hour of the people has come.” With these words genious a talent for weaving the language of liberty, and Karl Liebknecht greeted the thronging revolu- even of industrial democracy, into his pronouncements of tionary workers of Germany whose power had liberated him good capitalist policy, and he has Colonel House, whost gift from prison. ‘That he was there to speak to them is proof is the gift of agreeing with everybody, and he has the tradi- of the truth of his words. tions surviving in Europe that America is an extreme and ‘The hour of the people has come in Austria also, it ap- romantic democracy, almost eccentric in its devotion to the pears, and perhaps also in Hungary. Friedrich Adler, whom equality of men—all these things add to the prestige of the Lenin referred to as “ my right hand man in the Social Revo- mesmerist. And one still greater thing—the fact that the lution,” has been liberated from prison by the revolutionary change he advocates, from a system of national imperialistic workers in Vienna, and elected by them as their leader. rivalry, begetting war, to a system of international imperial- Within the last two years he has written a book on the ism, a business organization of the exploitation of the world, Philosophy of science, and assassinated ‘a tyrant. He too is making peace perhaps almost permanently secure, is in very a statesman of a new order! truth one of the great events of history. It is the crowning In Bulgaria, even more certainly at this date (November achievement of the age of business efficiency. And so many 8th), the people are in power, a peasants’ republic having of the simple human ideals that afe beautiful naturally at- already been formed, with the Bulgarian Liebknecht, Stam- tach to it, that a severe revolutionary intelligence is required Duliwsky, as Premier. Stambuliwsky was sentenced to life to perceive its essential nature, and not confuse it with the imprisonment for anti-military activities when the war broke. achievement of human liberty or international democracy. He told King Ferdinand to his face that if he wasn’t care- ful he would have his head cut off by the people. ‘We read of the formation of a soviet of workmen and The League of Nations soldiers in Bohemia, too, and we can even imagine that the Te seems almost certain, upon psychological as well as his- little bourgeois liberal Arcadia that was arranged to be born torical grounds, that a League of Nations will make inter- ith Professor Masaryck for its father and Professor national wars less frequent. It will make the world more Wilson its godfather, may turn out a black sheep, and make orderly, and a fitter dwelling-place for intelligence. But we friends with the Bolsheviki. And we speculate with pleasure need not deceive ourselves that this is the essential reasom upon the highly abstract patriotism that will have to be dis- why such a league will be established. It will be established played by the Czecho-Slovak armies in Siberia in order to because it will make the world more productive. It will continue their war for liberty against the Red Guard, if increase the wealth of those who possess wealth. ‘The League that should be the case. of Nations is good business. It is but an expression in the In Central Europe, the hour of the people has come. political sphere of something that has already happened iv In the Allied countries two things retard the coming of the business sphere. Business has become international, that hour, and make the duty of the Socialists and the labor Capital is internationally owned. It is inevitable that an parties hard to perform: One is victory. ‘The other is international state should be formed, to express and defend Woodrow W Ie will be difficult indeed, in the hour its interests. At the same time war has become destructive of nationalistic triumph, and crowing at the fall of hostile beyond the bounds of safe speculation even for nationalistic’ kings, for weary men and women in the Allied countries to capital, and so the chief opposition to a guaranteed peace remember that Karl Liebknecht relies absolutely upon their is removed. Only the dull and the unprogressive in the fidelity to make this the hour not only of the German people business and political community are opposed to the League but of the people of the world. And it will be difficult for of Nations. I think we can say that it is the next natural them to withstand the mesmeric effect of President Wilson’s step in.the development of capitalism. liberalism and business internationalism. He has so in- Professor John Dewey, the most knowing of those who 6 THE LIBERATOR are satisfied with capitalism as a basis for democracy, in advo- nation in such a way that it will feed, clothe and make happy ~ cating a League of Nations, has these true words to say of and make free all of the people. The experiment has been to an amazing degree successful, to an amazing degree or- Tt “means that a system of ideas and activ derly and merciful. This can be read between the lines even which expresses contemporary industry and com- of the violently antagonistic and slanderous news despatches merce is being substituted for the ancient system which alone are given to the press about Russia. ‘Thus the which ignored and despised business and magnified “ probleni” presented here is the typical problem of a future the ethics and politics of dignity, honor, aggression, supposed to be consecrated to the safety of the growth of and defense, It is no accident that the formulation democracy. And the way in which a League of Nations of the new order came from this country, which would solve that problem can be approximately inferred from by the fortune of history and geography escaped the present conduct of the leading nations who will compose most completely from the ethics of maintaining a the League, Germany, France, England, Japan and the status of established dignity, and which has com- United States are invading Russia with a view to stimulating mitted itself most completely to the ethics of indus- the business classes there to overthrow the government of the try and exchange.” workers and the poorer peasants—an immense majority— Other things, of course, can be said about the League of and establish a monarchy or a business republic. And they Nations, things both interesting and true, but in relating it are not only invading the country with armed forces, but to the problem of progress toward democracy this is the they are conducting all over the face of the world, from the important thing. ‘A system of ideas which expresses con- Arctic circles into the heart of Africa, a systematic, organized, ‘temporary commerce and industry” is to be substituted for exclusive and completely controlled campaign of libel against the old “glory” system. The ethics of business is to be the government of Russia and against the men who have been the international ethics. lected to conduct T believe that we can carry this truth farther into the ‘The condition of the newspapers and the pulpits and the concrete by saying that the League of Nations will be a theatres and the organs of government throughout the world, gigantic commercial, industrial and financial trust. Its con- in their relation to revolutionary Russia, is an exact repro trolling motive is similar to that which begot the trusts; its duction of their condition in any city in which a successful achievement will be similar. The trusts were formed in industrial union strike occurs, And we who knew Lenin order to put an end to a suicidal competition between indi- and Trotsky and Gorky and Spiridonova, either by personal viduals or small groups of business men within the nation. or political association, long before this condition arose, feel The League is to be formed in order to put an end to a today exactly as we felt when we used to return from Pat- competition that has become suicidal between nations, or erson, New Jersey, after a day with the devoted leaders of large groups of business men expressing themselves through that great strike in the silk-works, and then read the bloody political forms. So we must understand it, and so mould our and monstrous tales of them in all the great newspapers of attitude towards it—we who consider the ethics of contempo- New York and New Jersey. We knew that the institutions rary business sufficiently arrived at and ready to be outgrown. which ‘express contemporary industry and commerce ” were Jn the conclusion of his article (published in The Dial for engaged and committed, by forces of obscure and unchange- November and) Professor Dewey remarks that, “ given such able instinct, to break that strike. And we know that the an agency of international regulation, defined and authorized League of Nations, great imaginative deed of statesmanship by the Peace Conference itself, and there exists in effect a though it is, will be engaged and committed to put down new and international type of government. Can anyone revolution and oppress the forces that move towards indus- believe that once such an agency were in existence it would trial democracy in no matter what part of the world they not inevitably tend to be employed for all sorts of new pur- appear. ‘The League of Nations will be the most gigantic poses not expressly contemplated in its original constitu- strike-breaking agency that the ethics of contemporary in- tion?” dustry could conceive. Its power unresisted would ensure ‘There is no doubt that it would be so employed; and many the world against Socialism. : ‘of these purposes would be humane and reasonable, and ‘The Socialist republics will hardly be able to prevent press justice as between nations. And yet, for one who is the formation of a League of Commercial Nations, any determining its relation to democratic progress, these humane more than they were able to prevent the formation of and reasonable ones would not be the most important of its trusts. They may have to welcome it—as one welcomes the incidental uses. ‘The most important would be the use sug- battle-array of an enemy—but at least they will not be gested by Lord Bryce when he pointed to the problem now deceived, or wheedled, or mesmerized by the rhetoric of existing in Russia as one which the League of Nations would soft-headed idealists into believing that its internationalism be quickly able to solve. What exists today in Russia is a is socialistic, or its democracy industrial, or its freedom free. first experimental attempt of the wage-workers and the poor ‘The League of Nations will be a Capitalist International. farmers of a whole nation to arrange the business of the We must meet it, and prepare to fight it over the whole December, 1918 width of the world, with a new and more. vigorous and more The paragraph, “more toleration toward other organi: sophisticated and more audacious Socialist and Labor Inter- ions,” suggests that the I. W. W. has learned an important national. And our Socialist and Labor International must lesson from events. It is to be hoped that the other organi assemble and begin work on the day that the commercial zations have learned the same lesson, and have made the nations gather at the council table. It is a mistake to de- same good resolution toward the I. W. W. I am sure that mand representation at their council. The Soviets will have if the author of that editorial had heard Eugene Debs, with none. We must hold our own council, and, with the help a twenty-year prison sentence over his head, addressing a jury of Russia and what other nations may with good luck estab- of hard-shell, respectable, retired merchants and rich farmers, lish the ‘Republic of Labor, make our council more impor- pay an entirely gratuitous and sympathetic tribute to the tant than theirs. It is our task to make the world demo- I. W. W., he would be encouraged to feel that the gener cratic before they make it safe. osity and good sense is not all on one side. I would like to see the Non-Partisan League mentioned also in this cone nection. A Warning The social revolution in Europe, following substantially ONCE had the social pleasure of explaining to Colonel the same form thus far in each country, has scrapped all sorts House the principles of revolutionary socialism, em- of theoretical squabbles—and among them the most barren, phasizing especially the doctrine of the class struggle. He that between advocates of “ political” and “direct” action, confessed, when I was done, that they were practically. his It is plainly evident that the industrial parliament is the principles. The conversation passed to international matters, essential organ of the revolution, that it naturally numbers and I expressed my dread of the influence of Arthur among its members leaders of the left wing of the political Balfour, who had just come over to arrange things with the parliament, who have done great work through their position President. there, and continue to do so until the political form is sloughed off by the industrial, and the revolution reveals its “O, you needn’t worry,” said the Colonel, “I know him true nature as a dictatorship of the proletariat. ‘Therefore well. He's one of us.” I had no answer. Colonel House there is no further excuse for intolerance between those is so charming—and so good. I give the incident, however, whose present activities (and gifts) are industrial, and those as a warning to those who imagine that the world can be Whose activities and gifts are political or educational. saved for democracy by fine feeling. It is also plainly evident that some people who lack revo- lutionary imagination possess revolutionary courage, Many who are Menshevik so long as they are not confronted by About Solidarity actual facts, go through in complete loyalty to the working- class wherever a concrete issue is drawn. Others who fill FROM Tie Labor Defender for November 13th, 1 abstract treatises with extreme revolutionism in the serene quote the leading editorial, entitled “The Future days of theory, take flight into patriotism when the hour IW. W.”: reality comes. of fore constructive propaganda. Therefore the line cannot be clearly drawn long in ad- about sabotage vance against persons, or organizations, whose creed is funda More democracy in the General Administration, by mentally revolutionary means of special departments for special work. Te can only be drawn against the ideas of “social patriot- Systematic organization work, and job control ism,” “ moderate socialism,” coalition, or pleading for bour- More toleration toward non-I. W. W. organiza- geois recognition, and against those individuals whose acts tions, i.e Socialists, Anarchists and Trade ‘or sayings definitely align them with these ideas in oppo Unions, sition to the revolutionary power that is to be born, Against A greater and better I. W. W. press those individuals, after what has passed in Europe, our intol- An educational auxiliary to work in harmony with erance can have no bounds. the Industrial Unions, Higher dues and the establishment of Strike and Defense funds. Upton Sinclair Short strikes, and better organized machinery for HERE a moment at which Upton Sinclair can come the conducting of strikes. back into the Socialist movement, leaving us con- Technical education, and the enrollment of execu- vinced that a reasoned belief about the relation between tives as honorary members without voice or vote autocracy and political democracy in the evolution of capital- in business meetings unless by special permission. ism was the cause of his withdrawal. ‘The moment is now. Closer international affiliation, Hiss assertion that the Masses editors—and Eugene Debs A better understanding of the Social Vision, as per and Rose Pastor Stokes too—have been “‘irritated and Preamble of the I. W. W. nagged ” by legal prosecutions “ into a state of continual op- THE LIBERATOR position . . . to an Administration that is doing its best armies are doing—or being done with—in Siberia, and not to carry out their ideals in the world!” is about as uncom- of the opinion of the artists in the Salmagundi Club, The plimentary to our characters and our minds as it could be. future will tell. But we will forgive him that, if he himself shows the clarity ‘of mind and force of character to break with the economic Some Simple Truth and emotional forces that surround him, now that his orig- ‘MID all the dull wash of slander and malicious hypoe- inal reason for joining them is removed. risy_ and thoughtless, credulous nonsense that floods the journals of the world about conditions in Russia, it is A Gradual Recovery hard to find any way to wisdom. I recommend first of all, as most simple, direct and self-proving of what it asserts, ILLIAM MARION REEDY still suffers from the Louise Bryant's book—Six Red Months in Russia.” dementia bellicosa nationalis, but the derangement of Louise Bryant was in the very inside of the Bolshevik move- his splendid faculties is*less pervasive than it was. He is ‘ment, both in Petrograd and Moscow, as things in her book able to admire the cover of the Laszrator! He is even able abundantly and interestingly prove. And she retained a to quote without adverse comment long paragraphs from us, calm, natural, human and American heart and judgment and from Nicolai Lenin, before the frenzy comes on. And about what she saw and experienced. If you are somewhat the quotations last longer, and actually seem to interest Reedy natural and a little American, too, you feel in reading her more, than his own unimaginative newspaper rant about book as if you were over there yourself. And you stay as Lenin’s betraying the Russian people for German gold. ong as she will let you! Te would be helpful if we could get Reedy thinking about Maxim Gorky — “whose genius and intellectual Just Democracy ~ probity are the honor of European literature,” to quote Romain Rolland. After holding off and mercilessly criti- ON the very day President Wilko izing the Bolsheviks for twelve months, because of dif- thing for which America fought has been accom- ferences of revolutionary philosophy and method, Gorky plished,” and ‘it will now be our fortunate duty to assist joined the government last spring in the high and intimate by example . . . in the establishment of just democracy post of chief of the bureau of propaganda. Won't some- throughout the world,” his Attorney General announced body in St. Louis ask Reedy if he really believes Maxim that the censorship of information and opinion under the Gorky is a tool or a dupe of mercenary traitors to the Rus- amended espionage law, instead of being relaxed, would be ‘sian people? It might moderate his symptoms, at any rate, tightened throughout the period of settlement. No more to think about Gorky for a wl open violation of “ just democracy ” than this censorship has existed in any democratic country since the American revo- lution, A Vote of Censure HAVE been much criticized by patriots of the new. Czecho-Slovak Republic for speaking in uncompli- THE LIBERATOR mentary terms of the behavior of their armies in Siberia. Tam told that at the instigation of one of these patriots A Journal of Revolutionary Progress altors, Max Eastman one hundred and fifty artists” in the Salmagundi Club Grystal Eastman, adopted unanimously a vote of censure against me on account Associate Editor, Floyd Dell of what I said. It is a terrible thing to be censured by one Business Manager, Margaret Lane hundred and fifty artists—for a work of art. But to be cen- sured for-a political opinion, and without even a perusal by Contemunine Eorrors Cornelia Barns, Howard Brubaker, K. R. Chamberlain, the artists of the article in which the opinion was expressed, Hugo Gellert, ‘Arturo Giovannitti, ‘Charles T. Hallinan, is not, I confess, devastating to my self-respect. Helen Keller, Robert Minor, Boardman Robinson, Alex: Tt is my earnest desire, however, to correct any impression ander Trachtenberg, Louis Untermeyer, Art Young. my words may have conveyed of nationalistic prejudice against the Czecho-Slovaks. I honor their culture and their Published monthly and copyright 1918, by the hopes. I rejoice in their liberation from the Hapsburg LIBERATOR PUBLISHING CO, Ine. 3 dynasty. I wish them a greater liberation. I gladly recog- 34 Union Square, ast New York nize, moreover, that significant numbers of their soldiers, and not a few of their officers, have gone over to the Bol- sheviks, and are fighting on the side of freedom in Siberia. Sey ac A sone os Tf 12 lage Reading the news as intelligently as I can, I am firmly con- vinced that a majority of the citizens of the Czecho-Slovak Republic are of my opinion as to the justice of what their 4 x) \4

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Se Re “Aw—Shut up! This is a Free Country!”

MAKING EVERYTHING CLEAR T now appears that Ambassador Gerard has got his Maxes mixed. He put his O.°K. on Prince Max of HE net result up to date of Wilson's correspondence. Baden under the supposition that he was the same Max as with the Teutons has been to cause dissension in Ger- Prince Max of Saxony. ‘many, to weaken their military defense, to hasten the dis- solution of Austria, to strengthen democratic sentiment HANCELLOR MAX seems to enjoy high favor among our allies, to save some evacuated towns from de- among the S@ithern German kings and princes and struction and to modify the U-boat war. dinky little dukes, but otherwise is about as popular as the Spanish influenza, THERWISE Roosevelt and Lodge are right; it was HAT Long Island girl whose auto killed two men’ ‘a mistake, and injured two others is making bad use of her tal- HE Kaiser generously offered the last drop of Ger- ents. She ought to be running a tank, man, Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish CLOSE student of the Armour reports has discovered blood in defense of Alsace-Lorraine, but Bulgaria held out that after all the race is to the Swift. a drop or two on him. RMAN Defense Has Stiffened Overnight,” ad- OOSEVELT’S Montana speech makes everything nice mits the New York Times. This is not a pro- and clear. If the Nonpartisan League wants the German sentiment; almost anything would have stiffened Colonel’s support in its fight against oppression, all it has to in those cool October nights, do is to move to Armenia. ERMANY is moving toward responsible government; ‘Austria is coming apart and Poland is coming together. AJOR GENERAL MAURICE says that the Allies should center now upon victory rather than ven- OES everything change except the United States geance. If the armies will give us victory, vengeance may D Senate? safely be left to the New York Tribune. Howarp BRUBAKER, The Seventh Tier Soviet By Roger N. Baldwin On Oct. 8th, Roger Baldwin, Director of the National Civil Liberties Bureau, refusing to comply with his summons for physical examination, gave himself up to the authorities as a deliberate violator of the draft act. On Oct. 30th he appeared before Judge Mayer, and in a brief statement, remarkable for intellectual clarity as well as warm human faith, set forth his position as a conscientious objector to all wars and to every form of conscription—an absolutist. He is now serving one year's imprisonment in the Newark penitentiary This sketch was written for Tue Linerator during the weeks Roger Baldwin shent in the Tombs awaiting trial “T feel myself just one protest in a great revolt surging up from ‘among the people—the struggle of the masses against the rule of the world by the few,” he told the Court, “ Their protest is my protest. Mine is a personal protest at a particular law, but it is backed -by all the aspirations and ideals of the struggle for a world freed of our manifold slaveries and tyrannies.”” FeAREY morning on the federal tier—the seventh story ‘Two or three groups detach themselves from the morning. of the iron cages of the Tombs. The rattle of heavy parade. ‘They edge into my cell—and the daily meeting of Keys in grated doors, opening for our two hours’ exercise; the seventh tier Soviet is on. the bustle of prison help up and down the corridors with “Found a new kind of bug last night—six kinds in all,” tins of breakfast “ coffee,” half sour bread and sodden mush ; announces one of the Bolsheviks. the ringing announcement of “barber on seventh”; the “Well, the old original is still with me,” quoth I, lifting white-coated waiter from the prison restaurant taking orders the two sets of blankets off the wire spring bunk. ‘ One of for real food from those with real money you fellows get the bed-bug gun, and let's shoot these blan- ‘And then the forty or fifty of us “ federals” tramping up kets. I used to think I knew something about prisons and ‘and down in litele groups along the narrow corridor between jails. Been in dozens of them as an investigator and visitor. cell bars and gratings. We are a mixed lot these days of But no one can really know what prison means until he’s federalization—when theft from railroad, telephone or tele- been in himself. It’s the difference between looking at a graph property is a federal crime, and stealing khaki as show, and real life. I used to think prisons could be re- against black goods brings you to Uncle Sam instead of formed —” Father Knickerbocker. But only a few of us steal for a liv- “ Aw, to hell wid de reformers,” says Tony, the gangster, ing. We are for the most part aristocrats in crime, ‘“ war settling down on the bed for a smoke, “They was the woist criminals” whose offenses range from too much patriotism to bunch we ever had. All the guys was against them. The too little, Mitchel crowd was just for show—to see how good they ‘Wearing uniforms when you shouldn't, selling drugs to could make things look. ‘They never got down to the men. soldiers, registering too frequently in the draft—too much ‘Take Osborne at Sing Sing. He was different. He let the patriotism; talking against the war, the government or Eng- men run the place. Every guy was on the square. But no Iand, or neglecting the draft—too little patriotism. One of prison don’t help nobody. Tt makes more crooks, Look at us is a man of Irish-German parentage held for seditious re- ‘Most of us young fellers—and see all them kids down- marks (when drunk), and doubtless to be convicted on his stairs, sixteen to twenty-one—and one of them in short pants, birth certificate. Another, a British Socialist, a sailor with don’t look over twelve. Well, what you don’t know when international socialism resplendently tattooed all over chest you get in you learn before you get out.” and arms, waiting to do eighteen months for bringing over a “T tell you,” says the little Bolshevik, in Russian- letter on his person (in violation of the international postal dish accent, brushing back a mop of long hair and adjusting regulations). A young Hindu—graduate of the University tortoise shell spectacles, “if the object of prison is better- of Calcutta with a schblarship at Harvard—is held under ment of human beings it is a failure, If it.is to protect $25,000 bail for nine months still without trial, for advo- property, it may be some success. But every year it eats up ating the freeing of India from British rule. Four Bol- and makes useless thousands of youth all over theworld. The sheviks of the East Side await transportation to Atlanta to ‘only way is to abolish prisons altogether. For people who serve twenty-year sentences—their crime, circulating hand- are dopes or weak-minded, hospitals are enough. But no bills attacking the President for military intervention in punishment anywhere, only cure. Russia will abolish them. Russia. (And the Republican leaders still out of jail.) ‘And Russian prisons are not so bad as American. ‘There we Two brothers—self-styled gangsters, heroes of a hundred had fresh air, outside windows, food from outside and crimes—let us in to the inner life of a world known before visits at our cells. We did not pay, pay, pay all the time as only through the movies. here, for everything we need. Here it is all graft. You can December, 1918 break all the rules if you pay the keepers, and you get noth- them the chance to change their habits—prison never ing if you don’t. Yesterday the head keeper” does that, Reforming courts and prisons can’t do it. Here “It is not the graft,” interrupted the young Hindu revo- in New York after years of reform and work for children, Iytionist, in eager broken English. “Te is the—monotony— there are almost a hundred kids under twenty in here now twenty hours in the cell day after day—it kills the soul, the —treated like crooks, learning crookedness. Nothing but a spirit. You cannot concentrate. You cannot read long. new system outside will ever keep them out. We manufac- No exercise, no fresh air—the mind, the soul dies. But you ture them now regularly as part of the present system. They will have prisons many years. The great struggle will come ate part of the tribute we pay to a world run for money.” now after the war—many more will go to’ prison for po- “There you ‘ave it. “There you ’ave it—just as I was tell- litical offenses, for labor troubles, Peace will be only a white- ing you!” cries the British*sailor, excitedly waving an arm man peace. The imperialists will still rule to exploit the non-white races. The conflicts will keep the prisons full. tattooed with socialism. “It’s all greed, greed. Prisons As long as there is conflict in society, there will be pr is just a blasted device of the-capitalist system to keep the ers.” This with the finality of a challenge to the Bolsheviks poor in their places. And the big crooks never gets in. and dreamers. "Ere’s this war for democracy, and never a blasted bit will I,take up the cudgels, groping for something “ practical.” we get till we've turned the capitalists out. Look ‘ow they Well, there are & lot of reforms that could be made so that do ‘em. "Ere’s this bloody soldier,” pointing to a lad by the prisons would be hospitals. The main trouble is not the door in overseas uniform, “ gassed and near dead, sick as a Prisons, but the criminal law. ‘The idea of punishment is at dog now, and they locks im up 'ere the first day back. the bottom of it. But the great crime is poverty. Rich folks That's all they cares for those who ‘fight for ’em.” don't often get caught, and when they do, everything is fixed ‘Tony jumps up again from the bunk for a speech, kicking: for them, bail, lawyers, appeals, politics and even the new: over the wooden stool—the sole article of cell furniture. papers. Lack of bail isgvhat keeps this place full. All here “Say, I thought you Bolshevikki and Socialists was a bunch . are poor. And they are just about like the folks outside. of stifls. But you got the right idea. When I do this bit,” Those in here are just the ones that happened to get caught. I'm going out on the soap-box and talk to the regular guys. You could swop ‘em for an equal number outside picked off Youse are for us—I'll get my gang for youse—” the streets at random—and society would be no worse or ‘The gong rings for locking up. better. Everr take Tony and*his gang. They are crooks, “Look hére a minute; all of you,” and our Bolsheviki and proud of it—guilty of everything in the code from mur- friend of the long locks draws out of his pocket a slip of der down, and yet I leave it to you all if there are smarter, paper. “Our comrade who died this week—the police beat squarer or better-hearted fellows here. ‘There are thousands him up, and he had heart trouble—the prison doctor neglected of gangsters in New York and the police never get but a few. him—he left this little unfinished note in the cell while we Prison doesn't cure gangs. were at court. We never saw him again.” ‘Tony, who had been translating into his own language We all bent over it (which is unprintable—and here edited), got up, on fire. “Farewell, comrades,” it read. ‘When you appear be- “You've got de idea. ‘The gangs is jist natural. They are fore the court, I will be with you no,more. But struggle all over New York. That's the way every few blocks gits on, without fear. Fight bravely. I grieve to leave you; but organized. ‘They fight each other—and they fight the po- this is life itself. Comrades, after your long suffering——” lice, And the police are just as big crooks as the gangs. Yes, and the reformers can’t change them from the top. “ All in!” called the keeper, jangling the big keys. “The ‘They was the same under Mitchel—except the highbrows next stop is West Philadelphia.” at the top. Locking up the gangsters don't stop nothin’, T tell you how to fix it. Have the whole city organized into neighborhoods, Each one pick its own leader, see. The To a Black Soldier Fallen leaders get together and make the rules and settles the trouble. You won't need no police then. Everybody would the War be in on it. The regular fellows everybody agrees on would run things—not the cops.” EARTH, lie light upon him “Say, what's this?” puts in Bolshevik No. 2, from the Deep pillowed on thy breast; doorway. “New York divided up into Soviet gangs? I did © Winds, blow soft above him not know you are so ready for revolution!” And gently lull to rest. “Well, Tony’s right,” I, decide. “You can’t control © questioning Heart, be silent, ‘organized crime from on top. Only. the gang itself can Allay the bitter cry— change its purpose. Give them a chance for another purpose “Why should he thus perish? is Tony’s idea. That's good democratic dope. And you've Why, for freedom, die?” got to do the same with individuals who go wrong. Give Mary Burrill, The War Labor Board FE VERY revolution in modern history has been ushered io unmolested about the company’s property, soliciting member- by a revolt on the part of the middle class. One great ships in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. function of this class is to serve as a barrier to the torrent of Or if I made a well-timed visit to Wheeling, West Vir- revolution either by damning it absolutely or by letting it ginia, I could see a committee of two workers, elected by ickle through in such measure as to keep the flood within the men, actually telling the company whether or not it control. But when it too, becomes oppressed, and turns might order its employees to work overtime. against the established order, Revolution finds its opportu- T don’t pretend that committees make a revolution. But nity. And this is true, I suspect, quite as much of industrial Lam sure that a revolution needs committees. And I like as of political revolutions. to think that I see in these officially instituted shop com- Te is the cant of daily conversation that we are in an aj mittees new types of organization which are destined to of upheaval, that “ nothing will be the same after the war, invigorate and alter the sluggish and smuggish American that a silent revolution is taking place within this coun- labor movement. try.” If this is true, it is the agencies of tie present regime ‘On paper, the principles and policies of the Board, drawn which are initiating the change. up by duly appointed representatives of employers and Ask any business man you meet what is the most revolu- workers, make the smoothest compromise imaginable. Each tionary institution in the present Wilson administration and side is surrendering a right here in return for a privilege ten to one he will answer, “The National War Labor there until the scale balances to a hair. Labor surrenders Board.” To him it is just plain revolutionary, a“ bunch of the right to declare the closed unign shop; so, of course, Bolsheviks,” because it raises wages, shortens hours, pro- capital surrenders the right to declate the closed non-union fects trades union organization, and even institutes. unions shop. Labor is granted the right to associate itself into Labor of a kind where npne existed before. Good Socialists and unions, and in return for this it concedes to the employer revolutionists will distrust any middle class institution, even the right to join manufacturers’ associations and the like, when it comes bearing the gifts which they eagerly receive fan act of generosity for whichit will surely go.down in his- And they are right. ‘The War Labor Board has certa tory. Again, the two sides are alike granted the right to not been revolutionary in intent. Tt proclaimed only th bargain collectively through chosen representatives, which tention of “ increasing production,’ and preserving industri is to say that the workers, if permitted to delegate power peace” to the end that the war against Germany might be to elected committees, will not interpose the slightest ob- more speedily and thoroughly won. Nothing revolutionary in jection: to their employers’ delegating power to Boards of this, not even anything which aims at improving the con- Directors, Executive Committees and General Managers. ition of the working class! But some of the things which Or again, labor admits that capital should have a fair and the Board has been forced to do in order to achieve these just return on the moriey invested, so mutatis mutandis worthy objects have been of an almost revolutionary capital grants that the laborer should receive a wage suffi- character. cient to support himself and his wife and family in health For example, if I were to run over to the steel mills of and reasonable comfort. ‘The tit for tat is perfect, It is all Bethlehem, Pa., to-morrow, I could see the workers of a bit- fair, just, reasonable, equitable and patriotic. ter Jabor-hating corporation voting by secret ballot, on “ com- ‘There is one compromise in all this give and take that any time,” for a shop committee of trade. unionists. nomi- particularly deserves to be noticed. ‘The worker is granted nated by the union. I could see union organizers taking mem- the right to join the union of his trade (provided everything berships in their respective internationals just. outside the is done peaceably and without coercion) in return for the gates. I could see the elected representatives of the men declaration which the employers most of all desire—that actually passing through that sacred door which leads into they should not be obliged to retognize or deal with any the office of the general manager, there to make their wage union not recognized before the war. In other words, the demands officially and in person. This in a city where a workers may form unions provided the unions are guaranteed few months ago the police department, zcting under orders useless. On paper this provision is, on the whole, a victory from the Mayor, vice-president of the Bethlehem Steel Cor- for the employers. ‘The workers may join unions as clubs, poration, forbade the use of any hall in the city for a union fraternities or lodges. ‘They may not join them as unions. meeting! So far as I am concerned, says the employer, these unions Or if I were to go to the office of the Brooklyn Rapid do not exist. Very satisfactory—but the joker turns up later, ‘Transit Company, another famous anti-union corporation, ‘There is one more of these compromises, the most splen- I could witness the employment of men who 2 few weeks did of all, that must be mentioned. Some representative of ‘ago were discharged and blacklisted for belonging to a labor the employers, while the Board’s principles were being drawn union. And I should perhaps see these same men, standing up, observed that, although he refused to have any de: December, 1918

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“You're a Liar!” with labor unions, he would be quite willing to meet with joint chairmen from applying the principles. And then, representatives of his own men. And some one else on the when the Western Union company defied the recommenda- Board, perhaps Joint-Chairman Frank P. Walsh, took him tion, and thus threatened to provoke a strike, there was but at his word. That observation has made more trouble for one thing for the President of the United States to do. And anti-union employers than anything else the Board has he did it. He took over, through the exercise of his execu- done. It was this provision for collective bargaining with tive power, the Western Union Telegraph Company in the the employees themselves that made possible the shop elec- name of the United States Government, and through the ns at Bethlehem. It was this that turned the previously Postmaster General issued orders for the reinstatement of mentioned compromise concerning the free and functionless the discharged men. labor union into the most powerful weapon labor acquired All this as a result of committing men to fai sounding during the war, as will appear presently. abstract principles! But what can a poor employer do? Can he state over his But, of course, it was not abstract principles alone that signature that he believes in paying the worker a wage less put teeth in the decisions of the War Labor Board. ‘Things than suffitient to support his wife and family in health and don’t happen in that way. ‘The teeth were in reality the teeth reasonable comfort? In this day, when democracy is every- of organized labor. Beneath the fine show of mutual confi- where in the air and in the newspapers, can he refuse to dence and accommodation there was always the knowledge: meet his own employees to discuss their grievances? Hardly. that labor, if it were nourishing a sense of unfair treatment, But it is a great deal to have persuaded him to agree to had the power to tie up the war programme of the country. these fair and just and reasonable principles in black and Phe employers knew it, the government knew it, labor knew: white. For then he can perhaps be obliged to live up to And a strike is a terribly fluid thing. It baffles the them. After all, the joint chairmen of the Board were com- military mind and the military technique. If an employer pelled to write awards in accordance with the Board’s goes on strike it is easy to seize his plant. A squad of sol- principles and policies; to have reversed them in the Board’s diers can do it, because the plant cannot run away. But decisions would have been to assume that the employer send a squad or a regiment of soldiers to force strikers. back members did not mean what they said. So when certain to work and things are very different. Strikers can run ‘employees of the Western Union Telegraph Company repre- away. Moreover, they can run in different directions. ‘To sented to the Board that they had been discharged solely keep men at work by sheer force would require nearly as for member: ion, there was but one thing to do, many soldiers as workers. ‘This obvious truth has not pre- and Mr. Taft and Mr. Walsh did it loyally. They recom- vented our military authorities from urging and actually mended, in accordance with the principles of the joint planning measures of the kind. But it happened that the agreement between labor and capital, that the men be rein- ‘men in control of the government’s labor policy were too stated. ‘True, the employer members of the Board voted intelligent for such suicidal tactics ‘against the recommendation. But that did not absolve the ‘And they had experienced one first-rate scare to convinee 4 THE LIBERATOR them of the wisdom of velvet glove methods. William L. of all the men and women employed in the plant, and it Hutcheson, president of the carpenters’ international, exists for the sake of the shop committee which it elects. raised the spectre of labor’s power when he called a strike Within this industrial union there flourish several tight craft of his men on the ship yards and publicly defied the govern- unions, free to do all lawful things so long as they do not ment day after day. This, coming from one of the most seek recognition for themselves. What happens? The very conservative-unions in the country, looked menacing. A few thing that an employer would have foreseen had he been thousand men who happened to hold a monopoly of a certain penetrating enough to understand that a labor union is not article that the government needed were able, it appeared, an institution, but an organism: the tight craft unions seize to stop the whole economic process of the war. It is true the leadership of the shop. Precisely because the shop union that the carpenters subsided and went back to work after is inchoate it cannot direct itself. Inevitably it follows the President Wilson sent his stinging letter to Hutcheson. But leadership of those who have proved themselves leaders. On formally they did not submit and did not capitulate. On each floor of the shop there is one man who is known for the surface it was a defeat for the men. But it was a defeat his aggressiveness and independence. ‘Ten to one, if there more valuable than many victories. Revolts of the workers is any union there at all, he is in it. He can command the cannot forever be quelled by, stinging letters. Labor, if solid majority of his union brothers; the vote of the other sufficiently goaded, has a weapon more stinging than a type- workers sprawls all over the shop. If but one worker in writer, indeed even more convincing than a gun. It became teri is a union man, you can be pretty sure of a majority of necessary to “co-operate” with labor. So the government unionists on the shop committees. These men have the habit presently outlined its sweeping labor policy, and the wal of working together. They have the habit of taking orders delegate was invited to put his feet under the table with from their internation4l office. So the “ walking delegate” the captains of industry. Labor, with Mr. Walsh's help, presently appears on the scene. In the union office, across cashed in its chips of potential power. the stteet from the plant, he directs the whole campaign, passes upon debatable points, outlines the wage demands, ‘But this was not enough. The government dared not His organizers are taking new membership applications just rest when it had persuaded the unions to be good. It found outside the shop, or hiring halls for union meetings. The it actually could-not get along without them. The war was non-union workers flock into the craft organizations, which ‘a wholesale problem. It had to be handled, so far as possi- rapidly approach one hundred per cent. ble, through central agencies. Mr. Baker, being a modern ‘This is inevitable, provided the principles of the Board are business man, saw the economy of signing a contract with faithfully observed. An inchoate body must articulate itself, fone official of a union instead of trying to sign a thousand It is bound to seek a backbone, a brain, a voice, a set of contracts with the individual carpenters on his cantonments. ‘arms and legs, and all the other organs which a live organ- Other government servants, and finally even the business ism needs. In doing so it will follow the line of least re- men on the Board, gradually came to see this truism of busi- sistance. And the line of least resistance in this case is to ness. Where a trade union exists there is always the possi- agglomerate about the skeleton craft unions already there. bility of a speedy and permanent agreement. Where there is In Bethlehgm there were some 6,000 union men out of no union there is chaos. If the workers of America had some 27,000 workers. The shop committees are almost really wished to obstruct the war programme, they could solidly union. In Bridgeport there were perhaps 7,000 not have done it better than by accepting the advice of cer- unionists out of 60,000 workers, and most of the union men tain employers and disbanding their unions. Labor organized were on strike when the elections were held. But the hand- did indeed invite trouble. But labor unorganized invited ful of union men still at work furnished a large percentage catastrophe. of the delegates elected. And when these delegates, the ma- So it came about that the War Labor Board protected jority of them non-unionists, finally came to elect a central unionism, encouraged unionism, and actually instituted union- committee of three, they chose the three union leaders who ism wliere none existed before. For to institute collective had been the most vehement in the strike. bargaining between the employer and his men it is necessary Te is this phenomenon which, it seems to me, is likely to to institute shop unions. If the workers in an industry elect mark the work of the War Labor Board as something of ‘a shop committee to represent them, they take on a corporate permanent importance in the history of the American Iabor function. If they agree to act together in accepting a wage movement. That it has raised the wages of fully a million bargain, they agree by implication to act together in rejecting wage-earners directly and perhaps twice that number indi- it, And even though they promise not to strike during the rectly; that it has pounded the concept of the living wage war they may later present their bill with accrued interest. into the head of the nation; that it has given public recog: ‘This is what the employers did not see when they so nition to the principle of equal pay for equal work, and with eagerly offered to meet ‘their own men” in order to keep reasonable diligence enforced a decent status for women; the walking delegate at @ distance. that it has placed a considerable weight of influence on the No one can say very confidently how things will go after side of the basic eight-hour day and has materially shortened the war. But this is the way it works at present. There the daily labor of many thousands of workers—these are is an inclusive, somewhat inchoate “ shop union” composed gifts which are admirable in themselves and rather to be December, 1918 15 expected of a benevolently disposed government, but liable to vided as between the crafts? contain a dangerous narcotic for the workers who. receive Shall the carpenters get a larger them. That the Board should Percentage of increase than the machinists? Shall the skilled have forced certain con- be permitted to use their monopoly value to defraud the un- spicuous labor-hating employers to eat dirt and reinstate men skilled? Such matters discharged for union membership; that it should have broken are likely to go up to international down headquarters, and the various craft headquarters had better the opposition to unionism in several large corpora- come to an understanding with each other. tions; that it should have been directly instrumental in in- they For, whether creasing the membership of like it or not, the power which they have in this industry the established international 's that of an industrial union! Let them once turn to fight- unions by 200,000 or more in the six months of its existence ing each other as crafts and =these are things which might have been gained by fighting, this power vanishes. if there had been no Board. It is a tenable theory that they ‘Thé old unions, when they face this situation, will be fac would be more precious to labor as prizes of combat than as ing the structure of the new world. For here, within the Prizes of good conduct. But, on the whole, I am glad to harmless-seeming collective bargains of the War Labor see these things come to labor as speedily as possible. The Board, are both industrial and craft unionism, the warp work of getting higher wages and building stronger unions and the woof of the coming society. If the workers can is only preliminary, and I for one like to see it accom- solve the problem in a single industry, say in Bethlehem, then plished with as little fuss and fireworks as possible. ‘The they can go on to greater and greater achievements. If not, Proper business of the labor movement is not to protect it- the new world is not yet. They must learn by concrete ex. self against recurrent injustice; it is to seize and administer Perience how necessary both elements are if labor is ever to the capital wealth of the earth. rule. Industrial unionism cuts squarely across craft union- ism, true. Bue it is precisely because the warp A Lawrence strike or a passionate mob revolt against the angles runs at right Colorado Fuel and Iron Company must stir the blood and to the woof that the fabric holds firm. make the heart beat faster. But the thrill of it cannot nearly And one thing more. “The employers have not accepted equal the depression of it. Such things should not be. Eigh- the decisions of the Board willingly. ‘They have expressed teenth century feudalism like that in Colorado must, of their horror, sometimes with a pretense of good grace, and course, be cleared away, but it is disheartening to have to sometimes with a yowl of pain. But they have explained to wait for the world to catch up with itself. What makes themselves that the decisions of the Board were made possible my mental eye gleam is to see, as I fancy I see in the work only by the shortage of labor. They are counting on the time of the War Labor Board, the creation of some machinery when three million soldiers shall return to claim the jobs of by means of which the solid work of the twentieth century the men now joining the unions. If these men were to be labor movement will be done. When I see the beginning thrown on the labor market all at once, without governmental of an industrial union being organized at,Bethlehem, I fancy control or restriction, the unions would lose in six months I see a good steel sword being forged for labor's right hand. more than they have gained in three years. Powerful forces And when, as in Wheeling, I see the workers’ committee de- in Bourbon Washington are at work. It is only too prob- ciding the length of the work-day from time to time, I am able that the workers may see what it is not to have a sure I am witnessing some things not dreamt of in the old government of their own in power to protect them. A. F. of L. philosophy. It is one thing to claim a share of HM. your employer’s money; it is quite another thing to tell him, in certain matters, how he shall run his shop. And this is just what the shop committee of today is coming to. It is OUT OF WHITE LIPS taking a kindergarten lesson in proletarian administration of OE ofhite Hosa question: Shall seven million dead ask production. for their blood a little land for the living wives and chile But this is not all. In grasping the shop union the old dren, a little land for the living brothers and sisters? A..F, of L. organizations haye grasped industrial unionistn, denounced by many of the conservative labor leaders for ‘Out of white lips:—Shall they have only air that sweeps two years past as round the earth for the breath of their nostrils and no an invention of the Kaiser. For the unions footing on the dirt of the earth for their battle-drabbed, which the War Labor Board has organized for the purposes battle-soaked shoes? of collective bargaining in Bethlehem, in Pittsfield, in Bridg port, in Waynesboro, are industrial and nothing else. A machinist, a carpenter and an electrician vote together for the ‘Out of white lips:—Is the red in the flag the blood of a same shop committee delegate to represent them. They do free man on a piece of land his own or is it the red of a different work, but they have the same boss. Reason enough! sheep slit in the throat for mutton? What comes next? In a few/months these shop committees, Out of white lips a white pain murmurs: Who shall have or a central shop committee, will be bargaining for wag Jand? Him who hes stood ankle deep in the blood of his perhaps with their eye on a war melon lying on the “un- comrades, in the red trenches dug in the land? divided surplus” shelf. But how shall this melon be subdi- Carl Sandburg. Russia in America N a play of Tolstoi’s now running in, a New York President Wilson. ‘The defendants’ lawyer, Harry Wei theatre there is a scene the corridor outside a berger, will undertake to show that all the statements made court-room. A man about to enter is stopped by the in the handbills are strictly true. He will put in evidence attendant. President Wilson's statements and promises concerning “Are not trials open to the public?” the man asks in Russia. He will point out that intervention contravenes surprise. these statements and violates these promises. go into the question of the truth of the reasons given for “Who are you?” demands the attendant. intervention. . . . Raymond Robins is to be called as a “Then “Tam the you public.” can’t get in.” witness this afternoon. He was in Russia as the head of ‘The corridor outside the federal courts in the old post- the American Red Cross Mission, knows the truth about office building here in New York is rather like that some- the Bolsheviki and is said to have proof that the Creel times. It is particularly hard te get into a court-room when documents are forgeries.” \people are being tried for violating the Espionage Law. If somebody in authority doesn’t like your looks, you stay ‘A newspaper reporter, the next day: “The Robins tes- ‘out in the corridor. Nevertheless, the corridor is a place timony? My paper would only print paragraph about it, where one may hear, in the interludes, interesting com- but I have almost the whole thing here, typed out, want to ‘ments on the solemnities within. see it?” These are the questions Major Robins was asked “Did you have a letter from Ambassador Francis, author- “Why, they are just children!” izing you to represent the United States as an intermediary between Mr. Francis and the Bolshevik government? “The police say they didn't beat them! Listen: I saw “Did you ever have in your possession some of the docu- ‘ ques- ments published by Mr. Sisson, known as the Sisson Docu- a man who had been arrested along with them, and ments? " tioned,’ and finally let go. He had been beaten—he showed “Did you investigate those documents; and did you reach me. I didn’t understand how anyone could be beaten up the conclusion that they were false? the way he was and live... He? Oh, fe had noth- “Lf your name was signed to the telegram sending those ing to do with these people. He just happened to be documents to the United States, was that name signed with standing in front of their house when the police made the your permission or by your direction? raid, and they took him along. . . .” “Did you show these documents to Mr. Sisson, and did “One of them didn’t live.” not he agree with you that they were forgeries? “Yes, Schwartz. The day after they were arrested, I “Didn’t you go officially to the Kerensky Cabinet, in re- saw a girl who knew Schwartz; I told her about the beat- spect to some of these documents, and did they not admit ings. She covered her eyes and cried, ‘Oh, are they beat- to you that the documents were forged and unreliable? ing him, too? He can’t stand it! It will kill him!” ‘Js it not true that the Soviet Government, particularly “ Have you seen Schwartz’s last letter? Here is a copy. before the ratification of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, asked you ‘The original is in Yiddish. ‘ Farewell, comrades. When to bring about an understanding with the Allies, with a view you appear before the court I will be with you no longer of continuing the war, on the part of the Soviets against Ger- Struggle without fear, fight bravely. Lam sorry I have to many, on condition of material aid, and that was to consist Teave you. But this is life itself. After your long martyr- of transportation, instructors for the army, mate dom, comrades. ” He did not finish the sentence.” food? “Have you not a protocol or document to that effect in Tt was a trial under the Espionage Act. Seven young Your possession? Russians had been arrested charged with distributing hand. “Was not that protocol drawn in your office as a conver- bills on the East Side denouncing intervention in Russi sation between you and Mr, Trotzky, and was not that put Six of them were on trial—Mollie Steimer, Jacob Abrams, in the form of queries put forward by the Bolsheviki Goy- Samuel Lipman, Hyman Lachnowsky, Hyman Rosansk ernment to the United States? and Gabriel Prober. ‘The seventh, Jacob Schwartz, was Isn’t it true that the Russian Government never received dead. a reply through you or from the Allies or from the United States in any way in answer to those queries? “The theory of the defense,” a clergyman was explaining “Haven't you been told by officials in Washington, that te someone, ‘is that these people were within their rights in that offer was received by the Government of the United protesting against intervention in Russia, and in criticising States and never made pul * Will Raymond Robins Please Come Out? “ Who was the public official or public officials who told and transport these Czecho-Slovaks to Siberia—or ‘through you that? Siberia to Vladivostok, and then they were to be trans- “ As far as you know, was any answer ever made by the ported to the Western front? United States to the offer of co-operation by the Bolshi “Isn't it a fact that a promise was made by the French Government against the Germans? and the Belgian Ambassadors and by the Czecho-Slovak “Don't you know that the Soviets offered to put the rail: leaders that they were going to go straight to Vladivostok, roads under the control of the Americans, so that no material and from there to the Western front, and would not stay in ‘of any kind could get into Germany? Siberia or in Russia? Was not ar offer made to the English and French, “Isn't it a fact that there is absolutely no evidence that to put the railroads under control of the Allies? there were any armed German or Austrian war prisoners “In the case of England, did not the Soviets offer to put ‘operating in Siberia as alleged by the American statement on the Black Sea fleet in the hands of the British navy so as to interventio save it from the Germans? “Isn't it true that at the request of Mr, Trotsky, the “In the case of the French, did not the Sovi offer to members of the American and British Military Missions trust the reorganization of the Red Army to the French off- made trip to investigate the situation in Siberia, and they ‘ers to enable them to continue the fight against Germany? made a report that Austrian and German armed prisoners Ten’t ita fact that the French and Belgian Ambassadors were not in control of the Bolsheviki forces in Russi and the Czech-Slovak leaders agreed that they were to be transported by the Bolsheviki through Siberia and then shipped from Vladivostok to the Western front, and isn’t it An innocent bystander: “ But where are the answers to ‘a fact that these promises were made to your knowledge? all those questions?” “Tsn’t it a fact that the French and Belgian Ambassadors i and the Soviet Government agreed to arm, equip and feed ‘The judge instructed the THE LIBERATOR “OF course the jury will find them guilty; you see— rom the newspapers: “As Judge Henry D. Clayton they're foreigners. Their accent—the way they wear their read the successive sentences, the, assembled radicals turned hair—the way they gesture when they are on the witness wide eyes to one another. It was as if.they could not believe stand—all that is against them.” their own. ears. ‘The prisoners themselves heard the verdict with apparent nonchalance.” (Tribune). “They let one off—the lucky stiff! Alll the rest found “Bach of the defendants was interrupted as it seemed - guilty.” likely he would launch into a speech. Jacob “What will they get?” Abrams, the first of the defendants to have his say, remarke “Abrams said he got three months in Russia for doing the i me to stand up for the people you love, same thing.” if to believe in ideals is criminal, then I'm glad to be a “And Karl Liebknecht got four years in Germany for criminal.” trying to overthrow the Kaiser and set up a republic.” “T’m glad you got that out of your system,’ remarked “Te all depends on the judge. ! Judge Clayton dryly.” (Globe). And when Abrams cried proudly: “1 do not ask for “J don’t think you understand Judge Clayton,” a school ““That makes my task somewhat easier,’ was the com- teacher was saying, while we waited for news of the sentence. ment of Judge Clayton. “Live been watching him very closely all through the trial, “Mollie Steimer had spoken only a few words when the and I think I know pretty well what he’s like. To him this judge interrupted. case is quite simple; the defendants distributed those hand- ““T'm not going to permit you to make a soap-box oration, bills, and so they are guilty—he really doesn’t see what af- Mollie,’ he said.” (Globe). : fairs in Russia have to do with it. But at the same time I “Te was not the prisoners who occupied the spotlight at don’t think he considers the offense a grave one. He is a the endof their own trial. 'It was Judge Henry D. Clayton, ‘good-natured old Southern gentleman, proud of his position, of Alabama.” (Tribune). and a little testy sometimes in behalf of its ‘ dignity’ when “Judge Clayton Jaunched into a two-hour attorneys are fractious, but after all a man who tempera- address which frequently threw the court into gusts of laugh- ‘mentally dislikes the fuss and. tedium of a court-room as ter.” (Globe). much as any of us do. He thinks this case has been un: “In long, rolling sentences, Judge Clayton thundered necessarily prolonged ; he could have settled the matter in ten forth his contempt for ‘ those miserable Anarchists who speak minutes. He regards people of the defendants’ views as from soap-boxes.’” (Tribune). fools—that's plain enough. But what he would like is to give them a scolding and thirty days in the workhouse to “ Judge Clayton's address, in which he affirmed the con- learn better sense. . You don’t think so? But re- stitutionality of the Espionage Law, abounded in references member how he has taken the case all along—how he his to the speeches of President Cleveland, Shakespeare, classic made use of every opportunity to lighten it up. I don’t think writers, and in references to his own career as a district at- a man who had in mind sending those boys and that gir] to torney and judge in Alabama, Texas, and elsewhere.” prison for a long term of years, would have joked with the (Globe). jury, quoted ‘The Mikado,’ and entertained the aud ““They call others non-producers, parasites,’ continued with scraps of his own autobiography from time to. time Judge Clayton. ‘T asked each one what he had produced. Especially I don’t think he would have questioned the de- Not one of them had produced even one potato.” (Globe). fendants in the way he did, asked them if they hadn't ever thought of going out West and doing real work on a farm, showed so plainly his gerferal contempt for their opinions. ‘Twenty y rs in prison for calling President Wilson a No, he couldn't do that sort of thing if he were going to “hypocrite”? give them the limit!” Or—twenty years in prison for being a Russian and be- lieving in the new Russia? The first is a grave enough crime in our democracy—the “Listen!” crime of disrespect for constituted authority. But it is not Someone was screaming in the court-room. ‘The door so great as the crime of disrespect of capitalism. Roosevelt opened, and a woman was led out. It was the aunt of Lip can call the President worse names than “hypocrite”; he man, She had just heard the sentence—twenty years, and can call him “ insincere,” ‘ meaningless,” ‘ mischievous,” $1,000 fine. and say that his war policy “‘ borders on treachery,” and still Abrams, twenty years, and $1,000 fine. stay out of prison; for he does not, like these rash offenders, Lochnowsky, twenty years, and $1,000 fine blaspheme against private property. Rosansky—because he was said to have given information Another Russian, Samuel Nikition, has just been sentenced to the Government—only three years, and $1,000 fine. in the, Magistrates’ Court to six months in the workhouse, Mollie Steimer—fifteen years, and $1,000 fine. after being beaten up by a crowd in a theater because he December, 1918 refused to buy a Liberty Bond. He was accused of saying: bounteous gifts by saying, “To hell with Liberty Bonds; to “To hell with Liberty Bonds; to hell with America”; this hell with America.” he denied, and the charge was not proved. I am surprised that the people in the words We quote the theatre permitted you to come out at all. ‘They should have of Judge Francis X. Mancusco in sentencing him: taken you and Iynched you right then and ‘Tue Cour: Nikition, you have been in this there. If anybody cording to your country, ac- was brought before me on a charge of that kind, I would own statement, two and a half years or send them away with the commendation of the Court. close to three years. This country has given you every op- Workhouse, six months. Portunity that it gives to free men. (Court record). liberty You have enjoyed the and the opportunities given by this country even prob- Russia! They hate you and wish to destroy you. They ably better than a citizen. You are getting six dollars a hate you because they fear you. ‘And so they wreak hysterical day, which is perhaps many times more than you could ever and savage vengeance upon the poorest and weakest earn in the country where you came from. Notwithstanding children, of your the fact that you are getting these opportunities and benefits ‘Tite Linzraror will be glad to receive funds with which from this country, when you were asked to buy a Liberty to appeal the case of Mollie Steimer and her fellow de- Bond you condemned the country and refused to buy it fendants, or for bail pending such appeal. We believe there Don’t you think you owe something to this country? are those in America who will wish to show in this way THe Derenpanr: I do. their friendship for Russia and the quality of their ‘Tue Court: That is the way in which you appreciate its Americanism, own

The Italian Workers and the War Carlo Tresca EL2ROPE is swent today from one end to the other by at his post for a short period and contributed considerably an irresistible and purifying revolutionary spirit, which to maintaining Italy's one year of neutrality. But he, too, will triumph over hate and greed and create social justice. soon, joined the war party, resigned from L’Avanti, and The proletariat of Italy is aroused, alert and vigilant. within twenty-four hours founded a new daily paper, Id When the “ social democracies ” of the old world were furl- Popolo. He admitted that 500,000 franes were donated to ing the red flag of the class struggle to raise the yellow flag him for this purpose by the Italian bourgeoisie. The So- of class harmony towards the sun, the proletariat of Traly cialist party membership was shocked. ‘The change was too remained steidfast at post, almost. alone, but faithful to abrupt. But the party remained unreconciled to the war and the principle’ of “no compromise.” The bourgeoisie there- the government, upon seduced the leaders. The Socialists’ faith reposed in ‘To appreciate the attitude of the Italian Socialist party, Benito Mussolini, the editor of L’Avanti, the brilliant daily the Syndicalist Union and also the general Confederation of organ of the “Official Socialist party” (Partito Socialista Labor, representing as they do the class conscious workers Ufficiale), and the syndicalists had centered around Aleeste of Italy, it is necessary to bear in mind the treachery of these De Ambris, the demogogue of pungent and facile phrases, two men. The Stokeses, Wallings and Spargos of Ameri who is now reported to be in America on a governmental are doctrinaires without followers; they were never identified mission. with the masses, who ignore their existence. But De Ambris Mussolini had assumed the Jacobin pose, popular with the and Mussolini were thoroughly identified with the working masses; time after time in the columns of L’Avanti or on the class. They fought in the greatest labor struggles, they platform his voice thundered like\that of Blanqui. De served faithfully and sincerely for many years, and the Ambris had successfully revivified the ranks of the organized workers had loved and appreciated them. But when the mo- workers, attacking conservative unionism and leading the ment of a supreme test came and the two leaders turned their young, daring, fighting syndicalist organization. backs upon their organizations, the workers of Italy com- Mussolini and De Ambris resolutely opposed war—but pelled then to surrender to the bourgeoisie as two generals when it was the Italo-Turkish War. At the very beginning stripped of their armies. of the European conflict De Ambris became a “ turncoat.” On the occasion of Italy’s entrance into the war he donned a military uniform, and, although he never went to the front, It is a mistake to speak of a “coalition government” in he ‘fought heroically” to carry with him the “ Italian Syn Traly, even with Bissolati, Bonomi, Canépa and others in dicalist Union” (Unione Syndicaliste Italiana), but they power. These men are considered Socialists by many in abandoned him to his destiny. Mussolini, however, remained America, although they left the party long before the war. THE LIBERATOR But, in order to justify their participation in the government neglected by her allies at that time. The newspapers had | as representatives of the people, their followers organized the openly expressed this feeling and editorially had made covert “Unione Socialiste Italiana,” which was poorly represented threats of separate peace with Austria, Undoubtedly the at the Inter-Allied Socialist Conference of London, and was Socialist opposition contributed in part. But it may be pos- there denied the right to vote. This so-called Socialist organ- sible (though here we cannot, of course, express ourselves ization is comparable with the “American Alliance for Labor freely) that a reason for Caporetto could be found in the and Democracy.” fact that an impending revolution was thereby checked. In spite of this, the Official Socialist party continues to We are not discussing revolution here in an academic represent the mass of the Italian workers, both numerically Minister Nitti, speaking in the Chamber of Deputies and in spirit. It shares the leadership with the Syndicalist ‘before Caporetto pleaded’ on behalf of the government with Union, whose most active organizers are either in prison or the Socialists to abandon the idea of a revolution in Italy interned like Armando Borghi. But the organization’s work at this time. continues silently and successfully. During the war the ‘With the enemy on Italian soil, the government, urged on Syndicalists have doubled their membership, reaching the by the reactionary bourgeoisie, the military party and the 200,000 mark at present. Their attitude towards the war “Socialist nationalists,” attempted coercive methods against remains unchanged and they are devoted to the rebuilding the radicals. Constantine Lazzari, an old communist and of the international.t now secretary of the Socialist party, was tried and con- victed of treason and sentenced to two years. Menotti Serrati, present editor of L’Avanti, was tried as “ accessory When the Italian government was preparing the country before the fact” in connection with the revolt in Turino, for war every student of world politics asked, “Will there where workers fought on barricades for bea revolution in Italy?” ‘The workers were actually ready. a week, and regi- One ments of Alpini and-Bersaglieri, sent to quell the disturbance, year before the proclamation of the war against Austria joined the reyolt. In these trials the strength of the Italian the workers had declared a general strike against the Italo- workers was again revealed. Serrati, who faced the military ‘Tripolitan War. For over a week Italy was swept by court with the utmost courage, was sentenced to only three the flames of revolt and the Republic was proclaimed in years in prison, and continues from his cell, “No. 48” (which ‘many cities. If in 1913, as in the year prior,, the same is also his pen name), to edit cohesion of radical groups had existed and a leader like L’dvanti? The govern- Malatesta had appeared, ment obviously feared to go too far with him because the another story might have been Official So party Congress of Bologna re-affirmed their written, The desertions of Mussolini from the Socialists, confidence in him De Ambris and Masotta from the syndicalists, Tancredi and applauded his extremist attitude. and Rigier from the anarchists, created enough temporary confusion, discouragement and indecision among the masses ‘The depressed spirits of the bourgeoisie were relieved to give the government the advantage at the psychological slightly after Caporetto when Filippo Turati, the leader of {. moment, But revolution was greatly feared a year later, the Socialist Parliamentary group of forty-two deputies, just prior to the military disaster of Caporetto, In America made a flowery speech in which he weepingly declared he this disaster was discussed widely, and the capitalist press would sacrifice his Socialist principles for the safety of the unanimously fixed the responsibility upon “Socialist defeat- country! His fellow Socialist deputies applauded him, but ists.” In Italy it is generally accepted, however, that the L’Avanti and the party protested vehemently. Dissension ‘causes were principally of a military nature, In December, grew, and the government hoped to see its strongest opposi- 1915, a large number of soldiers were allowed home on tion divided. ‘The question of a Governmental Committee on Jeave. But it is admitted by the Italian government that a Reconstruction aggravated this dissension. This committee large number refused to return, and in consequence and to ‘was organized on a large scale, and men of every party were avoid a repetition, further leave of absence was denied, fore invited to join, including De Ambris, Mussolini, etc. ‘The ing the soldiers to remain at the battle front for two yea Parliamentary Socialist group and the leaders of the Con- without relief. The soldiers naturally became tired, and the federation of Labor accepted the invitation promptly. But military command attempted to revive their exhausted spirits L’Avanti as promptly objected from the viewpoint of an un- with rapid and repeated attacks of a political rather than compromising working class party. Ie contended that to military significance. In the secret discussions of the Cham- participate in such a committee would not only violate party ber of Deputies it was proven that officers had encouraged tactics and lend a friendly hand to the government responsi- the combatants by promising peace after the attack. Another ble for the war, but it would be a virtual ‘ whitewashing ” psychological factor must also be considered in a thorough of Mussolini, De Ambris and company. understanding of Caporetto. Italy as a nation felt herself When Congressman Ya Guardia debated with Scott Nearing he One of the reasons given bythe oficial Soca t Party for aectin: assert ian gold iyavants nad Sen, proven pully of acting ane fae" iaat”tnteralted bor Conterencs. was. be Accounting compelled ter by law, of fact, froin * every L'avantl™ newspaper iassted {The ‘upon proponi publ led gt “the request of Sa ‘Gompers, whom they iy ouposed by all the capitalise papers so Sonslder Socialiem. opposed to the principles, tactics aad deals of international Fomains the only Dapes in ttaly"actually wing ¢ ehat Shave th a theseuph kvande® December, 1918

‘Turati took exception to the rigidity of the party's disci- THE CHALLENGER line. The capitalist press applauded him warmly and the government attempted to SHALL give you the keys to the gates of the four winds, assist him by forbidding the Con- ‘To the temple of the sun, gress of the party called to discuss the matter. After a ‘The ocean arches vigorous protest by the party, the government acceded, and ‘Will fall, the Congress met in Bologna in September, 1918. |The ‘The night will crumble, “extremists” triumphed, with 14,015 votes in favor of a Cities of men will lie, puny toys, to your hand. motion by Salvadori, criticizing the Socialist Parliamentary groups for their weak and vacillating attitude after Caporetto. In the palpitant earth ‘The motion by Tiratoschi for the ‘ moderates” received In the clashing of waters only 2,507 votes. “(The Socialist party is much stronger, Crying in the quenchless skies however, than Rises your will. these figures indicate, since it carries with it Red, a leaping fire; nearly 500,000 votes.) As a consequence of L’Avanti's agi Cold, a sword, tation and this motion, the Socialist deputies, with the ex- ception of Turati, resigned from Minister Orlando's “ Com- ‘Am Ia god that you worship? mittee on Reconstruction.” A lover, that you pant toward me? ‘The same question was discussed within the range of the ‘Am I death, whose lap is slumber? Confederation of Labor with similar results, Their leaders ‘You do not know me, also resigned. In the void you seek, ‘Thus the latest attempt in Italy to produce compromise In the furtive darkness, between the classes was foiled by the ever vigilant vanguard In pain, glory, adventure. of labor. T cast time behind me, the rind of the fruit. In connection with the problem of reconstruction, L’ vanti I go naked and happy said: “We have our programme of reconstruction and it ‘To the fearless peaks, is advisable to insist upon its application.” - This programme ‘The brooding. was formulated in the Convention of Milano in 1917 and ‘You do not see included numerous social reforms similar to those promul- ‘The night of the womb. gated in London at the Inter-Allied Labor Conferences. ‘You do not hear But there had unobtrusively been inserted into this recon- ‘The voice of the lightning. struction programme a paragraph in which the necessity for You do not clasp a republic in Italy as a basis of all reform was affirmed. The body of war. ‘Turati, who wrote the original resolution of the Milan Convention, now claims that the word Republic was added I shall bring you to the gates of the four winds. | by someone else, But the magic word Republic has now T shall open to you the temple of the sun. been’ discussed with increasing animation for many days. Babette Deutsch. The word Republic symbolizes a state of mind throughout Italy. The workers, who have postponed the revolution, first because of the desertion of some leaders, and second be- ‘WE WILL GO DOWN TO CORINTH cause of the invasion of the country, do not want further EAR, we have built no altars, postponement of the dream of Mazzini and Garabaldi ‘Nor sown the green hillside united Republic of Italy! With votive roses carven, ‘And haughty towers enslied, Let them return at twilight!— We will not be afraid SOLDIER-MOTHER To meet the gods of Hellas, GE tet © belt things for bim— By never a stone betrayed! His stockings, shirts and all— Let them rise up at dew-fall And as she worked she always seng From out the Aegéan Sea, ‘When he was small. Lovely and white and gleaming— Foam-given again, and freet She's busy now with knitting— With vine leaves and with myrtle, She took it up last spring; ‘And never a tower begun, She’s making things for him, but now We will go down to Corinth, She doesn't sing. Forgetting Babylon! Hazel Hall. Leslie Nelson Jennings. November Seventh, 1918 . : Bisreccy i, Commemorationof she Founding of ihe Seeem Regetlicna: Russia By Max Eastman ) (OMRADES and friends, this meeting is called to cele- sale murderers. This scheme is more plausible because it brate two of the greatest events in all the history of rests upon a certain basis of fact, It is no doubt true that mankind. It is the anniversary of the achievement of soc a number of people have been offically put to death for evolution in the Empire of Russia, and it is the date conspiracy to overthrow the Soviet Government and assassi- the dawn of social revolution in the Empire of Germany. nate its leaders. A report through Amsterdam, giving the ‘Today the German fleet is in the hands of the revolutionary official organ of the Bolshevik Government as its authority, working-class, and the red flag fies at Kiel. Tomorrow the says that the exact number since August is 68. army. Then Berlin and the old empire! > Te is also no doubt true that a number of people have ‘And we are not.only met to celebrate the establishment been unofiicially put to death by mobs of the Russian people of the Socialist republics, but we are met to demand that for the same crime, although we are assured by the British the capitalist republic of the United States keep its hands envoy, Lockhart, that Lenine is using every effort to bring off those republics. such things to an end. ‘The war is over now, and there is no excuse left. We Sometimes when I read the New York papers I am al- want our soldiers who are invading the territory of the ‘most convinced that they may be taking as many*lives over Russian Soviets under the command of a Japanese general, there in this way as one in every four days. And one in in order to make the world safe for English, French, Amer- every four days is the number of people that ate lynched, fcan and Japanese capital, called off. burned, tortured or strangled to death by mobs in the United ‘And we want our army of libellers and scandalmongers, States as a regular routine part of our civilization in times who are vilifying the name of the Russian Soviets through- of peace. out the width of the world, under the command of an un- Whatever reign of terror exists in Russia today, and reliable yellow journalist, George Creel, called off ; whatever extreme measures may have been taken. by the George Creel boasts that he has the full backing of the Russian Government to protect itself against conspiracies, United States Government in sending out documents pur- are the direct inevitable result of the invasion of Russia by porting to prove that the leaders of the Russian Soviets are foreign armies—an invasion whose commonly expressed pur- pro-German agents and traitors to democracy. But what pose is to stir up among the Russian classes conspiracies to is there in the behavior of the United States Government overthrow that Government. since this war began to show that it knows how to estimate T want you to imagine what would happen in this coun- the character and motives of revolutionary Socialists? try if an imperial Kaiserdom was invading our territory George Creel had also the full backing of the United from the south, and five imperial republics were sending States Government in sending out documents purporting to expeditionary forces down through Canada, all of them prove that the leaders of the Socialist party and the I. W. W. opposed to our form of government, all with the open pur- in this country were pro-German agents and traitors to pose of overthrowing it, and if'at the same time thousands of democracy. I read one of these documents, and I know seditious Americans were plotting to assassinate the Presi- that it was the deliberate lie of the man who wrote it. What dent and dynamite the Houses of Congress. Would not reason is there for Socialists to believe better of the Sisson Woodrow Wilson declare martial law all over this land documents? They prove that the United States Govern- in a hurry, and would not its executfon be more prompt than ment has the same opinion of Lenine and Trotsky that it has discriminate? And martial law is the respectable name for of Eugene V. Debs and Bill Haywood, and that is all they a reign of terror. prove, and the opinion rests upon the same basis of fact, If they give Eugene Debs ten years in the penitentiary namely, that these nien were loyal in the utmost extremity for intellectually disagreeing with the policies of President to the interests of the international working-class. Wilson on a public platform, what would they. give Theo- When the Sisson documents fell rather flat, a more plaus- dore Roosevelt if they caught him in a back cellar in Wash- ible scheme was devised for discrediing the government of ygton with a bomb in his pocket for the assassination of Russia. A bloody and indiscriminate ‘Reign of Terror” the President, and a knife to stick in the bowels of the Post- was devised, and) Lenine and Trotsky were denounced master General? That is exactly the situation in Russia. throughout the nations of the world as outlaws and whole- I venture to say that considering the comparative serious- December, 1918 ness of the crimes being committed, there is a more un- comrades are making true in Europe, the words of Karl scrupulous reign of terror in this country at this moment Liebknecht to those millions of revolutionary workers whose than there is in Russia. strong hands had opened his prison doors, “The day of Withdraw the invading armies and leave the Russian the people is come!” people free to develop their own destiny 2s they must, and I was thinking of this meeting as I walked in the happy’ Rot one-millionth part of the blood will be shed by them streets today. I was thinking that we here tonight must in the cause of liberty that these armies are shedding now pledge our hearts and hands that before we die these pave= in the cause of capitalism. ments of old New York will again be thronging with the T understand that they maintain in the District Attor- joy of the people, and it will be a joy that lasts longer than nney’s office and the courts that it is unlawful to denounce a day. We will hear the same horns, and the voices, and the invasion of Russia by Woodrow Wilson, I maintain the streets will be flying with banners, because the men and that it is unlawful for Woodrow Wilson to invade Russia. women who walk in them have come into possession of the ‘Just before I came here I was regaling myself with that sources of joy forever. delightful old romance, the Constitution of the United States. And I notice that the constitution locates the power to declare war in the representatives of the people. And it nowhere delegates to the executive branch of the Govern- Signs of the Times ‘ment the right to ship citizens out of the country, and half “T 2 thine tha confuses Samuel Gompers at these great way round the earth, to wage war on a foreign power European conferences, is that the words “ Soc without a declaration of war by the répresentatives of the and “labor” are continually hyphenated—used almost inter- people. I am told by a distinguished lawyer in this com- changeably to describe the same forces. ‘This confusion he munity that President Wilson is waging his own private finds bad enough in England, worse in France and abso- and personal war on the Government of Russia, in direct lutely complete in Italy violation of the spirit, and even of the letter, of the United Two receht events indicate that this understanding and States Constitution. ‘operation between the industrial and political movements ‘There is one thing that this war has done in this country of the working class, which is the strength of European So- —it has killed the Constitution. Tt has deeply destroyed cialism, is beginning at last in America. Miners and Tum- the force and honor of its provisions which guaranteed lib- bermen have been striking in the Northwest to demand the erty and the rights of man. And what are we going to do release of political prisoners, not merely the I. W. W., but about this? Are we going to try to pump new life and new Eugene Debs, Rose Stokes and the other convicted Social- blood and meaning of liberty into that old document? We ists. And the striking machinists of Bridgeport, when they “are going to leave it lying among the honorable dead, and were forced to yield to the War Labor Board’s decree in Sep- go forward to the day of power when we will establish a tember, organized an American Labor Party “ for the express new constitution with new life and a new meaning of purpose of exercising their political rights as an instrument liberty. And the essential principle of that constitution, as of industrial emancipation: thus paving the way for an auto- of the constitution of Russia, will be this, that no man or nomous Industrial Republic (shop control in the factories, ‘woman is a citizen entitled to vote, who does not live upon mines, mills and other establishments wherein workers are the income of his own labor. employed).”” A Hundred years ago throughout the countries that were The “American Labor Party” is only two months old, called democratic there was a property qualification for the and it did not elect any of its candidates to office. Perhaps franchise. Only those men could vote who lived, in part before the next election it will discover the Socialist Party. at least, upon the profits of capital. With the growth of CE the conditions of democracy that system was broken down, and by the end of the last century almost all men, and even THE OFFICE BUILDING ‘women, were entitled to vote, both those who lived upon WW E Hissed there in the stone entrance, the wages of labor and those who lived upon the profits of In the great cool stone mouth of the capital. And now the next step—the twentieth century— building, there has been established in Russia a labor qualification for Before it took you. the franchise, and only those men and women are entitled We kissed under the granite arches, to vote who do not live upon the profits of capital, but live ‘And then you turned and were gone by the actual service of their hands and brains. ‘And high about and above were the hard towered walls, In that change of sovereignty is expressed and ensured ‘The terrible weights of stone, relentless, the death of all caste and privilege and the birth of indus- But for the moment they had been kind to trial democracy—the greatest revolution and creative politi us, cal act in the history of mankind, ~And to that change we Folding us with arms must go deliberately and doggedly forward, if we are ever While we kissed, again to awaken liberty, and make true in this country, as our Helen Hoyt. Recent Impressions of Russia Verbatim Report of a Conversation with Albert Rhys Williams kept them for about an hour, and gave them back to me but wouldn't give me a pass on the basis of them. The second experience I had with him was in Michael- ovsky Manege, when he was making a speech from the top. of an armored car. When he finished he asked me to speak to the crowd. He talks English very well, and he said, “I will be your interpreter.” “It is not necessary,” I. said, “Twill try it in Russian.” And so I tried in Russian, and whenever I loundered he would throw me up a word. Well, from that time on I began to have a pleasant relationship with the man, and he got interested in my learning the Janguage. ‘The next time I had a little talk with him was at the Constituent Assembly, and he was rather bored with the whole thing, and, instead of trying to urge me to work for the cause, he began to ask how I was getting along with the language. He became excited about it—got himself all worked up, in fact, about my learning Russian. That shows how human and sympathetic he is. He had the simplest and most ingenious devices for learning it, too. I Drawn by Art Young remember his saying, “Don't talk with any Americans. It won’t do you any good anyway!” He always had a little: Albert Rhys Williams touch of humor in him. Q. You did learn it? Mr. Wittrams: No, I don’t think they need the excuse ‘A. I learned it fairly well. ‘That was the second time today of wiping out German influence in Russia. It is wiping Thad any personal conversation with him. Another time was ‘out the Bolsheviks, and no excuse is necessary. They are when the Germans were driving on Petrograd. You see, talking about taking the army over there after peace is made. T had stood up on that armored car and said that I would Mrs, Sroxes: There “ain't going to be no peace.” join the Red Army and fight with the proletariat if the Ger- Mr. Witiams: Not if Lenin is right. Lenin says we ‘mans came, and, having made speeches to that effect all have entered upon an era of wars that will last fifteen years over Petrograd, I could not very well crawl. And so, when —wars and the social revolution, And Lenin is a great the Germans came within two hundred miles of Petrograd, prophet among the Bolsheviki. They always say, “We vote and most of the Americans and the whole foreign crowd left against him in the secret conferences, and then we find he town on one excuse or another, I had to stay! I really is right. Lenin insisted that the first thing to do was to could not think of any good excuse! So I went up to join get Kerensky and afrest him. We said No, and of course the Red Army, and on the way I met Bucharin, who he was right as usual.” wanted to prove to Lenin that there was a great deal of Q. Did you see this portrait? Does this look like him? fighting force left there. He hustled me, up to Lenin, to A. That makes him look like a wolf. He looks more like prove that here was the whole foreign community ready to a nice bourgeois—the mayor of a small French city. He join the army! Lenin said, “We have no fighting force. does not impress you very much at first. He is stocky, ‘The people at Pskof gave up all the munitions there with- rather inclined a little bit to be robust, but gives the im- out firing a gun.” pression of solid strength; always talks with his face right “We ought to have the Pi int of that Soviet shot on up near you; the most courteous man I think I ever met the spot,” he added ife—and, of course, his enemies call him the most vit- Well, Lenin gave me a note to Krylenko, and then’ he I presented him when I first came, at the time of the got very much interested in the International Legion I was g, with my credentials from the Socialist party. He forming to fight for the Revolution, and the Soviet. After that I generally had access to him. And, of course, Claws Noto_Albert of fhe Gert Rhys Bag Williams, ftir war correspondent, trae Moss ithe, author cry of autrna T was always thinking that the Revolution was going to fail oe Sthorised “to the American people from Tenia and’ the every ten minutes, and I would get up elaborate schemes for December, 1918 2 injecting a little new life into it. He never would reject * hundred thousand rubles up, and just led me on a little, and them, absurd as they often were, but I can see now how he said, “ Yes, that is very interesting,” etc., and then he would took out of that mass of stuff the only little things that were have got me right in the act and grabbed that one hundred any good. There was some scheme for getting American thousand rubles, and then he could certainly have had some. technical experts out there—he was always harping on that.” great meeting—showing the American Imperialists at work. ‘The best thing about Lenin is that he is a realist. | Instead But his instinctive revolutionary honor and integrity is over- of trying to get you over to his side of the game, and get sensitive. He couldn't do that sort of thing. ‘That is only your support for his party, he will say, “The points for us an example, But that is why I say, from what I know of are 1, 2, 3, 43 and the points against us are 1, 2, 3, 4.” He these men—fellows like Volardarski and Neibut and Peters, said to me, Three months, it looks as though we can hold ‘men who are mentioned in those, Sisson documents—I found ‘on now ”—March, April and May—he was figuring it all them in my personal relationship with them so absolutely up—“ unless something big happens.” He was always ex- square, having such integri ving such honesty, even plaining to the people just how many chances they had of about little things, so much more than we have who were existence—just what the chances were of their going down; brought up as bourgeoisie—that all these stories are to me he never injected one note of bluff or voodooismn, merely vapid falsehoods. Q. Was that the Trotzky appeal? Q. Who is the popular one, Lenin or Trotzky? A. Trotzky was always more inclined to see things red A. Lenin. didn't get much applause at the time I heard and rosy and glorious. I had a good many experiences with him speak; I suppose the people were tired of waiting eight ‘Trotzky, too—one very lurid experience. hours, and besides he gave them a very general and abstract I will tell it to you, to give you a litte sidelight on speech. Trotzky’s speeches were always metallic, always Trotzky. Trotzky had just written some great appeal to full of pep and wonderful stuff. Robins said Trotzky the workingmen of the world. Raymond Robins read it, was the greatest platform orator he had heard in twenty and he said, “That ought to go into Germany. I'd put years.* Of course, the revolution got Robins; although down one hundred thousand rubles this moment to put a he always maintained he was not a Bolshevik, they had faith speech like that into Germany.” I went up to see Trotzky— in his honesty and integrity—and he thought Lenin the Thad spoken on the same platform three days before in the greatest man in Russia. ‘ November uprising, so I knew him pretty well. He said, But Lenin does impress you in the end. He works eigh- “Come right in.” I said a few general things, and I had teen hours a day. He is never tired. He is always sane, to talk in German because he speaks hardly any English, always reasonable, always has a smile, always courteous, and my German is not very fuent—luckily. In and he has such an amplitude.of knowledge. For example, talking to him I spoke’ about Robins, how en- he asked me about the two divisions in the Socialist Pro- thusiastic he was—‘why he would give one hun- paganda League in the United States—in other words, about dred thousand rubles to put that paper into Germany!” certain currents in our own Socialist movement, that I did He was sitting there—you know Lenin always treats you not even’ know existed! He knew every fine point of dis- in a sort of little, incidental, humorous way; but Trotzky tinction between the Socialist Labor party and the Socialist hhas more of a ministerial attitude, due to his sense of revo- party. lutionary dignity. I repeated to him, “One hundred thou- ‘And he knew a whole lot about psychology. It is easy sand rubles!” He just simply let a siren shriek out of him! enough to make a god of your hero, but Lenin really does ‘Then he talked, very fast; I understood him to say. that deliver the goods. Robins gave two million rubles to Breshkovskaya, in order Q When did you see him last? to put patriotic dope into the people, and was now trying to A. I saw him the day I went away. At that particular bribe the Bolsheviks,—and that he was using me as a me- time the Americans were playing in very good there, and dium for it. He called the guard—an honest little sailor America stood high with the Bolsheviks. They were ready ‘and soldier—and delivered a terrible speech in Russian; the to make many concessions to Americans. So they allowed word “Breshkovskaya” came in every moment, and I un- me to collect a lot of literature to take to’ America; derstood enough to gather that, after having worked for the and they also prepared a moving picture reel, showing the Bolsheviki from the time I arrived there, because I saw they creative and artistic side of the Socialist revolution, and they were the only party that could save the people from ruin, printed these in English—they spent hundreds of thousands T was going to be sent to prison! I grabbed him by the arm of rubles on these reels to show America— and made him sit down in a chair and we talked for an Q. What became of them? hour. “The Americans believe that they can do everything A. Oh well, of course, they were never allowed to come with money,” he said—" this man for a hundred dollars, that over. Lenin knew it would happen. He said, “I’m afraid man for a thousand and some other for a million.” they won't allow this literature to get into America, It is Q. You convinced him that he had misunderstood you? pretty bad literature, really.” That is the last time I talked A. Naturally. Now, of course, I don’t need any further with him. proof of his honesty than that incident. If he had Raymond Roding was the head of the American Red Cross and been cunning at all he would have got me to lug this one Boutevika an unofclal representative trom the United Staten Goverment to fo the g

THE LIBERATOR Q. Did he give you any message to deliver to American same feeling has been aroused all over Russia—as I know Socialists? from reports since I left. The Allies have given the Soviets ‘A. Well, I asked him if he had any message, and he wrote the distinction of martyrdom. All the people of Russia think me a letter. I will give it to THE Liperator as soon as ‘of now is that those who fought and died for them are T get my papers from the State Department. Bolsheviks. What is happening over there is not bad from a socialist standpoint—I mean the attempt to smash the Bolsheviks—because it fills the Russian people with the most “Bolshevik Dictatorship” intense feeling of loyalty towards Bolshevism. It will in- Mr, Sroxes: The claim is being made here in certain crease class-consciousness to a terrific degree; nothing could quarters that only a very small number of the people support have happened better for the strengthening of the class- the Bolsheviki, and that the overwhelming proportion are conscious feeling. with all the other Socialist parties. ‘The feeling is certainly strong. I asked Rodzianko, the A. Well, it is impossible to reply to that with statistics, man who was President of the Duma—a great big elephant but there are some indisputable facts. For instance, what of a man and awfully fine, too, in his way—I asked him, happened at Vladivostok? You know what happened there “Why don't you play the American game and” beat the ast July—the results of the election Before the election I Socialist party to the working cless by offering them a lot of had a talk with Admiral Knight, the American admiral. He reforms and take the edge off this class war?” He sai sid “Yes, but we have been aligned with the old Czaristic “I know what a bad crowd those Bolshevists are. At regime, and we are associated in their minds with it to’ stich the same time I respect them, and not this gang who are an extent that it is a sheer impossibility for the masses to claiming to be the Government of Russia and don’t dare believe anything we say,, they distrust us so thoroughly.” put their foot on the soil. But as for the City of Vladi- Even from a self-interested standpoint, America’s inter- vostok, I believe that this is really not a Soviet city.” And vention is a mistake. Whether the Bolsheviks are in the T said, “T agree with you. I don't think it is a Soviet city majority or not, they are the livest people in Russia; the for a good many reasons. It is an offcer,city, a big industrial aggressive, able, keen, thinking class who have energy and and bourgeois city.” daring are Bolsheviks, or at least of the Soviet crowd, and ‘The Bolsheviki were going to have an election of the all the leaders are between twenty and thirty-five years old— Soviets on July 4th and they had told me they expected to nine out of ten of them—and they are the fellows who are Tose some of their feats in the Soviet, because some working going to make Russia. ‘They were first of all kindly dis- sen wanted intellegentia to represent them from the shops. posed towards America. Even the emigrants from America, ‘Then the intervention came, and the Allies declared that they who have reason to hate American capitalism, were more could have an honest election; I think the Allies really Kindly disposed toward America than toward any other believed that they were going to show up in this way the nation in the world. Now we have turned them all against falsity of the Bolshevik claims. It was held the last Sunday us. How foolish that was! I am speaking from the stand- in July. point of the capitalist now. When I told this to Colonel There were two big parties, the Moderate Socialists House he said, ‘Yes, it is true’ representative: under the editorship of Seratti (who is now in prison), “Last night left for Italy four magnificent antediluvian was especially commended for “having sounded the alarm monsters, Spargo, Simons, Kopelin and Howat, delegates of a against class collaboration”; the parliamentary group was Social-Democratic League of U. S. of America. . . there ‘specially criticized for not having more thoroughly voiced # nothing more to say. Have pity on these poor devils, the international position of the party as directed by who, having slept four years in some museum, have now the former congresses at Reggio-Emilia and Ancona} awakened with the mentality of August 4, 1914, and just to insure a thorough observance of party decisions by discovered the war, the war of four years ago. Be pitiful, individual members of Parliament, the National Committee comrades of Italy. ‘They are the Buontosauris, Dinosaurus, ‘was giver power to expel Socialist members of Parliament Plesiosaurus and Diplococus of the social-nationalism; ante- who fail to express the sentiments of the party or partici- diluvian monsters, a fortune for a museum.” ° This “com: pate in activities to which the party is opposed, the expelled radely” introduction was followed by a series of articles member having the privilege of appeal to the membership in the Italian Socialist press explaining the nature of the through a referendum. American mission's visit. > Te was this resolution which received 14,015 votes, carry- However, having set out to purify the Socialist movement ing the Congress by a clear majority of 9,000. of Europe in the fire of social-patriotism, the crusading party naturally would not be discouraged. They appealed to the The Inter-Allied Conference Party Executive for an audience, in a letter both guarded Following this congress the reasons for the Party Execu- and affectionate. The reply was laconic, omitting even cus- tive’s decision not to send delegates to the Inter-Allied So- tomary salweations,—the audience was granted on the ground cialist and Labor Conference last July were made public, as of mere courtesy. The conference lasted for three hours, follows: (1) Samuel Gompers, at whose request the con- during which the visiting Americans “explained” them- ference was called, should not have been considered at all, selves, after which the National Executive Committee re- since the American Federation of Labor, in whose name plied, stating simply that the Italian Socialist Party was in he acted, has no standing in the International Socialist thorough accord with the position of the Socialist Party of December, 1918 America on the international situation as expressed in the United States i St. Louis resolution atid other party declarations. We sur- mise that the conference did not last much longer. On Nov. 4, the National Executive of the Socialist Party issued the following proclamation to the Congress of Treland the United States: ‘The National Executives of the Irish Trade Union Con- “1, We DEMAND that in the coming peace 0 the the principles fullest gress and the Labor Party have issued a manifesto calling of selt-determination of peoples ‘be ataerted and races of bath upon their various sub-divisions to put up labor candidates for Ge with the right of all Powers tubject te peoples determine the conditions Parliament in all districts. ‘The parliamentary campaign is of their vn ‘and existence the Allied parties—even the of Russia have complete to be waged entirely independent of other NND that the people problems and that the integrity British Labor Party. “Independent of the Home Rule freedom to solve their as internal well as that of Finland, the Baltic Party, independent of the Unionist Party, independent of Se froviness, Russian Poland, tersitorg, Lithuania, Ukraine nd the other Border the Sinn Fein Party, and independent of the British Labor es, be preserved Party, its nearest neighbor in the International, the Irish EMAND that the present preliminary and all sub- Labor Party will, therefore, enter the General Election with sequent peace negotiations be conducted with of the peace, strictest arrived ob- platform, with its own prin- seivGhed of the principle of open covenants its own candidates, on its own at publicly. of iples, policy and programme.” «if, We DEMAND that duly accredited sepetentave organizations Trish labor considers the economic issue supreme, but will subjeer peoples and of in the all economic countries, and participate political in the final ‘enter its fight in the coming elections on national “self- aT peace ike conference working clase determination,” since that is the great demand of the Irish “'s, We DEMAND. that passports be granted. International representa: people at this time. In explaining the principle of self- tives of Labor and Socialist Groups to attend. between the labor determination, its platform declares that the Irish Labor {groups Gnferences of the for belligerent the exchange and neutral of opinions nations. Party means thereby ‘that Ireland, no less than Belgium “\@ We DEMAND that this goveroment refuse to consider or Servia, Poland or Finland, Bohemia or Esthonia (and ay proposal for economic war ater the War” these no less than Ireland) shall have the right to decide its own form of government, to choose its own sovereignty, to determine its own destinies without limitations, except such as are voluntarily conceded or are common to all na~ tions. We assert before the world that Ireland is denied this right by the power of armed force, and we call upon the democracies to make good their professions by their actions and set free the Irish Nation from its involuntary bondage.” ‘The ultimate aims of the Labor Party go far beyond this nationalist dream; they are defined as follows: “To recover for the Nation complete possession of all the natural physical sources of wealth of this country. “Tq win for the workers of Ireland, collectively, the ownership and control of the whole produce of their labor. “To secure the democratic management and control of all industries and services by the whole body of workers, manual and mental, engaged therein, in the interest of the Nation and subject to the supreme authority of the National Govern- ment. “To obtain for all adults who give allegiance and service to the Commonwealth, irrespective of sex, race or religious belief, equality of political and social rights and opportunities. “To abolish all power and privileges, social and political, of institutions or persons, based upon property or ancestry, or not granted or confirmed by the freely expressed will of the Irish people.’ ‘Among those nominated for Parliament for a Dublin dis- trict is James Larkin, an official of the Transport Workers’ Union, now residing in New York. A Sketch of Jim Larkin THE LIBERATOR brate next! But among all your moods, there are few of the BOOKS clear pagan happiness which you adntire. I know of only ene poem in which that mood is perfectly sustained—your Colors of Life “Rainy-Song,” with its “Happy, sweet laughter of love without pain, Colors of Life: Poems and Songs and Sonnets, Young love, the strong Tove, buraing tm the rain.” by Max Eastman. $1.25 net. Alfred A. Knopf. But this mood, in your book, is like one of those tranquil ‘AVARISH MAX: ~ forest pools of which you speak in another poem, in which One of the disadvantages of having: been associated the ‘hunted runner dips his hand and cools his fevered th you in editorial work for several years is that every ankles.” There is much of loneliness, as of a child, of unap- time the authorities indict you for something they feel that peaseryent, of doubt, of torment, of all Baudelaire’s “ Bien- they must indict me, too. We are, in fact, supposed to spend faits de la Lune.” Your poetry, I think, will be most liked all our time conspiring together. I have often thought it by those into whose soul doubt has entered ; whose will is, as would be interesting to conspire with you. I admire the you say, quality of your mind, at once so hard and receptive, so scientific and yet so poetic, so cool and yet so eager; and if Hoa oN cose ee eee only we succeeded in finding anything upon which we were those “anxious hearts uptroubled from their beds ”—“ for no. really agreed, I would gladly have conspired with you for good reason”; those for whom “no journey has an end.” the shéer intellectual pleasure of the thing. But, alas, we You seem to me most akin to those eternally restless spirits hhave never conspired about anything—not even about getting of the late Renascence, who would have nothing or impossi ut the magazine! For the other disadvantage of being your ble things. It was characteristic of these that they seasoned editorial confrere is that one sees you so seldom; on those all their thoughts of beauty with some sharp spice of pain. rare occasions when you are in the office, you are always And when I read the strangest and most beautiful poem in. hurrying to catch the next train back to the country to write your book, my mind goes back to them; I think of that poetry, or to read it, or to set down in cool and lucid prose beautifully strange poet, John Doune, and of how his ghost your reflections upon it. And now that your newest book, must wish there had been X-rays in his time, that he might a collection of poems and of prose essays upon the art of have written— poetry, has been published, and I want to talk to you about the ideas which it has aroused in my mind, I am compelled ‘Gan yoy moriag fe tn lesor eee ee to resort to this device to secure your attention. ‘We saw with eyes our fragile bones enamoured At this point you will perhaps begin to suspect that, under Clasping sadly on the pallid screen.” the ingenious pretense of talking about you, I am really going Doune would have liked “A Visit "—better than I do; to talk about myself. To lull your indignant suspicions 1 the poet of the “fleurs maladives” would have understood, shall tell you why I like your poetry. I do not promise to better, I fancy, than the gentleman who reviews poetry for explain to you why, when I read some of your poems—such the Tribune, the meaning of “The Lonely Bather”; Poe as “ Coming to Port,” “ X-Rays,” and the sonnet to Isadora would have appreciated the poignantly unromantic candor Duncan, there should come, with a premonitory icy thrill of “Fire and Water.” And it is of such spirits, and of along my spinal marrow, that utter transport from the yourself, too, I think, that you write, in your “ Coming to World of reality into a realm of the imagination, from Port "— * which I emerge reluctantly as from a dream, . . . I suppose “There noes forthe unreting fever it is because these poems are beautiful. Beauty is a mystery, Thre See cae as yet unsolved by me. All I offer to tell you is why, when I come to your poems, not yet knowing whether they will Guess jen beraveves ostee eatacae prove beautiful, and not overconfident of that transcendent T hope that all this does not sound like praise; for, I as- miracle, it is always with eagerness, with a relish for a sure you, nothing was further from my inten T was about _ specific quality in them which I have come to expect and of to tell you how much I disapprove of this kind of poetry. which I am seldom disappointed. You will perhaps be sur- It is true that I like these poems; I cannot help that, T al- prised to learn what that quality is; for in your prose you ways like beautiful things. But when they clash with my show predilection for a kind of scientific and happy paganism, theories, I sternly disapprove of them. And I have a theory and you may perhaps imagine that as a poet you illustrate about poetry; I will not inflict it upon you here, but it re- these amiable virtues. It is not so. You have the founda quires me to classify your work—along with that of Shakes- tion of such a temperament in a singularly childlike whole- peare, Keats, et cetera—into the period of artistic creation heartedness of surrender to your emotions, and an equally dominated by the pain-motif. The other kind of art is that fearless and naif expression of them, whatever they may be; which is dominated by the pleasure-motif; of this art few the reading of your poems is distinctly an adventure, for convincing examples exist; but, according to my theory, it ‘one never knows what emotion it will occur to you to cele- is the art of the future; and I want you to practise it. . . « December, 1918 Js there any reason why a sad poem about death should be than my sense of the world’s struggle toward an age and more beautiful than a glad poem about birth ; why a pathetic universe of it.” Yet what follows is apologia rather than oem about being jilted should be more beautiful than a gay apology. You have never found your “undivided being” poem about—Iet us say, not being jilted; why starvation in that struggle, but rather in those “ moments of energetic should prove a better subject than a banquet, or suicide than idleness” when life attains self-realization through you— the pleasures of tennis? I know it generally works out that ‘moments, in.a word, when you are poet. “Life is older than “way. But need it? Can’t we take enough interest in pleasure liberty. It is greater than revolution. . . . And life is what’ | to make poems out of it? I think we can. Let me remind T love. And, though I love life for all men and women, “you that Sappho wrote poems about marriage, and Pindar and so inevitably stand in the ranks of revolution against -odes.on the Olympic games, in exactly this spirit. I think the cruel system of these times, I love it also for myself.” ‘the same Christian morality which preserved for us chiefly And therefore you have feared and avoided that ‘mo- ‘the tragic portion of Greck poetry has poisoned our taste, notonous consecration” which your friends have expected "until we can hardly conceive pleasure as a motif of high art. you to exemplify. . . . From this defiant apologia, and from ‘Yet pleasure, as well as pain, can become so great as to de- the rapt Iyric zest of the pages in which you do break away “mand the asstiagement of art; pleasure, like pain, can fill and from yout civic responsibilities I make no doubt that, were flood the soul to such an extent as to pour out inevitably into you free to choose, you would be: as simply and wholly oc- thythmic sensual expression. Christian poetry has become cupied with poetry as would be humanly possible. Gothic, like its architecture; visibly full of the pain of stress But you are not free to choose. If you had to live your and aspiration, and gargoyled with quaint neuroses. We life over again, you would do just what you did; and so ‘need to learn to write poems which are like Greek temples, would your fellow artists of the Masses; not alone, if I may ‘or, better still, like the dances and games of which those say s0, because of the public need for the truths you had to / temples preserve, in frieze and statue, the joyous and lovely utter, not alone because of the great black void of silence ‘mementoes. and cowardice into which some brief lightning-flashes of But this is not the only “ praiseful complaint” (to adopt candor must needs rip their way, but for another reason also, an Elizabethan phrase from your book) which I have to make Tt was more interesting to talk truth than to create beauty. against you. And that, I wish to complain to you, is the trouble with T read this book with a curious feeling about you which being an artist nowadays: other things are so damnably “Thad more than once about myself during our recent ad- ‘ventures in the federal courts. I sometimes wondered then, "in the midst of some legal argument, suddenly T doing here? Why am I not at home v The Liberator Pamphlets The scene became, in such moments, utterly unreal. fact was that I was an artist—not a politician. How in the In response to many requests we are printing a series of “world did I come to be mixed up in this political cause prints pamphlets of articles on timely which subjects. have appeared Some of in these The will Liberator. be re= celebre? And now I have the same surprise, as I read this Others are new material not in print elsewhere. We an- Book and think of you back there in that musty court-room, nounce three pamphlets now ready: ~ For you are revealed by these pages as so pfe-eminently 4 lover of beauty and so delicately sureshanded a creator of it, 1. Max Eastman’s Address to the Jury in the that your participation even in the most vital politics seems Second Masses Trial incongruous. For I am not ashamed to say that to me art 48 pages; single copies, 10c.;, $8.00 per hundred is more important than the destinies of nations, and the (Sent free to subscribers) artist a more exalted figure than the prophet. Tet is useless for people to say that it is a superior type of Il. “ The Sisson Documents ” ‘mind which can function both in politics and in art. It is By John Reed ent, which but temporarily assuages the un- 20 pages; single copies, Sc.; $4.00 per hundred happiness of the type in question. For, strictly between our- (Sent free to subscribers) selves, that superiority is a painful one, consisting in fact | IL. The Trial of Eugene V. Debs of a spiritual conflict between opposing impulses. . There are | By Max Eastman signs of the pain of that conflict in your prefatory essay; | Reprinted. from the November Liberator (includes you say: Debs" address to. the court upon receiving the ver= Te is impossible for me, feeling and watching the eternal i} dict) ; single copies, 10c. ; $8.00 per hundred. tidal currents of liberty and individual life against tyranny Order from and the type, which are clashing and rearing up their highest rimsoned waves at this hour, to publish without some word The Liberator ‘of deprecation a book of poems, so personal for the most part, | 8 Union Square ‘and reflecting my own too easy taste of freedom rather 46 THE LIBERATOR interesting—and promise to remain so! How can one be an artist in a time when the morning paper may tell of another THE HIGHER LEARNING IN Bolshevik revolution somewhere? . . . I have the utmost AMERICA envy of those of my artist contemporaries who placidly i A new book by Thorstein Veblen nore what is going on, or who patronizingly use these go- jngs-on as “ material ” for their art. An explanation of their A work that tells the truth about American” un poise, itis true, is usually feebleness of intellect; if they had foreuness versities and the the effect interests on faculty that and actualy on students; direct the a sense enough to realize what is going on, they would lose Consideration ofthe real purpose of a university and their airs quickly enough—one whiff of what.is brewing freates of the distortion Hohenzollern of the presidents ideal through and Junker a system trstees that would upset their placid psychic digestions for the rest of ‘These hints only slightly reveal the contents of their days! Yet I envy them their singleness of purpose . THE HIGHER LEARNING IN AMERICA and this brings me the heart of what I have to say. A Memorandum on the Conduct of Tam going to propose to you, Tavarish Max, a conspiracy Universities by Business Men, by ‘a conspiracy on behalf of artists; a conspiracy which has for its purpose the achievement of the spiritual serenity neces- ‘THORSTEIN VEBLEN sary to the large, full-energied production of art. Mr. he same Veblen's faultless other reasoning books (which and ironical may. presentation truly be regarded that marke a8 Of the’ two ways to secure serenity, one is forever lost to classics), inform this work as well, ‘This new booke must for us. The saying, “What people don’t know doesn’t hurt fnook ever chaige jn the struggle the direction for of academic the higher freedo education; it ie ey the to texte an them,” is not true of us; for it is precisely what we don’: American eulture know that does hurt us. ‘The unknown future disturbs us by BOOKS BY THORSTEIN VEBLEN: the flickering and doubtful intimations of its approach. We Tue Hicuer Lesrxixo 1x are restless because our avid curiosity is teased incessantly, has AMERICA ‘Tue Ixsrixct oF WorkMAN- been teased now for four years, by premonitions of vast social ‘Tur Narure oF Peace change. What I propose is quite simple: it is merely that we ‘Tue Tueory or tHe Leisure Tnerentat GeeMANy AND THE find out exactly what is going to happen for, say, the next Cuass, INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION fifteen years. That is all. Then we shall not have to be Each $2 net, postpaid $2.15; at bookstores or from changing our minds every few weeks; we shall know what is in the morning papers without rushing out to buy them; B.W. Huebse PUBLISHER New York City and we shall be able to write poetry and fiction in peace I am no political economist; but purely as a suggestive outline of the mode of procedure to be followed in arriving at the desired conclusions, I offer the following text by Roger W. Babson, with my own interpretation: “Yo return to pre-war conditions, as certain Republicans ‘would like to do, is impossible. “These conditions can never announces the offer of “return, We must choose between the new democracy, led by President Wilson, or Bolshevism, led by the irresponsible. Republican victories will be sparks for revolutions.” This brief paragraph seems to me to contain the history A PRIZE OF $500 of the next fifteen years. It requires, however, to be ex- panded, which I venture to do as follows: “To return to the pre-war stage of capitalism in America would be to for an original essay on plunge the world into universal class-war. Russia is already a Bolshevik Republic, Austria seems on the verge of becom- ing one. Germany may be the next, and who knows what may happen in Italy, France, and even in the British Empire? The League ‘These Bolshevik uprisings may be put down, but the menace of Nations ‘of Bolshevism remains. The political and economic institu- Its Practicability tions whose disintegration has produced the Bolshevik me and Its Needs ace are powerless to cope with it. Bolshevism must be held in check by the New Capitalism, of which the political and For full particulars send 12 cents economic foundations have already been partly laid during for a copy of the November issue of the war, and which will take its completed form as a League “THE WORLD TOMORROW,” ‘of Nations to Prevent Bolshevism. Against this League of 118 East 28th Street, New York City Capitalist Nations will be arrayed, if not an actual League of Bolshevik Republics, at least an international Bolshevik “effort to create such a League. If the Russian or other Bolshevik Republics sur- “vive or revive, they will, while building up Du Conventions, Hearings, ‘their own proletarian political and eco- ae eee een nomic forms, endeavor to promote the dit ass Meet C., integration of political and econom DRESS ue ‘institutions in the Capitalist States; and ‘Tho “tees problem” has REPRODUGED VERO hee, will te powerfully, Seti ae teiestas REPRODUCED Ey | though unintentionally, assisted in the ‘Glnement, of the “meta ' European States by dynastic and aristocratic Then drese “probiem has. been Complete Stenographic Re- Bee che. serigsle. ‘between Bol- Solved Yor sou ports furnished in record jevism and the New Capitalism in Europe BE Bnet oth Steeot time and_in any quantity ie bbe so precarious that the United States Peete Translations in All Languages, Multigraphing, Addressing, Mimeographing, Public Stenog- raphy, Ete. between the New Capital- CONVENTION REPORTING sm fe and must Bolshevism, choose between a League of isit COMPANY “Nations led by President Wilson and a Ae De he a ae ; 2 UMION SQUARE, NEW YORK, ¥. ¥. League of Peoples led by Nikolai Lenin. Socialist Library! beg Wy defection of the United States from cae een

he economic and political plans of Presi- ‘By Karl Dannenberg lent Wilson will weaken the European can caren an aernas States in their struggle against Bolshevism. ————= \Phe Republicans are disposed to return to 120 pases + Foon pontont ’ DR eatisge of copisinn, ‘Ths vould ednond rate, to asus and Make seedy loot fate an economic chaos at home, and pre- Radical Review Publishing Association ‘New Day.”—President Wilson. pitate Bolshevik success abroad. Republi er ee ehh te 4 I . o

Fea pt pats for sora | Study Socialism ; what Mr, Babson means, and “think it is, and if he is correct in his state- io ee —by Correspondence | ent of the° situation, there is only one Free Book Offer wstion left to be answered before we a Socialist ‘Dhe World lines." is being "Thinking. reconstructed men and on cnow the history of the next fifteen years, How Nature Cures Soden “iistory ents, Net” Sarnoules For it will be noted that Mr. Babson’s By Foremost Drugless Healer i ‘oursee’ Class by. Strasse, Drote ment implies that military force alone in America and other prominent not suffice to crush the spirit of mete, toes | teachers." month ‘course, Bolshevism, but that it requires President Bees hen ieaiaets TawORaLL: ASK FOR FOLDER “ flson’s new democracy in full- swing. mign 6" sSterel "Get yoursele UYPhe Republicans want to scrap the new |] RPh da! te Hit Alas Rand School of Social New Science York femecacy and go back to the old captal- || TOAAPG GRAPE GR 7 ft East yon 15th St., im. The question, then, appears to turn fn our domestic politics. And, judging by

recent election returns, the “ sparks”

1, or essentially political, this desire to part of the psychology of 1a The , change from stark from What sort of magazine is it? a ee ‘ition to’scientifically ccsclently inaneged engineered produc- and I: Among the first six me magazines : in America for its short | is one which goes against the grain of stories.— (O’Brien’s summary.) ie old-time capitalist mind. It will more Il: Among the first two magazines for its translations (from 1d more require the foregoing of huge the French, Russian, Yiddish, Scandinavian, Italian, etc.). III: Among the first three for its poetry. REMEMBER! Besides, Reviews (musical, dramatic and literary). Peeemepnly Fon. with ony. book And etchings, drawings, etc., by masters. Books from the Send for « sample copy of the unique magazine LIBERATOR BOOK-SHOP 20 cents a copy $2.00 a year 4 Union Square, New York City. PAGAN PUBLISHING CO. 7 Bast 15th Street, New York Gity

THE LIBERATOR | profits which could be had under the old [system of unrestrained grab; but, more “important even than this, it will more and ‘more push the old managing class aside in favor of a class of engineers and experts “who know how to produce rather than how “to compete. The Othellos of business do “not see their occupations go without a pro-

“test... The new capitalism, in short, calls for either intellectual readjustment or patri- itie self-sacrifice and self-abnegation from the capitalist class at large. ‘The intel- ‘ectual readjustment may be dismissed from airvotory (Strictly 21 Greemetcn speaking, tne Vilage, te NOT a complete sonsideration as an impossibility. The help’ foward of our ‘uch friende, @ directory we thotl ‘in make time, this and aa with complete the patriotic self-sacrifice and self-abnegation iretory ory of the Village ee te Bary rapt tn Salpeter, the ‘ertisng’ Solum’ of mags which served during the war in lieu of such intellectual readjustment has been a strain ~/which only the atmosphere of war could The Devonshire Lace Shop “be expected to maintain. The moment 0 Washington Square, New York ‘peace comes the business world of America ‘Laces Designed, Mado and Monded by ‘will want to return to normal conditions, Marian Powys of Bngland 1t you want to work or loaf in panes) come and, in spite of logic, necessity, and the Red to the RED HEN FARM “Terror of Bolshevism itself, it_may be You'll Ike Mt any time of year. Write to F expected to effect as soon as possible a po- PEOPLE'S HOUSE CAFETERIA Mlitical overturn which will, at the very least, Alth Sommers Kelley; KI 5, Newton, N. J. 7 East Fifteenth Street ‘Seriously hamper and confuse the workings Goon FooD—POrULAR PRICES “of the new capitalism, and at the most = 008 ‘fadison Square 6928 “plunge the United States and with it the An opportunity 10 meet everybody ‘st of the capitalist nations into Chaos and tworth while tn the thinking world ARTISTS’ MATERIALS

Jd Night. In these well-meant efforts the and Picture Frames ‘at HALPERN'S, 4siness world may be expected to receive i < 7 510 Park Avenue |. Kast souh street te support of the working class, which has I EAT WHERE Bet, goth & aut Rear itn Avene sotoriously, ever since the days when it first estroyed labor-saving machinery, been The food is good ind to its own “ good”; for it may well The prices moderate doubted if thegreater comfort, security West of Broadway” ‘Bryant 2000 and wages it receives will serve to counter- The environment pleasant Delllous Hinds curios and other ashes lance the loss of freedom of movement Prop. Kateam (smite, 12 years Hinds ehet and of “contract ” which the regimentation + (Open It a.m. tot am) fairly necessary under the new capitalism would perpetuate. | MASCHA STRUNSKY Te only remains to discuss what attitude L BROWSE IN BRESLOW'S BOOK SHOP hhe American Socialists will take toward | Booka “Special: on Interesting “Walt Whitman Subjects ~ “Groans of the People” —_ | | THE RUSSIAN INN se Carpenter Be A book for young folks 51 West 37 | by sack tonaonn te ‘Will, make them enthuslastle Socialists. Luxcuson. Tea Dinner Shore, “clea, losieat. DELICIOUS RUSSIAN COOKING { REVEALER, G10 Bast 161 Stroot | “The Latin of Democracy” 1 Resor Bile Boiran, Dijon Univers, imple, Togeal socom The E. H. & A. C. tor she oon people Biperauus tan, ae be eahaed : Finest Silks and Satins’ Company HAIMOWITZ BROS. "ARTISTS! ‘snd Picture | MATERU Fram 169 West Sith Street, New Yor Silks and Dress Goods

1376 FirrH_ AVENUE r RED HO =e New York | DR. MAXIMILIAN COHEN ee a ae eee teed Hantza 4621 | eat oes 871 Prospect AVENUE Surgeon Dentist Scio fou diferent 10e, Beet aay, ‘Mexnose 2338 (over mighth street) 100 SIXTH AVENUE “THE CRUGIBLE."V. PAPER I 1330 Tat Aven Seatley Wah,

THE LIBERATOR and I gnclose $300, Send me, the Bouna THE NEWS STANDS Volume of the first 10 numbers

Dear Reader: You used to see The Liberator on the news stands, and then I enclose $4.00, Send the Bound Vo, mysteriously it disappeared for a month or two, and now back it ume to comes again. You probably thought we were suppressed or careless, If so, you were wrong. SiS; and Tax aiter Lingeator Jan. 1, (subscription 191, $000) for price) a) _ This is what happened: In August we contracted with the big- gest magazine distributors in the country to put us on the news- stands. In September one of their Directors saw his first copy of The Liberator and found something in it that he did not like. (I hope there will always be something in The Liberator which will Liberator Stock make directors of big corporations uncomfortable!) Immediately the Cow) I hereby subscribe for .... shares of, outraged gentleman called a special meeting of the Board and got preferred stock in The Liberator Pub- them to “request us to release them from their contract.” lishing Co., and enclose herewith $,... This left nothing for us to do but to undertake the distributing Name . business ourselves through independent magazine wholesalers in Address every town where we could find one who was not afraid. Already (Within Three Years) we have agencies in 235 towns, and every mail brings more orders. I hereby. subscribe for .... shares of preferred lishing Co., stock and in promise The Liberator to send $...» Pubs Bae ord fod th racny ways. We oe nding amam in full payment on or before October ber of radical dealers who have more than a commercial interest in 1, 1921 pushing The Liberator. And we are reducing the number of re- Name . “turned copies to a minimum. Will you help us get more copies Address printed and every copy read? There are several things you can do. It will help every time you write us that the stands in your A Bundle town are not displaying The Liberator. You will help us more if Our local_would like to sell Tae Lam meator. Send us your terms to ra you will leave a standing order for The Liberator with your news organizations on bundle orders of. dealer (although of course we would rather have you as a subscriber). copies every’ month, But you will help us most of all if you will buy a share of stock in ‘The Liberator Publishing Co., because we need money right now to push this news stand business. We told you last month about our campaign to raise $60,000 to see us through the next three years. Perhaps it is too early to expect A Good Reason for subscribing (or renewing) now a response from you. Remember, even if you cannot afford to send that on January } the price goes up a check today, we want your pledge so that we may know how much $2.00 T enclose (oittside $1.50. the Enter U. S. my $250). stbseription we can count on in the next three years. for a year, beginning with the next issue, | Sincerely yours, Extend my subscription for a year be- yond its date of expiration. MARGARET LANE, Business Manager.

THE LIBERATOR OR Me situation. Interestingly enough, it Poms possible that a large number will, for LIBERATOR 12-18 jperamental reasons, support President Hilson, and thus do their best to stave off “You’re ‘world-wide triumph of Bolshevism. those of them who are still out of jail Ml hardly be a sufficient barrier against Afraid!” Bs tide of post-bellum discontent. Tf there are any flaws in my argument, “I ain’t afraid.” will, I hope, point them out; for the “You are.” V usion to which it leads is that the stial political weaknesses of the new “T ain't.” tealism will permit the growth of “You are.” © opean Bolshevism in the course of a few What would have hap- iiths from internal disorders to civil war, pened next if you were a in the course of a few years from civil boy? A frightful mix-up. “ar to a series of wars between the Bol- With the calm unreason=. fevike and the Capitalist’ Leagues “of ableness of youth these two (ations. These events completely fill the boys fought without even knowing each other—just as you have * “teen years whose history I set myself the fought many a time—just because you couldn’t help it Usk of discovering. What will happen [er that is of no concern to this inquiry by that time we shall have produced > due quota of novels and poems, and can MARK TWAIN for information Trin to the newspapers No wonder our soldiers and sailors like Mark ‘on to the world the glory of our inspiring Amer= [Pout current events. ‘Twain best. No wonder the boys at Annapolis, ieanism—the serious purpose that underlies our Yours for art's sake, told Secretary Daniels that they would rather Taughter—for to Mark Twain humor is only in Froyp D: have Mark Twain than any one else. To them, cidental, and he has made etertial the springs of Youth=-the a5 to you, Mark spirie Twain of real. is the Americanism—for spirit of undying he its youth and enthusiasm. who came out of that. loafing, out-atelbows, Take Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer by RAIN WIND down-at-thehheels Mississippi town, he has passed. the hand and go back to your own boyhood. SOME to you in the spring night, In the softness of the strong south wind, “the night personal with the charm of the A Big, Human Soul rain wind, Pethaps you think you have read a good deal of ind the tears and the fighting that made Mark tthe night air sentient with the coming of Mark Twain, Are you sure? Have you read all in so wonderful. He was a bountiful giver the novels? Have you read all the shore stories? of joy and humor. He was yet much more, for, ae air swinging and singing about you Have you read all che brilliane fighting essays? while he laughed seth he world, his lonely spirit iat 300, historical ones? srogaed wth ee sadn of human life and Me night intimate, expectant, in a wild joy, =all the humorous ones and the Soughe to find the key. Beneath the laughter is Jaressing you before and because of the Think of it—25 volumes filled with the laughter a big human soul, a big philosopher. | oncoming rain, tis I that caresses you in the wind, Min the mad dried leaf whirling ghostly Low Price Sale Must Stop | after you on the pavement, the swiftly adventuring cloud, 25 VOLUMES: Novels—Boys’ Stories struggling branches of the oak tree, Humor — Essays — Travel — History © the cloud-strewn moon, Mark Twain wanted every one in America : to own a set 7 of his books ane “i the signal stars, fa of the last things he asked was that fn the wind-alive night, fone might own it. He said. “

te Mile to continue the sale of Mark Twain at a low price ‘New ditions will Bue cose now very the much price mote must go than up. this You Author's must National’ act at ‘An Interesting Combination Edition "You must sign and: mal the mit Tf go you < eal ara want a set at a popular do wot delay | JA) years’ subscription to tion wll soon be withdrawn, and then you wl pay con- eee Serably more for your Mark Twain, ust ae The Liberator ($1.50) ) Together “The last of the edition is in sight Thee wil. cesta am and Sieh Man Tain, a he a \h 85 Now fs the time #0 send. the i Upton Sinclair's ($1.00) coupon to get your Mark Twain, FF Send your order to Tue Lumeator 34 Union Square, New York Harper & Brothers ff hee bie his offer is good only until Jan. 1, 1919) EST. 1817 LF ocupsion Franklin Sq., New York / ./isiuierttuiaiitlei sitesi te arene Books on Labor

THE SUNWISE TURN, Inc. 2 East 3ist Street

DEMOCRACY AFTER THE WAR. J. A. HOBSON. e : Pee $2.00 NATIONAL GUILDS. An Inquiry into the Wage System and the Way Out. A. R. ORAGI 2.00 AUTHORITY, LIBERTY AND FUNCTION IN THE LIGHT OF THE WAR. RAMIRO DE MAEZTU 1.50 OLD WORLDS FOR NEW. ARTHUR J. PENTY 1.75 ‘REATIVE IMPULSE IN (DUSTRY. 1.50 THE AIMS OF LABOR. RTHUR H NDERSON, M.P. ..paper .50 cloth 1.00 THE WORLD OF LABOUR. G. D. H. COLE 1.50 LABOUR IN WAR TIME. G. D..H. COLE... 1.25 SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY. G. D. H. COLE 1.75 ‘GUILD SOCIALISM IN WAR TIME. G. HOBSON. Senet 1.25 AMERICAN LABOR YEAR BOOK. Published by the RAND SCHOOL... 1.25 There are a few bo on industry whieh every employer of labor ‘The Creative Impulse in Industry is nearer to the immediate Ameri- in the country should and every worker in it, and every one who ean situation than these English books. Helen Marot has been a sees the labor Three notable figure in the Trade Union movement for ten years. Her thesis ‘of these books are on Guild Socialism, the philosophy of social order is that the Anglo-Saxon worker, like the Anglo-Saxon business man, faken so strong a hold on the imagination of England, ds work only as a means of wealth, all his struggle has been for point of departure of the program of the British wr hours and higher wages; while the Frenchman allied to his arty—and which seems to very many in England, and a power to play, has the power to take joy in his work, and so the Syn- ment in Ameriea, to be the inevitable way of pro Giealist movement has focussed always upon controlling the means of National Guilds is the pioneer, and still remains the most production. She makes a vital comparison of German trade training uthentic and sustained piece of’ work of the three. Orage is the and American scientific management, and presents the experiments: ‘litor of the New Age, and he analyzes here with the greatest author- of Robert Wolf in the wood pulp industry, which have verified the ity every phase of a society of whieh work—what the Guildsman more value of creative thought even in factory production. ‘The trouble with scientific management, Wolf says, is that it is not scientifie exactly calls function "—shall be the basie principle. enough. Penty’s Old Worlds for Now is livelier reading, though not too closely ‘The trouble with democracy seems to us at the Sunwise Tam to be Innit logically. Penty rests his ease upon the argument that no lasting that the n has become too large. ‘The Russians see this—that State ean be built upon what the Fabians eall facts. Tt ean be built in ass upon questions in a Soviet of twelve, of flie last analysis only upon the nature of man. istrict cannot take account at all. So people ‘The most utterly delightful of the three is De Macztw's Authority, will read six or eight books which are the eream of the material on Liberty and Function in the Light of the War. Written out of a rich any specifie subject, who would be baffled by a library of 2000 volumes. cultural tradition, like a brond and flowing river, it carries i We sell these books to glazed Princeton graduates, bankers who everything from Greck morality down to Rousseau, Kant, Fid think that the only trouble with the working class is that it is so Hegel and the modem German concept of the state. Tt is extraor- improvident—even if only to know what the enemy is doing they go dinary how many things one ean talk about when one talks about labor. off with these books under their arms. We sell them to quiet-voiced Cole is the most important, we think, of all these Englishmen. His owners of factories, who tell us that they have put women at all their manner is not so interesting, but he knows more; and the survey of the machines. These women are doing well. ‘They will want to stay when Syndicalist movement in the appendix of Self-Government in Industry the war is over—the management would like to keep them—but the seems to us the most clarifying study of any labor philosophy in any places are promised back to the men who have gone—what is to be eurrent book. done? We do not know what is to be done, but England has thought Hobson's Democracy After the War is perhaps the most important far ahead of us in these matters—she has been pushed to do so. ‘The bok: on the list. It is monumental in its signifeance, and its sugges- world will be saved by the top of its head in this ease, as in so many. tion of all the deeper probable emergencies of the coming years. others. Ideas are tools, and America needs them now.

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