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3

THE LIBERATOR

EniToR, Max Eastman
MANAGING EDITOR, Crystal Eastman
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, Floyd Dell

Published Monthly by the

LIBERATOR PUBLISHING Co., INC.
34 Union Square East,
New York City

Copyright, t91g, ty the Liberator Publishing Co., Inc.
34 Union Square, New York.
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at Now York City pending

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Cornelia Barns Howard Brubaker Hugo Gellert

Arturo Giovannitti Charles T. Hallinan Helen Keller

Art Young

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John Reed Boardman Robinson Louis Untermeyer Charles W. Wood

N EVER was the moment more auspicious to issue a great magazine of liberty. With the Russian people in the lead, the world is entering upon the experiment of industrial and real democracy. Inspired by Russia, the German people are muttering a revolt that will go farther than its dearest advocates among the Allies dream. The working people of France, of Italy, of England, too, are determined that the end of autocracy in Germany shall be the end of wage-slavery at home. America has extended her hand to the Russians. She will follow in their path. The world is in the rapids. The possibilities of change in this day are beyond all imagination. We must unite our hands and voices to make the end of this war the beginning of an age of freedom and happiness for mankind undreamed by those whose minds comprehend only political and military events. With this ideal THE LIBERATOR comes into being on Lincoln's Birthday, February 12, 1918.

T I IE LIBERATOR will be owned and published by its editors, who will be free in its pages to say what they truly think.

It will fight in the struggle of labor. It will fight for the ownership and control of industry by the workers, and will present vivid and ac-curate news of the labor and socialist movements in all parts of the world.

It will advocate the opening of the land to the people, and urge the immediate taking over by the people of railroads, mines, telegraph and telephone systems, and all public utilities.

It will stand for the complete independence of women-political, social and economic-as an enrichment of the existence of mankind.

It will stand for a revolution in the whole spirit and method of dealing with crime.

It will join all wise men in trying to substitute for our rigid scholastic kind of education a system which has a vivid relation to life.

It will assert the social and political equality of the black and white races, oppose every kind of racial discrimination, and conduct a remorse-less publicity campaign against lynch law.

It will oppose laws preventing the spread of scientific knowledge about birth control.

T HE LIBERATOR will endorse the war aims outlined by the Russian people and ex-pounded by President Wilson   a peace with-out forcible annexations, without punitive indemnities, with free development and self-determination for all peoples. Especially it will support the President in his demand for an in-. ternational union, based upon free seas, free commerce and general disarmament, as the central principle upon which hang all hopes of permanent peace and friendship among nations.

THE LIBERATOR will be distinguished by a complete freedom in art and poetry and fiction and criticism. It will be candid. It will be experimental. It will be hospitable to new thoughts and feelings. It will direct its attack against dogma and rigidity of mind upon what-ever side they are found,   THE EDITOR,

4

Art Young

A Case of Heresy

THE LIBERATOR

Vol. 1, No. 1   March, 1918

Editorials

THUS far the working-class government of Russia has appropriated the banks and the banking system of the country and repudiated the national debt; it has taken possession of the entire mining district; it has declared the munitions factories state property without compensation; it has supported the control of other factories, and their profits, by workingmen's committees; it has decreed the land of Russia to the peoples who work upon it, and the land is now actually held in common by those people. And on this day, January loth, the Marxian premier, Lenine, has suspended and dismissed the democratic parliament as "a relic of Bourgeois society," and declared Russia to be a Socialist republic in which the Congress of delegates from the Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Unions is the sovereign power. Thus comes into actual existence that "industrial parliament"-the crowning and extreme hope of the Socialist dream-theory.

.To our American bourgeois newspaper correspondents this all appears rampant disorder and blind mixture of events, defying and denying human intelligence. But to everyone who has read the Communist Manifesto, it is so sublimely ordered and intellectual a performance as to dispel all pessimism of propaganda forever, and raise intelligence and the dissemination of ideas to the highest place in their confidence. Without doubt it is the most momentous event in the history of peoples. And if such an event can be shown to be no accident or mystery, but the orderly maturing and accurate enactment of ideas full-born in a great mind sixty years ago, and cherished and disseminated in the meantime by all those who had strength to believe, then indeed there is hope that intelligence may play its part in every event. Never in ad history before could one so joyfully and confidently enter upon the enterprise of publishing and propagating ideas. Dedicating our admiration to the fearless faith in scientific intelligence of Karl Marx, and our energy to hopes that are even beyond his, we issue THE LIBERATOR into a world whose possibilities of freedom and life for all, are now certainly immeasurable.

Their Utmost Hope

IN his address to Congress on January 8th, President Wilson said: "It is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty . . ."

He professed to be speaking for the American people, and we hope that he was. He was speaking for us. And we would only wish to add two things to his words before the world. First, that the people of Russia, a vast majority of them comprised in the Left Wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviki, have set before themselves a hope of liberty that involves the ownership and control of all land, plants, and machinery by those who work them, and the abolition of profits and wage-dependence altogether. We should like to add in parenthesis after the words, utmost hope of liberty, the words, See the Communist Manifesto.

And then, second, we should like to add for our-selves, that it is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened to awaken in the people of the United States that same "utmost hope of liberty," and that we may be privileged to assist them to attain it.

Attacking the Administration

PRESIDENT WILSON'S administration is under

fire, and the reasons are mixed of many colors, and his opponents are a motley and uncompanionable crew. We have our grievances against the administration. We believe, however, that the heavy guns in this fire are in the hands of the reactionaries, the plutocracy to whom Wilson threw down the challenge two days before his election. Things are always bad for democracy in war time, but we believe they would be worse under the dictatorship of this crew, and little as we like any dictatorship, we do not care to see the President yield.

There are members of the President's cabinet whom we might be willing to see bothered. But the present attack centers upon the Secretary of War. And the Secretary of War is the most pronounced exponent of radical progress in the Administration. Under him the Chief of Ordnance issued, on November 15, General Order No. 13, in which "vigilance is demanded of all those in any way associated with industry, lest the safeguards with which the people of this country have sought to protect labor should be unwisely and unnecessarily broken down," and in which those safe-guards are carefully and emphatically enumerated. It was he who gave the best testimony yet given that this war is in fact a war for a world's peace, by opposing universal military training on the ground that the Ad-ministration hopes it will prove unnecessary in the future organization of the nations.

Our advice to the Administration would be no sur-

render to an attack that centers upon the Secretary of War.

6   THE LIBERATOR

The Russian Dictators

TO many radical-minded Americans the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly by the Workmen's and Soldiers' government in Russia appeared reactionary and outrageous. The Constituent Assembly, they said, was a democratic parliament elected by "the people," and if the people are to be tyrannized over by the Council of Workmen and Soldiers, they might as well be tyrannized over by the Czar-they will have made no advance in real liberty. I think this judgment reveals a failure to understand either the general principles of Socialism or the sequence of concrete events in Russia.

The overthrow by the people of a political and legal tyranny, is not in any sense a social revolution, no matter whether "socialists" play a leading role in it or not. It is a "bourgeois revolution." That is to say, it is a revolution which leaves the capitalistic framework of society unaltered. Land and capital is still in the possession of a propertied class and will remain so, because, no matter how "just" and "democratic" the forms of government, the essential influence and control of government belongs to this class. The revolution which shall attack the economic framework of society, and take the land and capital, and there-with the real, super-political control, away from this class, is a second revolution, far more signal and con-sequential than the first. It is the social revolution.

Now both these revolutions have happened in Russia. The first happened in March and the months fol-Iowing, and the second happened in November and is still happening. And to us who realize that the November revolution-symbolized in the overthrow of Kerensky and the inauguration of Lenine-was a more tremendous, in fact a more revolutionary, event than the overthrow of the Czar, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly is easy to understand, The Constituent Assembly was a parliament elected under the Bourgeois government, and therefore would be still subject to that super-political control by capital, which is the "king" that the proletarian revolution intends to overthrow. To ask a social-revolutionary government to recognize the parliament summoned and elected under a bourgeois government they have over-thrown, is as unreasonable as it would have been to ask Kerensky's government to recognize the crown council. This is simple and evident fact to those who have learned well the lesson of Marx-who have learned to think of liberty and right and revolution in economic rather than political terms.

This is all rather theoretical, but theory is essential to the understanding of Russia today, for thinking men set free from the reliable old motives of tradition and good business are in power-thinking men, and men trained in a rather dogmatic system of thought. Nevertheless the matter might he put somewhat more simply. The Constituent Assembly was summoned and elected before Kerensky's government was overthrown. There-fore if we "accept" the overthrow of Kerensky's government. we must "accent" the dispersal of the Constituent

Assembly; for in a time of flux and confusion when only a few leaders fully understand what is going on, it is al-ways certain enough that the party in power will get its own majority elected. The extent of the majority against the Bolsheviki was perhaps a surprise, and may have some special cause that we cannot guess, but the existence of that majority, and the absolute necessity of ignoring the Assembly, could have been predicted by anyone of ordinary political common sense. A point of more importance to the future of the world is that, instead of calling another Constituent Assembly and seeking in these old ways a majority of their own, the Lenine Government has declared for a new jurisprudence, in which Constituent Assemblies territorially elected are no longer necessary, but industrial and farmers' unions constitute the sovereign power, that will proceed with the expropriation of the capitalist and landlord and the establishment of economic or real democracy.

It is never "the people" who will accomplish this-Lenine has been warned against the concept of "the people" in his Bible of Karl Marx from the beginning. It is the working-class who will accomplish it, and they will accomplish it, if they can, by establishing a dictator-ship, overt and uncompromising. The truth is that only after a general transfer of land and factories to the workers is accomplished, so that substantially all the people have become workers, and the super-political influence of a capitalist class is removed, can an appeal to the people really be an appeal to the people. Only then does the formal justice and democracy of a popular vote be-come materially just and democratic. And this delving under the forms of law and politics to the economic materials of right and liberty, is the essence of socialist thinking. If the American moralistic democrat cannot grasp this, he will do well to suspend his judgment and watch it-for it will continue to the end with little bother whether he cries "Dictator ! Anarchy! Traitor to the people !" or not.

Charles M. Schwab

SOMETIMES a man who has performed deeds retains enough imagination to know that deeds can be per-formed. And to this fact I owe the privilege of quoting the President of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in support of the above prophecy. Mr. Schwab was speaking at an alumni dinner in New York :

"We are facing another social situation," he said, "which we should be keenly alive to, a situation which is going to come at the close of the war, a `social renaissance' of the whole world. Call it socialism, social revolution, bolshevism, or what you will, it is a levelling process, and means that the workman without property, who labors with his hands, is going to be the man who will dominate the world. It is going to be a great hardship to the owners of property, but like all revolutionary movements, it will probably work good. The sooner we realize this, the better it will he for America."

March, 1918   7

The Triumph of Karl Marx

A Militant Suffrage Victory

F OR a long time there have been two kinds of suffragist in the United States-the patient persuader who depended on educational methods and could not play the political game even in demanding admission into politics, and the militant idealist with a certain hardness of grain that enabled her to see and meet the facts of human nature as a political fighter must. I suspect that the leaders of the suffrage movement have always been of the latter kind-Mary Wollstonecraft, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anna Howard Shaw. Any of them   in their own day of new leadership-would have taken the position that the Congressional Union and the Woman's Party took, and forced the federal amendment through Congress by means of party politics. That is, if they had had enough votes in the separate states to do it, they would have quit offering prayers to individual "friendly" congressmen, and gone out into the country to fight the whole party in power that failed to pass their amendment. That was what Alice Paul and her associates did, and in the passage of the amendment by the

House on January 8th, they won a victory which was very definitely their own. I quote, in proof that this is not merely a private opinion, a press-dispatch from the New York Times:

"Democratic Congressmen from suffrage States became alarmed over the situation. They feared that if the resolution were defeated by Democratic votes women who possessed the voting franchise would go over its droves to Republican candidates in the Congressional elections next November. The agitation among the Democrats became so marked that their leaders felt that some action should be taken to counteract the effect in the political campaign this year of the charge that the Democratic Party was responsible for keeping women from expressing their preference at the polls. It was said that women in New York State were preparing to vote against Democratic candidates for Congress because of their opposition to the suffrage ConstitutionaL amendment."

Never was the superior strength of those idealists whose heads are hard enough to meet facts, more unqualifiedly proven than in this victory. I look to Alice Paul and her young army of militants as one of the three leading radical forces in American politics in the near future. The Non-Partisan League, the Socialist Party, the Woman's Party-those are three powers that may sweep this country clear for liberty sooner than any republican or democratic politician imagines.

8   THE LIBERATOR

Art In the War

WHEN war began there were prophets who declared it would be the end of pagan and realistic art. It would open a new era-an era of mystic superstition and romantic nationalism. John Masefield is still saying that when the war ends people will "turn to the romantic, the fantastic, the beautiful."

No doubt they will play. And I hope they will play with all their hearts, and so create beauty. But it is good to feel sure that they will not lose that liberation of intelligence into adventurous contact with reality, which characterized what was youthful in art before the war. And I do feel sure since I read the book of Henri Barbusse*-the only work of magnificent art that has been born in the war. It is a book whose sentences surpass Dante in brief and livid intensity ; and it carries you through war as Dante never carried you through Hell. This book of genius belongs to an era in which truth of reality overrides every other instinct and ideal of man, save one-and that the ideal of international democracy founded upon clear thinking and the death of superstitious religion.

A World's Peace

AS an international socialist, I welcomed President Wilson's "Program of The World's Peace" in his message to Congress of January 8th. It seemed an earnest approach to a basis upon which peace negotiations could be demanded by the peoples, not. of the Allied countries only, but of Germany and Austria too. The fourteen articles of his program recognize and endeavor to solve the principal problems raised by a general application of the people's formula of peace without forcible annexations, or punitive indemnities, and with self-determination for all nationalities. For this reason these articles ought to he read and pondered by every citizen of the world.

I.-open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

In developing this it will be important to add a statement that all previous private international understandings shall be annulled or made public. The United States might certify its good faith by making public the whole of its recent understanding with Japan concerning China

e., by defining before the public the exact nature of the "special Japanese interests" in China referred to in that understanding. She might further certify her intention to recognize the rights of all nations equally, by acknowledging the protest of China herself against that understanding, and consulting her as to its future validity.

IL-Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

•"Le Feu," vividly translated, with the title "Under Fire," and published by E. P. Dutton & Co. $r.5n net.

This article reiterates the meaning of the Declaration of London, signed in 1909, and ratified by the parliaments of the powers, including Germany and the United States, except England. Since the war England has declared the Declaration of London null and void, and al-though Lord Lansdowne suggested some such article as essential to peace negotiations, the question was not alluded to in the speech of Lloyd George on war aims (January 5, 1918), nor in the peace terms proposed by the British Labor Party. The British Labor Party did, however, expressly endorse it in announcing their accord with President Wilson's program, while Lloyd George in a subsequent speech to the trade unions expressly repudiated it.

Some recognition, strictly limited, of the peculiar position of England-her absolute dependence upon navigation for life-would have to be made in the final draft of such an agreement, though I can not imagine what form it might take.

III.'--The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

This we may interpret not only as renouncing economic war on Germany, but also as supporting the British Labor Party in its demand that customs duties be "limited strictly to revenue purposes." It means, "so far as possible," free-trade and the principle of the open door everywhere, and is almost an indispensable element in the foundation for a League of Nations.

TV.-Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will reduce to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

Let us assume. that "domestic safety" does not mean the suppression by the national or state militia, of strikes and other movements of the people of America toward their economic freedom; and then endorse this clause fervently. In moving toward greater precision, it might follow either of two courses:

(I) The manufacture of national armaments, ex-

cept so far as necessary for domestic safety,

shall cease in all countries forthwith, or

(2) There shall be concerted, progressive and pro-

portionate reduction of armaments to the point

of complete disarmament on land and sea.

In any case this article must imply the immediate sus-pension in all countries of universal military training, compulsory service, and the private manufacture of arms.

V.-Free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the population concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined.

It appears that the President means by "all colonial claims," not only those that the war has brought into dispute, but all colonial claims whatever. We may assume that he would extend this principle to India, the Middle East, and the British colonies in Africa, as the British Labor Party has recently done, if not also to Ireland. And it might add conviction if he had signified

March, 1918

our willingness to extend it to the Philippines, Nicaraugua, Haiti, etc. We cannot but regret that the President did not stress the principle of self-determination for the peoples of these colonies, as the British Labor Party did, instead of declaring that their interests should have "equal weight" with the claims of some government possessing a "title" to them.

All these questions, however, and the question of what a colony is, the differentiation between colonies, do-minions, protectorates, naval bases, and the determination of the claims of each, furnish matter for discussion and legislation which might occupy an international congress for a long period after the immediate settlement, and thus lay a natural foundation for the world government which alone can permanently eliminate war.

As an alternative, in case this reappraisement of all colonial claims proves impossible, we might endorse the peace terms proposed by the government of Russia-"The restitution to Germany of all her colonies."

Vi.---The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy, and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good-will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

To this article nothing could be added but praise.

VII.-Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and re-stored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

To this article also nothing can be added-save a question as to its exact meaning. In English the word restore may mean give back, and it may mean rebuild; what it will mean by the time it gets translated into German, Bulgarian or Turkish, is not an unimportant question. For my part I should expect it to mean rebuild with regard to Belgium, for Belgium is spoken of in a different paragraph and a different voice from the other invaded nations. But if it means rebuild with regard to Northern France, Serbia, Rumania, and Montenegro, I am compelled to think it is a demand advanced with a view to modification at the council table. No nation will be in a position to pay vast indemnities, and this fact was recognized in the proposal of the Kerensky government that the devastated territories should be rebuilt through a fund contributed to by all the belligerent countries in proportion to the amount that each had spent in waging war. This would entail Germany's paying a great deal into the fund and receiving little out of it, and yet not raise the insurmountable obstacle of a decision as to who is to blame for the war. It seems to me, like most of the Russian proposals, to have been as astute as it was just.

VIII.-All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 187! in the matter

of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.   -

As an approach to a settlement, it seems to me a fault in the President's statement that he makes no allusion to the territory of the Central Empires occupied by the Allies, either to its restitution or its restoration. Unless the principle of restoration by the invader is adopted here, I can see no reason why it should be adopted in other territory belonging to the belligerents. And so again I think the ambiguity might be removed and the problems solved by the Russian principle of restoration through an international fund.

As to Alsace Lorraine, I think most internationalists will endorse the President's words, but emphatically declare for the method of righting the wrong of 1871 suggested by the French Socialists, and the British Labor Party, and doubtless implied by Lloyd George in his demand for a "reconsideration" of that question-i.e., that the people of Alsace and Loraine "be allowed under the protection of the Super-National Authority, or League of Nations, freely to decide what shall be their future political position."

IX.-A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.   -

Perhaps without tearing down buildings and divorcing. happy couples, it would not actually be possible to find, or construct, clearly recognizable lines of nationality in that part of the world; but it might be possible, in negotiating upon this article, to agree upon a definition of all the territories legitimately in dispute between Austria and Italy, and then apply to them, each or all, the principle of self-determination under the protection of the League of Nations. This would provide a way in which "lines of nationality" might in fact become "clearly recognizable."

X.-The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development,

This is difficult to reconcile with the emphatic language of the speech of December 4th. "We owe it to ourselves to say that we do not wish in any way to impair or to rearrange the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no affair of ours what they do with their own life either industrially or politically. We do not purpose or desire to dictate to them in any way. We only desire to see that their affairs are left in their own hands, in all matters, great or small."

The change was perhaps dictated by some special in-formation. At least the present statement appears to be an invitation to the peoples of Austria-Hungary to make peace, and the former one rather a guarantee offered to its government.

XI.-Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan States to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan States should be entered into.

IO   THE LIBERATOR

Again the ambiguity could be removed and the end attained by saying "restored from an international fund." And might there not be added to this article a recommendation of the President in a former message to Congress, that each country should have freedom of transportation over any other country to any sea-port?

XII.-The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

The question under what empire these "other nationalities" shall be autonomous, is unanswered, and that is perhaps the principal question at issue between Germany and Great Britain.

With the opening of the Dardanelles under international guarantees, should there not be coupled the similar opening of the Suez and Panama canals, the Straits of Gibraltar, and all similar channels the world over? This has been suggested by the government of Russia, and would, more than any other one thing, assure the people of Germany that we mean "a world's peace" when we say so, and not an Allies' peace.

XIIL-An independent Polish State should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic indepesdence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

My attention has been called to the fact that this article does not demand a "United Poland," composed of all territories that are claimed by the Poles upon historic ground. The "territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations" excludes most, if not all, of German Poland;

it also excludes Lithuania, Courland and parts of Ukraine and inner Russia claimed by certain Polish irredentists. A free access to the sea through Danzig can be secured by "international guarantees," even though Danzig remains under German sovereignty.

XIV.-A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small States alike.

Upon this proposal rests the possibility of many of the others, and the effectiveness of them all in securing permanent peace to the world. The British Labor Party has carried the proposal into bolder detail:

"There should be forthwith established a supernational authority, or League of Nations, which should not only be adhered to by all the present belligerents, but which every other independent sovereign state in the world should be pressed to join; the immediate establishment by such League of Nations not only of an International High Court for the settlement of all disputes between states that are of justiciable nature, but also of appropriate machinery for prompt and effective mediation of all disputes at issue that are not justiciable; the formation of an International Legislature, in which the representatives of every civilized state would have their allotted share; the gradual development, as far as may prove to be possible, of international legislation agreed to by and definitely binding upon the several states, and for a solemn agreement and pledge by all states that every issue between any two or, more of them shall be submitted for settlement as aforesaid, and that they will all make common cause against any state which fails to adhere to this agreement."

This proposal-twelve months ago so utopian-has been subscribed to officially in some form by every one of the great governments at war. Even the Bolshevikialthough absorbed in matters of more direct bearing upon human freedom-have spoken for a federated republic of Europe. If the world falls into peace, exhausted, without having accomplished this, it will be a sad peace-.a peace without victory indeed.

MAX EASTMAN.

Anniversary

AMONG the flock of clouds that browse the firs The moon runs Iike a mystic grail of light Between the bowed heads of the worshippers;

The branches of the oaks swing with a flight Of censers, and the poplars chant a psalm Of ancient glory to the holy night.

Peace lies upon the roofs and in my palm Your hand unclasped lies restful and secure, And everything is strong and white and calm, For we are still in love and still are poor.

ARTURO GIOVANNITTI.

March, 1918   xl

" 0 Lord, control my appetite if you must, but don't take my pie away ! "

The One-Arm Patriot

THE slogan of this earnest citizen was brought over from boyhood. "I can lick you with one hand tied behind my back."

GERMANY'S military position is strong and its moral position is weak. Therefore we must attack it only at its strongest point.

THE Bolshiviki are introducing discord into the ranks of our enemies and trying to end the war by internal combustion. "Traitors" is the mildest word he has for them.

NOBODY on our side should ever state peace terms. They might be accepted and then it would be clear that some-thing was the matter with them.

THIS is no time for ideas anyway. What little thinking is necessary should be done only by people who wear boots and shoulder straps.

OUR friend has a vast respect for the diplomatic ability of Germany. Anyone who thinks that the rest of the world can cope with the giant intellects of the Kaiser, von Tirpitz and the Crown Prince is obviously a slacker.

AFTER the war is over he wants to tie the Germans all up in restrictions and boycotts until they wish they had never been spared. Then when we all get rested and re-populated we can have another nice war.

LIKE the New York Times he views with alarm the agitation for woman's suffrage at a time when we need all our energies to further the cause of democracy.

HHLIKE Roosevelt he thinks that the word "peace" is synonymous with the word "German." E would like to sit in a safe, quiet place with Henry Van Dyke and think about the Lusitania for 87 years. E is beyond military age, but when it comes to spending other people's lives he is the soul of generosity. Saving lives is the business of the Red Cross not of statesmen.

GERMANY has paid money to French newspapers for his kind of opposition, but our hero gives it free. There is nothing mercenary about him.

NHE "stands behind the President"; so he never hears what the President says. EVERTHELESS he is beginning to have his doubts. It is all very well to talk about democracy, but Wilson wants to do something about it.

`%TILSON wants to carry a punch in both mitts.

THAT'S no way to have a war.

HOWARD BRUBAKER.

12

The Revolt of the Flesh

By Elizabeth Irons Folsom

WAS quite breathless from my run down the yard to the back gate. My face burned, my heart beat thickly, my

throat was tight. I wrenched the pickets with cold hands.

God! To be still a fool their, after ten years!

It was just a week since she had asked me to send for him. She had clutched me feebly and said as I bent over her: "After all he is my son. That is so much more than he was to you-he was just your husband and you have forgotten-haven't you? I wish I could see him again." I wrote him that clay. And when I told her, she stopped a few last tears with her thin fingers and the smile she gave me had a blessing I shall not forget.

IIe did not hurry himself about coming. Morning after morning she questioned me with her eyes, once with her lips, when she said, "Do you think I can wait for him?"

It was not easy waiting for me either, although I knew it was respite from what was to come.

Janet had to be told. We had never talked to her about her father. He had not been able to wait until she was born before he went away with the other woman. I had answered her questions about fathers, about her lack of one, in as few words as I could. I wondered what her grandmother might have said to her. I had a feeling she had said something, made some explanation. But Janet had not told me. She was queer, elfin, adoring.

Then he got leisurely out of the cab and I saw that, with inconceivable impudence, he had brought her with him.

His mother saw, too. She had watched from her bed every waking hour. Her eyes met mine. "Don't mind," she whispered. "You won't mind, will you? Don't let it matter." And after all, what did it matter?

I opened the door for them. He cleared his throat before he spoke. "This is my wife, Alice," he said to me, indicating her close behind him.

She was dazzling white and pink. She had a spotted veil drawn tightly over her face; a spotted waist, too. She had a little slick black dog on a string.

I showed her to the room I had prepared and he went in alone to his mother. I pulled the door shut.

Then suddenly I could not bear the house. I ran down from the back door. "This is my wife, Alice, this is my wife, Alice,"-pounded in my ears.

I had hardly looked at him; I carried no picture of the changes the years might have wrought. But they had not touched the voice, it had the old tender note that meant so little. "This is my wife, Alice,"-Not the words. They did not count. Just the voice.

The past crashed into me. But not the past of the worshipful days when I kissed his clothes as they hung in the closet-thank heaven their memory never burrowed its way out !-but the past of these last ten years when I slaved and remembered and so flung them under his feet.

His mother had taken me home with her after he had gone. There was little money and I worked year after year in the dark, dusty, high room where ready-made clothes from the store below came up for alteration. I altered other people's

clothes in the thick light year after year, and I think in all that time I never smiled, except for Janet to see. And why? Why toss ten years under the feet of a man? Why one man more than any other, in a world full of them? Why the sound of one voice to blur all else? Why the memory of one quite untrustworthy man tincturing all?

A neighbor woman went through the alley. She looked curiously at me. She had doubtless seen the cal) stop, speculated on the situation, gone through the alley on purpose. And to much avail. She could tell that I stood, crushed into the corner of the fence, gripping the gate. I wondered how I looked, if what I was feeling was blazoned on me.

It must be, then, that I was a sentimentalist clinging still to the thing called love. Mountains of ready-made clothes had not buried the idealist then, if I hung thus crucified before a something I did not understand. I asked it fierce questions : was it born from the turn of an accent, or was it divine, to live through all time? I knew how meaningless that tender note-I could not be burning inside for that. I knew how treacherous the nature. Was .it passion? No. Is there a lure of the flesh? What have all the people of the world been doing that they have not builded a definite structure to be recognized as love.

Janet raced down the walk, her white hair-ribbon bobbing; she cast herself upon me. It seemed almost as if she under-stood, she who could not understand.

"Muther. You are so beautiful. I Iove the pink palms of your lovely hands."

No words came through the tightness of my throat. "Muther. I do not like my father."

I looked at her.

"His fingernails are dirty and the back of his neck is all broken out."

I watched her a minute. I took her hand and led her back to the house. . . . And more-in his curiosity of me there was a nearly flirtatiousness.

That night she died and I folded her hands over a heart no freer than my own.

Is love then of the flesh?

CHURCH SOCIABLE

"ISN'T it quaint," he turned and said to me, "To watch these village people at the fair?" But I had seen too often what was there;

I shrugged impatience at his inquiry . . .

I was a child again, and Mrs. Lee

And other members of The Ladies' Aid, At tables on the lawn, in meek parade, Were serving cakes and glasses of iced-tea.

I hated this weak pomp of charity,

This pauper's feast to aid the stricken poor.

I watched these too-thin ladies seek their door In sweetly pious insincerity;

Holding themselves so righteously alone, Turning their Christian backs on Mrs. Cohn.

Jean Starr Untermeyer.

13

In Behalf of the I. W. W.

By Helen Keller

DOWN through the long, weary years the will of the ruling class has been to supress either the man or his message when they antagonized its interests. From the execution of the propagandist and the burning of books, down through the various degrees of censorship and expurgation to the highly civilized legal indictment and winking at mob crime by constituted authorities, the cry has ever been "crucify him !" The ideas and activities of minorities are misunderstood and misrepresented. It is easier to condemn than to investigate. It takes courage to steer one's course through a storm of abuse and ignominy. But I believe that discussion of even the most bitterly controverted matters is demanded by our love of justice, by our sense of fairness and an honest desire to understand the problems that are rending society. Let us review the facts relating to the situation of the "I. W. W.'s" since the United States of America entered the war with the declared purpose to conserve the liberties of the free peoples of the world.

During the last few months, in Washington State, at Pasco and throughout the Yakima Valley, many "I. W. W." members have been arrested without warrants, thrown into "bull-pens" without access to attorney, denied bail and trial by jury, and some of them shot. Did any of the leading news-papers denounce these acts as unlawful, cruel, undemocratic? No. On the contrary, most of them indirectly praised the perpetrators of these crimes for their patriotic service!

On August 1st, of 1917, in Butte, Montana, a cripple, Frank Little, a member of the executive board of the "I. W. W.", was forced out of bed at three o'clock in the morning by masked citizens, dragged behind an automobile and hanged on a railroad trestle. Were the offenders punished? No. A high government official has publicly condoned this murder, thereby upholding lynch-law and mob rule.

On the 12th of last July twelve hundred miners were de-ported from Bisbee, Arizona, without legal process. Among them were many who were not "I. W. W.'s" or even in sympathy with them. They were all packed into freight cars like cattle and flung upon the desert of New Mexico, where they would have died of thirst and hunger if an outraged society had not protested. President Wilson telegraphed the Governor of Arizona that it was a bad thing to do, and a commission was sent to investigate. But nothing has been done. No measures have been taken to return the miners to their homes and families.

Last September the 5th, an army of officials raided every hall and office of the "I W. W." from Maine to California. They rounded up one hundred and sixty-six "I. W. W." officers, members and sympathizers, and now they are in jail in Chicago, awaiting trial on the general charge of conspiracy.

In a short time these men will be tried in a Chicago court. The newspapers will be full of stupid, if not malicious comments on their trial. Let us keep an open mind. Let us try to preserve the integrity of our judgment against the misrepresentation, ignorance and cowardice of the day. Let us refuse to yield to conventional lies and censure. Let us keep our hearts tender towards those who are struggling

mightily against the greatest evils of the age. Who is truly indicted, they or the social system that has produced them? A society that permits the conditions out of which the "I. W. W.'s" have sprung, stands self-condemned.

The "I. W. W." is pitted against the whole profit-making system. It insists that there can be no compromise so long as the majority of the working class live in want, while the master class lives in luxury. According to its statement, "there can be no peace until the workers organize as a class, take possession of the resources of the earth and the machinery of production and distribution, and abolish the wage-system." In other words, the workers in their collectivity must own and operate all the essential industrial institutions and secure to each laborer the full value of his produce. I think it is for this declaration of democratic purpose, and not for any wish to betray their country, that the "I. W. W." members are being persecuted, beaten, imprisoned and murdered.

Surely the demands of the "I. W. W." are just. It is right that the creators of wealth should own what they create. When shall we learn that we are related one to the other ; that we are members of one body; that injury to one is injury to all? Until the spirit of love for our fellow-workers, regard-less of race, color, creed or sex, shall fill the world, until the great mass of the people shall be filled with a sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice cannot be attained, and there can never be lasting peace upon earth.

I know those men are hungry for more life, more opportunity. They are tired of the hollow mockery of mere existence in a world of plenty. I am glad of every effort that the working men make to organize. I realize that all things will never be better until they are organized, until they stand all together like one man. That is my one hope of world democracy. Despite their errors, their blunders and the ignominy heaped upon them, I sympathize with the "I. W. W.'s." Their cause is my cause. While they are threatened and imprisoned, I am manacled. If they are denied a living wage, I, too, am defrauded. While they are industrial slaves, I cannot be free. My hunger is not satisfied while they are unfed. I cannot enjoy the good things of life that come to me while they are hindered and neglected.

The mighty mass-movement of which they are a part is discernible all over the world. Under the fire of the great guns, the workers of all lands, becoming conscious of their class, are preparing to take possession of their own.

That long struggle in which they have successively won freedom of body from slavery and serfdom, freedom of mind from ecclesiastical despotism, and more recently a voice in government, has arrived at a new stage. The workers are still far from being in possession of themselves or their labor. They do not own and control the tools and materials which they must use in order to live, nor do they receive anything like the full value of what they produce. Workingmen everywhere are becoming aware that they are being exploited for the benefit of others, and that they cannot be truly free unless they own themselves and their labor. The achievement of such economic freedom stands in prospect-and at no distant date-as the revolutionary climax of the age.

I4

R E D R U S S I A-

The Triumph of the Bolsheviki

Is

THE real revolution has begun. All the swift events of the last eight crowded montlis-the sudden debacle of Czarism in February, the brief inglorious attempt of Miliukov to establish a safe and sane bourgeois republic, the rise of Kerensky and the precarious structure of hasty compromise which constituted the Provisional Government-these were merely the prologue to the great drama of naked class-struggle which has now opened. For the first time in history the working-class has seized the power of the state, for its own purposes-and means to keep it.

Today the Bolsheviki are supreme in Russia. The ominous onward march of Kaledine, self-proclaimed military dictator and restorer of middle-class order, has stopped-his own Cossacks are turning against him. Yesterday Kerensky, after his defeat and the surrender of his staff at Galchina, fled in disguise. The news has just come that Moscow, after a bloody battle that wrecked the Kremlin and smashed thou-sands of lives, is undisputedly in the possession of the military Revolutionary Committee. As far as anyone can see, there is no force in Russia to challenge the Bolshevik power. And yet, as I write this, in the flush of their success, the new-born revolution of the proletariat is ringed round with a vast fear and hatred.

Last night two thousand Red Guards-the proletarian militia organized and armed by Trotzky just before the final clash-swung down the Zagarodny in triumph. Ahead a military band was playing-and never did it sound so appropriate-the Marseillaise. Blood-red flags drooped over the dark ranks of the marching workers. They were going to meet and welcome home to "Red Petrograd" the saviors of the new proletarian revolution-the troops who had just fought so desperately and so successfully against Kerensky and his Cossacks. In the bitter dusk they tramped, singing, men and women, their tall bayonets swinging, through streets faintly lighted and slippery with mud. And as they marched they passed always between crowds that were hostile, contemptuous, fearful.

The proletarian revolution has no friends except the proletariat. The bourgeoisie-business men, shop-keepers, students, land-owners, officers, political office holders and their fringe of clerks and servants and hangers-on, are solidly in opposition to the new order. The moderate Socialist parties -though they may find themselves forced by circumstances to combine with the Bolsheviks-hate them bitterly. But these elements are so far powerless. Their military strength is represented only by part of the Cossacks, and the Junkers -cadets of the Officers Schools. While on the side of the Bolsheviks are ranged the whole rank and file of the workers and the poorer peasants; and the soldiers and sailors are with and of them. On one side the workers, on the other side, everybody else. For the moment the cleavage has all the clear and beautiful distinctness of familiar theory.. .

And at this date-I am writing Nov. 4-the workers are in

•All dates according to Russian calendar. 0dr dates thirteen days earlier.

complete control. No one can know what the next few days may bring forth. If they can persuade the other Socialist parties to join with them in accomplishing their gigantic immediate program of Bread, Peace and Land for the Peasants, this proletarian government will probably last until the Constituent Assembly-and after that, in history, a pillar of fire for mankind forever.

This is the moment toward which all revolutions tend. The course of every revolution is toward the left, swifter and swifter. And the Government which would retain power in revolutionary times must do the will of the revolutionary masses-or smash it with cannon. The Provisional Government did neither.

Since last February, when the roaring torrents of work-men and soldiers bearing upon the. Tauride Palace compelled the frightened Duma to assume the supreme power in Russia, it is the masses of the people-workmen, soldiers and peasants-who have forced every change in the course of the Revolution. It was they who hurled down the Miliukov ministry. It was their Soviets-their Council of Working-men's and Soldiers' Delegates-which proclaimed to the world the Russian peace terms-"no annexations, no indemnities, the right of peoples to dispose of themselves!' And again in July, it. was the spontaneous rising up of the unorganized masses, again storming the Tauride Palace, which forced the Soviets to assume power in the name of the proletariat.

The Bolshevik party was the ultimate political expression of this popular will. It was useless to hunt down the Bolsheviks as rioters and imprison them-as was done after the riots which grew out of the July demonstrations. Useless, too, to fling at them the accusation manufactured by provocateurs and reactionaries, and repeated until it was believed by all the world, that they were the paid agents of Germany. Unable to substantiate the accusations against the arrested Bolsheviks, the Provisional Government was obliged to re-lease them, one by one, without trial, until of the original hundred less than twenty remained in prison.

Meanwhile, day by day, the Bolshevik power was growing. It was bound to grow. For the whole Bolshevik program was simply a formulation of the desires of the masses of Russia. It called for a general, democratic immediate peace (that got the army, sick of war) ; the land to be immediately at the disposal of the Peasant Land Committees (that got the peasants) ; and control of industry by the workers (that got Labor). The demand that the government should be simply the Soviets of the Workingmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, without participation by the propertied classes, until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the end of November, when the political form of the new Russia should be definitely decided-this completed their program. And it is worthy of remark that when the Bolsheviks first demanded that all power should be given to the Soviets, the majority of the Soviets were still bitterly anti-Bolshevik. It is a mark both of their utter consistency and of their complete confidence in the approaching triumph of their cause. Their

15

B y JOHN REED

cry, "All power to the Soviets !" was the voice of the Russian masses; and in the face of the increasing impotence and indecision of the ever-changing Provisional Government, it grew louder day by day.

So it was that, while the "center" Socialist parties, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionist moderates, involved themselves in compromise with the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks were rapidly capturing the Russian masses. In July they had been hunted and despised; by September the metropolitan workingmen, the sailors of the Baltic fleet, and the hotly of the army, had been won almost entirely to their cause.

It was the fate of the hesitating successive ministries of the Provisional Government to be blind to this inexorable trend of affairs. To the Soviets' call for peace without annexations or indemnities, the Government replied by ordering the June offensive into Austrian Galicia. In answer to the whole country's longing for peace, the Government permitted the Allies to postpone and again postpone the promised Conference on the Aims of the War, and finally to announce that war aims would not be discussed at all. In regard to the land question, the Government's course was equally in-decisive. In the summer, Peasant Land Committees had been appointed for the purpose of temporary disposal of the great estates; but when they began to act, they were arrested and imprisoned. To the agrarian disorders that resulted from the holding back of the long-promised land, the Government replied by sending Cossacks to put down the "anarchy." The army was demoralized by suspicion of its officers; the Government, instead of attempting the democratization of the reactionary staffs, tried to suppress the Soldiers' Committees, and restored the death-penalty in behalf of discipline. Industry was in a terrible state of disorgani-.zation, a struggle to the death between manufacturers and workingmen; but instead of establishing some sort of state control over the factories, and making use of the immensely valuable democratic workingmen's organizations, Minister of Labor Skobelev tried to abolish the Shop Committees.

But the final collapse of the Provisional Government may be laid most of all to three collossal blunders: the Galician offensive of June, the Kornilov affair, and Coalition with the bourgeoisie.

After the Soviets' world-wide call for peace without annexations and indemnities, the Russian and German armies had fraternized for several months, until, according to the testimony of Rosa Luxembourg,* the German troops were thoroughly unwilling to fight. In June, by tricks, exhortations and lies, the Russians were cajoled into advancing the whole movement crumbling and crashing down in disaster at Kalusz and Tarnopol; and as a result, the morale of the

'"So, you have broken the peace! The Russian revolution was every-thing to us, too. Everything in Germany was tottering, falling...For months the soldiers of the two armies fraternized, and our officers were powerless to stop it. Then suddenly the Russians fired upon their German comrades! After that it was easy to convince the Germans that the Russian peace was false. Alas, my poor friends! Germany will destroy you now, and for us is black despair come again..."-Letter of Rosa Luxembourg to a Russian Socialist, July, 1917.

Russian armies and their faith in their officers irreparably ruined.

Then, after the fall of Riga, came the Kornilov attempt to march on Petrograd and establish a military dictatorship. All the details of the story have not yet come out, but it is plain that Kerensky and other members of the Government were in some way involved in the scheme. Whatever the secret facts might be, enough was disclosed to make the masses utterly lose faith in Kerensky as a friend of the revolution. After that event, the Provisional Government was doomed.

Then the Coalition, the last chapter of preparation for the final struggle. At the time of the Kornilov attempt, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets pro-posed that an All-Russian Congress be called at Petrograd, to broaden the base of the Provisional Government and create some sort of temporary organ or pre-Parliament to which the Ministry could be responsible until the Constituent Assembly. The basis of the new body was, of course, to be the Soviets; but as the Bolshevik power continued to grow, the Central Committee became anxious, and began to invite all sorts of non-political-and conservative-organizations, such as the Co-operatives, to participate. With the same object, to keep the pre-Parliament from being Bolshevik, it reduced the Soviet membership and increased the representation of the bourgeoisie in the last few days, until, even though the propertied classes had been expressly excluded, it was certain that the majority of the gathering would be "safe."

It was a pre-Parliament carefully calculated to vote for the sharing of governmental power with the liberal bourgeois party. So far as plans could effect it, even the pre-tense of a Socialist regime was at an end.

But these plans were not easy to carry out. Russia had been shocked and frightened by the Kornilov affair, with its ominous threat against the very existence of the Republic. Investigation had proved how widespread was the responsibility for that affair, and there was profound distrust of the bourgeois politicians. In spite of Kerensky's impassioned speech of self-defense, the Assembly proved to be overwhelmingly against his project of Coalition. But on the Government's plea that the national danger demanded it, Coalition was pushed through by a narrow majority. Compromise had won. The Bolsheviks left the Assembly. The new "representative-consultative" body, the Council of the Russian Republic, with its immense proportion of business men and cadets, was officially instituted.

From the first the Bolsheviks refused to sanction the existence of the Council. At its first meeting in the Marinsky Palace, Trotzky took the tribune in the name of the Bolsheviks, and made a speech which contains the full premises of the Bolshevik insurrection. And when it became clear that there was nothing more to be said in opposition to the compromisers, but only something to be done, the Bolsheviks quitted the Council of the Russian Republic in a body.

That was on October 5th.

r6   THE LIBERATOR

II. The True Revolution

The true revolution may be said to have begun on that day. For their withdrawal was a sign of the withdrawal of confidence from the Government by the whole mass of the Russian people. Those who were left behind, the hostile Cadets, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, realized what it meant, and there were many pale faces. Shrieks, curses, execrations, and imploring cries of "Come back!" followed the departing Bolsheviks. But they did not come back. And it was a blow from which the Council never recovered. It was to go on deliberating and speech-making, amid lethargic silence or uproarious tumult, for three weeks-appointing commissions, on land, on foreign affairs; Terestchenko was to come and make a dull, non-committal statement of international policy ; Kerensky was to come twice to appeal with tears for national unity, and once to curse the Bolsheviks, along with the reactionaries, as traitors; there were to be illusory conflicts between the Right and the Left, and a multitude of words added to the immense torrent of hot Russian talk that flows, turbulent and endless, on and on. Only in the last days of its existence did the denatured Council hurriedly pass a resolution to solve the land question at once and to adopt an energetic foreign policy to secure peace. It was too late, then. But they would keep_ on discussing until that cold grey morning, three weeks after the departure of the Bolsheviks, when they were to be interrupted-all the doors of the great imperial council room suddenly filled with rough-looking big soldiers and sailors, bristling with bayonets, and a sailor shouting, "No more Council. Run along home."

I had seen the Bolsheviks leave the earlier Assembly. In the corridor I stopped Volodarski. "Why are you fellows going?" I asked. "We can't work with that counter-revolutionary gang," he replied. "They've packed the hall, and now they've put over a combination with the Kornilovtsi, to wreck the revolution." "What are you going to do?" I asked.

"We're going to call a new All-Russian Convention of the Soviets. That's where the real revolutionary force lies. Then we'll take over the power. All power to the Soviets, where it belongs!"

It was this All-Russian Congress of Soviets that now loomed over Russia like a thunder-cloud. It was recognized to be the beginning of the Bolshevik regime, and by the bourgeoise, the "center" Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionists, the Central Army and Fleet Committees, the Peasants Soviets, and especially the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets itself, no pains were spared to try to prevent it. Solemn resolutions, declarations in the press, delegations from the front, the fleet, from factories, Peas-ants' Union (reactionary), Union of Cossacks, Knights of St. George, Death Battalions. . . . In the Isvestia, official organ of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, a determined campaign against the Congress was carried on. The "center" Mensheviks and Social Revolutionists, led by the "Lieber-Dans" as they are called, sent instructions far and wide over the country for their party members to influence local Soviets into refusing to send delegates. But the Petrograd Soviet stubbornly insisted. At the date set, October zo, only fifteen delegates out of a possible 900 odd had arrived; the Petrograd Soviet merely postponed the meeting until October 25, and sent another call. The next

clay more than a hundred arrived-among them many who had been delegated irregularly, over the heads of hostile executive committees. Confident of a majority, the Bolshevik Petrograd Soviet sent word that it would grant in-creased representation to small Soviets, and seat all delegates. The Central Executive Committee realized that it was beaten, and sent frantic calls over the country to the Soviets to elect Menshevik and Social Revolutionist delegates-a despairing attempt to get a majority of the "right" and. "center."

In the meantime there were more' sinister signs of re-. sistance to the will of the masses. The Government was making preparations to evacuate Petrograd; and Rodzianko, former president of the Duma and one of the Cadet leaders, declared before a conference of business men in Moscow that the loss of Petrograd would not be a serious blow; for in the first place the revolutionary Petrograd workers would not cause any more trouble and in the second place, the revolutionary Baltic fleet would be disposed of. And then came the declaration of the new government: suppression of mutiny at the front and anarchy in the country by force, and the transfer of the power of "irresponsible organizations" (that is, the Soviets) to the Dumas and Zemstvos.

The air was full of talk of the Bolshevik "demonstration" -the vistuplenntie, or "coming out" of the workers and soldiers. Bolshevik agitators went the rounds of the Petrograd barracks and factories, insisting that the counter-revolutionary Government wanted to open the front to the Germans, wreck the Constituent Assembly, destroy the Revolution. Lenine made his appearance-in print in the columns of the Bolshevik paper "Rabotchi Poot,"-preaching armed insurrection. On the extreme right the reactionary papers "Novaia Rus" and "Jivoe Slovo" called for a bloody drowning of the left elements in blood, a pitiless military dictatorship. Burtsev's paper, "Obshee Dielo," advocated a strong patriotic government of Kornilov, Kaledine and Kerensky ! Evidently some of the Bolshevik chiefs themselves opposed the idea of an uprising, preferring to wait for the Constituent Assembly -but Lenine's great voice roared continuously, "Either armed insurrection or abandon the program of "All Power to the Soviets! The counter-revolutionists are preparing to destroy the All-Russian Congress and the Revolution !" Volodarski told me in the corridors of Smolny that the will of the masses of all Russia was that the power should immediately be given to the Soviets. "The Lieber Dan crowd are sabotaging this Congress," he said. "But if they succeed in preventing enough delegates to come here to make a quorum, well, we are realists enough not to depend on that!" Kamenev was of the opinion that as soon as the All-Russian Soviets had declared themselves, the Provisional Government would be forced to resign...

Finally, the intention of the Bolsheviks in general was, I think, expressed best by Trotsky, who made a categorical public statement that the workers and soldiers would make no vistuplennie unless provoked, or unless some counter-revolutionary attempt was made. He was perfectly clear in his opinion that the masses of Russia, as represented in the Congress of Soviets, would demand by a huge majority that the power should pass to the Soviets; and of course if the government resisted !

At the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October 17th, Trotsky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the Bolsheviks contemplated armed insurrection as "an attempt of the reactionaries to discredit

I-

18   THE LIBERATOR

and wreck the Congress of Soviets... The Petrograd Soviet," he declared, has not ordered any demonstration in the streets. When it will be necessary we will do so, and we are sure we will be supported by the workers and the Petrograd garrison...They (the Government) are preparing a counter-revolution ; and we will answer with an offensive which will be merciless and to the end !"

An Interview with Trotzky

That very day Trotsky gave me an interview about the projects of the new power-the "dictatorship of the proletariat"-which Volodarski had described to me as being in form "a loose government, sensitive to popular will, giving local forces full play." He said:

"The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie is in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition with the moderate parties. Now, during the revolution, one sees revolts of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land, and all over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same disgust is evident. The domination of the bourgeoisie is only possible by civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way by which the bourgeoisie can dominate. But it is force which the bourgeoisie lacks...The army is with us. The conciliators and pacificators, Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviks, have lost all authority-because the struggle between the peasants and the landlords, between the workers and the bankers, between the soldiers and the Kornilovist officers, has become more bitter, more irreconcileable than ever. Only by the struggle of this popular mass, only by the victory of the proletarian dictatorship, can the revolution be achieved and the people saved! The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people-perfect in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and objects. Based directly on the army in the trenches, the workers in the factories, and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone of the Revolution.

"They have tried to create a power disdaining the Soviets, and they have created only powerlessness. Counter-revolutionary schemes of all sorts organize now in the corridors of the Council of the Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of the people. Between the two camps there are no serious groups. It is the inevitable lutte finale. The bourgeois counter-revolution organizes all its forces and waits for a moment to attack us. Our answer will be decisive. We will finish the work scarcely begun in February, and advanced during the Kornilov affair..."

He described to me how the new government would he composed; instead of a ministry, the different departments of the state would be directed by a series of collegia, headed by titulary commissars, who would be responsible to the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets-the new parliament. I asked about the new government's foreign policy.

"Our first act," said Trotsky, "will be to call for an immediate armistice on all fronts, and a conference of the peoples to discuss democratic peace terms. The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement depends upon the quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe. If we create here a government of the Soviets, that will be a powerful factor for immediate peace in Europe; for this government will address itself immediately and directly to the peoples, over the heads of their governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of the conclusion of peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will be in the direction of : no annexations, no indemnities, the rights of peoples to dispose of themselves, and a Federated Republic of Europe.

"At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by diplomats, but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe-the United States of Europe-that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain in national groups, then Imperialism will recommence

its work. Only a Federated Republic can give peace to Europe-and to the world." He smiled, that singularly fine and somewhat melancholy smile of his. "But without the action of the European masses, these ends cannot be realized -now."

It is fashionable among the bourgeoisie to speak of the Bolshevik coup d'etat as an "adventure." Adventure it is, and one of the most splendid mankind ever embarked on, sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking everything on their vast and simple desires. Peace, land, bread. Why not? Already the machinery was created by which the land of the great estates could be taken over and distributed to the peasants, each according to his powers. Already the factory shop committees were ready to put into operation workmen's control of industry. The different nationalities of Russia were all ready for months to assume the administration of their own people. In every village, town, city, district and government, Soviets of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates were prepared to assume the local powers of government. Liberate the local forces of Russia-how simple, and how tremendous ! As for peace-well unless all signs lied, the peoples of the world were sick of and disillusioned with the War... What it meant was simply the liberation of the local forces of the world !

If the Bolsheviki Had Not Won

At that same meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, on October lath, some soldiers, workmen and peasants spoke, revealing very clearly the feeling of the masses, and some officers, members of the Army Central Committees, the Central Committee of Soviets, etc., opposed them. As for these last, suffice it to say that they opposed with all their might "All power to the Soviets"-and there was not a proletarian among them, just as there were no bourgeois among the representatives of the masses. The division was clean.. .

The peasant described the agrarian disorders in Kaluga Government, which he said were caused by the Government's arresting members of the Land Committees who were trying to distribute the uncultivated fields of the local great estates. "This Kerensky is nothing but a comrade to the pomiestchiks (landlords)," he cried. "And they know we will take the land anyway at the Constituent Assembly, so they are trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly !"

A workman from the Obukovsky Zavod, a government shop, described how the superintendents and managers were trying to close down certain departments one by one, complaining of lack of material, of fuel, etc., and how the shop committee had discovered that there was no real necessity for closing down. "They are trying to drive the revolutionary Petrograd workers out of the city," he declared. "It is provocaisi-they want to starve us to death, or drive us to violence..."

Among the soldiers one began, "Comrades! I bring you greetings from the spot where men are digging their own graves and call them trenches ! We must have peace !"

Another man told of the electoral campaign now being waged in the Fifth Army for the Consituent Assembly. "The officers, and especially the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the Bolshevik campaign. Our papers are not allowed to go to the trenches. Our speakers are arrested. Our mail is censored."

"Why don't you speak about the lack of bread?" cried a

March, 1918   19

voice. They are sabotaging the food supply. They want to starve Red Petrograd !"

And so it went. Now is there any truth in the accusation that the bourgeoisie were trying to wreck the Revolution? I happened, barely two weeks before, to have an exceedingly significant talk with one of the great Russian capitalists, Stepan Georgevitch Lianosov-"the Russian Rockefeller," as he is called.

"We manufacturers," he said, among other things, "will never consent to allow the workmen, through their unions or any other way, any voice whatsoever in the administration or control of production in our business....In the government which is to cone there will be no coalition with the democratic parties-an all-Cadet ministry...

"How will this new government come into being? I will explain. The Bolsheviks threaten to make an insurrection on the twentieth of October. We are prepared. This uprising will be crushed by military force, and from this military force will come the new government... Kornilov is not dead yet; he failed, but he still has enough support among the people to succeed...And if the Bolsheviks do not rise, the Propertied class will make a coup d'etat at the Constituent Assembly? No, we do not fear the Bolsheviks. They are cowards, and will run at the first few shots of the troops. They will be suppressed by the military... There are the Cos-sacks, several guard regiments, and the junkers. That will be more than enough...It is my personal opinion that the republic will not last long in Russia. There will be a monarchy."

At the last meeting of the Council of the Russian Republic I was wandering around the corridors and chanced upon Professor Shatsky, a little, mean-faced, dapper man, who is influential in the councils of the Cadet party. I asked what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik vistuplennie. He shrugged, sneering:

"They are cattle-canaille," he answered. "They will not dare, or if they dare they will be soon sent flying. From our point of view it will not be bad, for then they will ruin them-selves and have no power in the Constituent Assembly... But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction with the Government, to work out a constitutional project...We will have a legislative body of two chambers, much as you have in the United States. In the lower chamber will be territorial representatives, and in the upper, representatives of the liberal professions, Zemstvos, trades unions, co-operatives..."

-On October sixteenth a special commission of the Council of the Russian Republic and the Ministry hurriedly hammered out two projects for giving the land temporarily to the peasants and for pushing an energetic foreign policy of peace. On the seventeenth Kerensky suspended the death penalty in the army. Too late. I went over to the Cirque Moderne to one of the Bolshevik meetings which grew more and more numerous every day. The bare, gloomy wooden amphitheater, with its five tiny lights hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the steep sweep of grimy benches to the very roof-soldiers, sailors, workmen, women, Iistening as if their lives depended upon it, and roaring applause. A soldier was speaking-from the 548th Division, whatever and wherever that is:

"Comrades !" he cried, and there was real anguish in his

drawn face and despairing gestures. "The people at the head of things are always appealing to us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are left unmolested... We are at war with Germany, and we wouldn't invite German generals to serve on our staff. Well, we're at war with the capitalists, and yet we invite capitalists into our government... The soldier says, 'Show me what I am fighting for. Is it the Dardanelles, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it the capitalists? If you can prove to me that I am fighting for the Revolution, then I'll go out and fight with capital punishment.'

"When the land is to the peasants, and the mills to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we'll know we have something to fight for, and we'll fight for it !"

The Last Days

Under date of October 16, I find entered in my notebook the following news culled from different newspapers :

Mogilev (Staff Headquarters).-Concentration here of Cossacks, the "Savage Division," several guard regiments, and the "Death Battalions"-for action against the Bolsheviks.

The Junker regiments from the officers' schools of Pavlovak, Tsarkow Selo, Peterhof, ordered by the government to be ready to come to Petrograd. Oranienbaum Junkers arrived in the city.

Part of the Armored Car Division of the Petrograd Garrison stationed at the Winter Palace.

At a meeting of the City Militia of the low-Liteiny district a resolution was passed demanding that all power be pivett to the Soviets.

Upon orders signed by Trotsky, several thousand rifles delivered by the Sestroretzk government arms factory. Petrograd workers being armed, and assigned in regiments. (This was the creation of the famous Red Guard.)

At Smolny, first meeting since Kornilov days of the Committee to Fight the Counter-Revolution.

At Smolny, meeting of representatives of the Petrograd garrison, and formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

This is just a fragmentary sample of the confused, violent happenings of those feverish clays, when everybody sensed that something was going to happen, but no one knew just what. On Sunday, the 22nd, the Cossacks had planned a "Chrestni Chod"-Procession of the Cross-in honor of the Ikon of 1624, by whose virtue Napoleon was driven from Moscow. The Petrograd Soviet published broadcast a proclamation, headed, "Brothers-Cossacks !"

"You, cossacks, are wanted to be up against us, workmen and soldiers. This plan of Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies-oppressors of the privileged classes, generals, bankers, landlords, former officials, former servants of the Tsar. . . . We are hated by all grafters, rich men, princes, nobility, generals, including your Cossack generals. They are ready at any moment to destroy the Petrograd Council, and crush the Revolution. . . . On the 22nd of October somebody is organizing a Cossack religious procession. It is a question of the free consciousness of every individual whether he will or will not take part in this procession. We do not interfere in this matter and do not cause any obstruction to anybody. . . . However, we warn you, Cossacks! Look out and see to it that under the pretext of a Chrestni Chad, your Kaledines do not instigate you against workmen, against soldiers.   .

The Military Commander of the Petrograd district hastily called off the procession. On the 19th all the newspapers and all the house-walls of Petrograd carried a government proclamation, signed by Polkovnikov, Commander of Petrograd, ordering the arrest of all persons inciting the soldiers to armed manifestations, forbidding all street meetings, dem-

20

onstrations, and processions, an. of eridg the g O therm and the militia to prevent by military force all unauthorized arrests and searches in houses. As if by magic, the walls were covered with proclamations, appeals, warnings, from all the Central Committees, from the Executive Committees of the moderate and conservative parties, calling upon the workmen and soldiers not to come out, not to obey the Petrograd Soviet. For instance, this from the Military Section of the Central Committee of the Social Revolutionist Party:

"Again rumors are spreading around the town of an intended vistuplennie. What is the source of these rumors? What organisation authorizes these agitators who talk of the insurrection? The Bolsheviks, to a question addressed to them in the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, replied in the negative. . . . But these rumors themselves carry with them a great danger. It may easily happen that, not taking into consideration the state of mind of the majority of the workers, soldiers and peasants, the individual hot-heads will call out part of the workmen and soldiers on the streets, exciting them to rise. . . . In this terrible hard time which revolutionary Russia is passing through, this insurrection can easily become civil war, and there can result from it the destruction of all organizations of the proletariat, founded with so much pains. . . . The counter-revolutionary plotters are planning to take advantage of this insurrection to destroy the revolution, open the front to Wilhelm, and wreck the Constituent Assembly. . . . Stick stubbornly to your posts! Do not come outl . .

Meanwhile from all sides the situation was growing tenser day by day. The Bolshevik papers steadily counseled that the All-Russian Soviets should assume the power, end the war, give the land to the peasants. On the extreme right, such organs as Purishkevitch's "Narodny Tribun," the illegal monarchist paper-and the "Novaia Rus," "Jivoe Slam," etc., openly advocated pogroms-massacres of the Jews, of the Soviets. Mysterious individuals circulated around the long lines of miserable people waiting in queue, long cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews had cornered the food supply-and that while the people starved, the Soviet members at Smolny lived luxuriously. But the Bolshevik papers spoke, and the masses listened, and were quiet-waiting.

A Picture. of Petrograd

Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. Ira the factories the committee rooms filled with stacks of arms, couriers came and went, the Red Guard drilled. . . . In all the barracks meetings every night, and all day long in-terminable hot arguments. On the streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy evening, pouring in slow, voluble tides up and • down the Nevski, bunched by the hundreds around some new proclamation pasted on a wall, and fighting for the newspapers. . . . At Smolny there were new strict guards at the door, at both the gates and outer gates, de-'manding everybody's pass. Inside the committee rooms :hummed and whirled all day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and armed workmen slept on the floor, wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hail which had been the ball-room of that one-time convent school for aristocratic girls, a thousand soldiers and workmen crowded for the uproarious all-night meetings of the Petrograd Soviet. From the thousand miles of battle-front the twelve millions of men in Russia's armies, moved under the wind of revolt, with a noise like the sea rising, poured their hundreds upon hundreds of delegations into the capital, crying "Peace! Peace!" There was a convention of the All-Russian Factory Shop Committees at Smolny, passing hot resolutions about the con

trol of works ( ry. The peasants were doming in, denouncing the Central Committee of the Peasants' Soviets as traitors, and demanding that all power be given to the Soviets. . . .

And in the city the theatres were all going, the Russian Ballet appearing in new and extravagant spectacles, Chaliapine singing at the Narodny Dom. Hundreds of gambling clubs functioned feverishly all night long, with much champagne flowing, stakes of 2o,ooo roubles. - . . Private entertainments were given by the millionaire speculators, who were buying and selling for fabulous prices the food, the munitions, the clothing. . . . On the Nevski every night thousands of prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs walked up and down, crowded the cafes. . . . Monarchist plots, German spying, smugglers hatching schemes. . . . And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under gray skies rushing faster and faster toward-what?

III.

Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviks to appear suddenly on the streets one morning and begin to shoat down people with white collars on, the real insurrection took its way quite naturally and openly.

One of the recent blundering actions of the Provisional +Government had been to order the Petrograd garrison to the front, with the object of replacing it with loyal troops. To this order the Petrograd Soviet protested, alleging that it was the intention of the Government to remove from the revolutionary capital the revolutionary troops defending it. The General Staff insisted. Thereupon the Petrograd Soviet .agreed in principle, at the same time stipulating that it be allowed to send a delegation to the front to confer with General-in-Chief Tcheremissov, and agree with him on the troops which were to come to Petrograd. The Petrograd garrison also appointed a delegation ; but an order from the General Staff forbade the committee to leave the city. To the Soviet delegation General Tcheremissov insisted that the .Petrograd garrison should obey his orders without question: .and that the General Staff would send to Petrograd whataever troops it saw fit.

At the same time the Staff in command of the Petrograd District began quietly to act. The Junker artillery was drawn into the Winter Palace. Patrols of Cossacks made their appearance, the first since July, and great heavy armored motor cars mounted with machine-guns began to lumber tap and down the Nevski. . . . The military section of the Petrograd Soviet demanded that a Soviet representative be admitted to the meetings of the Staff. Refused. Petrograd Soviet asked that no orders be issued without the approval of the military section. Refused. On the sixteenth the representatives of all the regiments of the Petrograd garrison held a meeting at Smolny, at which they formed the famous Military Revolutionary Committee, and declared formally, "The Petrograd garrison no longer recognizes the Pro-visional Government. The Soviet is our government. We will obey only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet, through the Military Revolutionary Committee."

On the twenty-third, the Government announced that It" had sufficient force to suppress any attempted rising. That night Kerensky ordered the suppression both of the extreme right papers, "Novaia Rus" and "Jivoe Slovo," and of the the Bolshevik papers, "Rabotchi Poot" and "Saida." An hour after the Junkers had closed the offices and printing

March, 1918   2I

shops, and put the Government seals on the doors, a company of soldiers from one of the Guard regiments broke the seals in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee. At the same time other troops from Smolny siezed the printing plant of the "Rousskaia Volia," a bourgeois paper, and began to print the "Rabotchi Poor." In trying to prevent this, Mayer, Chief of the Militia, was shot by the Red Guard.

During the night several transports full of Bolshevik sailors came from Cronstadt, with the cruiser "Aurora." The Government ordered that the bridges over the Nova be raised, so that the regiments across the river and the work-men from the Viborg district could not come to aid the rebels. The Cronstadt sailors made a landing under fire, in which several people were killed, and closed the bridges. In the evening bands of Junkers stationed themselves at street corners near the Winter Palace and began to requisition automobiles; and after some hours the Bolshevik troops began to do the same.

Working-Class Assumes Power

Tuesday morning, the 24th, the people of Petrograd awoke to find the city plastered with proclamations signed "Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Work-men's and Soldiers' Delegates" :

"To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens! Counter-Revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are mobilizing their forces in order to crush down the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets and break up the Convention of the Constituent. At the same time the pogromists may attempt to call upon the people of Petrograd for trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates takes upon itself the guarding of revolutionary order in the city against counter-revolutionary and pogrom attempts.

"The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators and take them to the Soviet commissars at the nearest barracks. At the first attempt of the dark forces to make trouble on the streets of Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be rubbed away from the face of the earth!

"Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands."

At Smolny that night meeting of the old Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets-its last-to welcome the delegates to the new Convention. Futile resolutions against the demonstration, in favor of complete submission to the Provisional Government. . . . At the Council of the Republic, Kerensky thundered that the Government would, suppress all uprisings mercilessly. . . . At the Winter Pal-ace heated conferences, expulsion of impotent Colonel Polkovnikov as Commander of Petrograd, appointment of a special committee, headed by Kishkine, to reestablish order. . . Call to the Junkers of Pavlovsk, of Tsarkoe, to come-and replies that they dare not, Bolshevik troops in the way.

. . Calls to the Cossacks-who reply that they will not come out unless they are supported by infantry. . . .

At midnight members of the Pavlovsk regiment, who have secreted themselves in the meeting-room of the General Staff, overhear the plans that are being made to arrest the Bolshevik leaders, capture the Smolny and disperse the All-Russian convention. Immediately they post guards at all the entrances to the Staff, begin arresting officers and members of the Ministry, take them to Smolny-where no one knows what to do with them. Released with apologies. And then, two hours later, Junkers seizing the principal points of the city, the Military Revolutionary Committee gets into action. Ministers and Staff officers to be arrested, armored cars ordered out to hold the street-corners. Bolshevik troops sent to seize the State Bank, the Telephone Station, drive the Junkers out of the Telegraph Station, and draw a cordon around the Winter Palace. . . . But Kerensky has already fled.

The masses are in power. . . . And on the morning of October 31, after the defeat of Kerensky's Cossack army, Lenine and Trotzky sent through me to the revolutionary proletariat of the world this message :

"Comrades! Greeting from the first proletarian republic of the world. We call you to arms for the international social revolution."

Isadora Duncan

yOU bring the fire and terror of the wars Of running infidels in shining hordes, With spears like sun-rays, shields, and wheeling swords Flame shape, death shape and shaped like scimitars, With crimson eagles and blue pennantry,

And teeth and armor flashing, and white eyes

Of battle horses, and the silver cries

Of trumpets unto storm and victory!

Who is this naked-footed lovely girl

Of summer meadows dancing on the grass? So young and tenderly her footsteps pass,

So dreamy-Iimbed and lightly wild and warm, The bugles murmur and the banners furl, And they are lost and vanished like a storm!

MAX EASTMAN.

N

23

rruption

24

"Poor Ed"-A Story by Susan Glaspell

NOW he was beginning to recognize old things. There was the island where they once went camping-then he must be within ten miles of Freeport. How many times he and Henry had sailed down this river ! His eyes blurred, though as he cleared them he thought he would write an essay on "Going Back." He would make it a tribute to poor old Henry. Yes, he would be glad to do that. It would be some-thing that would remain from Henry's life. And, who could say? It might be one of the best things he ever wrote. Success interpreting failure-and with gentle understanding.

He thought of Henry's life and his own. In his hand was a magazine in which he was referred to as "Edward Shackleton-the eminent critic." This appreciation said he was one of the forces moulding public opinion. It did not seem to him to have the weakness of overstatement, for he had not made the mistake of less widely read essayists of getting too far ahead of his public to he able to influence it. He had not gone upon the rocks of detachment-the sale of his books could testify to that. Every time a movement showed its head he was there to analyze it, and in essays which were a real contribution to English literature-so his publishers said, and the more disciplined reviewers did not contradict them-he had given his conclusions and reflections to the American people. That was what he had done, while his brother Henry, two years older, reared in the same home and offered the same educational advantages, had remained an obscure farmer, living and dying in the house where he was born. How strange and interesting life was ! What made those differences? Of course the answer was not far to seek; it was something in one's self that made them, a power that made for righteousness-and for success. The difference between him and Henry showed way back in the country school. He got high marks and Henry did not. And Henry never cared either about attainment or public opinion. He grinned over his report card in his lazy way and said, "What's the difference?" He wondered if Henry hadn't thought of the difference when he received each year, and sometimes oftener, the copy of his brother's new book-how glad he was now that he had always sent Henry his books; it must have meant something in his lonely life. Yes, Henry must have come to see that there was a difference. Poor Henry!

Peter Thompson, a neighbor of Henry's, was at the Free-port station for him with his horse and buggy. It amused Shackleton a little to find himself riding through the streets of Freeport in that farmer's buggy. He thought of the many people, readers of Edward Shackleton, who would be glad to have met him with their cars, claiming youthful acquaintance. But Henry's friends were apparently all among the country people. The Shackletons were people who had lived both in town and in the country-at their farm seven miles up the river. He himself, as a young man, had been part of social affairs in town-and Freeport, though a small city, was a rich one. But poor Henry had not been any more of a

success socially than any other way. And after he was ex- can see him now-coming over the hill in his slow waypelled from college, and came home and lived on the farm, he Henry never moved very fast you know. 'Why Nick,' says was referred to, when people were speaking of the Shackle- he, 'why don't you take this hill, too? It's an awful nice hill. tons, as "the wild one" or "the bad one." In this essay, which Don't you like it ?'-and he kept on like that till the old would be a tribute to Henry, he would show that he wasn't thief did put it back part way-Henry never threatening him

really wild or bad, but just lacking in initiative, in energy, in purpose. And somehow life got twisted for Henry, and he was too indifferent to untwist it.

He engaged Peter Thompson in conversation. As a student of human nature he was interested in all types, and then he wanted to freshen his mind about Henry.

"Well, Mr. Thompson," he began, "how does the old place

look ?"

"'Bout the

"Henry, I time ?"

Thompson, a small man with stiff red hair which gave the impression of being a weapon of defense, looked at him in-a guarded way, as if to see how much he meant by improving.

"Henry never was one to fuss much," he said.

"That's true," reflected the brother, thinking of his essay. "But he was a good enough farmer," went on Thompson. "He got things done-well, most things."

Apparently Henry had not changed.

"The trouble about Henry as a farmer," went on Henry's neighbor, "was that he had a way of doing what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it, and not always what he ought to do when it should be done."

"Very well put," said the eminent essayist.

"But I don't know as 'twas about as well," observed Thompson. He paused. "Anyhow, it's all the same now."

Edward was silent, entertaining his own reflections on death.

"The funniest thing of that kind I ever saw Henry do was when old Nickerson-place joins yours at the back, you may remember-was settin' his fence over about ten feet further 'an he had any business to set it. Well, I got wind of it, and was back there, and then I went running up to the place to

tell Henry. 'Why the old skunk,' says he, and ing his book.

" `Aren't you comin' back to stop him?' said

"'Soon as I finish this book,' says Henry."

The essayist gasped. He thought of his own essay, now a famous one, on "My Books." Somehow he had a momentary quite unreasonable dissatisfaction with it.

"What was the book about?" he Iaughed.

"Well I looked over his shoulder to see. I wanted to know, too. Near as I could make out it was something about breaking rock in Egypt."

"Breaking rock in Egypt?" inquired Ed incredulously.

"And makin' it into monuments. In the past, that was."

So Henry was interested in the pyramids; more interested in the pyramids, it would seem, than in getting all the land that was coming to him. A nice little story for-But suddenly he realized that he himself was one of the inheritors of this land.

"Well, I hope when he finished his book he came down and settled the old fellow."

"He came down," said Peter, "and-had fun with him. I

same," said Thompson.

suppose, has been improving it from time to

went on read-I.

March, 1918   25

or anything, just having fun with him, and himself lyin' there in the sun on the hillside-I can see him just as plain. 'Say, Henry,' I says to him, bye and bye, 'he's still got some of what's yours.' 'Oh, what's the difference, Pete,' says he. Then he kind of grinned at me-remember how he used to grin ?-slow, and says, 'I won't have it to plough.' "

That was Henry. A farmer who did not value his land!-too indifferent even to hold his own ! Need one look further for the keynote of this life? Was not right here the secret of why Henry had failed in everything?

It was fifteen years since he had been back to the old place. He would not have been here now if the telegram about 'Henry's death had not reached him in Chicago, where he was giving his lecture on "A New Era in American Morals." He had yielded to an impulse to pay Henry the respect of coming home for his funeral, and now, as just at dusk they came up a hill and saw the old Shackleton place there on the next hill, he was glad that he had come. It gave him a new sense of his own life-to say nothing of Henry's.

Henry would be buried the next morning. This was his last night in the house where he had lived all his years. Through the evening his brother thought of those years, of what they must have meant to Henry. It was impossible to keep away from that contrast between his life and his brother's. The people around the house that night were, of course, Henry's friends; they were the people of the neighborhood, apparently the only friends Henry had. He tried to talk to them, but they were not articulate. And that was all Henry had known. Life was over for him and he had never lived. Poor, poor Henry!

He had the room that had been his when he was a boy. It was strange to be in it again, and think of all there was in between. It did not look as if it had been much used, probably Henry had little company. Suddenly he stood still and stared. Why, what a strange thing for Henry to do-for there, on a shelf, were his works, the uniform edition of the books which had come out through the years. So Henry had put them back in his old room-what a singular little piece of sentiment! He could see Henry, book by book, bringing them in here after he had read them.

He began looking them over; there they all were, the things Edward Shackleton had said about life. What a lot of effort and thinking they represented, what an indefatigable search to get ideas out of events-the ideas that would make essays. This was what he had done with his life-this row of books. It was not too much to say that he had been a teacher of the nation-constantly interpreting and admonishing, ever finding the significance of things which other people had not known were significant. As some one had said, he had been wise enough never to tell people to think what they wouldn't think. This had been in a not wholly sympathetic article-one of those articles written by a less successful man-but he had found pleasure in that idea of understanding people. "New Thought," "The New Relation Between Capital and Labor," "The Meaning of the Boy Scout Movement," "The Spiritual Significance of Conservation," "New Ideals in Marriage," "Free Verse and Restlessness"-what was there he had not fitted into its place?

He sat there a long time in the room of his boyhood with the work of his manhood, thinking of all he had written about life since he left that room. Henry must often have thought of it. Just what had Henry thought? Poor, poor old Henry!

.

He was Ioking through his latest book. He was reading• the final chapter on "The Modern Woman and Responsibility," enjoying his own flowing style. He turned the last page ; he read the last word. But below the last word were two other words, penciled in Henry's small writing. He held them close to make them out. They were : "Poor Ed."

He dropped the book. But quickly he picked it up again. He peered at the small dim words. Of course he had been mistaken. But he had not been mistaken. It was Henry's queer writing, and the words unmistakably were : "Poor Ed."

He gasped ; he choked ; he blinked. Poor Ed? But it was poor Henry!

Why, the thing was incomprehensible! "Poor Ed?" What did it mean? To think Henry should be so ignorant- ! And what could he possibly have meant?

He'd like to go and ask him! He'd just like to call upon him to explain this ! But he couldn't very well call upon him to explain, for Henry was lying dead in the room below, and the dead don't explain. And here was what Henry had left-. Henry's sole comment on his seventeen books! "Poor Ed." Not even an exclamation point after it ! A period. Just calmly disposing of him like that !

Oh, well, of course Henry would be pretty sore. What had Henry ever done? Nothing. Precisely nothing. Failure did not often look kindly upon success. Poor Henry! Poor Henry! He thought "Poor Henry" a great many times, as if with "Poor Henry" to put down "Poor Ed."

But poor Henry could not put down poor Ed. As he looked at the long row of his books, the work of his life, and considered that for Henry they ended with "Poor Ed," he grew angry in a way he had never been angry in his life. It was that kind of anger which has got to do something, and the maddening thing was that there was no way of getting at Henry. He was furious at Henry for blocking him like this. He tried to find satisfaction in reviewing the fact of his brother's life. Poor Henry! There was nothing you could think about him that didn't fittingly end with that comment. Take college. What had Henry been at college except a total failure? The very first month he was there lie got in bad by one of his stupid remarks. It was a church college their parents had sent them to, and a big revival was in process. Most of the students who didn't belong to the church were joining it then. Of course he himself had soon passed on to more sophisticated forms of religious experience-but this was what was being done at the time. "Brother," the revivalist had one night said to Henry, "won't you come and be saved?" "From what?" Henry inquired, thereby giving at once the impression that he was stupid and obstinate. And then in civics class, "What do you know about this subject?" the teacher had demanded. "Nothing," Henry had answered. "Well, when will you know some-thing about it?" the teacher pursued. "Never," replied Henry. "You may leave this class never to return !" cried the professor. "Oh, thank you," said Henry-and went out and sprawled in the sun. Oh, Henry was in a fine position to say "Poor Ed !" A nice record he had made at school ! While "Poor Ed," the very first year, had won the oratorical contest and been elected to the college paper. And he himself-"Poor Ed!"-had instantly become a part of the best social life there was in college, while Henry had finally been expelled for going to a prize fight and then afterwards to a saloon with a low crowd he had picked up in the town !

And look at the difference after they came home from

26   THE LIBERATOR

college. He had at once taken his place among the best people of Freeport ; the Atwoods he had known-and their sort-while Henry had stayed up at the farm, and his only associates were the country louts who hung around the village store and saloon. And Henry's marriage! If he had made a marriage like that he wouldn't call anybody else "poor." Henry had married a vulgar girl whose father kept the saloon. He could shudder yet-and was at great pains to shudder-in the memory of how humiliated they had all been at the marriage of a Shackleton to this common person. And the next year she left with a man who was going West to look for gold. He remembered a preposterous picture he had of Henry when he went up to see him after he heard he had been deserted by his wife-he had thought it only brotherly to go, much as he had disapproved of the marriage-he had always been good to Henry ! As he came up to the door there was Henry trotting the young child of this disastrous wed-lock up and clown on his knee, and singing this outrageous little song-he had been so shocked that he had never for-gotten it :

"Your mummy's gone a travelin',
TraveIin'-a-travelin'.

Your mummy's gone a-travelin' Into the bounding West!"

That was all marriage had meant to Henry!-while he, "Poor Ed!"-had said some of the most beautiful things about it that had ever been uttered in America !

But it would be quite too absurd to permit himself to be upset by Henry's sorry little way of trying to evade the difference between the Shackleton boys. Apparently Henry was not big enough to face the fact that his brother had become a nian of importance. He himself must he bigger than Henry; he must understand and not hold malice. After all, the thing was pretty much of a joke-that Henry should write "Poor Ed:" Poor old Henry !-not much wonder he had become a little sour. Such were Edward's insistent reflections as he settled himself with his own books, to let them make an end of "Poor Ed."

He opened at his essay on "Happiness." The point of the essay was that happiness is necessary to the well rounded life, that there must be some happiness, but that all should not be happiness. It was an inquiry into just what things happiness must be mixed with in order to be most energizing. But an annoying thing was happening. He could not get into his essay because of the loud, slow ticking of the clock in the hall outside his door. The clock was beating off-"Poor-Ed, -Poor--Ed." and when he painstakingly completed his essay on "Happiness" he had an irritating picture of Henry sprawling in the sun on the campus after he had gratefully said "Oh, thank you," when told he needn't return to civics class   

That clock would drive him mad! He went out to see if he could stop it, but he couldn't get at the thing that stopped it. It grew more and more malicious. It said, "Poor Ed." until he wanted to smash it !-and he felt so insufferably helpless, as if the clock, like Henry, was something that could madden him and give him no comeback. As he stood there, full of impotent rage, his eyes filled with a rush of hot tears. Suddenly he picked up his lamp and went down to the room where Henry Iay in his coffin.

He stood there looking at his dead brother. He would have given anything in the world to be able to ask him what he meant by "Poor Ed." and to get the truth in reply. He

had to get it, and he looked and looked at Henry as if by looking he would get it. Henry wasn't going to get out of it like this! He needn't think he could say a thing of that sort and not tell why he'd said it !

How calm Henry was. How very quiet and at rest. This was death; all death was calm and rest. His hands had gripped the coffin in that almost insane moment when he was going to force from Henry what Henry had thought about him, but now they fell away-his was such a small and helpless rage before this large calm.

And suddenly he knew that Henry had always had this large calm, and for an instant there was something he almost saw-he almost saw himself as a small thing fussing around in the place where Henry dwelt largely and serenely. He tried to think of the words about the "eminent critic" in the magazine he had upstairs. But words about the eminent critic couldn't pierce this calm.

Henry had been a failure. Anyone would say so. What else could they say? But now Henry was dead, and the brother who stood beside him, in life and perplexed, was appalled by a feeling that Henry had not frittered away his life. He had not troubled about doing things because other people were doing them, or because good would be said of him if he did them. That must have been a happy hour Henry had reading about the pyramids. He would not let it be spoiled because someone was trying to take his land away from him. He would have let the land go rather than give up the hour. Now he lay in his coffin, and not leaving behind a few feet of land that should have been his, didn't seem to mark him with failure, but having had the hour he wanted gave him a strange, large, quiet kind of success.

It was a kind of success with which the eminent critic had no personal touch, and after a moment he had to get away from it, and so he left the room where his untroubled brother lay, and went out in the kitchen where Peter Thompson was "sitting up."

Thompson was making coffee, and asked Ed to join him. The coffee steadied him, and the shabby kitchen and uneducated man did something toward retoring his normal appreciation of himself. "Henry must have been very lonely here," he said, in a pitying but inquiring voice.

"Henry never was one that seemed lonely," said Thompson quietly.

After drinking some coffee in an offensive way, Henry's neighbor volunteered: "Henry'll certainly be missed down to Dyers."

"Where's Dyers?" asked Ed.

"Why Dyers is the saloon down here at the corner," said Thompson.

This practically completed the restoration. Henry would be missed at the corner saloon! Edward thought of the things that would appear in the papers-news stories and editorials-if he himself were to die. And "yet---again he only saw it through the glass of self-esteem darkly-just where would he be "missed"-speaking the word as Henry's friend had spoken it?

"Henry drank a good deal?" he inquired hastily.

"No," said Thompson, "Joe Dyer never made much of it off of Henry-that is, not off of what Henry drank himself. He liked his beer when the weather was hot, and something warming on a cold night, but what he was there for was to sit around with the boys and talk."

What a life ! His only companionship the loungers in a country saloon !

V

28   THE LIBERATOR

"Henry wasn't much of a talker when I knew him," said Henry's brother.

Thompson ran his hand through his stiff red hair. "Not a big talker," he finally admitted, "and yet I'd call him a talker."

Ed looked at him inquiringly. "Because," Thompson pursued, "he might say the least that was said of an evening, and yet what he said 'd be all you'd remember."

The eminent critic was silent. " Did Henry ever say any-thing about me?" he suddenly burst out.

"Why, yes; he used to kind of-well, brag about you some-times."

"He did?" eagerly inquired Ed.

"That is-well, I guess you'd call it bragging."

"What did he say?"

"I've heard him say, 'My brother is the eminent critic.'

He looked at Thompson suspiciously. "Well, what did he mean by that?" he asked sharply.

"Why, I don't know," said Thompson. "Henry wasn't one to explain what he meant."

"And was that all he ever said about me?" demanded Ed, with rising voice.

"No," said Thompson. "No; he said other things."

He waited, wanting to curse the man for his stupid slowness. He was forced to ask it. "What things?"

"Well," said Thompson, "I remember once when we was arguin' Henry said-'It's too bad my brother isn't here. He'd tell us.' "

Again a pause which Thompson seemed willing to let be-come eternal. "And-what were you arguing about at the time?" inquired Ed, carefully casual.

"Why, I think," said Thompson, "that was time we had the argument about space-what it did about stopping."

Edward got up and went to the kitchen door and stood there looking out. His face was burning. IIe didn't see how he could possibly write any essay about Henry! To do that he shouldn't have come home.

"Poor Henry," he said, turning back, "it makes me feel very sad to think of him."   .

"Does it ?" said Thompson so dryly that Ed flamed: "What did Henry ever have from life? Nothing-just nothing at all. Think of his marriage, for instance. What a failure! Henry died knowing nothing whatever about love."

He had turned back to close the door and Thompson's laugh made him spin round. "What are you laughing at?" he demanded.

"Well, if you'd live round here," said Thompson, "you'd laugh too."

"Laugh at what?"

"At what you just said."

"Which that I just said?" pressed the eminent critic, pertinently if not purely.

"Henry knowing nothing about love."

"But-but Henry didn't marry again."

"No-he didn't marry again." One of those stupid pauses "Emil Johnson had married her first."

"You mean Henry was involved in a scandal?" sharply asked the other Shackleton.

Thompson looked a little surprised. "We never called it such," he said simply.

"She didn't live with her husband," he went on, as if trying to figure out why they hadn't called it such. "She couldn't, not unless she lived in an insane asylum-and I guess they didn't want her there. And then she was Rose

Mason." He screwed up an eye contemplatively. "Don't seem to come natural to call what some folks does scandal.' Suddenly he chuckled. "Wonder what Henry would 'a done. if some one had come along and told him it was scandal." He chuckled again as if this idea had many entertaining ramifications.

"Well, here on this hill lived Henry," he went on in a musing way, "and over on the next one she lived. My place is in the valley down between. So-kinda tickled me-Henry knowing nothing about love." He had his knife out and took a stick from the wood-box and went to whittling, his back to Ed. "Then I was there the night she died. Henry and I walked from there together-just as it was gettin' light. When we got to where I turn off"-he took his stick and examined it, as if his real interest was in the knot round which he whittled. When we got to where I turn off," he picked it up, "we stood a minute by the creek, and-if you'd seen Henry's face then-huh !-guess you wouldn't say it so sure-nothing from life."

He found a new approach to the knot. "Henry was pretty lonesome this last year-just a year ago Rose died. But his face-huh !-it never lost the whole of what it had there by the creek-at sun-up that morning." The whittling became violent.

Edward again opened the door and stood looking out. Some night bird-a whipporwill, a quail-was calling "P-o-o-r Ed"-"P-o-o-r Ed." It did not infuriate him. He stepped out and stood looking over at the hill where the woman his brother loved had lived. He was thinking about Henry. Something big and simple and undismayed about his brother made the eminent critic almost real. Things that weren't worth anything never touched Henry at all-as civics didn't, or his marriage. And not being shut in with things that didn't matter he was open to the things that counted. He stood there in the yard where he and Henry had been boys together and he wished he might have known his brother. Henry could have helped him. He wondered why it was no one had helped him, or why no one had ever really cared for him. He supposed it was because he was al-ways trying to impress people. He had never become any-thing because he was always trying to seem something. Wisdom didn't grow in the hearts of men who were thinking about appearing learned. He thought of all the things he had written about life. They had held him away from it. His years had been one nervous quest for saying a thing before some one else should say it. And people had taken this for something valuable. People were like that. No, not all of them. Henry hadn't taken it for something valuable. He wondered if he could, after all, write about Henry-failure interpreting success. . . .

Next morning, as he walked from his brother's grave, a woman stepped up to speak to him, a woman quite unlike the other people around him.

"Mr. Shackleton?" she inquired, in the subdued voice right for the situation. "I do hope I'm not intruding. I was Helen Atwood. I married Bob Owens. Don't tell me you've forgotten us, for its our proudest boast that we knew you."

He assured her he had not forgotten her. And indeed he hadn't-he wouldn't. She was of Freeport's "leading family."

"If I am intruding, do say so. But now that you are here, we can't bear not to see you. I wish I could tell you"-her voice grew sweetly serious--"what your work has meant to

March, 1918

us. I wonder," she went on more brightly, "if you won't give us a chance to try to tell you? Mayn't I take you home for a little stay with us?"

He was grateful for the comfort of her car after the poor springs of the carriage which had taken him to the cemetery. She was discreetly quiet, respecting possible grief, or at least mindful of the fitness of things. They stopped at the Shackleton place for his bag. He was glad to be leaving-tired and dispirited after the night there. On the way to Freeport she talked gently and with some eloquence of what his books had meant to her, how they had always made her know what to think. "Yes ?" he would only say at first, and "I am glad," having an instinct for keeping away from his books, as we keep away from a place that has been sore. But her words, like her car were soothing. It occurred to him that a strange situation creates over-wrought ideas. And night-night in the country, and with death there-it was peculiarly depressing; distorting, in fact. Think of the people he had reached through his books !-people whom he had guided as Helen Atwood said he had guided her.

And then, with tact, she was speaking of his brother, commenting on the retired life he led, upon the differences in

29

families. "I hadn't seen him for years until last Spring, when my sister took a place up the river. It seems she met Mr. ShackIeton on the road one day and asked him where she could get some fertilizer for her garden, and so the next afternoon-I happened to be there at the time-he very kindly drove over with a load of manure."

The eminent critic sighed. Drove over with a load of manure !

But this load of manure was fertilizing. The essay he had first had in mind began to sprout and thrive. Yes, he would write about Henry-generously and with insight he would picture a man who had failed and yet had won from failure a certain sort of success. Perhaps-who could say? it was more satisfying than real success, with its myriad responsibilities, its ceaseless demands. He was the better for having touched Henry's quiet life; the memory of it would some-times flow restfully into his own busy days. And there would remain no memory of the disappointing thing-Henry's perhaps inevitable jealousy of the brother who was counting in the world of affairs and thought. No, all of that had died with Henry. He saw the Freeport streets through misty eyes. Poor dear old Henry !

The Peril of Tom Mooney

By Robert Minor

THE story of the manner in which Toni Mooney's death sentence was procured is stock conversation in American working-class homes. It has gone as far as the trenches of the European armies. There is hardly a Russian village where the name of "Tom Muni" has not been heard. Actually, the names of the witnesses in the case are spoken in Siberian villages, and a certain California district attorney is regularly cursed around the samovar.

The only evidence against Torn Mooney that a sensible man would listen to, was that of an Oregon cattleman, Frank C. Oxman, who came into the trial at the last moment, took the stand like a breeze from the prairie, swore that he was a country gentleman, loved his wife, and had seen Israel Weinberg drive Tom Mooney, Mrs. Mooney, Billings and an unidentified man to the scene of the crime in Israel Weinberg's jitney bus, of the number of which car he had made a note on a telegraph envelope which he had in his pocket at that moment. He never made a mistake in his life in the identity of a person, as he was used to identifying cattle on the range. . . . Mooney was condemned to die on the gal-lows.

While the motion for a new trial was pending, Oxman's presence at the scene of the crime was disputed; whereupon District Attorney Fickert issued a newspaper interview stating that he had another witness named Rigall who would fully corroborate Oxman if a new trial were held.

The motion was denied and Mooney sentenced.

Fickert gave Rigall's address as "Oregon." But we finally found him living in GrayvilIe, Illinois, Oxman's original home, from which he had fled after being caught in a land graft.

Rigall readily admitted that he had gone to San Francisco

at the request of Oxman. But on discovering that he was expected to swear away human life for money, he had left on the day he was expected to testify.

Rigall produced letters Oxman had written. One of them offered him "two hundred dollars in the clear" to come to San Francisco as "a expurt witness. You will only haf to anser three & four question and I will post you on them," wrote the breezy cattleman.

Rigall and the letters were brought back to San Francisco. District Attorney Fickert admitted that it was a clear case of perjury-plotting, and promised a new trial and acquittal. Fickert's assistant, Cunha, broke down. "I didn't want to take the case in the first place," he said, "but Fickert made me take it, and then I got enthusiastic and one thing led to an-other and I came to this."

Nolan was released on nominal bail, with the public announcement that there had been no evidence against him.

Fickert begged for delay in which to get Oxman to "exonerate" him of blame, "and then I'll throw Oxman to the dogs," he said privately. But Oxman was jailed, became terror-stricken, and the situation was dangerous.

The Chamber of Commerce came to the rescue through its chief attorney; $1o,ooo was produced from somewhere, which money Fickert paid to an attorney to defend Oxman ; and Fickert then announced that he would see that justice was done by prosecuting Oxman himself.

The Grand Jury was hastily summoned and "whitewashed" Oxman in consideration for the right to open up the redlight district, which had beep closed by a moral crusade.

Fickert and the lawyer he had hired to defend Oxman got together and agreed upon a satisfactory jury, and, with the help of an assistant attorney general, the cattleman'.

30   TIIE LIBERATOR

The rope is still around Tom Mooney's neck, and in spite of the report of the President's Commission recommending a new trial, he will hang if public opinion and the friends of organized labor do not :come to his support. See pages 29 and 31.

Will You Let Them Do It?

March, 1918   31

acquittal was arranged in advance. A witness who made affidavit that Oxman had offered to bribe her to enlarge her testimony was not permitted to appear.

Cunha remarked aloud during the trial, "We've got to get this old guy off, or we'll all go to the scrap heap."

Oxman's defense was that he had thought he saw his old home-town friend Rigall at the same time he saw Mooney and the others, but that after sending for Rigall he found that he had been mistaken in his identity.

There was a middle page, he said, missing from the principal one of his Ietters, on which he had written, "Don't come if you are not the man I saw in San Francisco on July 22nd." His attention was called to the fact that the two pages of the letter on hand were connected in the middle of a sentence. Oxman said, "Oh, I didn't mean a page from between the two, I meant that I wrote that in a post-script on a separate sheet of paper."

So the cattleman was triumphantly acquitted.

Mrs. Mooney was tried and found not guilty. The Chamber of Commerce employed an attorney to aid in prosecuting her. She is still held in jail, and it is said that she will be tried again and hanged. The jury in Weinberg's trial reached a verdict of "not guilty" in three minutes. He is still in jail and the prosecutor announced that he would try him again and hang him.

Sounds of labor unrest were heard from San Francisco to Petrograd. The labor unions of the State of Washington held a ten-minute general strike in all industries as a warning. Diplomatic exchanges on the Mooney case took place between Washington and the Kerensky government of Russia. As a result, President Wilson telegraphed to Governor Stephens of California the request that Mooney's execution be not allowed to take place before he had had a new trial. The President appointed a commission, headed by the Secretary of Labor, to investigate. The commission's report has

now been made public. It practically substantiates labor's-charges of crime and conspiracy on the part of Big Business and the District Attorney's office to "get" Mooney, Mrs. Mooney, Billings, Weinberg and Nolan. The critical sentence of the Commission's report is this: "When Oxman was discredited the verdict against Mooney was discredited."

After the Oxman exposure, the Attorney General of California asked the Supreme Court that, in view of it, the case should be returned to the Trial Court for a new trial. The Supreme Court, however, under the laws of California, found itself without jurisdiction to consider matters outside the record. The case is now before that Court on appeal, to he disposed of solely on errors appearing from the record of the trial.

The Commission therefore, "respectfully recommends in case the Supreme Court of California should find it necessary (confined as it is by jurisdictional limitations) to sustain the conviction of Mooney on the record of the trial, that the President use his good offices to invoke action by the Governor of California and the co-operation of its prosecuting officers, to the end that a new trial may be had for Mooney whereby guilt or innocence may be put to the test of unquestionable justice. This result can easily be accomplished by postponing the execution of the sentence of Mooney to await the outcome of a new trial, based upon prosecution under one of the untried indictments against him."

So, even at the best, Mooney's life still rests with the power of public opinion to force a just trial, and the willingness of organized labor and the friends of labor's struggle to furnish funds for another defense. And there still remains the case-of Billings, framed up in the same way, and now serving a life-term in San Quentin prison. When Mooney heard of the favorable report of the President's Commission, his first words were, "Well, if I'm entitled to a new trial, Billings is too."

Two Sonnets-By Louis Untermeyer

The Pilgrimage

DROOPING and down at heel, I see them pass Into the fathomless Egyptian night. A broken moon's their lamp; its shifting light Splintered an sand, disturbs the little ass That stumbles on and dreams of river grass. The father shakes and grumbles. Still and white, The mother holds her burden doubly tight. The blue-black sky gleams like an evil glass.

Suddenly something looms; the infant starts And cries with terror, kicks and will not rest;

A wave of anguish strikes three quivering hearts Until she soothes him with her magic breast. And so they pause, while little Jesus drinks Beneath the eyes of a colossal Sphinx.

Windy Days

THE red wind tears, and the bright leaves are hurled Down to their death. A rain of crimson spots The rusty-colored earth; the young fruit rots, Killed by the fiery gusts that sweep the world. There is a treacherous poison in the year That withers every branch and delicate fern; Even the cloudy heavens smoke and burn. . And, what, beloved, are we doing here?

There's no escape; this tiny stretch of park Echoes the clash and thunder of the town. We cannot lose the world; it tracks us down And spreads its wars till even peace grows dark, Here where no bird dares lift a frightened wing To try new heights or find a place to sing.

32   THE LIBERATOR

Books

Fifty Years and Other Poems, by James Weldon Johnson. With an introduction by Brander Mat-thews. $I.25 net. The Cornhill Co., Boston.

FIFTY years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and hardly three centuries after the time when the first captives of some Arab slave-hunt in the African jungle were brought to America, a Negro poet wrote the commemorative stanzas which give their title to this volume of poems-stanzas which set forth the triumph, the proud resentment and the courageous faith of his race. They have helped, as workers and fighters, to create America, and have thereby won to full sonship in their Fatherland.

"And yet, my brothers, well I know

The tethered feet, the pinioned wings;

The spirit bowed beneath the blow.

The heart grown faint from wounds and stings."

For the sonship which they have earned with sweat and blood is still denied them, and it's a long time waiting in the night for a voice like that of Garrison or Phillips or Love-joy, to remind America that justice is still to be done. Yet justice is surely coming.

"Or do you think those precious drops From Lincoln's heart were shed in vain?"

The volume has an introduction by Brander Matthews in which tribute is paid to the achievement of the Negro race, particularly in the arts of music and poetry, and in which strict justice is done to the poetic merits of this present volume. He points out that Mr. Johnson conforms to the two traditions of American Negro poetry. The fact is, of course, that a poet may be, as it were, accidentally a Negro, and his poetry may bear no particular racial imprint. "From the days of Phyllis Wheatley to the present, the most of the poems written by men who are not wholly white are in-distinguishable from the poems written by men who were wholly white." This kind of poetry represents the one tradition, while the dialect poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar represents the other kind. In the present volume there are indeed poems which "cast little or no light upon the deeper racial sentiments" of the race to which the poet happens to belong; and there is a section of "Jingles and Croons" in the characteristic and winning dialect with which Dunbar's volumes have made us familiar.

But I am not a just man; I am a dogmatist and a bigot. And in spite of their quite authentic merits, the contents of both parts of this volume fail to meet my dogmatic expectations. To put the matter plainly, I think that art is different from politics. In the realm of politics I am impatient of racial distinctions. Politically-and socially-a Negro looks like anybody else to me. But if there is no peculiar racial way of casting a vote, or holding office, there is nevertheless a peculiar racial way of writing poetry. Or-to fall back frankly upon dogma-there ought to be.

As Prof. Matthews suggests, many of Mr. Johnson's poems might as well have been written by a white man. I might not perhaps go so far as to assert that this is a fault in Mr. Johnson. But I do feel that it is a misfortune for us. The

poems are so far lacking in self-revelation, which is after all the function of poetry. It may perhaps be said that a Negro poet would feel the same emotions about a sunset or a woman, a butterfly or a battle, that a white poet would; or at all events, that if the two poets felt differently about those things, it would not be because of their race. I think that is not true. I hope it is not true. I believe there is a Negro way of seeing a sunset. And I believe it is a more splendid way.-There, I have given myself away. It is true, I think that a sunset seen through Negro eyes, seen by one of a race that wore gay bandanna handkerchiefs even at work, and the most joyous colors in all the world at play, the race that has all the colors of the sunset in its heart-I think that sunset would be a sunset ! I expect some time to discover that we white folk never knew what a sunset is. I expect to learn in the pages of some book of Negro poems, to see a sunset for all it is worth, truly, and as if for the first time. I expect, moreover, to learn from a race that knows how to "laze," the secret of the butterfly's perpetual and lovely holiday. And from a race that is still near enough in history to the Iash, a race that has not for all its cheerfulness been able to forget the terribleness of life, I hope to learn something never told before about the infernal ugliness of war. And, without going into details, I may say that I think the Negro has something to say, as yet unsaid, on the subject of love.

There is the danger of course that all this is pure assumption. But there is a Negro music that is different from any other music, a new thing under the sun, more irresponsibly joyous and more profoundly tragic, I think, than any other. Ragtime has captivated the age; our feet and our hearts dance to syncopated Negro rhythms. And the Negro "spirituals," with their long-drawn, almost intolerable sweetness, their dragging melancholy, their romping, whole-hearted, boisterous abandon of good-cheer, their aching wishfulness, and most moving of all, that eternally recurring something in them that can only be described as a tragic expression of almost hopeless faith-these already with a growing few of us rank among the first things in our world of music. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect that the Negro genius will express some of these same things in the words and rhythms of poetry. . . . Mr. Johnson praises one of these same "spirituals":

"Not that great German master in his dream Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars At the creation, ever heard a theme

Nobler than "Go down, Moses." Mark its bars, How like a mighty trumpet-call they stir

The blood. Such are the notes that men have sung Going to valorous deeds; such tones there were That helped make history when Time was young."

Was it Sir Philip Sidney who said that an old ballad stirred his blood like a trumpet-call? Perhaps it was Sir Walter Raleigh. I always thought it an inapt remark. But if the simile was inappropriate to the music of those haunting and melting old ballads, it was one which might excusably enough come to the mind of a tired military man. Sir Whoever-he-was had been waked up full many a time and oft by a trumpet-call. He had gone into battle at its bidding. A trumpet was as familiar to him as a factory-whistle or a motor horn to us. He may not have been a good musical critic, but he wasn't making up an effective phrase out of memories of things he had read in books written two hundred years ago by people with different customs, traditions

March, 1918   33

and ideas. When he spoke he revealed his race, color and previous condition of servitude pretty unmistakably. And that is what Mr. Johnson doesn't do, and that is why I don't like the first part of his book.

The second part is written in Negro dialect. Here is a stanza from the first of the "Jingles and Croons":

"Seems lak to me de stars duu't shine so bright, Seems Jak to me tier's nothin' goin' right, Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light,

Senee you went away.'

It would he doubtless a captious critic who ventured to assert that that isn't Negro. Well, I am he. I don't think it is Negro. It lacks the inextinguishable lyric quality which I have never failed to find in the words of the "spirituals"-for instance-which may be found (I forbear to quote any-thing really smashing), in this line:

"And don't let Him catch you with your work undone."

There is nothing remarkable about that line ; but it does sing itself: it is lyrical. What is here in question is an instinctive arrangement of vowel and consonant sounds, of word-joinings that permit a free passage for a rhythm, and of a sure feeling for the progress of the rhythm itself. "Seems lak to me"-so far so good. The rest has the rhythmic banality characteristic of all but the very best (which includes some of the most popular), of the contemporary American white man's songs. The Negro-again I fall back upon dogmatic assertion-is an instinctive poet. His words do have a natural rhythmic grace and order of a peculiar kind. It is the business of the Negro poet to attune his ear to that peculiar grace, to study it just as Synge studied it in the speech of the fisherman and tinkers and peasants of the Aran Islands, and to find ways perhaps of heightening, or at all events of making clear and unmistakable, that which he has heard. IIe is, as Synge found it his glory to be, the mouthpiece of his race, speaking their speech so that all men may hear. And that which he utters is to be theirs no less. In their words, in their cadences, he is to tell their thoughts, express their feelings, reveal their hearts and souls. The world is waiting for a Negro poet who can release the beauty which his people have, locked in their breasts.

F. D.

Trotzky

The Bolsheviki and World Peace, by Leon Trotzky. Introduction by Lincoln Steffens. $1.5o net. Boni and Liveright, New York.

THE romantic aspect of Leon Trotzky's life is what chiefly engages the attention of the American public just now. "Six months ago," as the publishers say on the paper jacket, "Trotzky lived in a Bronx tenement. Today he is the foremost statesman in Europe." That last sentence does not quite express the popular American point of view. To the American newspaper reader he seems more like its next-best villain, the role of first being, of course, still held by the Kaiser. But even so, Trotzky is generally admired for "putting it over." Success in anything, even (or perhaps especially) in crime, can be trusted to touch a sympathetic chord in the American breast. To have risen from the obscure position of a Bronxite to the dizzy height of being

some sort of Anarchist Despot gives Trotzky a place in the American heart.

Needless to say, the journalistic romance passes over all the really interesting things in the story. There is nothing particularly significant in the fact that Trotzky lived for a while in the Bronx. He had.to live somewhere. As a revolutionary propagandist who was always getting into trouble with some government or other, he was accustomed to live pretty much everywhere. He had been an important figure in the Russion revolution of 1935, and had been sent to Siberia, whence he made a sensational escape. He liked in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France, and had an inter-national reputation as a Socialist journalist and pamphleteer. Warned to leave Vienna at the beginning of the war, he went to Switzerland, where lie wrote the present volume. It was written with the object of assisting in bringing about a revolution in Germany. The edition was smuggled into Germany, discovered, confiscated and destroyed by the authorities, and the author (in his absence) tried for sedition and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. He went to France and became the editor of a Russian Socialist daily. Through the influence of the Czar, his paper was suppressed, and he was deported. Switzerland, under Imperial Russian and British pressure, denied him asylum, and he went to Spain, where he was arrested. Socialist agitation compelled his re-lease. There being no place else in the world to go. he came to the United States. He had, before the war, made several visits to Russia under assumed names, to assist in revolutionary propaganda. When the revolution broke out for which all his work had been a preparation, he naturally returned to Russia, and assumed from the first a leading part in the activities of the Socialist faction to which he belonged. When the faction became by the inevitable force of events the supreme power, he was by his character and abilities chosen as one of its chief spokesmen.

There is nothing mysterious about his career, except perhaps its perfect consistency. The conventional type of states-man gives the impression of great stability, which upon being analyzed turns out to be only a matter of his always living in Oyster Bay or Grosvenor Square, or wherever it is that British statesmen live. They keep the same butler for a life-time, but, like Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Roosevelt, they change their opinions with great frequency and with remark-able agility. When they travel it is in a special train, never secretly like a thief in the night. There is a portentous and gravid settledness in their physical life, and all the time they are hopping about in the realm of political ideas like fleas. Trotzky had a hundred addresses and one theory. He changed his name frequently, and kept his opinions intact.

The Trotzky who wrote this book is the same Trotzky that we know as the Bolshevik Foreign Minister of Russia. When he wrote this book the Czar's government was still supreme in Russia. He did not, as certain passages show, expect the revolution to occur during the war. But the Bolshevik peace program, as it has been rigidly carried out, step by step, is explicitly set forth in the pages of this book.

It is a book dealing with the collapse of the International under the impact of war. It is the work of a Marxian, a sober, scholarly work analyzing the causes of that collapse. Taking the case of the German Social-Democracy as the most prominent, he finds that political exigencies compelled it to adopt a program of waiting, a slow, reformist program, in contradiction to the revolutionary tenets of its political

34   THE LIBERATOR

creed. He discusses the conflict between the spirit generated by the program, and the spirit of Socialist theory, ending in the decay of revolutionary spirit in the party. He shows how the German Social-Democracy had in fact built itself solidly into the fabric of the German Imperial State, so that when the war came it acted in complete accord with Prussian militarism. Such, he says, are the facts. They are to be faced and accepted. They are a lesson that must be profited by. There is no use crying over spilt theory and spilt blood. But the old way was wrong. The old International had in it the seeds of failure. It accomplished much good. But it failed in the chief test-failed with tragic completeness. That failure must be avoided by the new international. For there must be a new international. If the war ends presently, the working class of every nation will have learned from war itself the proper method of conducting a revolution. "The great guns are hammering into their heads the idea that if it is impossible to get around an obstacle, it is possible to destroy it." But the war may continue until the "fighting energy of the proletariat" is "completely consumed in the horrible work of mutual annihilation." It may therefore be advisable, if the vital forces of revolutionary Socialism are equal to the task-to re-create the International in the midst of the war on the basis of a concerted general demand for immediate peace. Such a peace would be based on true Socialist and revolutionary principles-and here he concisely enunciates the whole Bolshevik peace program:

"No contributions.

"The right of every nation to self-determination.

"The United States of Europe-without monarchies, with-

out standing armies, without ruling feudal castes, without

secret diplomacy."

Such is the intellectual thesis of Trotzky's book. It is addressed to the German Social Democracy, and without such a thesis, coolly and closely reasoned, it would doubtless have been vain to seek their attention. But the book does more than analyze, discuss and programize. "This book," say the publishers on the paper jacket, "will open the eyes of the world to the fact that the Bolsheviki are anti-Prussian, anti-Hohenzollern, anti-Hapsburg." It is doubtful if any-thing can open the eyes of the world to a fact that the world does not want to see. But over and • above everything else, this book is an attack upon the practical alliance of the German Social Democracy and Hohenzollern-Hapsburg militarism. Trotzky is under no illusion as to who began the war, or with what purpose. No pro-Ally pamphleteer ever ex-posed the responsibility and intentions of the Central Empires with more vigor. He knows, as such partisans do not appear to know, the cynical rapacity of Germany's enemies and the fatally militaristic nature of the whole European system. But for him the Hohenzollern-Hapsburg scheme is the head and front of the whole offending, and as an old friend of the German Social Democracy, he tells them exactly what he thinks of their monstrous alliance with the world's chief force of evil. He recites the arguments by which the Junkers have deluded them, the arguments by which they have deluded themselves, and shatters them. He tears their pre-tenses and hypocrisies to shreds. Anger, bitter anger, ex-postulation, satire, pity, contempt, fierce and derisive scorn, laughter, and again anger, rain upon them. They are fighting Czarism? Their armies are to liberate the Russian people? Really, the Crown Prince as a comrade ! A German-made Russian revolution which would leave German militarism dominant in Europe? Declined with thanks. .

If you had not voted the war-credits, you would have brought ruin on your party and your press? And so-"out of ninety-one Social Democratic papers, not one found it possible to protest against the violation of Belgium. Not one!" The fate of the working-class is to a certain extent bound up with the political destinies of the nation? Yes, you are as imperialistic as anyone else in Germany-you have invented a working-class imperialism ! . . . "An ulcer of slavish sentiments bursting open and foul pus crawling over the pages of the working men's press. . . ." And in words almost of anguish Trotzky asks if the working-class must "in the final hours drag all its hopes and promises through mire and blood before there arises in its soul the pure, unimpeachable voice-the voice of revolutionary honor."

Revolutionary honor! In the light of that lightning phrase, what do Trotzky's peace negotiations with the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs mean? They mean exactly what Trotzky said in this book, an effort to save the proletariat of the world from complete destruction. Their object is not separate peace, German Imperial peace, for Russia, but a people's peace for the whole world. Exhaustion and starvation may yet force Russia to accept separate peace on German Imperial terms. But that will not happen before Russia has given the proletariat alike of the Central Empires and of the Allied nations the magnificent opportunity to join in forcing peace on working-class terms.

One turns to the man again-not as the author of the Bolshevik peace-formula, for it had thousands of authors, all over the world, framed as it is upon familiar Socialist ideas of international policy; not as the chief instrument of the dramatic coup which gave the Russian proletariat a government ready to stake all upon this peace-formula, for that was Lenine. No, one turns to look at Trotzky as Lincoln Steffens does in his Introduction-as the man who didn't drop his theories the first minute he got a chance to carry them out. Steffens finds that fact of character the chief thing to ad-mire in Trotzky-that he is "a strong man, with a definite mind and purpose of his own, which he has the will and the nerve to pursue." That is very well said. It does take will and nerve to follow out a purpose. It is not perhaps that people cease to believe, but that they lack the courage to act upon their beliefs. One may believe, and yet be as vacillating as the winds that blow. Trotzky has in effect staked the fate of Russia and of the world, so far as lay in his power, on a truth which his mind has tested and found good. Of course he believes in that truth; but there are tens of thou-sands who believe in that truth who would not have the nerve to carry it out. It is an almost habitual custom of our modern Iife for us to act otherwise than as we believe-we do it almost by reflex action. And here is a man who acts as if what he believes were really true! There is an old-fashioned magnificence in it.

FLOYD DELL.

Marching Men

Marching Men, A Novel, by Sherwood Anderson. $r.5o net. John Lane Co.

,T

HIS is not a war story" is the warning announcement of the cover.

But just the same one links up the idea of Marching Men with the war. One cannot help thinking how millions will

March, 1918   35

come hack with the idea of union tingling in their feet. The army of Marching Men, the post-war conditions, and Sher-wood Anderson's idea-then   

Books come out year by year from men who have watched the millions of workers go shuffling home at night with weary, sodden faces and who have ached with the problem of the working class. "King Coal" is one of them. Er-nest Poole's "The Harbor" was another. The latter, with its colossal-minded Dillon, who sat in his tower office above New York and resolved that the masses should be pulled up by those in power, did not convince. All through history men with lofty minds have been straining to pull the working people up. All through history there have been working-men who have tried to push them up. This is one of the first books wherein the writer has taken the latent idea of the men themselves and worked upon it. It's a very simple idea. It's the same idea that every labor leader has of solidarity. But it is solidarity in its most primitive form.

"Beaut" McGregor, son of a miner, brought up in a mining town, learns to despise and hate the shiftless spirit of the men who work around him. It is this hate of his which keeps him to his purpose and helps him develop his idea.

Terms used to define the class struggle arc often military terms. The class war, union, solidarity, leader, strike-all these words taken Iiterally have a physical significance. "Beaut" McGregor takes them literally. He uses the simple, primitive idea of men marching shoulder to shoulder as to a battle, and works it out until in Chicago, where the scene of this story is laid, every workingman is literally a part of an enormous unit. And as the idea of union spreads to their feet and shoulders and chins and eyes, it sinks into the brain too, and it stays there.

Of course there have been huge armies trained by Napoleons for centuries. But the militant leaders have taught the workers the secret, says "Beaut" McGregor, "only to betray them. The men of books and brains have done the same. There are thousands of loose-jawed men talking till their jaws hang like worn-out gates. Words mean nothing, but when a man marches with a thousand other men and is not doing it for the glory of some king, then it will mean some-thing. He will know then he is a part of something real and he will catch the rhythm of the mass and glory in the fact that he is a part of the mass and that the mass has meaning. IIe will begin to feel great and powerful. That is what the great leaders of armies have known. And they have sold men out. They have used that knowledge to sub-due men, to make them serve their own little ends."

"Marching Men" is a "novel of ideas"-not an ordinary novel. One forgets the "story." The early struggles of "Beaut" McGregor are convincing, one recognizes them as real, but one is not immersed in them as fiction. And so with the love story. The two women of the book are real, but are brushed aside by the wings of the idea. And the idea is so big and splendid that one does not care.

DOROTHY DAY.

My Political Ideals

Political Ideals, by Bertrand Russell. $i net. The Century Co.

THIS review is by way of being a confession. I make it because my own experience seems to be so much Iike that of a large part of the human race. It is the story of my political ideals, and it begins with my childhood.

Until I was four years old I lived, like Adam, in a Paradise, created especially for me. I was on the best of terms with God, that is to say, my Father, whom I considered an all wise and beneficent being. And everything in the world was good, and I was happy.

And then, one day, my sister, aged ten, was guilty of "acting like a tomboy." Climbing trees in the schoolyard was, I think, her specific offense against the moral law. I heard it discussed in grave tones at home, and thus I became aware of the existence of sin-and punishment. For it was decided that my sister must be whipped. My mother, pale and weeping, led me into the parlor, and, held tightly in her arms, I heard the distant sounds of dreadful struggle. My father was a small man, and my sister was a very husky little girl. She kicked and bit and scratched. It seemed very terrible to me. But present the Deity, red-faced and angry, came in and told my mother to go ahead with supper ; and I learned that my sister had been locked in the garret. Divine justice, it appeared, had finally triumphed.

It had not occurred to me to question the rightness of these proceedings, but the excitement of so many disturbing discoveries about the universe kept me from eating any supper; and as soon as possible I slipped from my chair and went, unobserved and by a devious route, up the garret stairs. A strange sound came from within. It was my sister, sobbing. I had always regarded her as an adult and almost as an enemy. She teased and scolded me, she was rude and unkind. But suddenly I realized that she was little and help-less. And the garret, which had always been a delectable place, fragant with walnuts and apples, seemed all at once a horrible den. It was dark ! And there might be rats in there! I thought of the awful story of Bishop Hatto in his Tower . . . and as I stood there on the stairway, listening to my sister's pitiful, frightened sobbing, I realized that the world was not good. It was an evil and ugly and terrible place. My Paradise had vanished. I hated the world.

As I stood there, I became aware that the door, which had no lock, was propped shut with a broomstick. Inside, my sister vainly beat on the door, and gasped out hysterically, pleading for release. With a sudden futile anger, I struck at the broomstick with my hands. The slight blow almost dislodged it, and I stepped back, startled, frightened at what I had almost done. I had almost interfered with the processes which were all I knew of law and religion, of human and divine justice. I realized my wickedness and impiety, and in great trepidation hurried down the stairs. I wanted to get away as quickly as possible from the scene of my almost-sacrilege and treason. But I stopped at the foot of the stairs. My sister was sobbing quietly now. I listened, and sat down on the step, crying too, vainly, impotently. Then, I did not know why-for I did not wish to do so terrible a thing-in a sort of daze I marched up the stairs, pulled away the broomstick-and then, Anarchist and Atheist and terribly afraid, I stumbled blindly down the steps. . . .

Thus did I lose my first Political Ideal-the belief that this the best of all possible worlds, ruled by a benign God. Some people never lose that Political Ideal. They invent elaborate theories to justify the existence of poverty, famine, war, slavery, prostitution, unlimited childbearing, disease, child-Iabor, and what not. And it deserves to be recorded as a strange fact that not only the beneficiaries but even the victims of such arrangements frequently believe in them.

My next Political Ideal was the Glorious Past. After my one early rebellion, I had conformed. But I did not like the

36   THE LIBERATOR

world I found myself in, and presently, at the age of twelve, I discovered Ancient Greece. 1 liked Ancient Greece so much better than the factory town to which my family had moved, that I lived in the past rather than in the present. In that respect I was like a vast portion of mankind, who have always harked back wistfully to a Golden Age, when life flowed full and sweet and strong. When I pored over maps of Athens, and in imagination dug with Schliemann into the ruins of Troy, I was finding my own country.

But some of the Greeks were so far from being satisfied with their own Golden Age that they turned to the future. And so at last did I. My next Political Ideal was such a vaguely beautiful Free Society as many lonely dreamers have solaced themselves with. But, though I now lived in the Future instead of in the Past, it was still a mere unsatisfied withdrawal from the actual world-until I discovered the Socialist movement. It was a glorious evening in which I heard from the lips of a street sweeper in broken English that my dreams and I were part of a living movement that was preparing to take the world into its hands to shape anew. . . I joined the Socialist local. I was going to help build the kind of world I wanted to live in. I took advice of the new men and books with which I came in contact, and my new Political Ideal took shape under their influence. And the shape it took, with me and many others, left something to be desired. The Socialism of that period was undertaking to steer a careful course between the beautiful but impracticable ideal of a sudden and cataclysmic revolution, and the practicable but trivial ideal of Reform. We wanted terribly not to be impracticable, however, and gradually we drifted toward the shore of State Socialism-not without many fears. We saw that the government behaved like any other employer when its employees tried to go on strike-only with a more instant effectiveness. We began to wonder whether we were not after all working to create a Servile State! Could those rash cousins of ours, the Anarchists, be right in declaring that the State must be utterly abolished? And then came Syndicalism, reminding us how out of touch we were with the working class. And, by a kind of paradox this led us to look with more sympathy upon the timid efforts even of the A. F. of L.-which were some-times not so timid, after all . . . I found myself a part of that uncertain end-of-the-century Socialism which was torn by so many doubts and dissensions. The fact was that knowledge, experimentally gained, was pouring in upon us from all sides too fast for us to assimilate it. At that very moment, the solid bases of a new Political Ideal were being laid. But all we saw was the break-up of our old familiar certainties. As all the thoughtful world of that time doubted and wondered, so did I doubt and wonder. And the result of so much uncertainty, blocking as it did the path of action, was for me, as for many others, spiritual fatigue. I waited to be shown, evincing a polite cynicism which really only masked my too-much hope . . .

And then, while we waited, the war came-the war which we had long predicted but never really expected. Some of us saw it-too rashly, I think as an instrument of progress ; they surrendered, as we say, to the militarists; but for my part, I cannot regard them as irretrievably lost souls. The rest of us joined in an effort to preserve some fragments of those constitutional rights which have never as a whole existed except on paper; we engaged in a losing struggle against war and against conscription ; we entered into the old, old fight, under the banner of a phrase which we would

once have despised, for the rights of conscience . . .

Meanwhile our political horizons have enlarged. We see the necessity, if mankind is not to be destroyed in endless wars, for military powers to be vested in a political entity which includes the whole world: an arrangement which neither destroys nor exalts the State. We have lost some of our old confidence in the magic of economic determinism ; we do not care to rely exclusively on the possessive instincts of the working class to bring about a happier world; rather, we wish to devise such political and social arrangements as will encourage the creative impulses in all mankind. We are confirmed in our conviction that democracy is a necessity not merely in what is called government, but in the management of industry. We are able to conceive, in terms more satisfactory than ever before, the forms of self-governing industrial organizations, under state control only so far as regards the price at which their product is to be sold. We are convinced that an education so directed as to encourage the creative impulses, and an industrial system which en-gages the administrative capacities of the workers, will divert to the individual life that energy which has gone hitherto into the growth of competitive militaristic States. We look forward eagerly to a reconstitution of the world-wide revolutionary movement upon the basis of our new knowledge-to a newer International-as the means of reconstruction.

We are living at the beginning of an era which will be marked among all others in the history of the world for its gigantic conscious effort at political reconstruction. We must begin now, even in the turmoil of war, to reformulate our Political Ideals. And this book of Bertrand Russell's is one which can give us much help. My own political ideals owe so much to his clear statement that I feel he can per-form a like service for others who have passed through similar intellectual experiences. The main outlines of the political reconstruction of the new age are given in this book with admirable simplicity. A mind such as Bertrand Russell's, retaining as it does amid the welter of word-war a high philosophic calm, and yet keeping nevertheless its warm and rich humanity, is one singularly capable of stating to us the nature of the high task which mankind must accomplish and in which we can individually bear our part.

His book, at once wise and eloquent, arouses the emotions which, though necessary to the undertaking of such a task, are all too easily dissipated by the discouraging aspect of affairs from day to day; and, often as we may have heard them, we cannot too often hear again these reassurances:

"Few men seem to realize how many of the evils from which we suffer are wholly unnecessary, and that they could be abolished by a united effort within a few years. If a majority in every civilized country so desired, we could, within twenty years, abolish all abject poverty, quite half the illness in the world, the whole economic slavery which binds down nine-tenths of our population ; we could fill the world with beauty and joy, and secure the reign of universal peace. It is only because men are apathetic that this is not achieved, only because imagination is sluggish, and what always has been is regarded as what always must he. With good-will, generosity, and a little intelligence, all these things could be brought about."

The moment has indeed come, for the first time in human affairs, when such conscious control of our destinies is possible. We have the knowledge, and we have the power. We have only to organize the will to do it.

FLOYO DELL.

March. 1918   37 -

A Word for Profiteers

I T has become almost fashionable to speak contemptuously about "business men." They have become as unpopular as hedge hogs at a picnic. But it is a cheap pastime to denounce all "business" men as Profiteers. Under the present profit system what business man is not obliged to make as much money as he legally can, or be forced to the wall by some competitor who has not such fine sensibilities? And which of you, so smug in your virtue, wouldn't rather eat pate-de-foi-gras than file a schedule of liabilities? Which brings us to the real point of this discussion :

Can we be fair to ourselves in charging only 6oc for a hand-bound, limp croftleather volume of the Modern Library? When sixty cents was fixed as our selling price, the United States had not yet declared war against Germany. Since then, the price of eggs, butter, pork, ice-cream sodas, beef, coal, cotton, talcum powder, wool, leather, newspapers, filet of sole marguery, etc.,

. etc. have advanced about 63 132-789%. Even the price of labor has greatly increased. Still there is more than a vague suspicion that the present startlingly high prices are not wholly justified by economic causes. Some zealous and righteous citizens even insist that there are more diamonds, automobiles, fur-coats, and gilt-edge securities being worn by a select few than ever before.

But listen to the other side of the question. The other day one of our friendly fellow publishers treated us to a four course luncheon and gently suggested that we have a lunacy commission appointed for ourselves. "Why boys," he groaned, "here you have about two hundred magazines and newspapers and the leading colleges and schools and libraries singing the praises of the Modern Library in so many different, yet singularly harmonious strains, that if you only had an ear for music you would recognize the tune. It's 'Johnnie Put Your Price Up'." "Well, we have been seriously considering raising our price," we answered. "I should hope so," he continued somewhat less gloomily. "Smyth of the New York Times, Kerfoot of Life, Davis of the Evening Post, Gerould of the Bellman, Sell of the Chicago News, N. P. D. of the Globe, and the Independent, Reedy's Mirror, Philadelphia Ledger, The Boston Transcript, The Philadelphia Press, the best papers . on the Pacific coast-why great guns, all the critics say the Modern Library was the literary sensation of 1917. You have given the book-loving public the biggest bargain ever. With your fine titles and valuable introductions and attractive binding and clear print, sixty cents is simply ridiculous. What is the new price going to be?" "We have been thinking of seventy-five cents." "Figure your costs!" he angrily interrupted, gulping down a Benedictine and brandy. "You can't. do it! Everything is up from so to 200% since you started-from composition and plates to binding, from office salaries to royalties. And I understand one of you had the nerve to get married recently. Heaven help her at 75c a volume !"

"Yes, there is a lot in what you say, my friend," the newly married one of us admitted, after the waiter had softly re-minded us that we were not the only ones in the room. "We don't criticize you or any of the others for asking more money for the books you are publishing. We know you are entitled to it. We know that you are simply business men-not Profiteers. We, too, have been thinking about a higher price. But we can not forget that the Modern Library is a unique institu-

tion. When we started it we announced that we did not expect to get rich and that that was not primarily our ambition, So we have decided to stick to the old price-sixty cents per volume, postage 6c extra, and we are going to add new titles regularly, with the best introductions we can buy and all the additional support we will ask of our friends is to buy four volumes where they use to buy two and twenty instead of only ten."

We got our hats (paying for them as usual) and waited a moment for our friend to join us, but he could only gasp feebly as he lit his fifth fifty cents cigar, "Don't wait for me, boys. The shock is too great-or maybe you're only joking."

We are not-here's the list of titles now included in the Modern Library. They are all hand-bound in limp croftleather and sell at all stores for sixty cents per volume, 6c extra by mail.

I Oscar Wilde    Dorian Gray

2 Strindberg    Married

3 Kipling    Soldiers Three

4 Stevenson    Treasure Island

5 H. G. Wells    The War in the Air

6 Henrik Ibsen    Plays: A Doll's House, Ghosts,
An Enemy of the People

7 Anatole France    The Red Lily

8 De Maupassant    Mademoiselle Fifi

9 Nietzsche    Thus Spake Zarathustra

so Dostoyevsky    Poor People

11 Maeterlinck    A Miracle of St. Antoney

12 Schopenhauer    Studies in Pessimism

13 Samuel Butler    The Way of All Flesh

14 George Meredith    Diana of the Crossways

15 Bernard Shaw    An Unsocial Socialist

16 Geo. Moore    Confessions of a Young Man

17 Thomas Hardy    The Mayor of Casterbridge

18 Thos. Seltzer    Best Russian Short Stories

19 Oscar Wilde    Poems

20 Nietzsche    Beyond Good .and Evil

21 Turgenev    Fathers and Sons

22 Anatole France    Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

23 Swinburne   .... Poems

25 Wm. Dean Howells    A Hazard of New Fortunes

26 W. S. Gilbert    The Mikado, and other Plays

27 H. G. Wells    Ann Veronica

28 Gustave Flaubert    Madame Bovary

3o James Stevens    Mary, Mary

31 Anton Chekhov    Rothschild's Fiddle, etc.

32 Arthur Schnitzler    Anatol and other Plays

33 Sudermann    Dame Care

34 Lord Dunsany    A Dreamer's Tales

35 G. K. Chesterton    The Man Who was Thursday

36 Henrik Ibsen    Plays : Hedda Gabler, Pillars of Society,

The Master Builder 37 Haeckel, Thompson, Weismann, etc. _Evolution Evolution in Modern

Thought

Check the titles you wish to buy. The list includes books never before published, Copyright reprints, etc.

Many of the volumes contain authoritative introductions by well-known modem writers and these introductions can be found only in the Modern Library.-Each volume is Hand Bound in limp croft leather, with stained top, and is stamped and decorated

in Genuine Gold.   BaN1 & LIVERIGHT

Io3 West 4oth Street, New York   _

38   THE LIBERATOR

LIBERATOR BOOK SHOP

Fiction

Under Fire, by Henri Barbusse.

The soul of all the armies of France finds a great and terrible voice in this book. $1.50 net.

The Rise' of David Levinski, by Abraham Cahan.

Stark convincing realism-a groping young Jewish idealist becomes an American Business Man.   $1.50 net.

The Eternal Husband, by Feodor Dostoievsky.

A volume of tales newly translated by Constance Garnett, the latest in the series which has revealed Dostoievsky to us as the supreme psychologist.   $1.50 net.

Marching Men, by Sherwood Anderson.

The tramp of aroused workers resounds prophetically through this vivid story of an American labor leader.   $I.50 net.

King Coal, by Upton Sinclair.

This book is a torch guiding us through the great underground prison of Colorado, revealing despair-and hope-and laughter

• on the faces there. $1.50 net.

Biography

Recollections, by Lord Morley.

The last of the great Victorian Liberals

• an intimate political history of the Gladstonian era. The most important literary event of the new year.   2 vols., $7.50 net.

John Keats, by Sidney Colvin.

In which justice is done at last to the robust and intellectual aspects of the poet's personality.   $4.50 net.

Oscar Wilde, by Frank Harris.

Bernard Shaw's reminiscences of Wilde appear as an appendix to this popular edition of Harris' monumental and true biography.   2 vols., $5 net.

Literary Criticism

Books and Persons, by Arnold Bennett.

The department of literary criticism and gossip signed "Jacob Tonson" which used to appear weekly in the London New Age was the most stimulating thing of the kind since Bernard Shaw quit being a dramatic critic. Some of the best of those articles are republished in this book, and they have not lost their savor.   $2 net.

A Book of Prefaces, by H. L. Meneken.

A swashbuckling attack on American Puritanism, and appreciations of Conrad, Dreiser and Huneker. Mr. Mencken's admirations are as hearty and refreshing as his hatreds.   $1.50 net.

Unicorns, by James Huneker.

Essays on MacDowell, Artzibashef, Cejanne, Ryokrt, James Joyce, Wilde, Moore, Remy de Gourmont and others. $1.75 net.

Enjoyment of Poetry, by Max Eastman.

This book stands as the most friendly and illuminating book yet written on this subject.   $1.50 net.

These pages will be a guide to cur-rent literature-a guide that can be trusted. Every book recommended here has the personal approval of the editors of this magazine.

All books listed are on sale by the Liberator, and we will be glad to get you any book you want, old or new.

Send orders to

LIBERATOR BOOK SHOP., 34 Union Square, New York.

Plays and the Theatre

The Art Theater, by Sheldon Cheney.

A searching analysis of the elements of aesthetic success and failure in the "little theater" movement-with pictures of "sets" by Sam Hume and others.   $1.50 net.

Suppressed Desires, by George Cram Cook and Susan Glaspell.

A Freudian comedy of marriage. One does not need to be a Freudian to see the humor-in fact the laugh is on Freud this time!   35 cents net.

Plots and Playwrights, by Edward Massey.

A clever skit showing two ways of writing a play-the newer, truer way vs. Broadway's.   $1 net.

Trifles, by Susan Glaspell.

A poignant little drama of American farm life.   35 cents net.

The Provincetown Plays, Series I.

"The Game," by Louise Bryant; "Bound East for Cardiff," by Eugene O'Neill. and "King Arthur's Socks," by Floyd Dell.

35 cents net.

Nju, by Ossip Dymow.

One of the oddest and most convincing examples of the new experimental drama. A tragedy of every-day Russian life.

$1 net.

History

A Short History of England, by G. K. Chesterton.

Written for workingmen, to show them what they have lost and must regain-land, liberty and happiness.   $1.50 net.

New Poetry

The Chinese Nightingale, by Vachel Lind-say.

We used to read poetry "to ourselves"-Vachel Lindsay is teaching us with his sonorous lines and irresistible rhythm to "say it out aloud!" The first poem in this volume is one of his loveliest.   $1.25 net.

Renascence and Other Poems, by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

When "Renascence" was published a few years ago in the first volume of "The Lyric Year," lovers of poetry knew how it must have felt once upon a time to read the "Atalanta in Calydon" of an unknown young poet named Swinburne. There is more of that knife-edged loveliness in this hook.   $1.50 net.

War and Peace

Political Ideals, by Bertrand Russell.

A sketch of the new society, following the reconstructive ideals set forth in "Why Men Fight." Attention is also called to Mr. Russell's "justice in War-Time." It is these ideas and the personal force be-hind them which have made Bertrand Russell today one of the leaders of the militant working-class in England.   $1 net.

The Bolsheviki and World--Peace, by Leon Trotzky.

See review in this issue.   $1.50 net.

An Inquiry Into the Nature of Peace, by Thorstein Veblen.

A tremendously valuable book, by one of the foremost thinkers in America-the author of "The Theory of the Leisure Class."   $2 net.

A League of Nations, by H. N. Brailsford.

A help of the first importance in our consideration of the great problem that con-fronts the world.   $1.75 net.

Militarism, by Karl Liebknecht.

A voice from the uncorrupted and uncompromising heart of the German revolu-

tionary working-class movement.   Sup-

pressed by the Kaiser.   $1 net.

Science

Instincts of the Herd, by W. Trotter.

One of the most important recent contributions to our thought-especially significant in relation to the problems raised by this war.   $1.25 net.

The Psychology of Insanity, by Bertrand

Hart.   50 cents net.
The clearest explanation yet written of the psycho-analytic theory of thinking.

Miscellaneous

Utopia of Usurers, by G. K. Chesterton. Essays from a revolutionary working-class point of view.   $1.50 net.

Dubliners, by James Joyce.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce.

The newest experimental prose-you will either like these hooks very much or not at all!   $1.50 net each.

Poverty and Riches by Scott Nearing. An analytic study of our industrial regime and its social results.   $1 net.

Lewis Seymour and Some Women, by George Moore.

A new version of one of Moore's earliest novels, "A Modern Lover."   $1.50 net.

Plays of Gods and Men, by Lord Dunsany. "The Queen's Enemies," "Tent of the Arabs." "Night at an Inn," and "Laughter of the Gods."   $1.50 net.

Free Speech for Radi- cals, by Thebdore Schroeder.

The most accurate and authoritative ac-count of the situation in its legal and psychological aspects.   $1.50 net.

March, 1918   39

What Every American Should Know-

The Facts

The facts about the war aims and peace terms of the warring nations are to be found in

Approaches to the

Great Settlement

By Professor EMILY G. BALCH
With an Introduction by NORMAN ANGELL

A concise account of official and non-official discussions relating to the settlement of the
war beginning with President Wilson's Peace Note of December 12,1916;
with a valuable bibliography.

Price $1.50 net; at All Book Stores

Published by

B. W. HUEBSCH, 225 Fifth Ave., New York City

4

Recommended Books

The Backwash of War, by Ellen N. La Motte.

A masterpiece.

Challenge, by Louis Untermeyer.

The spirit of youth, gay or unflinching in the face of the worst that the world can show, is in this book of poems. $125 net.

Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser.

A reprint of Dreiser's first novel, one of the classics-and almost the only one! of American realistic fiction.   $1.50 net.

'The New Poetry, an anthology edited by Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson,

One of the very best collections of re-cent verse.   $1.75 net.

'Mendel, by Gilbert Cannan.

A novel you should have read last summer-but not a summer novel! The translator of "Jean Christophe" shows that be has learned much from his master. $1.50 net.

Chicago and other poems, by Carl Sandburg.

Free verse in the hands of Carl Sandhurg has the clear, startling and inevitable ring of authentic poetry. His pictures of 'life are poignantly beautiful.   $1.25 net.

.Regiment of Women, by Clemente Dane.

The first novel to deal with the selfish and cruel domination of one woman by an-other. A profound study of a condition .that has left its impress upon thousands of lives.   $1.50 net.

The Story Book of Science, by J. Henri Fabre.

Fabre, one of the world's greatest scien-
tists, writes simply and charmingly and
makes his story as alluring as a fairy tale.
$2 net.

Sentiment, a novel, by Vincent O'Sullivan. See Book Notes.   $1.50 net.

Book Notes

The three chief literary events of our past year have been Barbusse's "Under 'Fire," the completion of Nexo's four volume novel, "Pelle the Conqueror," and the commencement of a series of translations of the tales of Chekhov. Does anyone disagree?

Chekhov

In the Dial-that much rejuvenated Chicago literary weekly-appears an admirable appreciation of Chekhov by Louis S. Fried-

'' land. "Chekhov," he says, "is indisputable to our understanding of the psychology of the great people that has introduced into. the present world situation an element so complex, so disturbing, so tragic and beautiful. Chekhov is the faithful reporter, un-'erring, intuitive, direct. He never bears false witness. The essence of his art lies in a fine restraint, an avoidance of the sensational and the spectacular. His reticence reveals the elusive and lights up the enigmatic. And what a keen, voracious ob-

server he was. Endless is the procession of types that passes through his pages-the whole world of Russians of his day: country gentlemen, chinovniks, waitresses, ladies of fashion, shop girls, town physicians, Zemstvo doctors, inn-keepers, peasants, herdsmen, soldiers, tradesmen, every class and occupation. Chekhov de-scribes them all with a pen that knows no bias. He eschews specialization in types.

"Chekhov ignores no phase of the life of his day. This inclusiveness, this large and noble avidity that refuses to be circumscribed by class or kind or importance, makes the sum of his stories both ample and satisfying."

Vincent O'Sullivan

In "Sentiment," Vincent O'Sullivan per-forms the neatest job of skinning his characters alive that I ever saw. He has written a book too delicate in its surgery to be called satire. about some people who-as it were fall in love. There are all sorts of opportunities to stab them, but his knife cuts Iightly and swiftly and gently, just under the surface hardly hurting them!

Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton's "Short History of England" is just out, and his articles in the London Herald have been collected into a book under the title, "Utopia of Usurers." There will be a review of them in these pages next month, but there is no reason why anyone should wait until then to be persuaded to read them. They reveal Chesterton more clearly than ever before as a militant champion of the rights of the workingman.   F. D.

The

LITTLE REVIEW

aCagazine of the .Arts

Margaret Anderson, Editor Ezra Pound, Foreign Editor

The Little Review is not a chatty literary journal; it is not written to amuse, to conciliate, or to increase contemporary stupidity. It is an effort to establish some sort of intellectual communication between New York, London, and Paris, and to break through the ingrained refusal of thought which one meets on every side in America.

Among its contributors are William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Lady Gregory, T. S. Eliot, May Sinclair, Ford Madox Hucffer. Arthur Waley, "jh," etc.

James Joyce's new novel, Ulysses, (a continuation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) begins in the March number. Ford Madox Huefer's Women and Men will run until May 'gig.

THE MAGAZINE THAT IS READ BY THOSE WHO WRITE THE OTHERS

25C a Co,Sy   ,,g''2.,50 a Year
24 West 16th Street, New York City

40   THE LIBERATO

OSCAR. WILDE

His Life and Confessions
By FRANK HARRIS

With further memories by

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

$5.00   Popular Edition   Two volumes

ORDER FROM

34 Union Square, New York

If ordered by parcel's post, add $.16 in first and second zones, $.34 to other points east of Mississippi River, $.36 east of the Rockies, $.60 to points on the Pacific Coast.

The Birth Control Review 1

$1.50 a Year
Edited by MARGARET H. SANGER

Contributors:

Havelock Ellis, Crystal Eastman Jessie Ashley, Gertrude Boyle, Dr. Anna E. Blount, etc.

A book compiled by MARGARET H. SANGER, containing all available social FACTS bearing on this vital subject.

A few cloth-bound copies for sale. $2.15 postpaid,

Send checks or money orders to
MARGARET H. SANGER, 104 Fifth Avenue   New York City.

THE FAMILY PEW

LIFE came to me As light comes through a window stained glass,

Purple and brown,

I always saw the people stationary, Made up of neatly fitted bits of glass blue and red,

Flat-faced, square-jointed, surface-smool I saw them silent, changeless, hard, I, as silent and as surface-smooth as the Indoors where I was placed,

I sitting in adulterated light through the] Then suddenly I heard far of

A singing wind,

In waving branches and iii sails at sea, A little sleepy tune at first.

It grew and neared,

It caught and thralled me

Like the mad skirl of pipes,

And passed.

I leaped and bounded out

And found the world.

Over a green clover meadow bloomed white pear orchard in the dazzling ligl of spring,

In a wood two bullocks fought,

In a field a man followed in the slow fat row of his plough,

A yellow oriole sang upon the swayin branch of an old elm,

And I,

I ranlife.

and shouted in the white light o

MARY MACMILLAN.

LITTLE DAUGHTER OF THE
STREETS

OH, little daughter of the streets, Wild with an errant will, Where vagrant and drunk and beggar meel The currents of the common street Lie open for your straying feet,

Young feet that are not still.

Wayward and idle, free and wild, Your own will is your way.

Our hedges and our dykes are lies, Too low to hold you, grown too wise, (You of the bold and wilful eyes)

Too petulant to stay.

Dull tasks and high brick walls we set Between the sun and you.

When you break forth in laughing guise (Oh hard young mouth and bright you'll eyes)

Your brimming pleasure-zest defies Thin rules you trample through.

Hunger for life and thirst for joy, A will that is not stayed,

Bold for thrust and hot for praise, You enter all the gleaming ways, (You of the flushed, undaunted gaze) So sure and unafraid.

Little daughter of the streets,

Wild with an errant will,

How long can your tremulous beauty hold The arrogant grace, the touch of bold And wanton joy, the glint of gold,

Young heart that is not still?

RUTH TRUE.

A special edition at Ten and Twenty Dollars sold out
within a few months.

y

4

1

THE CASE FOR BIRTH CONTROL

\larch, 1918   41

ON THE ROOF (Andante cantabile)

UPON a lofty roof I lie,

UPON   the streets and gay bazaars, onfronted by the sombre sky

And curious accusing stars,

ome half defiant, half contrite,

ro parley with reproachful Night.

['here is no zest tonight for me In gaudy things the cabarets,

[le men that flush with ruin-fed glee, The women with enticing ways, rhe glamour of the avenue, ran's carnival of lust goes through.

Me hellicat I ask to dine

Detests me, I am so morose; l'he music vexes me, the wine

' Is sickish and the cafe's close; Ind even on the street the crowd Sumps into me and laugs too loud.

And all night long, no matter where I wander, what I do not think. Albeit fuddled by the hair

Of women or the fumes of drink, IT know the Night is gazing down 5o wistfully upon the town!

Forlorn. like some still lovely nun,

New-vowed, from cloister gates ajar She gazes over, vespers done,

Into the lurid lupanar.

And challenges the life we lead, Eler lovers, lost in lust and greed.

fn her deep mind remembrance stirs Of ages ere Leviathan Jpraised from trampled oaks and firs

Her vulgar countenance, and man Jrew callous to her daisy-charms To clasp rose-passion in his arms-

Oblivious of the pure delight

Of open plains and forests where No smoke arose to cloud the sight

Or stench to taint the joyous air; Where in the mild winds' antiphons No factory crashed discordant tones.

Thus pondering an ancient age,

The grave, reproachful Night looks down Upon the filthy persiflage

And tawndry glamour of the town,

A nun new-vowed that views the bawd, Her old loves garland and applaud.

' And often her vague challenge seems

To seek me out, in all the heat Of drunken revels and the gleam

Of hoardings on the sinful street; And then aversion snaps the thong

Df wine and lights and girls and song.

And I must climb to some high roof

Above the city's lure and light, Confounded by the mute reproof

Of melancholy-visaged Night, And strive to answer, half inflamed By sullen anger...half ashamed.

LEONARD LANSON CLINE.

SEA MOTHS

AND there were anemones... Bound with green sea-weed, Delicate clouds of loveliness. Swaying with the sinuous waves Of the turning tide.

And in the tiny salt pools-Kisses left for the grey rocks-Lay languorous starfish

And lavender snails,

Clinging fast to the thrift.

   And all these are for the sea's delight.

And she soon with eager wooing, Will hold these fragile miracles Close to her breasts.

. The waves   

The dancing girls of the sea,

Laughing and throwing high

Their slim white arms,

. Run and play on the yellow beach. Their music is the throbbing tones Of frail sea-shells,

Which pour forth unceasingly •Magical songs of mystery.

-.See! the gulls, their lovers, Lured on to madness

Swerve in passionate haste

To kiss their pale wan cheeks.

- MARGARETTA SCHUYLER.

THE COOLIE SHIP

ACROSS the huddled forms each wrapped in its blanket, Lying in the dim light drifted with the smoke

Of opium, fetid with close-packed life, Sound the broken notes of the crude little flute.

The waves strike the ship which rocks and tosses;

The weary figures are torpid, each be-side its bundle ;

The stars swing and sway as though fastened to strings;

The tired engines gasp and strain against the sea-

They beat quick and uneven like the heart of a dying man.

Across the troubled decks, losing itself

in the vast reaches of sky and sea, The Chinese flute breathes its broken

song into the night.

ELIZABETH J. COATSWORTH,

Luncheon
50c

0

Dinner
65c

A Meeting Place

for Bohemians

LOVE NEED HAVE NOTHING
ELSE TO DO

LOVE need have nothing else to do, And joy may laugh the whole day thru, Grief has its tears and sighs, not less-But where's the help for emptiness?

Spring rushes in with all its light, Grief grieves the more and clings to night,

Joy must laugh and love caress-But how can spring stir emptiness?

ANNETTE WYNNE. THE MARSH

ORANGE and red of the marshes and joy of my heart!

Your color that laughs to the sky and that flaunts in the wind,

Is the spirit of courage gone out from the souls of dead heroes,

To bloom in the lonely white sunshine, uplifted to God.

Under and through the long grass is the glimmer of water ;

The glimmer of dreams that has flowed in the souls of dead poets,

And when they were dammed behind words, slipped away through the sand.

O dreams of my heart, you are shining among the long grasses l

I lift up my face to the pungent smell of the marsh.

The crying unrest and the hidden hope of adventure

I breathe, and shall never again be serene like the oak trees,

Content, like the meadow-I follow my soul o'er the marshes !

NANN CLARK BARR.

42   THE LIBERATO1

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Over twenty illustrations. $1.00 net.

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Intelligent Diplomacy

Ir was the predominance of the North-

cliffe and Clemenceau schools that made the Anglo-French diplomacy toward

Russia so disastrous. It prevented Stockholm, overthrew Kerensky and alienated the Bolsheviki. It has been under the influence of the same type of thinkers that the Entente war aims have been stated in so geographical a manner that even the President has become involved in complex boundary claims. The Entente position is that the liberal

elements in Germany are invited to make no claims at all in territory, while the Entente breaks up Prussia under the

banner of Poland, retakes Alsace-Lorraine by force of arms, instead of leaving it to an impartial tribunal, dictates the relations of Austria to Bohemia and

Jugoslavia, rearranges Turkey, and refrains from any downright promise to

return the German colonies. The Souhomlinov revelations have not checked our love of treating Germany's reason for going to war as flat villainy with no human complications. We have no space to give to reminding ourselves of intrigues against Austria carried on in Serbia by the Czar's government. A deeper and more universal diplomacy,

looking at the future and also at the -ast with more imagination, would show a willingness to leave to arbitrament all the questions involved, except that of

Belgium. on simple conditions, as for

example:

That the proper constitution of an international council be arranged ahead. with neutrals strongly represented.

2. That the Reichstag be the spokes-man for Germany.

Belgium was a neutral and her restoration and compensation is not open to argument. What has happened to beilig--ents is a wholly different matter. The President was wise to use the word "must" for Belgium, "should" for the others. It is hopeless to say that Germany must give up all her conquests, while England keeps most of hers, or dictates the results of them, while France reclaims Alsace-Lorraine complete and without negotiations, while Italy still makes emphatic demands, and while Austria's internal arrangements are settled for her by her enemies.

Unintelligence in war aims goes hand in hand with an ostrich policy about the facts. Journalists who tell the truth about conditions in any field of action are conked upon as weakening morale in-stead of strengthening it. This is one of the most damaging conventions now at work. Clearness of sight would help us to our end far more than feeble and ignorant optimism.

How much the world is paying for the satisfaction each opposing group of governments derive from being wholly in the right! Ilow much it has still to pay! Ilow little leadership there has been in the press or in the governments, and how those who do show light are treated to grave reproof !-Norman Hapgood in the New Republic.

GREETINGS FROM
THE PAGAN!

Oh yes ! We're still alive; very much so!

And bigger, better, worthier than ever.

With original stories, plays, poems, drawings, etchings.

Translations from the best and newest in foreign literatures.

Reviews, comments, etc. THE PAGAN IS HERE TO STAY!

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Shall J. P. Morgan Own the Earth?

a booklet which PROVES by photo. graphed extracts from an official U. S. Government Report, that the Morgan wealth and power arc twenty times greater than realized. How Morgan (after the war) can manipulate a "panic"; then buy cheaply control of vital industries; dispossess YOU of wealth; reduce millions to abject slavery. How knowledge of this power is suppressed; how newspapers are controlled; governments and legislatures corrupted. Price so cents-and your money back iF not satisfied that the in-formation given is well worth the price. Descriptive circular with testimonials free. Agents wanted.

AMERICAN SALES COMPANY
Dept. 46, Reedsville, W. Va.

The FLYING STAG PLAYS

For the Little Theater

THE SANDBAR Q UEEN

By GEORGE CRONYN

The best one-act plays of the Washington Square Players, the Province-town Players, the Greenwich Village Players, and others, will be included in this series. In preparation: Plays by James Oppenheim, Floyd Dell, Rita Wellman, Mary Carolyn Davies, etc. Bound in Toyogami Japan Parchment.

To lie published monthly. Three Dollars a Year (te Copies) Thirty-Five Cents each. Subscriptions or single orders may be sent to

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EGMONT ARENS,
at the

Washington Square Book Shop

17 West 8th Street   New York City

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Criticised, Revised, Typed. Send for leaflet M.
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AG 't

`% CHINA CEMENT

STANDS HOT AND COLO WATER

Ili vii rent i i ill •I• When Huckleberry Finn and' 'ran Sawyer set out on their great adventure, looking for treasure kn. the grim rare across the Mississippi?

Du you remember hoar Tam mud little Becky Thatcher were lost In the ease for days. while the whole , etnilryside oeorehed wildly: And of how, one day, peeping around a dark corner of the ea ve. they soddenly Salt' Italian .Ice? .Lid when, munlhs later, lifter the children lied escaped from the cave, it was opened du you remember what Mee found .Iasi inside?

Hit you rc•nm'iale. in short, the greatest joys of your boyhood-the things you (lid yourself, and the things Yeti wanted to do and could not mid that 'ram Sawyer did for you'!

To Mark Twain two things were precious above all others --one was it lore nf. h is wife: the outer was n lure Of the people. At every side he was surrunndeti by tributes of honor, by joyous •tffectimi. In every corner of the world be was known and loved. And because of this it was his desire that his hooks be so made mid sold at such a price that every family could own ii set.

Su this set of Mark Twain has lace sold at a ntneh lower

price than would ordinarily hr the ease for a set it' books   l   Liberator 3-t8

of this character,   Rut Mark 'Peein ;meld mgt foresee   e

that the pri re of ink:   +P   HiiiP r 411 cos,
gasper, binding-that every-

tithe; that goes into the making of a set of bunks- Ai   New York

was to go to heights undreamed of even two years   rinse spud au' l1AI[h

ago, It is impossible to continue the sale of this ,e Til'tkeIN'S   1F(litree.   I

set of hooks at th:lt low price. This edi tiuu   ma

will satin be withdrawn.   y   ep the set for days you send the coupon at once you can   yi for et, ,,f ltiolh and le-

If your set at the low price-but send   tarn it to yon nt }van• expense. eir 1!n.• eon tat lit Wirt.   if { du nut ronut it.   If I keep

!   the books I will remit $2,00 at once

• and $2.00 a mmtth t,n• foarteeu mouths, Mark Tsuai,i has been translated into more foreign laugztages

than any outer writer.   ▪   Name    

   Address    

For our heti tbful reel half leather edition,

It" ehauge the abut(' terms to $2.50 uu delivery s • and $3 a month for twenty- months.

CONVENTION REPORTING

COMPANY

Stuyvesant 1963 and 5296
32 Union Square

(Room 810)
New York, N. Y.

Conventions, Hearings,
Mass Meetings, etc.

Reproduced Verbatim

Winners of New York State
Championship Cup for 1918

Multigraphing, Addressing, Mimeographing, Public Stenography, etc.   ,

BUY THE CURRENT ISSUE OF

Zbe

3 ntercotiegiate

'ociaiizt

Issued four times during the college year

ARTICLES ON

Democracy and the Peace Settlement, by Norman Angell,

The Future of the City, by Henry Bruere. National Control of Railroads, by Ordway Tend.

Conscription of Excess Profits, by Lowell Brentano.

The Drift Toward "State Socialism," by Harry W. Laidler.

I. S. S. Convention.

Excerpts from addresses of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Frederic C. Howe, Frank Bohn, Louis B. Boudin, Algernon Lee, Scott Nearing, Rose Pastor Stokes and others.

INTERCOLLEGIATE SOCIALIST SOCIETY

70 FIFTH AVENUE
15 cts. copy   50 eta. year

BOYS' STORIES

Re memher t It a t 'I'nm Sawyer is oily one of the hooks in which Mark 'l'tt,tin shows his wauderhtl lid crstaudiag of boys. No one has ever 'Arleen. of b o y s as did Mark Twain.

HISTORY

Read Toam of Sir if you would know Nlark Twain in all his greatness-the must rlri nil tic and amazing story in the world-neeara Le in. Irkshtry, spiriloal in idea, beautiful in execution.

ROMANCE

Everything he. wrote was toadied with the golden freshness of youth and romance whether in

such books as "The Priam' and the Peeper," "A Conneeiicut Yankee" or "Roughing II,"

Short Stories

'there are   many and
so good,

ESSAYS

He could not see in-

htstic•e   without lighting

it. The flame of his auger seared and burst forth In essay's that will live forever.

TRAVEL

You have not seen. the world until you sec it through Mark Twain's wise and humorous eyes. His books of wanderings -will i.e revelations to you now who read them only in your youth.

Mark Twain

You ran renew the Old .joys-yell ran lint! again the beating heart laid the laughter. Intl when you read Teel Sawyer and Ilnelaelierry Flan now, yen will find -mime thing Inure.. a choke iit your throat-a little s•iuuess. The lnngh is tempered by thought. just as Mark Twain'ss own !nigh was seemed by urea€welts ly-liy life's tralgeeles and lasses, for he was not only ii great. humorist--he was a leg and erigi Mull ill io ker--a phih,sophor a elan whose own lire-whore rise-chose sorrows load hri tea it nun-whose basses and wdulse glary are the ideal of every American hoe, and the ideal whether Iasi cm reeognizetl, in the heart of every Aneeietnt tame

"He trn reheli ulwttyu Much a broad and brilliant high-way with plumes dying and crowds following' lifter"-and his death left nations weeping. But in n larger sense he is not dead. He lives forever in work more. truly Arnett-cell than any other lean,

Bernard Shaw said that future generations will tram to hint !'or ltistoly.

Rudynrd Hipline. writing to the most important oftrials in India, said: "I hare seen Mark Twain this golden morning, have shaken his hand, and snlnked a cigar-no, two cigars with him, and talked whit hint for more than two hours! Understand ■4can'ly that I do not despise you; indeed I don't. I stn oily very sorry for you, from the Viceroy dew tnvard."

Perhaps you think you have read It good deal of Mark Twain, Are you sore? Have you read all the novels-all the short stories-all the brilliant fighting essays-all the history':

Why the Price Must be Raised

HARPER and BROTHERS, New Yosk

1817- 1918