PREFACE

"Labor is ever an imprisoned god, writhing unconsciously or consciously to escape out of CARLYLE.

ALMOST unknown to the world outside of Labor a movement wide as the universe grows and prospers. Its vitality is incredible, and its humanitarian ideals come to those who labor as drink to parched throats. Its creed and program call forth a passionate adherence, its converts serve it with a daily devotion that knows no limit of sacrifice, and in the face of persecution, misrepresentation, and even martyrdom, they remain loyal and true. In Russia its missionaries are exiled, imprisoned, and massacred, but the progress of the movement is only quickened by persecution, proving once again that the blood of the martyrs is the seed. of the Church. In Germany and elsewhere it was forced into the night, its leaders were impoverished and hunted through Europe; but underground the movement grew faster than ever. In England it was ignored, defeated it was thought by a conspiracy of silence, when suddenly the nation awoke to the fact that the whole underworld was aflame; and now lords, politicians, and newspapers, consternated and appalled, are rallying for a frontal attack. From Russia, across

Europe and America to Japan, from Canada to Argentina, and from Norway and Finland to South Africa and Australia, it crosses frontiers, breaking through the barriers of language, nationality, and religion, as it spreads from factory to factory, from mill to mill, and from mine to mine, touching as it goes with the religion of life the millions of the underworld.

Its converts work in every city, town, and hamlet in the industrial nations, spreading the new gospel among the poor and lowly, who listen to their words with religious intensity. Tired workmen pore over the literature which these missionaries leave behind them, and fall to sleep over open pages; and the youth, inspired by its lofty ideals and elevated thought, leave the factory with joyous anticipation to read through the night. Its influence reaches throughout all society, and here and there those of the faith are at work in science, literature, and art, in churches and colleges. Millions are already embraced in its organization, and other millions begin to awaken. It has already captured some of the outposts of political power, and it moves on to higher centres of influence, and even now begins to alter the national policy of every European government. Its horizon is boundless, and it quietly works to group its national organizations into an international brotherhood that will abolish war and make as of one blood the nations of the earth.

Strive as I may, I cannot convey to the idle and privileged the full revolutionary portent of this new

movement; and strive as I may, I cannot adequately convey to the weary and heavy-laden the grandeur of its thought and the noble promise of its message. I attempt neither. Beyond a brief chapter upon its program, I have not discussed fundamental principles. Others have done that far better than I could hope to do. But I shall have failed in my purpose if I have not brought my reader into intimate contact with the men, the organizations, and the work of this powerful and significant movement. I endeavor to picture a growing organism that already has its ramifications throughout society in every civilized country; and even this is but inadequately done, as the movement has grown with such rapidity, and has developed so differently in the various countries that the task is too great for one wishing to keep to the limits of a sizable volume. One will learn here, nevertheless, something of its leaders, its methods of organization, its congresses and propaganda, and its present influence in the foremost countries of Europe. It should interest those who are curious about current movements; it should prove a warning, if one is needed, to those who live by privilege and by exploiting their fellow-men; and above all, it should help to disillusion those who think that socialism is some supermundane philosophy that has no contact with life, and no especial significance in the world of to-day.

Every new movement has its shibboleths, and the socialist movement is no exception. I have endeavored

as far as possible to avoid their use, but the reader will find the terms "class," "working-class," and "class struggle" used very frequently in the following pages. These terms ought perhaps to be defined in this place. The socialists interpret "working-class" very broadly. Karl Marx, in 1850, condemned the extremists in the Communist Alliance for making a fetich of the word "proletariat." And while no socialist would go so far as Frederic Harrison, who says, "The workingclass is the only class which is not a class; it is the nation"; Wilhelm Liebknecht declared that, "We include in the working-class all those who live exclusively or principally by means of their own labor, and who do not grow rich through the work of others.. It is the party of all the people, with the exception of two hundred thousand great proprietors. . . ."

There is much misunderstanding about the use of the term "class struggle." Socialists do not advocate the class struggle. They recognize that it is inevitable under the present system, and they strive to abolish it. The first International began its preamble by saying, "The struggle for the emancipation of the workingclasses means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule." "The domination of one class," says Jean Jaurès, "is an attempt to degrade humanity. Socialism, which will abolish all primacy of class, and indeed all class, elevates humanity to its

highest level." Liebknecht says, "Social democracy,