Ere the last Spaniard had evacuated Cuba, Socialist groups were

forming. And from far Japan, in these first days of the twentieth
century, writes one Tomoyoshi Murai: "The interest of our people on

Socialism has been greatly awakened these days, especially among our
laboring people on one hand and young students' circle on the other,

as much as we can draw an earnest and enthusiasticaudience and fill
our hall, which holds two thousand. . . . It is gratifying to say

that we have a number of fine and well-trained public orators among
our leaders of Socialism in Japan. The first speaker tonight is Mr.

Kiyoshi Kawakami, editor of one of our city (Tokyo) dailies, a
strong, independent, and decidedlysocialistic paper, circulated far

and wide. Mr. Kawakami is a scholar as well as a popular writer.
He is going to speak tonight on the subject, 'The Essence of

Socialism--the Fundamental Principles.' The next speaker is
Professor Iso Abe, president of our association, whose subject of

address is, 'Socialism and the Existing Social System.' The third
speaker is Mr. Naoe Kinosita, the editor of another strong journal

of the city. He speaks on the subject, 'How to Realize the
Socialist Ideals and Plans.' Next is Mr. Shigeyoshi Sugiyama, a

graduate of Hartford Theological Seminary and an advocate of Social
Christianity, who is to speak on 'Socialism and Municipal Problems.'

And the last speaker is the editor of the 'Labor World,' the
foremost leader of the labor-union movement in our country, Mr. Sen

Katayama, who speaks on the subject, 'The Outlook of Socialism in
Europe and America.' These addresses are going to be published in

book form and to be distributed among our people to enlighten their
minds on the subject."

And in the struggle for the political machinery of society,
Socialism is no longer confined to mere propaganda. Italy, Austria,

Belgium, England, have Socialist members in their national bodies.
Out of the one hundred and thirty-two members of the London County

Council, ninety-one are denounced by the conservative element as
Socialists. The Emperor of Germany grows anxious and angry at the

increasing numbers which are returned to the Reichstag. In France,
many of the large cities, such as Marseilles, are in the hands of

the Socialists. A large body of them is in the Chamber of Deputies,
and Millerand, Socialist, sits in the cabinet. Of him M. Leroy-

Beaulieu says with horror: "M. Millerand is the open enemy of
private property, private capital, the resoluteadvocate of the

socialization of production . . . a constant incitement to violence
. . . a collectivist, avowed and militant, taking part in the

government, dominating the departments of commerce and industry,
preparing all the laws and presiding at the passage of all measures

which should be submitted to merchants and tradesmen."
In the United States there are already Socialist mayors of towns and

members of State legislatures, a vast literature, and single
Socialist papers with subscription lists running up into the

hundreds of thousands. In 1896, 36,000 votes were cast for the
Socialist candidate for President; in 1900, nearly 200,000; in 1904,

450,000. And the United States, young as it is, is ripening
rapidly, and the Socialists claim, according to the materialistic

conception of history, that the United States will be the first
country in the world wherein the toilers will capture the political

machinery and expropriate the bourgeoisie.
But the Socialist and labor movements have recently entered upon a

new phase. There has been a remarkable change in attitude on both
sides. For a long time the labor unions refrained from going in for

political action. On the other hand, the Socialists claimed that
without political action labor was powerless. And because of this

there was much ill feeling between them, even open hostilities, and
no concerted action. But now the Socialists grant that the labor

movement has held up wages and decreased the hours of labor, and the
labor unions find that political action is necessary. Today both

parties have drawn closely together in the common fight. In the
United States this friendly feeling grows. The Socialist papers

espouse the cause of labor, and the unions have opened their ears
once more to the wiles of the Socialists. They are all leavened

with Socialist workmen, "boring from within," and many of their
leaders have already succumbed. In England, where class

consciousness is more developed, the name "Unionism" has been
replaced by "The New Unionism," the main object of which is "to

capture existing social structures in the interests of the wage-
earners." There the Socialist, the trade-union, and other working-

class organizations are beginning to cooperate in securing the
return of representatives to the House of Commons. And in France,

where the city councils and mayors of Marseilles and Monteaules-
Mines are Socialistic, thousands of francs of municipal money were

voted for the aid of the unions in the recent great strikes.
For centuries the world has been preparing for the coming of the

common man. And the period of preparationvirtually past, labor,
conscious of itself and its desires, has begun a definitemovement

toward solidarity. It believes the time is not far distant when the
historian will speak not only of the dark ages of feudalism, but of

the dark ages of capitalism. And labor sincerely believes itself
justified in this by the terrible indictment it brings against

capitalistic society. In the face of its enormous wealth,
capitalistic society forfeits its right to existence when it permits

widespread, bestial poverty. The philosophy of the survival of the
fittest does not soothe the class-conscious worker when he learns

through his class literature that among the Italian pants-finishers
of Chicago {9} the average weekly wage is $1.31, and the average

number of weeks employed in the year is 27.85. Likewise when he
reads:{10} "Every room in these reeking tenements houses a family or

two. In one room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his
wife just recovering from her confinement, and the children running

about half naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people
living in one underground kitchen, and a little dead child lying in

the same room. Here live a widow and her six children, two of whom
are ill with scarlet fever. In another, nine brothers and sisters,

from twenty-nine years of age downward, live, eat, and sleep
together." And likewise, when he reads:{11} "When one man, fifty

years old, who has worked all his life, is compelled to beg a little
money to bury his dead baby, and another man, fifty years old, can

give ten million dollars to enable his daughter to live in luxury
and bolster up a decaying foreign aristocracy, do you see nothing

amiss?"
And on the other hand, the class-conscious worker reads the

statistics of the wealthy classes, knows what their incomes are, and
how they get them. True, down all the past he has known his own

material misery and the material comfort of the dominant classes,
and often has this knowledge led him to intemperate acts and unwise

rebellion. But today, and for the first time, because both society
and he have evolved, he is beginning to see a possible way out. His

ears are opening to the propaganda of Socialism, the passionate
gospel of the dispossessed. But it does not inculcate a turning

back. The way through is the way out, he understands, and with this
in mind he draws up the programme.

It is quite simple, this programme. Everything is moving in his
direction, toward the day when he will take charge. The trust? Ah,

no. Unlike the trembling middle-class man and the small capitalist,
he sees nothing at which to be frightened. He likes the trust. He

exults in the trust, for it is largely doing the task for him. It
socializes production; this done, there remains nothing for him to

do but socialize distribution, and all is accomplished. The trust?
"It organizes industry on an enormous, labor-saving scale, and

abolishes childish, wastefulcompetition." It is a gigantic object
lesson, and it preaches his political economy far more potently than

he can preach it. He points to the trust, laughing scornfully in
the face of the orthodox economists. "You told me this thing could

not be," {12} he thunders. "Behold, the thing is!"
He sees competition in the realm of production passing away. When

the captains of industry have thoroughly organized production, and
got everything runningsmoothly, it will be very easy for him to

eliminate the profits by stepping in and having the thing run for
himself. And the captain of industry, if he be good, may be given

the privilege of continuing the management on a fair salary. The
sixty millions of dividends which the Standard Oil Company annually

declares will be distributed among the workers. The same with the