is due to this tradition that anti-miltarist sentiment in the trade unions has not assumed the same aspect in the German Empire as in the Latin countries.
But will the German officers never intervene in the social struggles? No one can foretell what the morrow may bring forth. It is certain that the Social Democracy, of necessity uncompromising, despite the revisionist tendiencies that occasionally crop up, is now advancing to the number of four million voters. Many persons who do not allow themselves to be prejudiced or blinded estimate it will have one hundred and twenty seats in the next Reichstag. If we take into consideration the fact that some socialist seats represent 100,000 votes each, while some conservative seats represent no more than 5,000 votes, it will be evident what the moral effect of this invasion must be. And the question that looms up largest of all is whether the Kaiser will not be taking a terrible risk if he decides to resort to force.
The Little Sinner
(Continued from page 8)
lord's daughter had now found out that Kolya had esconced himself in the wardrobe.
"Well, I won't come out, and that's all!" he grumbled once more, and covered himself with his mother's cloak.
"Kolya, dear, what a shame, come out, my darling," said Mikheyevna.
"Well, well, so that's where my beau is, in the wardrobe," said the landlord's daughter laughing, as she too entered the nursery.
Kolya did not want to come out. Mikheyevna caught him by the foot, and Kolya began to kick out.
Mikheyevna conquered in the end. Kolya emerged from the wardrobe red as a peony, angry and abashed. His hair stuck out like the quills of a porcupine, and his eyes flashed like a wolf's. Natasha was the fault of it all. She had discovered and betrayed him, and that's why Kolya was angrier with her than with anyone else.
"Don't touch me," he shouted, when Natasha took him by the elbow to drag him from the wardrobe.
"Mama has already given you one slapping to-day. Do you want another?" asked Natasha, straightening the new dress hanging in the wardrobe.
"Oh you! Naughty—once—naughty—twice—naughty—three times—I killed the spider and I have only six sins. There you are! And I could call you naughty some more and I could call you mean!" shouted Kolya, out of breath, and ran from the nursery.
"Well?" he asked, looking from the door of his father's study. "Well? And I could call Mikheyevna naughty, too, only I don't want to."
Not least of the signs of the greatness of the modern Socialist movement is the fact that it appeals with equal charm and force to men and women of many diverse points of view. It is, I think, the supreme glory of this great world-movement that so many temperaments and passions, so many qualities of mind and character, are attracted to it; each finding in it something that answers its own peculiar needs. The saying attributed to Jesus, "I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all men unto myself," has been cited many times as proof of the sublime faith of Jesus. Likewise it may be said of this Socialist movement that its adherents have a sublime faith in the power of their ideal to draw and unite all men, regardless of race, color or creed.—Spargo.
The Fur Coat
(Continued from page 5)
which made you start to write to me. It seems to me only logical that now that you have happily gotten your fur coat back again, we should terminate our correspondence. I at least have nothing more to say.
Goodby—forever,
*** Professor Wiegand to Dr. Gustav Strauch
Dear Gustav:—
I have something to tell you again which will astonish you tremendously. My wife came back yesterday. And that upon my repeated and urgent entreaties. I thought I could not live with her any longer, and I found I certainly could not live without her. I just learned from her that she was very unhappy during our separation. But she would never have confessed it, because she is the stronger of us two. I don't know how to explain the miracle, but we love each other more dearly than ever. We are having a new honeymoon. The great questions of life divided us. Is it really only the small ones that brought us together again? Would you have thought it possible that a man could find his half-dried heart in the pockets of an old fur coat?
The edifice of my world philosophy is shaken to its foundation. I shall have to learn everything over again.
The chief bar to the action of imagination, and stop to all greatness in this present age of ours, is its mean and shallow love of jest; so that if there be in any good and lofty work a flaw, failing, or undipped vulnerable part, where sarcasms may stick or stay, it is caught at, and pointed at, and buzzed about, and fixed upon, and stung into, as a recent wound is by flies; and nothing is ever taken seriously or as it was meant, but always, if it may be, turned the wrong-way, and misunderstood: and while this is so, there is not, nor cannot be, any hope of achievement of high things; men dare not open their hearts to us, if we are to broil them on a thorn-fire.—Ruskin.
Dr. Cook has discovered that the way of the transgessor may be paved with gold.—Pittsburg Gazette-Times.
If we examine our present social order, we realize with horror how barbarous it still is. Not only do murder and war destroy cultural values without substituting others in their place, not only do the countless conflicts which take place between the different nations and political organizations act anticulturally, but so do also the conflicts between the various social classes of one nation, for they destroy quantities of free energy which are thus withdrawn from the total of real cultural values. At present mankind is in a state of development in which progress depends much less upon the leadership of a few distinguished individuals than upon the collective labor of all workers. Proof of this is that it is coming to be more and more the fact that the great scientific discoveries are made simultaneously bv a number of independent investigators—an indication that society creates in several places the individual conditions requisite for such discoveries. Thus we are living at a time when men are gradually approximating one another very closely in their natures, and when the social organization therefore demands and strives for as thorough an equalization as possible in the conditions of existence of all men.—Ostwald's Natural Philosophy.
Our Benevolent Express Companies
Within the short space of three years two of the big express companies have presented their grateful stockholders with "melons" worth forty-eight million dollars. This pleasant return was upon an original investment of practically nothing. Whatever assets the companies now possess were accumulated out of surplus profits. The goose that lays their golden eggs consists simply of exclusive contracts with the railroads, by which they are licensed to overcharge the long-suffering public for carrying its parcels.
These private gold mines, called express companies, employ considerable labor. Some five thousand of their drivers, transfer men, schedule men and helpers in New York and Jersey City went on strike this fall. Those holding the most responsible positions, the route drivers and transfer men, received, it appears, sixty-five to seventy-five dollars a month for a day's work that began at seven A. M. and ended as soon after six P. M. as the last load on the platforms was hauled to its destination.
This arrangement of a workday with a "regular hour for starting, but none for stopping" often means, in practice, fifteen hours' labor out of the twenty-four, with Sunday and holiday work, for which no extra pay is given. For helpers, it seems, the companies thriftily prefer boys, whom they can hire at eighteen to twenty dollars a month.
The men demanded an advance of five dollars a month in wages, with fifty dollars a month minimum for helpers and a workday of eleven hours. As the three-hundred-per-cent. express companies felt unable to grant the men's demands, express business in New York and Jersey City was thrown into utter confusion. For years the public had paid the companies three-hundred-per-cent. rates for carrying its parcels; but, rather than deal liberally with its employees in a pinch, the companies calmly permitted the public's parcels to lie undelivered. At one time, it is said, three hundred and fifty thousand packages, generally requiring haste and care, were piled up in the various offices waiting for the strike to end.
The grand bulwark of this precious business consists in the failure of Congress to pass a parcels-post act.—Saturday Evening Post.
The prospect that the consumer will shortly be able to consume something is about the rosiest outlook upon the national horizon.—St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
An excellent resume of modern natural philosophy as opposed to the academic philosophy. Of inestimable value to every one who desires to obtain a knowledge of the general results of science up to date with the least possible expenditure of time.
The author, Professor Ostwald, is the founder of Physical Chemistry, and one of the leading scientists of the world.
Price, $1.00 net
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