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rebellion, not as rebels. Or, in case revolution should be brought about by dynamite rebellion, they would hope to interpose and direct the revolution to their ends. This they could not do until their educational propaganda has reached a much more advanced point than at present. Therefore nothing can be more ruinous to their plans than the method of destroying the present order urged by the Anarchists. Again, the two parties' ideas of the new order are at opposite extremes: the one desires the maximum of government, the other no government. It is therefore not to be expected that any coalition can take place again between these two bodies.

But it is only the minor part of socialism in the United States that is to be found by enumerating the enrolled socialists and those whose alliance they can directly command. The two bodies, with a combined voting force of not more than seventy-five thousand, and a fighting force of much less, would constitute a very slight threat to society, even if they were united. With one body accomplishing little in its propaganda, and much dominated by peaceful and semi-reasonable theorists, and the other disorganized, unmanageable, duped by loud-mouthed cowards as leaders, and numbering doubtless a considerable proportion of loud-mouthed cowards in its ranks, their ability to stir the institutions of the country is hardly worth considering. It is true, that the anarchist wing do win converts and increase their num bers; but a disorganized horde, even if it included half the people of a country, cannot seriously or permanently control organized opposition—and this horde at present does not include more than a thousandth part of the people of the country. It is in the spread of socialistic ideas outside of the socialist organizations that the great danger to present institutions lies: that is, in the enormous number of people who, while not accepting the socialist creed, yet hold many doctrines taken from it. In this direction socialism is in the United States powerful and increasing. There have always been socialistic tendencies in our government—as in the whole

VOL. VI.-28.

protective system, for instance; but there has also been so strong a bent toward individualism, that probably our government remains less socialistic than that of any other constitutional country.

But among the working classes, and even to a considerable extent among the classes, not wage-takers, whose property is small, the genuine root-doctrine of socialism is taking possession, viz: that it is the business of government to look out for the weak, and to secure for every man, so far as possible, comfort and happiness. When a leading English statesman recently announced this doctrine, it was looked on as a most significant sign of the times: but one would not be in much danger of exaggeration in saying that every wage-taker in the country, and a large part of the other poor men, hold it with all their hearts. The reason that Henry George's book is a gospel to these men, is because they do not own any land: but they do not really care much about the confiscation of land; they simply want something done to better their condition, and will fall in with almost any remedy suggested at all plausibly. Any party which proposes government action for their benefit is pretty sure of their support; any agitator, preaching against capital, is pretty sure of a certain sympathy from them. They have no especial objections to the present social order, if only it could be fixed so that their wages should always be high, work steady, and hours short; and they feel sure that government could fix it so, if it only would. Accordingly, in a blind sort of way, step by step, and measure by measure, they are certainly pushing toward some sort of socialism. Their voting force is sufficient to carry anything they unanimously and persistently fix upon as their desire. In various guises, their demand for the guardianship of government has carried State elections repeatedly, sometimes by their holding the balance of power between parties, sometimes by direct "labor" vote. It happens constantly that the man or measure they advocate proves to be really against their interests as a class, as in the greenback movement; and this want of

political knowledge and judgment, this readiness to be deceived, and so to fight against their own ends, has always been an efficient check against their gaining much ground. Their best organization, and their most sober judgment, are to be found in the trades' unions, whose leaders are often-perhaps usually-men of fair sense and moderation, sincere in seeking the interests of their class, instead of personal ends, and disposed to study seriously the economic questions they deal with. But those whom they lead are not thus moderate, and are deeply imbued with an unreasoning conviction that something is wrong in a frame of things which permits them to be poor and weak, while others are rich and strong. Not only the honest and sober workman, but the worthless idler, the drunken waster of his wages, the criminal, all have very strongly this feeling that society owes them better provision, and that either government must undertake to secure it for them, or they must snatch it by force. There is, thus, a vast body whose steady pressure toward a socialist government, blundering and self-defeating though it is, may in time accomplish substantial results; but also a body unreasoning, and containing very many vicious and turbulent elements, and disposed to a half sympathy with incendiary agitation. In the class that lies between that of wagetakers and large employers, there is a sort of easy-going sympathy with all poor and discontented men, and an impression that there is something unrighteous in one man's being rich and another poor. From this class come many theorists, who, without adopting the whole socialist scheme, have various specifics to offer, all socialistic in bearing. George himself is of this class. We have this month a somewhat crazy little treatise to review, evidently from some one of the same class, proposing a quaint enough modification of George's doctrine (to the effect that as the whole earth changes hands once in a generation, each person should pay, in the form of taxes, in the course of his life-time, his pro

1 Man's Birthright; or The Higher Law of Property. By Edward H. G. Clark. New York and London: G.

P. Putnam's Sons. 1885.

portion of the total value of the earth; which will come to about two per cent. a year; the establishment of this rate of taxation on land ownership will remove all evils from the earth). And lastly there exists, distinct from the anarchists, the political agitators' group of Rossa and his fellows, whose dynamite methods, though directed to a political purpose, affect the minds of men to other ends.

What, then, are we to look for in the way of danger to our institutions? Obviously, nothing in the way of organized and systematic effort. Nothing in any future we need look to see, of powerful armed rebellion. The authors of such writings as "The Fall of the Great Republic" underestimate the tremendous resisting power such rebellion would meet.

Careless of danger up to the last moment, criminally negligent of the signs of the times, yet when the last moment does come, the American people rises in one fierce flash to its own defense, as we have before now seen it do in San Francisco. One fears in the forecast the easy-going American tolerance, the tendency to sympathize with the wrong-doer; but where have these always disappeared to when the crisis has actually come? In some distant future, the quality of our population may become so greatly changed by foreign infusion, that this power of defending our institutions at need may be lost; but even the present great deterioration cannot bring this about within a generation or two.

The danger that we are to look for is none the less real, and perhaps near. It is of an era of riots, incendiarism, increase of crime, explosions of violence and class-hatred. A very few men, utterly unorganized, incapable of really gaining their point, are perfectly capable of making a great deal of bloodshed and destruction in futile efforts to obtain it. Indian border warfare, though absolutely hopeless of success, makes a monstrous condition of things to live under; and to some such condition of being exposed to irregular attacks and outrages we might very possibly

come.

Professor Ely belongs ardently to the school

of so-called "Christian Socialists". - those who urge that the only solution of labor and class troubles is in the voluntary action of the well-to-do classes in improving the condition of the poor, on the Christian principle of human brotherhood. It is an obvious misnomer to call this doctrine socialism, the very essence of socialism being dependence upon government to do what the Christian socialists believe should be done by individual, voluntary effort-so that the lead er of the "Christian Socialist" coöperative movement in England protested in alarm against Mr. Chamberlain's statement of the duty of government towards the weaker classes, seeing in such a view destruction to the system of self-help his school has been building up still, it is easy to see wherein the "Christian Socialists" are at one with true socialists, viz: in the belief that the strong must look out for the weak, whether voluntarily, by individual effort, or through their coördinate action in government. A general and genuine effort to improve the condition of the poor, along lines of "Christian Socialism," Professor Ely therefore thinks will avert most of the danger that is now gathering. It is certain that the removal of all genuine grievances may check even men resolved upon revolution, and in a few years or generations cause them to forget their resolve; much more when the majority of those from whom disorder is to be expected are, as we have seen, not bent especially upon any thing but having life made a little more comfortable to them.

What permanent solution there can be of the problem of inequality, we are not prepared to conjecture; but that the best wisdom for the present lies, at least, in the general line suggested by Professor Ely, we do not doubt. Not, perhaps, in the special ways advised by the "Christian Socialists"; although the stand their school has taken against alms-giving methods removes it totally from the dangerous region of medieval Christian charity. Still, it is probable that the genuine grievances of the poor in this country arise from deeper causes than direct effort upon wage systems or laborers' homes

can reach. It is curious to note how uniformly any evil in society tells upon the poor; so that wages may be lowered and men thrown out of work for reasons that seem to have no connection at all with labor. We have, for instance, little doubt that the most fruitful source of wage fluctuations and like miseries in this country is corrupt politics. Every student knows that a depreciated money tells heaviest upon wage-takers. Upon them fall the penalties of inflated speculation. And so we might continue to illustrate. Other classes must suffer the results of their own sins and follies; the laborer, the results of his own sins and follies, and in a far higher degree than does any one else, of those of all classes outside his own. Very rational, therefore, is the position of most clergymen, who, when confronted with the problem of poverty and discontent, say that if all men were sincere Christians, these troubles would disappear; and that they are therefore wise in paying no attention to relieving symptoms, but in going to the root of the matter by trying to make as many men as possible Christians, and to keep them so; and their failure in dealing with the question, as evinced by the alienation from them of the laboring classes, is due in part to over-theological conception of what it is they are to make of men, and in part to too exclusive absorption in one method of ameliorating society. Rational, too, is the position of temperance reformers, who point out the relation between the expenditure of the poor upon drink and their suffering, from time to time, for want of savings in time of need, or of enough wages over and above the drink expenditure for comfort; and emphasize such significant incidents as that of the socialist picnic the other day in Chicago, where banners were carried bearing such mottoes as "Our children cry for bread," and the expenditure for liquor during the day amounted to hundreds of dollars. Most rational of all is the trust-and it is happily a general one-in education, as the great means of improvement for the poor, even those of a stratum lower than it directly touches. In the active-and, above all, the intelligent-prosecution of all measures that

tend to improve general society, as well as of those that specifically affect the poorer classes, must lie, then, the immediate protection of society against class discontent. Not by concessions to "demands of labor”-concessions are generally mere cowardice and self-seeking, and, in this particular case, as likely to tell against as for the interest of those who de mand-but by sincere effort to remove all real grievances of any class, all injustices in social action, will the "discontent of labor" be persuaded to subside. Undoubtedly, the best means to this end is often a resolute opposition to some demanded concession; the courage to offend a class may often be necessary to benefit a class; the courage to withhold, in order to help.

cent social action form the subjects of monographs before us for review in the present article. The consideration of these, however, must be postponed for the present; we only linger to note that their range of subject indicates a general impulse of reform all along the line of society, which is certainly encouraging, regarded as an accompaniment of that other general impulse to discontent and disorder now so visible. If the tendency to the preservation and improvement of society only keeps pace with the tendency to disintegration for a generation or two, we may look forward with much greater courage to those final tests of human society that must come from causes deeper than present human effort, for good or ill, can greatly

Several of these various means of benefi- affect.

RECENT POETRY.

THE summer has been by no means barren of poetry; indeed, it is a little surprising, when one considers the great decline of interest in poetry, that people should be found ready to supply so steadily the stream that runs out, year by year, from the publishing houses. Were it not for the inexorable evidence of booksellers' ledgers, one would be tempted to believe that it is only the critical class, the class who express their tastes in print and in literary clubs, that have grown tired of poetry, and that the great silent public still welcomes every new volume. An eminent American critic has but now expressed a belief that the present apathy in poetry the temporary interval of rest and re-gathering of forces, as we all believe it to be, between two great poetic eras-already nears its end. We are not disposed to agree with him; we look to see a close and serious pressure of social problems restrain the poetic mood through a longer or shorter period; nor has the highly unpoetic impetus of excessive industrialism yet spent itself. Meanwhile, there is never a year that does not produce some poetry worthy to live. We

have this month-representing nearly a halfyear's accumulation-two names of high poetic rank: Miss Ingelow and Mr. Aldrich ; besides one of a sort of fictitious high rank, by virtue of his great popularity—that is, the Earl of Lytton, "Owen Meredith.” The other books are two maiden volumes, and a group of Grant poems, which last, ambitious beyond its fellows, has risen to the dignity of covers

card covers, that is, tied with black ribbon. This semi-book, An Elegy for Grant, would indicate that the poet has been for years following with his pen the great soldier's career, for it has the following contents: Proem; Elegy; "Push Things,” a Campaign Song; Hymn for President Grant's Inauguration; "Pax Vobiscum," on the Great Treaty; General Grant restored to Rank. The publishers have, with questionable enough taste, secured some sounding telegrams from R. H. Stoddard and others, lauding the verse. But we prefer illustrating it to criticizing it :

1 An Elegy for Grant, Patriot, Conqueror, Hero. By George Lansing Taylor. New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls. 1885.

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This figure is bolder, however, than the rest of the poem. The closing stanza, upon Washington, Lincoln, and Grant, is a fairer sample:

"Bid our foes match these! Enough!

On such names can scorn be hurled?
Tried they stand, the sturdiest stuff

Of that Race that rules the world!"

Of the two "maiden volumes" we spoke of, one is maiden only in the sense of being the first appearance of its author's work between covers; for Mrs. Sherwood has long been a favorite poet of memorial days, soldiers' reunions, and like occasions. The revival of war memories in the shape of literature has suggested a collection of these various lyrics. They are admirably adapted to their purpose, having a good deal of spirit and of tenderness, and more or less beauty. They often approach the ballad in matter and manner, but no one of them is really a ballad. There is, of necessity, much repetition among them, and they will be dearer to the old soldier, who cares greatly for the memories they stir, than to any one who reads merely for literary pleasure; yet, by him, too, they may be enjoyed, in a degree. We think that, regarded merely as poetry, there is nothing among them quite as good as The Black Regiment at Port Hudson":

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"There on the heights were the guns-
The blood-hounds of battle-

The dark, growling packs crouching low,
To start at a word from the master,
And roar and rend in the trail

Of reeling disaster.

Under the guns is the bayou,
A marge of luxuriant grasses-
And here are the tawny long lines,
Where the orderly passes;
And their eyes are aflame
As they charge and take aim,
Down where the bayou runs red
With the blood of the dead.

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One on the rolls of the brave,
One in the glory to be-

The gallant Black Regiment!"

There is an echo here of "The Charge of the Light Brigade," but there is no harm in that. The following is a more characteristic selection:

"Oh, there was brave maneuver in sight of foe and friend,

And toss of plume and feather, and marching without end;

And there were banners waving, and there were songs and cheers;

And for the patriot, praises, and for the coward, jeers.

And here, the splendid infantry, accoutered bright and blue,

And there, the gleaming trappings of cavalry in

view;

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