Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-10-26
BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

LOOKING BACKWARD - 1000 - 1887, by
Edward Bcllamy. author of Miss Lud-
ington's Sister," "a Nantucket Idyl,"
etc. Houghton, Minlin h Co., Boston and
New York. This new edition of a compar-
ativoly new. book bears this significant evil
dence of success, -" the one hundred and
thirty fourth thousand"
q" The lesson of the London strike seems
to me to DO that modern socioety has but
the choice between single tax and socialism,
between justice and war;" writes Henry
George. In Edward Bellamy's vision,"
as Looking Backward" has boon called,
tho hero, a modern Rip Van Wrinkle,
goes to sleep in the present century, waking
up in the year 1000 10 find that the great
problem of social reform, which occupies
the minds of so many of our
thinking men of to-day, had been solved,
and according to Mr.. George, jus
tice" had been done to the great
masses of tho human race. Mr..
Bellamy goes forward to look back on
to-day. The numerous strikes which oc-
Cured In the latter half of the nineteenth
century made men realize that there must
be some remedy out of the difficulty, and
gradually the system of which Mr.. Bellamy
The nation becomes the sole capitalist, who
owns and governs all the industries. Each
person in the country has an equal share of
the products. From the age of twenty-cne
TO forty-five every man is enrolled In the
industrial army. lie is allowed 10 deter
mine what he can work at most profitably
to the nation and most satisfactorily to
himself" At the age of forty-ivc, If he is
SiI G..l h, 10, pll nl IN
for period of from one TO five years, in
Congress or the supreme court. The whole
system is explained with a rather weari-
some attention to detail, but it must be ad-
mitted that in the main the author has sue
ceeded in presenting tho dry bones of
social science in most attractive costume
of marvel and romance. The awakening
of the hero in another age is managed with
more care than is oflcn given TO devices of
this kind. The terrible shock that comes
when the man realizes that he is in another
age, that all his contemporaries their chill
dren andtheir cbildren's children have long
passed away, that ne Is among people of
different intellectual development and out
OF all sympathy; all of these things that al
most work the overthrow of reason are
brought forward with mastery skill The
uTcdHi VI u TetuTu W tntse tililts thdt 10 lit-
troduced in the latter part of the
narrative Is not so well managed
and rather spoils the effect, though il
serves the authors purpose of en-
phasizing the great gain TO man
that might follow complete annihilation
of that love of money which has been sagely
declared the root of all evil. AS for the
graver social science of the book u must be
80 ..,ta IA
studied modern political economy and APP
preciate the labor question, the monopoly
and trust evils and their dependent prob
lens 1t is n grand. inspiring, optimistic
dream, hut must bring sad afterthoughts
that ii is only dream, and with
no visible basis for prophecies of its
ful6llment. The enthusiastic author insists,
in reply to a Boston critic, that the social
conditions described must be reached long
before a hundred years have passed, be-
cause the climax of difficulties due to the
present system is now approaching fast, and
his business system of nationality without
money, without class and without dis
honesty or crime must spring naturally
from the ruins. Briefly, his scheme is that
the growth of trusts and monopolies will
progress SO steadily that in time the busi-
ness OF the whole land will be in the hands
OF very few men. Then the government
will be called upon by the people to assume
under its single paternal hand the control
Of all for the benefit of all. Then money
will disappear and money of account"
will take its place, for all will be working
for one employer, the nation, which will
determine the value Of services and credit
the worker. Then rapidly there will be
organized vast industrial army, with
systems Of education, special training and
treatment. Dishonesty, avarice and many
forms of crime will disappear because they
will have no motive, as nothing can he
gained except by giving its equivalent in
labor Of mind or muscle. As we have said,