Montana news., 1905-12-06

Inefe are TOUR DOCKS OF recent date
that are claiming the attention of stu
dents of social problems in America
at the present time. These books are
called the "Big Four" in the social
list press. They are Robert Hunter q
"Poverty," Jack London's "War of
the Classes" w. J. Ghent's g "Mass
and Class" and John Graham Brooks
"The Social Unrest" The books are
all published in twenty-five cent edi
tions, and should be read by every
socialist able to scrape up dollar.
Robert Hunter is a brother-in-law of
J. Phelps Stokes, the millionaire phil
anthropist of New York City. Mr.
Hunter has for many years been most
active worker in the Associated Char.
tiles of Chicago and New York. His
book is a calm classification of the var.
ious phases and conditions of poverty
as they have come under his observa.
tion in his years of work among the
Submerged.
London 3 book is ringing lineup
of the forces at work in unions, and
other economic and political organiza.
tions, that are tending to the final
clash between the two great economic
classes in society today, which are con
tending with the bitterness and aban.
don of death and destruction over the
division of the joint product. The au'
thor of the "Great Sea Wolf" as
David Starr Jordan, designated the
faous Larsen, fThe Call of the Wild, -
"Children of the Frost has put his
virile mentality into the call of the
"resisters," and the breezy defiance to
the 'plush bound" parasite sends its
electric challenge to the beating heart
of every hoping socialist.
In "Mass and Class Mr.. Ghent,
who became famous through the startl-
ing deductions in his Benevolent
Feudalism," has again outlined, with
a wealth of illustrations and figures,
existent class distinctions.
The three preceding volumes dis
tinctly point the way to the socialist
solution of the class question. John
Graham Brooks book, "The Social I'm
rest,'' deals with different tactic.
The book is as valuable, more so, If
anything, in carefully collected data,
minutely stated social conditions; just
presentation Of the workers side, and
-. - A. lahnr s;tuat;on oa anu az
the others. But the author has be-
held the phantom of social control ris-
ing threateningly in the distance. The
sacred prerogatives of the cultured
classes are menaced, and the book is
replete with warnings TO the ruling
class to deal justly and gently with
the rising tide of misery and service.
Brooks means TO be fair. He is as
fair as man looking through the
glasses of his bourgeois training and
sympathies. could be expected to be.
He states in the introduction that he
has observed that business men talk
In very different way when they are
not called upon to stand for the stock
interests of their class.
He speaks of the grievance that the
men feel when they observe the mgh
capitalization that gives the hard
pressed operator the excuse for pay
ing low wages of the $4,000 work
ers employed in the coal regions, work
ing hardly 100 days year; of the sur
plus of 10000 men that perpetually
hang about the mines, on the chance
that extras or accident will put them
on, lie has discussed the working
principle that employers may organize
but the men may not. Powerful bus
mess interests will fight all provisions
whenever the aim is to raise the work
ingman's standard of life. There are
always some who are violently opposed
to the discomfort of any special period
because IL touches their class inter
ests
The dangers from machinery, the
horrors and waste Of child life, prevent
able accidents from profit purposes, are
all set forth with conscientious hdeli'
ty
The lecture Of Rabbi Klein, which
called forth the debate Of last week
before the Workers Educational club
was one delivered several weeks age
on the Fright Point of View " The
theme of his discourse was the con
ditions and opportunities of labor, de
fning the advantages the laborine
class possessed, and closing with care