New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-27
PELLE THE CONQUER0R.

rELLE THE CoNoUERQR ~ Martin AI ,le,o
The Danish By Jessie Mulr. limo pp' 40
Henry Holt Co.
Tho publishers and the English,
speaking world are TO be congratulated
upon the completion OF the translation
OF this stupendous prose epic OF the
awakening of labor to a consciousness
of its rights and OF its potential
strength to win them. These four vol
umes place their Danish author IN the
foremost rank of the great novellsts OF
the nineteenth century. In fact, not
since Tolstoy has so significant, so
massive, a contribution TO internauonal
literature come from Continental bu-
rope. What Is more, tie work prom
Uses 20 endure, apart from us many
merits of human sympathy and under
standing, as a contribution TO the hls
tory of our own time. Not Pelle, Dut
Labor, is its protagonist. lnarticulate
half a century ago, Labor learned 10
SMELL, then 10 speak; TO crawl, then 70
walk, and finally to march IN serrieu
ranks. These stages OF its rise 10
mans estate, TO power IN the state
through failure and sacrifices ana Dlun-
ders and undaunted new beginnings
are chronicled in Nexo's four volumes,
And what he writes OF Denmark ~
true, at some period or other, some,
times earlier, sometimes later OF al
Europe, and, to some extent, OF TINS
country as well.
As one looks back upon the com
Melted work, comparison with drama
suggests itself. The third volume OF
the tetralogy Great struggle
is its third act. its great climax ne
fourth act, the volume now before vs.,
brings an ending that springs Logically
from what has gone before. What new
elements il contains will be found dor
mant or already faintly'stirring n the
earlier books; and in It, at last, felle
finds himself In a deeper sense. II per-
sonal happiness is his, his contentmehe
springs in part from the work done lo'
others and continued in their service,
At the end Of "The Great struggle
in the hour of his first triumph OF tne
organization of labor, Pelle was sent 70
prison in the good old comfortable way
of those who had the power, whetner
they had the right or not Az the pc
ginning of this book he energies from
his gaol TO find world Transformed
by the continued stirring OF what ne
had begun. A budding aristocracy OF
labor, Indifferent to the submerged,
fellow leader grown older, their hrst
fine rapture dimmed; employers grown
conscious of their common interests
organized to face not only their en-
ployes. but labor as class; ana, most
promising of all, leaven OF socialism
among the smaller masters. Machinery
has come from England and America 10
give to the great soclo-eeonomIc sltua-
ton a new aspect. And where Peile
led in preaching socialism, as well as
the more practical trades unionlsm'
anarchism has been born OF the disap-
pointments, the failures or the PROBE
tariat Unemployment Is their curse
and so many of them are unemployaole'
Pelle begins the struggle for sus-
tenance for himself, his wife and chill
dren anew Again he must rise from
the depths, and it is only gradually
that he gains an understanding or the
new conditions confronting labor. The
way out he finds, with the aid Of radl-
cal small capitalist, in cooperation, a
socialistic cooperation in which from
each is taken, in labor according to his
means, though all share alike in the
product. And from the cooperative shop
drawing growing support from coopera-
tive buying associations, he reaches the
cooperative building association, the
garden city. And thus Pelle, in the
end, returns TO his beginnings-to the
soil. The author leaves him with the
breaking of ground for his laborers'
cottages, with the vision of the abol-
ished slum and its terrors before his
eyes.