VOL. III.

No. 2.

HE past month has left us a record no little part of which will go into history-making. The universal state of discontent made it possible for Eugene V. Debs, the would-be autocrat of the American railway employees, to order a strike of the employees of all railways hauling Pullman sleepers. The strike was called out of sympathy for the unadjusted grievances of the men who were employed in the Pullman shops, at Pullman, Illinois. For a time there was the most alarming social disturbance which this country has ever witnessed from organized labor. Chicago, which was the great center of operations, was almost as helpless as if the city was besieged by an army. People had not realized just to what an extent metropolitan life is dependent upon the great railway systems of the country.

The boycott has failed, as it should have done, and as every thinking man must have known. But failure did not come until countless innocent people suffered, nor without great loss to the nation and much distruction of private property. That Debs has a gigantic imagination no one will deny. The plan of so organizing the railway employees that the wheels of cars and

locomotives throughout the land could be stopped by an order emanating from the official head of such an organization, and thus by paralyzing exchange, starve the people in order that employers might be coerced into granting whatever grievances workmen assume that they have, shows a fertility of brain power almost unprecedented.

The American people are busy making money and slow to anger, and yet if any great national peril thrilled the hearts of this hustling, bustling mercantile generation, no nation could show a larger proportion of men and women ready to sacrifice life and property for the popular welfare. Evils may, however, come among us in a quiet way, and we are the most heedless. Sympathy, which is widespread for the workingman, made it possible for so much destruction of life and property before the late boycott was ended. But such attempts as this last only tends to alienate the sympathy of the public. It is unfortunate that so often worthy laborers are led by misguided or selfish leaders, who seek first to gratify some selfish ambition.

CATHOLICISM AND THE SALOON.

The papal apostolic delegate, Satolli, has made a decision in reference to a grievance

submitted by Bishop Watterson, of Columbus, Ohio, which has created something of a sensation. It is in substance a ruling that all Catholics engaged in the liquor traffic be barred from connection with any of the societies of the Catholic Church. While the ruling was local as to its immediate purpose, its moral influence will extend throughout the Roman Church of this country. It is the most progressive step which the Catholic Church has yet taken. There is going to be strenuous opposition, for the liquor element contributes largely to the support of the Church; but at the same time the eyes of the blind are being opened, and the Church sees that its thousands of dependents are repleted from the patrons of the liquor business.

NEW YORK'S OPPORTUNITY.

The people of New York City have now before them a splendid chance of ridding themselves of the Tammany octopus, and of placing themselves under good, clean municipal government. If they think, however, that such results will of themselves follow as the outcome of the work of Dr.

Parkhurst and the Lexow Investigation, they are sadly mistaken. The spirit of this age is so permeated and saturated with the money-getting idea, and Tammany methods afford such unprecedented opportunities to get several millions annually, that exposure or corruption will not down the tiger.

Already politicians are insisting upon "straight tickets," and dissension will make an opening which Tammany will not fail to take advantage of. If it could only be arranged to lift municipal government out of the hands of professional politicians, half the battle would be won. Then men of principle, men with high sense of justice and right, men whose mottoes are based upon the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, irrespective of party, could be placed in office, which they should accept, not for revenue, but out of patriotic principles and a loyal desire to bring about right government.

It is to be hoped that New York will

combine its better elements for the public good, and set an example to other cities which are groaning under corrupt rule.

TWO GREAT GATHERINGS.

The opening years of the twentieth century may owe more to the "Young People's Movement" than to any other one movement which has sprung up during the latter years of this century. The Christian Endeavors, 40,000 strong, assembled in the Thirteenth International Convention in Cleveland, July 11-15. The society has a total membership of over two million. These are all young people, striving according to their light to follow the Christ example. Can any man forecast the influence of such an army upon the coming generation? The Christian Endeavor Society is interdenominational. Like unto this was the annual convention of the Baptist Young People's Union, which convened at Toronto, July 19-22, 7,000 strong. This was the fourth annual convention, and already there is a total membership of about a quarter of a million. These, like the Endeavorers, are working along the same lines, and in coming time they may become the chief elements in a greatly advanced state of right living and thinking.

THE TARIFF LEGISLATION.

There has been for months a constant demand, either expressed or implied, made upon those intrusted with the legislative functions of our government, that they do something; if possible, something worthy of the dignity of their office; at any rate, some action was wanted which would relieve the uncertainty. One hundred men of this city, leading bankers, merchants, manufacturers, etc., irrespective of party, forwarded to the House and the Senate the following:

The whole country demands that Congress terminate the pending tariff legislation immediately. Failure to dispose of the question quickly will work incalculable loss and irreparable injury to financial and industrial interests.

When we look at the record of this remarkable body of people's representatives (?), we are compelled to exclaim,

"What asses our senators are, anyway!" And yet, somehow or other, we sent them up to Washington. The President has written a letter to Chairman Wilson, which was made public in the House. The President, among other things, said:

My public life has been so closely related to the subject (tariff reform), I have so longed for its accomplishment, and I have so often promised its realization to my fellow-countrymen as a result of their trust and confidence in the Democratic Party, that I hope no excuse is necessary for my earnest appeal to you that in this crisis you strenuously insist upon party honesty and good faith, and a sturdy adherence to Democratic principles. I believe these are absolutely neces

sary conditions to the continuation of Democratic

existence.

There is no excuse for mistaking or misapprehending the feeling and the temper of the rank and file of the Democracy. They are downcast under the assertion that their party fails in ability to manage the government, and they are much more downcast and apprehensive in their fear that Democratic principles may be surrendered.

If

what I have written unwelcome, I beg you to believe in my good intentions. We all know that a tariff law covering all the varied interests and conditions of a country as vast as ours must of necessity be largely the result of honorable adjustment and compromise. In matters of this kind, however, which do not violate a fixed and recognized Democratic doctrine, we are willing to defer to the judgment of a majority of our Democratic brethren. I think there is a general agreement that this is party duty. This is the more palpably apparent when we realize that the business of our country timidly stands and watches for the result of our efforts to perfect tariff legislation, that a quick and certain return of prosperity waits upon a wise adjustment, and that a confiding people still trust in our hands their prosperity and wellbeing.

This letter occasioned extremely interesting comment throughout the country. Senator Gorman, of Maryland, created something of a sensation by making against the President a charge of double dealing. There seems at this writing a bridgeless chasm between the Senate on the one hand, and the House and the President on the other. But some sort of a compromise should come speedily.

THE GOLD RESERVE.

The gold reserve has reached the lowest point known. Did we take out the fifty-five million raised during the present administration by special bond issue, there would

The readers of this REVIEW may be interested to know that during the past few months our circulation has been doubled. This is a remarkable record. Its present circulation can be doubled again in the next two months by only a little effort from each of its friends. It is sincerely hoped that all who have had the REVIEW in their homes during the past year will renew, and that upon every opportunity they will speak of the ALTRUISTIC to their friends. The larger field it covers, the greater good will it accomplish. Young people have been much interested in our plan to help students. Many who are yet in the public or common schools are sending in subscribers as they secure them, and the money is deposited to their credit with one of the best firms in the country, whose official rating is over one million dollars. Our great desire to help young people who wish to become

self-made men and women, has led us to offer even greater inducements and encouragement to any one who wishes to take or finish a college or university course. If any one who really means to make the most of himself will write us, letters and instruction will be sent. There are no limits as to time, and one subscriber or one thousand, as the case may be, will be put to your credit. If you believe in THE ALTRUISTIC REVIEW, help it along.

N these times of social travail and civic discord, it is good to know that the "good impulses" of men are being analyzed and organized; that back of the surface disorder the philosophic mind is looking for the source of those evils which to-day menace our land and threaten the vital principles of government itself.

For an eight-day session, commencing June 27th, about four hundred men and women, representing over a dozen states, gathered in Iowa College chapel, at Grinnell, Iowa, for instruction in sociology and the study of present-day social problems. The meeting was in reality the first annual session of the American Institute of Christian Sociology, among the objects of which body are the following:

1. To claim for Christian law the ultimate authority to rule social practice.

2. To study in common how to apply the principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties of the present time.

3. To present Christ as the living Master and King of men, and His Kingdom as the complete ideal of human society, to be realized on earth.

It is the aim of the Institute to bring together only such as are deeply and righteously interested, or are seeking to be interested, in the study and solution of social and political problems in the light of the Gospel and life example of Christ. The course proper consisted of lectures by Josiah Strong, of New York, who in plain, yet eloquently appealing words, won the hearts of all present by the logic of his remarks. He pointed out the rapid advance

ment of city ahead of the country in point of population, wealth and political power. Closely associated with these were the illustrated night addresses by William Howe Tolman, for some time a worker with Dr. C. H. Parkhurst in New York's congested and overcrowded tenement districts. Dr. Thos. C. Hall, of Chicago, gave four scholarly lectures on "The Four Laws of the Kingdom," which were, respectively, of Love, Labor, Service and Sacrifice. Rev. John P. Coyle, of North Adams, Mass., and Archdeacon Chas. J. Wood, of Lock Haven, Pa., each presented the principles of social reform in the light of scriptural interpretation. Rev. B. Fay Mills, of Brooklyn, N. Y., Pres. Geo. A. Gates and Prof. Jesse Macy, of Iowa College, E. M. Neally, of the Burlington bar, and John R. Commons, of Indiana State University, all gave analyses of the social problem in the light of their special investigations of the subject. Prof. Commons' five lectures on the "Distribution of Wealth," offered some new and very clear explanations of wealth and wealth-getting, trusts, employment, supply and demand, etc.

But the central figure of the group of lecturers at this "School of the Kingdom" was Dr. Geo. D. Herron, of the chair of Applied Christianity and Social Science in Iowa College. As president of the American Institute of Christian Sociology, Dr. Herron gathered about him a great array of talented men from all over the country at this summer school.

But thirty-two years of age, "Geo. D. Herron," said Geo. R. Wendling, the noted lecturer, to the writer, "is doing more to influence the thought of this generation than scores of men whose names are prominent in the magazines of to-day." He has

been scarcely two years before the public, yet in that limited time he has attracted the attention of thinking men all through the land by his bold and fearless utterances on present social problems.

A powerful student, his health has been somewhat undermined by the constantly increasing demands on his time to appear in the lecture-rooms of our greatest our greatest universities. Already he has delivered a course of lectures before the University of Michigan and Princeton Seminary, in both cases winning the unanimous commendation and good will of his auditors. But the pressure of so many duties has compelled him to take a summer's trip to the Hartz Mountains, in Germany, where he will remain till the opening of the college year, when he will again enter upon his work.

It is a moral certainty that in this country of much politics, that let a teacher of new principles, or the leader of a new movement, come prominently into public notice, and he is soon boomed for Congress or the Presidency. Witness Coxey and Debs.

Dr. Herron proved no exception, and he found it necessary, just before his departure for Europe, to forestall his nomination to Congress by a letter written to an Iowa editor, in which he sharply defines his

position. He states that his work "is, and can be nothing else, but that of a religious teacher of political righteousness and social justice. I am simply a witness to the political authority and wisdom of Christ. I believe that the salvation of our politics and the development of our institutions will lie in the translation of the principles of Christ into our national ideas and political systems. I think there is a widespread feeling and faith among the common people that some way must be found to realize Christianity in social organizations and political institutions. Unless such a way is found, both Christianity and the nation will fall. I believe and am determined that the way shall be found. As a political apostle of Christ, I have given myself to the one thing to discover and point out such a way. In so doing I believe I am simply a voice of what the great multitudes of the people are yet thinking and hoping, though their hopes and thoughts may be yet undefined. I can do the cause of the people more good by working for them and with them, in behalf of that political righteousness and judgment which are coming to redeem the nation, without occupying any political position." Long live such a teacher and the cause for which he stands!

When asked by the editor of THE ALTRUISTIC REVIEW to write up my experiences, with some of the thoughts that were presented to me at the "Retreat" and the "School of the Kingdom," I felt at first that it would be impossible. The experiences were so many and elevating that words could not adequately express them, and there were so many able lectures delivered that justice could only be done them by giving them in full, rather than in part; but on second thought, the facts seemed too good to keep, so they will be presented in face of the difficulties, hoping that they may give a glimpse of the great movement that means so much to humanity in all its forms, whether it be as to the individual, the family, the church or the state.

It will be well at the outset to get on common footing and understand the causes of this movement. The first cause to be considered is that many men throughout the world have recognized the signs of the times, in that men are awakening to a new social consciousness and beginning to realize that they are brothers. The second cause is that as soon as this was seen, the scales fell from the eyes of a few, and they recognized that men were not living as brothers, in just and right relations with each other and their God.

These facts have been taken into consideration by many Christian thinkers of our land, but it took a Dr. Herron and a President Gates to fearlessly stand forth amid the storm and cry, "Back to Christ!"