Chapter VII: Part 7

The Socialists themselves have published all the rest--the propaganda books and pamphlets, the translations of great Socialist classics and the important contributions to the literature of Socialist philosophy and economics made by American students, many of whom are the products of the Socialist movement itself.

They have done these great things through a co-operative publishing house, known as Charles H. Kerr & Company (Co-operative). Nearly 2000 Socialists and sympathizers with Socialism, scattered throughout the country, have joined in the work. As shareholders, they have paid ten dollars for each share of stock in the enterprise, with no thought of ever getting any profits, their only advantage being the ability to buy the books issued by the concern at a great reduction.

Here is the method: A person buys a share of stock at ten dollars (arrangements can be made to pay this by instalments, if desired) and he or she can then buy books and pamphlets at a reduction of fifty per cent.--or forty per cent. if sent post or express paid.

Looking over the list of the company's publications, one notes names that are famous in this and other countries. Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Lassalle, and Liebknecht among the great Germans; Lafargue, Deville and Guesde, of France; Ferri and Labriola, of Italy; Hyndman and Blatchford, of England; Plechanoff, of Russia; Upton Sinclair, Jack London, John Spargo, A.M. Simons, Ernest Untermann and Morris Hillquit, of the United States. These, and scores of other names less known to the general public.

It is not necessary to give here a complete list of the company's publications. Such a list would take up too much room--and before it was published it would become incomplete. The reader who is interested had better send a request for a complete list, which will at once be forwarded, without cost. We can only take a few books, almost at random, to illustrate the great variety of the publications of the firm.

You have heard about Karl Marx, the greatest of modern Socialists, and naturally you would like to know something about him. Well, at fifty cents there is a charming little book of biographical memoirs by his friend Liebnecht, well worth reading again and again for its literary charm not less than for the loveable character it portrays so tenderly. Here, also, is the complete list of the works of Marx yet translated into the English language. There is the famous _Communist Manifesto_ by Marx and Engels, at ten cents, and the other works of Marx up to and including his great master-work, _Capital_, in three big volumes at two dollars each--two of which are already published, the other being in course of preparation.

For propaganda purposes, in addition to a big list of cheap pamphlets, many of them small enough to enclose in a letter to a friend, there are a number of cheap books. These have been specially written for beginners, most of them for workingmen. Here, for example, one picks out at a random shot Work's "What's So and What Isn't," a breezy little book in which all the common questions about Socialism are answered in simple language. Or here again we pick up Spargo's "The Socialists, Who They Are and What They Stand For," a little book which has attained considerable popularity as an easy statement of the essence of modern Socialism. For readers of a little more advanced type there is "Collectivism," by Emil Vandervelde, the eminent Belgian Socialist leader, a wonderful book. This and Engels' "Socialism Utopian and Scientific" will lead to books of a more advanced character, some of which we must mention. The four books mentioned in this paragraph cost fifty cents each, postpaid. They are well printed and neatly and durably bound in cloth.

Going a little further, there are two admirable volumes by Antonio Labriola, expositions of the fundamental doctrine of Social philosophy, called the "Materialist Conception of History," and a volume by Austin Lewis, "The Rise of the American Proletarian," in which the theory is applied to a phase of American history. These books sell at a dollar each, and it would be very hard to find anything like the same value in book-making in any other publisher's catalogue. Only the co-operation of nearly 2000 Socialist men and women makes it possible.

For the reader who has got so far, yet finds it impossible to undertake a study of the voluminous work of Marx, either for lack of leisure or, as often happens, lack of the necessary mental training and equipment, there are two splendid books, notable examples of the work which American Socialist writers are now putting out. While they will never entirely take the place of the great work of Marx, nevertheless, whoever has read them with care will have a comprehensive grasp of Marxism. They are: L.B. Boudin's "The Theoretical System of Karl Marx" and Ernest Untermann's "Marxian Economics." These also are published at a dollar a volume.

Perhaps you know some man who declares that "There are no classes in America," who loudly boasts that we have no class struggles: just get a copy of A.M. Simon's "Class Struggles in America," with its startling array of historical references. It will convince him if it is possible to get an idea into his head. Or you want to get a good book to lend to your farmer friends who want to know how Socialism touches them: get another volume by Simons, called "The American Farmer." You will never regret it. Or perhaps you are troubled about the charge that Socialism and Anarchism are related. If so, get Plechanoff's "Anarchism and Socialism" and read it carefully. These three books are published at fifty cents each.

Are you interested in science? Do you want to know the reason why Socialists speak of Marx as doing for Sociology what Darwin did for biology? If so, you will want to read "Evolution, Social and Organic," by Arthur Morrow Lewis, price fifty cents. And you will be delighted beyond your powers of expression with the several volumes of the Library of Science for the Workers, published at the same price. "The Evolution of Man" and "The Triumph of Life," both by the famous German scientist, Dr. Wilhelm Boelsche; "The Making of the World" and "The End of the World," both by Dr. M. Wilhelm Meyer; and "Germs of Mind in Plants," by R.H. France, are some of the volumes which the present writer read with absorbing interest himself and then read them to a lot of boys and girls, to their equal delight.

One could go on and on talking about this wonderful list of books which marks the tremendous intellectual strength of the American Socialist movement. Here is the real explosive, a weapon far more powerful than dynamite bombs! Socialists must win in a battle of brains--and here is ammunition for them.

Individual Socialists who can afford it should take shares of stock in this great enterprise. If they can pay the ten dollars all at once, well and good; if not, they can pay in monthly instalments. And every Socialist local ought to own a share of stock in the company, if for no other reason than that literature can then be bought much more cheaply than otherwise. But of course there is an even greater reason than that--every Socialist local ought to take pride in the development of the enterprise which has done so much to develop a great American Socialist literature.

Fuller particulars will be sent upon application. Address:

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY, (Co-operative) 118 West Kinzie street, Chicago

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End of Project Gutenberg's The Common Sense of Socialism, by John Spargo