the People's Alliance, and fights for public ownership of all public utilities. At a great public meeting in New York Randolph delivers a notable address, extracts from which are given in this work, and they constitute such a statesmanlike presentation of truths that are of the first importance to patriotic citizens that we quote at length:

"Less than half a century ago," he began, "our fathers were engaged in a mighty struggle to free the black slaves of the nation. Scarcely a generation had passed when new elements of greed and oppression set to work to enslave millions of our people and to annul the doctrine that, under American institutions, every citizen has equal opportunities and equal rights. You will search the pages of history in vain to find where a once free people were ever so completely deprived of liberty of political action, or the power to control public affairs, as are the American people at the present time.

"This new form of bondage has been of slow and insidious growth, but none the less certain and constant and progressive, until to-day that citizen is not a patriot who will not assist in overthrowing it. It had its origin in the liberal, though misguided, laws which permitted the performance of government functions by individuals and corporations in their private capacities. It fastened its poisoned fangs deep into the national body when these individuals and corporations waxed rich and powerful through the favor and protection and license of public officials engaged in performing the other duties of government. It became oppressive when those to whom the people had granted authority to perform specific functions of government undertook to control the operations of all government for their own enrichment. It became unbearable when those private conengaged in specific governmental work, adopted the business policy of using each year a portion of their wealth to control every department of the government not already granted to them by license, through corrupting the agents of the people in such departments.

"These great private enterprises, which control our various governments, undertake to direct the thought and action of the nation through their press and their creatures in office. They uphold mediocre individuals and destroy strong and worthy characters. They fix the quality and the quantity of the

money which the people may use. They maintain that great gambling institution known as Wall Street, which is a menace to every honest young man in the land, and which government and municipal ownership of public utilities would destroy in a day. They set up a false standard of living and take the means of comfort from the millions to riot in luxury themselves. They corrupt the public service, prostitute the judiciary and defy the popular will. With a withering hand they blight the noblest aspirations of the young and place a premium upon boodling, graft and dishonor.

"How can you expect the parasites that take public office under such a system to be honest in any of their relations with the people? They are essentially corrupt, necessarily craven, as a matter of course venal; and you will never have honest or competent officials until you destroy this mighty agency of avarice and selfishness.

"The attempt to regulate these institutions is a makeshift which delays the final triumph of the people, which plays into the hands of the corruptionists and which only succeeds in increasing the avenues of bribery. What do these powerful agencies care for the regulation of their service by a government, all branches of which they control and under which they can defy the people with impunity?

"Our own recent state regulation laws are probably as complete as can be devised, but their application and enforcement are dependent entirely upon the ebb and flow of the political tide and upon the character of the men who get into office. What may be reasonable rates and fair capitalization in the opinion of one set of administrative officers may be considered most unreasonable by another set. The two-cent rate laws are illustrations of the uncertainties of regulation. In thickly-populated New York state our former governor considered a two-cent rate law unfair to the railroads for the reason that the rate was too low, while in sparsely-settled Nebraska the officials consider two cents a mile an amply adequate rate. Thus, you see, regulation depends upon the point of view or interest of the person doing the regulating, and however honest such person may be, it is not the sort of power that should be vested in individuals, for it is manifestly unfair to the people and not in consonance with any tenet of popular government.

"You may, now and then, win a popular

victory over them and get a few honest men in office, but you leave these institutions with all their gigantic strength unimpaired for future raids upon the people, unless you take their unfair, undemocratic, unjust privileges from them forever.

"There can be no peace until this is done. "Fifty years ago the great Lincoln declared that the nation could not exist half slave and half free. Neither can it exist with half of its functions farmed out for criminal uses and the other half retained for government purposes.

"Our opponents boast about the economy of operation under private ownership.

"In twenty years the capitalization of the public-utility companies in Greater New York has increased over one billion of dollars, with less than twenty per cent. of that sum expended for improvements and extensions, and all of such properties capable of being reproduced at par value of their stocks and bonds twenty years ago.

"This billion of dollars is a direct and constant tax upon every inhabitant of the city in addition to the daily tribute paid upon the legitimate capitalization. Who can say how much that tax will be increased during the next twenty years if private ownership continues?

"They shout confiscation' at us, but we do not intend to confiscate one dollar's worth of property, nor to destroy or injure one dollar's worth of invested capital. We shall obtain a constitutional amendment permitting the people to vote whatever debt they choose to acquire these utility properties, and then we shall take them over by purchase if we can, by condemnation if we must, on the basis of a valuation which the average net income for the five years last past will capitalize at six per cent. Surely nothing can be fairer to every person who has a dollar invested in either stocks of any of such corporations."

A great wave of public sentiment sweeps over New York and elects the People's Alliance ticket. Randolph is sent to the state Senate and later to Congress, where he makes a brilliant record.

All this time, however, the love motive is sustained and much is constantly happening of interest to the general novel reader, quite apart from the political issues discussed.

Mrs. Strong proves a magnificent ally of Randolph in his battle for the restoration of popular government. The wave of reform finally sweeps over the nation, resulting in the election of a Congress representative of the people, the first that has assembled in America in many years. Then again the old-time greatness of that once distinguished body is revived, a greatness that has long since been destroyed by the plutocracy. On this point we quote from Mr. Stevens:

"The first act of the People's Alliance, after reorganizing the House, had been to restore its functions as a popular parliamentary body by giving members ample opportunity to discuss all pending measures. It was agreed at the beginning of the debate that it should close on the sixtieth day, thus giving each member of the House an opportunity for almost an hour's speech by holding sessions of six hours each day, and no night sessions. The time of any speaker could be extended by arrangement with such of his colleagues as were willing to give him all or portions of their time. It had been arranged that Randolph should close the debate and should have the full session of the last day.

"This Congress was the first one in twenty years in which members of the House were allowed full freedom of expression. The defiance of boss-rule and the reasserting of their governmental prerogatives by the people at the polls had sent three-score able, learned, eloquent, ambitious and patriotic young men into the congressional arena, and the Federal House of Representatives once more appealed to the imagination and interest of the people."

The dangerous illness of Virginia, her seeking health in Colorado, her lover's battle for her life while fighting against the schemes which her money-mad father is fostering, the passing away of the father, the great Congressional speech of Randolph, the victory and dramatic climax, are all well worked out. In the final hour of triumph Gertrude Strong, true to her fine character, plays the part which we predict many high-minded, patriotic and justice-loving women of culture and wealth will yet play in the great work of redeeming the Republic from the rule of the spoilers.

The novel carries a fine, pure atmosphere. It is one of the best exposures of corruption of government by public-service corporations that has appeared, and, being instinct with a lofty patriotic spirit, it is a vital work for the present hour. B. O. FLOWER.

Hon. I. N. Stevens: Author of "The

THE

Liberators."

HIS month we present the latest portrait of Hon. I. N. Stevens, the brilliant author of The Liberators, which is made the subject of our book-study in this issue. Mr. Stevens is the proprietor of the Pueblo Chieftain, the leading daily paper of southern Colorado. He is also one of the most prominent and successful attorneys of Denver, Colorado. For many years he has been a prominent figure in western politics, battling against corruption and strongly advocating the rights of the people and the cause of public ownership.

Professor James T. Bixby. Ph.D., A.M.

He graduated from Harvard in 1864 and holds the degree of Master of Arts from that institution. Later he continued his studies at Leipsic, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from that famous seat of learning. He is a fearless yet reverent thinker-a man whose breadth of intellectual vision is only surpassed by his lofty moral idealism. He is the author of some deeply thoughtful works, perhaps the most important of which are The Crisis in Morals, The Ethics of Evolution, The New World and the New Thought, and Religion and Science as Allies.

I

Elizabeth Miller.

INDIANA has in recent years produced a greater

May issue is complemented in this month's ARENA by one of the noblest papers that has ever appeared, on "The Message of Emerson," is a man of ripe scholarship and deep insight.

PROF. JAMES T. BIXBY, PH.D.

Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. Dr. John Clark Ridpath, the historian; Lew Wallace, David Graham l'hillips, James Whitcomb Riley, Booth Tarkington, Katharine Evans Blake and Elizabeth Miller by no means exhaust the list of those who have acquired eminence in literary fields.

Miss Miller, the author of The Yoke, Saul of Tarsus and The City of Delight, is probably the youngest of the group. She was born on August 17, 1878, and was educated in the public schools of Indianapolis and at Butler University. In 1903 she completed her first novel, The Yoke, a tale of ancient Egypt and the deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage of the Pharoahs. This novel is, in our judgment, one of the best religiohistorical romances that has appeared in America in the past quarter of a century. It was followed by Saul of Tarsus in 1906. Her new romance, The City of Delight, a tale of the fall of Jerusalem, appeared during the past spring and was noticed in our last issue. In referring to her reason for adopting writing as a profession, Miss Miller recently

wrote:

"It was in response to that essential inner urging to write. I prepared for, and took up the work as a profession, because I was better equipped for it than anything else, and I was offered the medium for expression of my ideas through the newspapers and the encourage

Paris and the Social Revolution. By Alvan Francis Sanborn. With drawings by Vaughan Trowbridge. Printed on deckleedged paper, richly bound in cloth. Pp. 404. Price, $3.50 net. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company.

ONE of the most interesting and certainly the most elaborate and artistic volumes that has appeared dealing with the extreme radicals in present-day political life, is Paris and the Social Revolution, by Alvan Francis Sanborn. It is a work that for beauty of style, rare and delicate humor, broad intellectual hospitality, and that fine sympathy that enables a man of culture to view unbiased by distorting prejudice and ideals and aspirations of men with whom he cannot agree intellectually, is

unmatched in the writings of recent decades.

The book is chiefly given to a survey and study of the anarchist groups, although the socialists and other radicals are given some attention. Mr. Sanborn is not himself an anarchist, but this does not prevent him from understanding their view-point or from sympathizing with much, very much, which is fine and true in the aims and concepts of the great leaders of intellectual and philosophical anarchy. In his preface the author thus defines his personal attitude:

"Once for all, then, the author is not a revolutionist, though there are moments when he fancies he would like to be one, it appears such an eminently satisfying state. It takes faith to be a revolutionist; and he is, alas! mentally incapable of faith. He is not an anarchist, not a socialist, not a radical, not a 'red republican.' . . . He is a conservative of the conservatives, only prevented from being a reactionary by the fact that reaction is but another form of revolution, and the most hopeless and faith-exacting of them all."

This unusual mental attitude in a chronicler of the radical groups of a nation, gives peculiar interest to the work. In the nineteen chapters which constitute the volume the author discusses in the most fascinating manner such subjects as the following: "What the Anarchist Wants," "The Oral Propaganda of Anarchy," "The Written Propaganda of Anarchy," "The Propaganda of Anarchy by Example," "The Propaganda of Anarchy par le Fait" "Socialists and Other Revolutionists," "The Revolutionary Traditions of the Latin Quarter," "The Revolutionary Spirit in the Latin Quarter To-day," "Those Who Starve," "Those Who Kill Themselves," "Literary and Artistic Cabarets of Montmartre," "The Revolutionary Spirit in Prose Literature and the Drama," and "The Revolutionary Spirit in Poetry, Music and Art."

In the opening chapter Mr. Sanborn quotes at length from the writings of Jean Grave, one of the most scholarly of the French anarchists. This writer in giving the aim of the philosophical anarchist observes that:

"They are very few who know that anarchy. is a theory resting on rational bases, that anarchists are men who, having collated the complaints of those who suffer from the actual social order, and having saturated themselves with human aspirations, have