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we have no class struggles: just get a copy of A.M. Simon's "Class Struggles in America," with its startling array of historical references.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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