Coming to the parliamentary strength of the socialists, we find the table on the following page illuminating.

It appears that labor is in control of Australia, that 45 per cent. of the Finnish Parliament is socialist, while in Sweden more than a third, and in Germany and Denmark somewhat less than a third, is socialist. In several of the Northern countries of Europe the parliamentary position of the socialists is stronger than that of any

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SOCIALIST AND LABOR REPRESENTATIVES
IN PARLIAMENT
Number of Seats
in Lower House.		Per
cent.
TotalSocialist.Socialist
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Australia754154.61
Finland2009045.00
Sweden1656438.79
Denmark1143228.07
Germany39711027.71
Belgium1863920.96
Norway1232318.70
Holland1001717.00
Austria5168215.89
Italy5087815.35
Luxembourg53713.21
France5977512.56
Switzerland170158.82
Great Britain670416.12
Russia442163.62
Greece20742.00
Argentina12021.67
Servia1601.62
Portugal1641.61
Bulgaria1891.53
Spain4041.25
—————————————————————————————————————————————————

other single party. In addition to the representatives here listed, Belgium has seven senators, Denmark four, and Sweden twelve, while in the state legislatures Austria has thirty-one, Germany one hundred and eighty-five, and the United States twenty. Here again the strength of socialism is greatly understated. In the United States, for instance, the astonishing fact appears that, with a vote of nearly a million, the socialist party has not one representative in Congress. On the basis of proportional representation it would have at least twenty-five Congressmen; and, if it were a sectional party, it could, with its million votes, control all the Southern states and elect every Congressman and Senator from those states. The socialists in the German Reichstag are numerous, but on a fair system of representation they would have two or three score more representatives than at present. However, this, too, is of little consequence, and in no wise disturbs the thoughtful socialist. The immense progress of his cause completely satisfies him, and, if the rate of advance continues, it can be only a few years until a world victory is at hand.

If, now, we turn from the political aspects of the labor movement to examine the growth of coöperatives and of trade unions, we find a progress no less striking. In actual membership the trade unions of twenty nations in 1911 had amassed over eleven million men and women. And the figures sent out by the international secretary do not include countries so strongly organized as Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Unfortunately, it is impossible to add here reliable figures regarding the wealth of the great and growing coöperative movement. In Britain, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland, as well as in the Northern countries of Central Europe, the coöperative movement has made enormous headway in recent years. The British coöperators, according to the report of the Federation of Coöperative Societies, had in 1912 a turnover amounting to over six hundred millions of dollars. They have over twenty-four hundred stores scattered throughout the cities of Great Britain. The Coöperative Productive Society and the Coöperative Wholesale Society produced goods in their own shops to a value of over sixty-five millions of dollars; while the goods produced by the Coöperative Provision Stores amounted to over forty million dollars. Seven hundred and sixty societies have Children's Penny Banks, with a total balance in hand of about eight million dollars. The members of these various coöperative societies number approximately three million.[AH] Throughout all Europe, through coöperative effort, there have been erected hundreds of splendid "Houses of the People," "Labor Temples," and similar places of meeting and recreation. The entire labor, socialist, and coöperative press, numbering many thousands of monthly and weekly journals, and hundreds of daily papers, is also usually owned coöperatively. Unfortunately, the statistics dealing with this phase of the labor movement have never been gathered with any idea of completeness, and there is little use in trying even to estimate the immense wealth that is now owned by these organizations of workingmen.

America lags somewhat behind the other countries, but nowhere else have such difficulties faced the labor movement. With a working class made up of many races, nationalities, and creeds, trade-union organization is excessively difficult. Moreover, where the railroads secretly rebate certain industries and help to destroy the competitors of those industries, and where the trusts exercise enormous power, a coöperative movement is well-nigh impossible. Furthermore, where vast numbers of the working class are still disfranchised, and where elections are notoriously corrupt and more or less under the control of a hireling class of professional political manipulators, an independent political movement faces almost insurmountable obstacles. Nor is this all. No other country allows its ruling classes to employ private armies, thugs, and assassins; and no other country makes such an effort to prevent the working classes from acting peaceably and legally. While nearly everywhere else the unions may strike, picket, and boycott, in America there are laws to prevent both picketing and boycotting, and even some forms of strikes. The most extraordinary despotic judicial powers are exercised to crush the unions, to break strikes, and to imprison union men. And, if paid professional armies of detectives deal with the unions, so paid professional armies of politicians deal with the socialists. By every form of debauchery, lawlessness, and corruption they are beaten back, and, although it is absolutely incredible, not a single representative of a great party polling nearly a million votes sits in the Congress of the United States.

Nevertheless, the American socialist and labor movement is making headway, and the day is not far distant when it will exercise the power its strength merits. Although somewhat more belated, the various elements of the working class are coming closer and closer together, and it cannot be long until there will be perfect harmony throughout the entire movement. In many other countries this harmony already exists. The trade-union, coöperative, and socialist movements are so closely tied together that they move in every industrial, political, and commercial conflict in complete accord. So far as the immediate aims of labor are concerned, they may be said to be almost identical in all countries. Professor Werner Sombart, who for years has watched the world movement more carefully perhaps than anyone else, has pointed out that there is a strong tendency to uniformity in all countries—a "tendency," in his own words, "of the movement in all lands toward socialism." [(1)] Indeed, nothing so much astonishes careful observers of the labor movement as the extraordinary rapidity with which the whole world of labor is becoming unified, in its program of principles, in its form of organization, and in its methods of action. The books of Marx and Engels are now translated into every important language and are read with eagerness in all parts of the world. The Communist Manifesto of 1847 is issued by the socialist parties of all countries as the text-book of the movement. Indeed, it is not uncommon nowadays to see a socialist book translated immediately into all the chief languages and circulated by millions of copies. And, if one will take up the political programs of the party in the twenty chief nations of the world, he will find them reading almost word for word alike. For these various reasons no informed person to-day questions the claims of the socialist as to the international, world-wide character of the movement.

Perhaps there is no experience quite like that of the socialist who attends one of the great periodical gatherings of the international movement. He sees there a thousand or more delegates, with credentials from organizations numbering approximately ten million adherents. They come from all parts of the world—from mills, mines, factories, and fields—to meet together, and, in the recent congresses, to pass in utmost harmony their resolutions in opposition to the existing régime and their suggestions for remedial action. Not only the countries of Western Europe, but Russia, Japan, China, and the South American Republics send their representatives, and, although the delegates speak as many as thirty different languages, they manage to assemble in a common meeting, and, with hardly a dissenting voice, transact their business. When we consider all the jealousy, rivalry, and hatred that have been whipped up for hundreds of years among the peoples of the various nations, races, and creeds, these international congresses of workingmen become in themselves one of the greatest achievements of modern times.