A new and invigorating breath of life is also felt in this country, through the formation of the "Industrial Workers of the World." It awakens the hope of a transformation of the present trade-union methods. In their present form they serve the money powers more than the working class.
Robert Koch, the world-renowned scientist, who was awarded the Nobel prize in recognition of his work in the direction of exterminating tuberculosis, delivered a lecture at Stockholm at the time of receiving the mark of distinction. In the course of his speech he said: "We may not conceal the fact, that the struggle against tuberculosis requires considerable sums of money. It is really only a question of money. The greater the number of free places for consumptives in well-equipped and well-conducted hospitals, the better the families of these are supported, so that the sick are not prevented from going to these hospitals on account of the care of their relations; and the oftener such places are established, the more rapidly tuberculosis will cease to be a common disease."
Where are the governments which are supposed to serve as benefactors of suffering mankind? They have milliards at their disposal, but use most of it for the maintenance of armies, bureaucracies, police forces. With these vast sums, which they extort from the people, they increase instead of diminish suffering.
On the 27th of January it was 150 years since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. A grandmaster of music, a magician who leads the soul from the depths of life to its sunary heights. Mozart transposed life into music, Wagner and his pupils transposed problems of life. Wagner questions and receives no answer. Mozart affirms life. His "Don Juan" liberates, "Tannhäuser" leads into the labyrinth of bothersome renunciation.
The study of Mozart's biography may be recommended to those who believe that the artistic individuality has freer scope to-day than it would have with communism. Mozart was always forced to look about for patrons of his art, for he lacked the means to put his works before the public.
A biographer says of him: "Mozart's life makes us feel the tragedy of an artist's life most painfully. In his youth he was fondled and idealized as a wonder child, but his circumstances deteriorated as he matured in his art and the more accomplished the works of his fantasy grew. When he died he left a wife and children behind in great poverty. There was not enough money on hand to bury him. The corpse was placed in the potters' field. When his wife, who had been sick at the time of the burial, wanted to look up the grave, it could not be exactly designated." The genius of the artist, however, permeates the world on waves of light.
The Czar knows his mission. He addressed a deputation of peasants from the Province of Kursk thus: