6o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



erature among our workingmen with the evident intention of 

 making proselytes, thereby disturbing the peace of mind of the 

 operative, endangering the stability of our industrial laws, and 

 tending to nullify the gain which has come to wage-earners in 

 America through the comparative freedom from such disturbing 

 elements, is a subject of concern to all friends of the working- 

 men. 



In Germany the literature of socialism has not confined itself 

 to agitation of labor questions, but has catered to the demand for 

 popular reading and also for popular education. In this way it 

 gained the confidence of the people. " It has abused this confi- 

 dence by giving distorted views of the writings of many of the 

 greatest thinkers and educators " ; it has used popular education 

 as a club with which to beat into ignorant skulls socialistic propa- 

 ganda. The enormous socialistic vote in Germany proves the 

 success of the force used. Such a force, if properly applied, would 

 be immensely beneficial to humanity ; but improperly used, social- 

 ism is, as Herbert Spencer declares, " the greatest calamity that 

 has ever befallen the human race." 



The most intelligible exposition of modern German socialism 

 may be found in a little book entitled Three Months in a Work- 

 shop, written by a student, Paul Gohre. In a prefatory note to 

 the English translation, by Prof. Richard T. Ely, it appears that 

 " Mr. Gohre, perplexed by conflicting theories and reports touch- 

 ing the lot of the German wage- earners, determines to become a 

 wage-earner himself, and, donning the garb of a workman, finds 

 employment in a large establishment for the manufacture of 

 machine tools in Saxony ; he mingles for three months with his 

 fellows, who never supposed him to be anything else than a wage- 

 earner ; he shares their life, participates in their amusements, 

 attends their political meetings, and then tells what he has seen 

 with that simplicity which is itself literary art of a high order. 

 The narrative is plain, straightforward, truthful." 



The book is more than this : it is a practical view of a subject 

 which has been clouded in mists. The writer has shown himself 

 a keen observer, a disinterested and enthusiastic investigator, 

 having nerve to enter the factory on the lowest rung of the ladder 

 and to live and toil with the humblest employees, for the definite 

 purpose of grasping the bottom facts of socialism as it is compre- 

 hended by the workingmen themselves, not as presented to the 

 world by the leaders in the movement, many of whom do not 

 really belong to the class they assume to represent. That Mr. 

 Gohre should have succeeded, under these heroic conditions, in 

 showing in his little book a clearer insight into the labor ques- 

 tion and social democracy in Germany than can be found in many 

 more elaborate treatises, is not altogether surprising. In the 



