with the Workers' International Industrial Union, or Detroit I. W. W. The three other divisions of American Socialist forces are the Socialist Party of the Extreme Right, the Communist Labor Party of the Center Left, and the Communist Party of the Extreme Left.

Little can be said as to the numerical strength of these several parties. The realignment of forces is very recent and not every group has yet found its place. One estimate gives the Socialist Party a membership of not more than 39,000, the Communist Labor Party not more than 10,000, and the Communist Party a membership of 60,000, of whom one-half belong to the Foreign Language Federations which are predominantly Russian. Another official estimate makes the Communist Labor Party very much larger and the Communist Party correspondingly smaller. Little dependence can be placed, apparently, on either of these sets of figures.

As to personnel, the Socialist Party is still under the leadership of Adolph Germer, Victor Berger, Seymour Stedman, Morris Hillquit, and James Oneal. The Communist Labor Party is headed by well-known radicals-A. C. Wagenknecht, John Reed, John Carney, William Bross Lloyd, and Ben Gitlow-while the Communist Party, known as the American Bolshevists, is led by such extremists as C. E. Ruthenberg, Louis C. Frayna, Isaac E. Ferguson and Karl Brodsky.

Dr. Watkins is convinced that the recent division in American Socialistic forces was due to differing views as to the most expeditious method of destroying modern capital

ism. Regarding the necessity of overthrowing the present era the three parties are in perfect agreement. The chief point of discrimination, especially between the Socialist Party and the Communist Party is the attitude of each group toward parliamentary action. The conservative Right Wing is favorably disposed toward parliamentary participation and opportunistic social reforms. The Extreme Left, on the other hand, repudiates parliamentary action in bourgeoise states as reactionary compromise. The only use that it has for parliamentary participation is for propaganda purposes. Its final reliance is placed on mass action and revolutionary efforts through a general industrial organization employing the general strike.

Another important difference is revealed in the attitudes of the Socialist and Communist parties toward the church and religion. The former holds religion to be a private matter and has looked upon the church with indifference, an attitude also manifested by the I. W. W. The Communist Party, however, interprets religion as a social phenomenon and explains the church in the light of the materialistic conception of history-an institution that 'befuddles the minds of the masses, and defends the capitalistic order.' The three Socialist groups agree in the condemnation of tradeunionism, in the endorsement of the general industrial union, and in the enlistment of the negro in the class-struggle.

Dr. Watkins thinks it quite probable that American socialism will soon be divided into two major parties, the Socialist Party absorbing all the moderates and the Communist Party the revolutionaries. He finds an unmistakable tendency toward revolutionary doctrines and Bolshevistic philosophy, and signs are not lacking of a "concerted revolutionary attack upon the economic and political foundations of the present era of society."

condition of our modern scientific and industrial civilization is presented in the Socialist Review (New York) for December by Charles P. Steinmetz, the consulting engineer of the General Electric Company at Schenectady. Mr. Steinmetz divides inventions into three groups:

(1) Fundamental or basic inventions which create new fields for human effort, or even a new era in the world's history, such as the invention of the steam engine, steamship and locomotive; of the cotton gin, which created the cotton industry, of the alternating current transformer, which made modern electrical development possible.

(2) Inventions which are merely steps in the design and development of things, such as a new form of gear shift in the automobile, or a new way of winding an electric motor.

(3) Incidental or accidental inventions, such as a new puzzle, which strikes the popular fancy.

The second group represents by far the greater number of inventions annually patented in the United States. While these inventions are not revolutionary and are usually not considered in the layman's discussion of inventions and inventors, Mr. Steinmetz points out that in their bulk they represent the industrial progress of the country. Most of these inventions are the work of engineers,

CHARLES P. STEINMETZ

designers, or constructors, employed by industrial corporations. To a great extent such inventions and the patents covering them are owned by the company rather than by the inventor himself. As Mr. Steinmetz shows, there is much justification for this arrangement. The problem which the engineer solved by his invention has in most instances been brought before him by his work for the company. The company, too, has made available the data and information that enabled him to solve the problem and has supplied the means to develop the invention.

Mr. Steinmetz finds that corporation engineers working under arrangements by which their compensation from the company covers the products of their knowledge as well as their original and inventive skill, are on the average more prolific and useful inventors than the independent engineers. Yet the incentive of direct individual profit is wholly lacking. Mr. Steinmetz argues, therefore, that the socialization of society, if it should take place, would in no way decrease this numerous and important class of inventions. Organized society would simply take the place of the industrial corporation.

Mr. Steinmetz then considers the question whether the first group of inventions, those of a radical or basic character, would be seriously interfered with in a socialistic state by the withdrawal of the possibility of vast financial profit. As to the question whether

modern capitalistic society holds out great financial rewards for the inventor, he says:

I know of no great inventor who has become very rich. Edison is very well to do, but far less due to his inventions than to his sharing in the industrial exploitation of them, and a small part of his genius and intellect, in the pursuit of Wall Street activities, might have made him a multi-millionaire. There is rather more truth in the statement-though wildly exaggeratedthat most of the great inventors die in the poorhouse.

A fundamental or basic invention, representing a new idea, the first step in a new field, necessarily is crude, and inferior to the improvements which are made later on the idea, after the path has been broken by the basic invention. As a matter of fact, every inventor being entitled to his invention, neither more nor less, the original inventor is not entitled to the improvements made by others, and without them, his invention is of lesser industrial value. The inventors of the improvements cannot use them, as they are not entitled to the original invention. To the inventor, his invention is of no value unless it is applied. He can rarely apply it himself, having neither the means nor the mental ability to develop its industrial production. Thus he depends on the established industry to take up his invention. industry however has got along without the invention, does not need it as a necessity, but merely as an improvement, or an advantage. Thus in the relation between the inventor and the industry, the advantages are against the inventor.

The

There is another feature, which the inventor rarely realizes.

Between the invention, as conceived, tried and patented, and the successful industrial product, there is a wide gap, the industrial development of the article often involving a vast amount of work and great expenditure. Thus, for instance, in the development of the steam turbine, now the most powerful and most efficient source of power, millions of dollars, and years of work had to be expended, from the time that the completed and patented invention was turned over to the manufacturers, until the manufacture was financially successful. And that latter period sometimes never arrives. Thus in the industrial development of the invention of the Nernst lamp, a vast amount of engineering ability, energy and many years of work were expended and when it just began to be successful, the tungsten lamp came, with its superior efficiency, and drove it out of existence.

Thus the great financial rewards awaiting the inventor in present-day society are an idle dream. The reward of the inventor is reputation and fame, and the satisfaction of his accomplishment -rewards which will remain and be greater still under socialism-but financially the reward of the inventor is inferior to that of the successful stockbroker or promoter.

Since in a socialistic society there would be no special interests opposing the inventor's fullest recognition, the realization that a successful invention would make the inventor a national hero, would, in Mr. Steinmetz's opinion, be an incentive far greater than anything present-day society has to offer.

TH

HE following interesting presentation of economic conditions in Germany during the war is from the pen of Rudolph Rettig, of Dresden, and originally appeared in the Roter Tag. This translation of the article was made by Dr. Victor Clark for the American Economic Review:

The outcome of the world war forces us to consider the tremendous economic blunders committed at that time. There is little doubt that economic mismanagement, especially during the last two years, contributed directly to the political overthrow and did untold harm to the national cause. It is for this reason of supreme importance that we should study closely the relation of prices

and incomes, or, in other words, the economic readjustments between the different classes of the population. For this reason a number of investigations along the lines indicated below should be undertaken at once. They do not confirm the common impression that high wages are the reason of our present economic distress. At least that is the inference for the period prior to the revolution. We learn that prices have risen far above the measure justified by the increase in the cost of production and consequently profits were made that led to a very unjust distribution of the burdens of the war among the different classes of the people.

The relative percentages of the following items of costs and profits of a specific industrial establishment illustrate what I mean:

Construction and repairs.

Taxes and contributions. Interest

Depreciation

Total Net profits

Dividends

19.78

21.33

25.23 22.26

26.30

Such examples might be multiplied indefinitely. Almost without exception it will be shown that wages in proportion to every, 100 marks in value of products actually declined between 1914 and 1917, while profits rose remarkably. We must add to this that wholesalers and retailers not only collected the same percentages of profits during the war that they were accustomed to make during peace, but almost invariably increased that percentage. The result was that the income of the entrepreneur class not only increased, but did

so relatively to the higher prices, to the detriment of the other classes of society, including wage-earners. It is a fundamental error to ascribe high prices to the high wages of employees during the war. As the example quoted shows, the economic status of the working people who were employed during the war, and who received nominally high incomes, deteriorated rapidly. Consequently, it is very easy to see that these economic conditions would especially oppress families of men engaged in the war and civil servants.

A

N article in the Frankfurter Zeitung

for October 10th takes as its text the speech by Noske on the note by the Entente, and deals with the whole question of the Entente and Germany and their policy in connection with the Baltic provinces. The following extract gives the gist of the writer's arguments:

A settlement of the Baltic situation naturally requires time. But one thing is clear, namely, that a considerable part of the troops, under the bad

influence of their leaders, will refuse to return to Germany, but will as mercenaries enter the service of the Russian reactionaries. We must pity these men; they have been deceived. The Fatherland has become insufficient for them. They were promised land in Lettland, and now that that hope has been destroyed they are being promised the possibility of settling on Russian soil. If their attitude is thus to a certain extent explicable, it does not the less place the country in a most dangerous position. Altogether inexplicable is the action of the men's officers who have the necessary intelligence to recognize the seriousness of

the situation. . . . Intervention (on the part of

the government) is essential, and we are glad

to hear Herr Noske's declarations on the subject.

Further south, in the region of Danzig, it is important to note that the Germans have avowedly taken steps to secure their national cultural solidarity against the time when the separation from the Fatherland

shall be brought about. The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung for September 25th announced that one single German organization, compromising all the political parties, was about to be formed on the sole basis of Germanization, and for the purpose of asserting German rights. This project subsequently came to a practical issue.

HE Italian agitation in regard to Fiume

THE

and Dalmatia is treated in a very moderate and reasonable spirit by a writer in Rassegna Nazionale. He is quite ready to admit that D'Annunzio's expedition has been. animated by ideal motives, although there are not wanting those who hold that it partakes of the nature of an anti-ministerial maneuver, but he regards it as blameworthy for two principal reasons:

First, on account of the bad breach of discipline committed by a part of the Italian forces-an insubordination in which officers of high rank, both in the army and in the navy, have participated, while those generals or admirals who were charged with the reestablishment of discipline have neither shown the prestige nor the capacity to fulfill their task. Had the poet's enterprise been accomplished by a handful of volunteers, Italy would still have had to deplore the assumption, by a body of turbulent citizens, of a matter that required the deliberate and official control of the government, but at least the repute and the discipline of the army I would have remained intact.

The second, and perhaps the gravest objection, is that no group of politicians, or of improvised leaders, can with impunity undertake to determine the national policy, and, profiting by the supposed adhesion or acquiescence of the nation, taken by surprise and stirred up by a rather fictitious patriotism, seek to direct according to their fancy the foreign policy of that nation. This would force Italy to resort to odious and bloody repressions at home, or else to assume before the other nations with which she is bound by solemn engagements, the sorry figure of some little Balkan state, or the humiliating part of a nation unable to control the impulse to treat these engagements like the too-famous "scrap of paper."

The writer does not think it correct to say that in this particular case Italy has to do with an uncontrollable impulse in favor of the self-determination and the nationality of a people, for if this were so the same principle should be followed even where the result is not in Italy's favor, as with the Brenner pass and the greater part of Dalmatia. Otherwise all territorial questions in the regions of mixed nationalities would be entirely at the mercy of coups-de-main and pronunciamentos, leading to constant convulsions and devastations.

Acting on such principles regarding Italian claims, any agitator might to-morrow occupy Malta, Nice, or Corsica, or the Swiss canton Ticino, and embroil Italy with half of Europe. The nation might as well cast aside all governmental control, all parliaments and constitutions, and allow itself to be ruled by the first D'Annunzio who sprang up, or worse still, by the first military leader who pleased to install himself as generalissimo or dictator.

Turning from these general considerations to the special enterprise of Fiume, the Italian writer deeply regrets that the pacificatory mission entrusted to General Badoglio should have proved a failure, that his appeal to the regular troops to return to normal authority, under the penalty of being otherwise treated. as deserters, should in the main have fallen on deaf ears. He thinks that some attempt should be made to remedy the still graver insubordination in the navy, the serious acts of desertion from some of the warships while they were anchored in the port of Fiume, for the present situation is quite intolerable as regards the reputation of the government, of the nation, and of the navy.

What has exceeded all measure, so much so indeed as to overshoot the mark, is the tone of D'Annunzio's proclamations to the