ing.

In one respect Edward Bellamy set down a picture of modern American
life which is almost a hundred per cent realized. It startled me to
read the passage in which Edith shows the musical schedule to Julian
West, and tells him to choose which selection he wishes to have
brought through the air into the music room. It is true that Bellamy
imagined this broadcasting to be done over telephone wires, as is
indeed the case to-day in some phases of national hook-ups. But
consider this quotation:

"He [Dr. Leete] showed how, by turning a screw, the volume of the
music could be made to fill the room, or die away to an echo so faint
and far that one could scarcely be sure whether he heard or imagined
it."

That might almost have been lifted bodily from an article in some
newspaper radio column.

But Bellamy did see with clear vision things and factors much more
important than the possibility of hearing a sermon without going to
church. Much which is now established in Soviet Russia bears at least
a likeness to the industrial army visioned in this prophetic book.
However, Communism can scarcely claim Bellamy as its own, for he
emphasizes repeatedly the non-violent features of the revolution which
he imagined. Indeed, at one point he argues that the left-wingers of
his own day impeded change by the very excesses of their technical
philosophy.

There is in his book no acceptance of a transitional stage of class
dictatorship. He sees the change coming through a general recognition
of the failings of the capitalist system. Indeed, he sees a point in
economic development where capitalism may not even be good enough for
the capitalist.

To the strict Marxian Socialist this is profound and ridiculous
heresy. To me it does not seem fantastic. And things have happened in
the world already which were not dreamt of in Karl Marx's philosophy.

The point I wish to stress is the prevalent notion that all radical
movements in America stem from the writings of foreign authors. Now,
Bellamy, of course, was familiar with the pioneer work of Marx. And
that part of it which he liked he took over. Nevertheless, he
developed a contribution which was entirely his own. It is irrelevant
to say that, after all, the two men differed largely in their view of
the technique by which the new world was to be accomplished. A
difference in technique, as Trotzky knows to his sorrow, may be as
profound as a difference in principle.

Bellamy was esse