In 1884 Laurence Gronlund published his “Co-Operative Commonwealth,” and he was doubtless right when he claimed, six years later, that this work had contributed its full share to the spread of Socialism. Gronlund said that as late as 1880 he could count all the native American Socialists on the fingers of one hand. When the patient labors, the bitter poverty and shocking privations of this pioneer Socialist are taken into account, his untimely and almost tragic death seems to have been, after all, a blessed balm to his weary soul. He gave his life to civilize the world and was rewarded with suffering and death. Four years after Gronlund’s “Co-Operative Commonwealth” appeared, in 1888, Edward Bellamy published his “Looking Backward,” and it had a most wonderful effect upon the people. He struck a responsive popular chord and his name was upon every tongue. The editions ran into the hundreds of thousands and the people were profoundly stirred by what was called the vision of a poetic dreamer. Although not an exposition of scientific socialism, Bellamy’s social romance, “Looking Backward,” with its sequel, “Equality,” were valuable and timely contributions to the literature of Socialism and not only aroused the people but started many on the road to the revolutionary movement. The quick and wide response to the author’s plea for a social readjustment evinced not only the discontent of the people, but their eager readiness to grasp at anything that might give promise of escape from the poverty, the insecurity, the daily horrors of the existing order. Thousands were moved to study the question by the books of Bellamy and thus became Socialists and found their way into the Socialist movement. In February, 1888, the strike occurred on the Burlington system, involving all its engineers and firemen and some of its brakemen and switchmen. P. M. Arthur, then grand chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, was threatened with federal court proceedings on account of a boycott which had been placed upon the C., B. & Q. cars and was so effective that it looked as if a complete tie-up of traffic would result from it. The boycott was raised and the strike began to wane. But the contest continued almost a year and it cost the brotherhoods fully two million dollars. At last, however, the strikers were exhausted and compelled to yield to total defeat. Thus was it proved by the loss of another great railroad strike—not one of which was ever won by the brotherhoods—that when the supreme test of strength comes the railway unions are always crushed by the railway corporations.