America, what a charming word for some poor chap! You live under hard conditions here; capitalism is victorious everywhere; the farmer and small tradesman are perishing; capitalistic production flourishes in Croatia, Bosnia, etc., more and more every day. The immediate consequence is that the army of proletarians is growing bigger.

Industrial progress does not need many workers, so we see this army of capitalistic servants and slaves living in penury, want and pains. America, that charming word, is for them of great influence. There are high wages, six to seven crowns (about $5) a day; many, after working there, return and take along with them 1,500 crowns. That, under the circumstances, seems so much no one expects to be able to acquire it.

Many small farmers and landowners who are sinking under the burden of mortgages, taxes and assessments, dream of reaching America to be able to pay their debts. The workingman in the village mortgages his roof for the voyage ticket; the tradesman deserts his trade, sells his tools, 2in the hope of seeing better days in America. The industrial worker, seeing big wages, longs for America; he hopes to save much and be able to buy a corner of land at home where he may rest, and with uncounted hopes, wishes and expectations, tens of thousands of our people travel over the wide ocean to the promised land, America.

But what a disappointment is in stock for them! Many of them have exclaimed: "America, what a bitterness you are!" Many of them are never heard of again; they are as if swallowed by the earth.

One remains poor as long as he lives; one becomes so bad he never wants to return. Only a small number return and ask them how they fared. They will answer in disgust about the hard work and life they had to put up with. High wages choke you. Some even will say that by going to America they shortened their lives by tens of years because of hardships.

But those words and experiences are soon forgotten, and the American high 3wages prompt new hundreds of thousands to cross the ocean to serve the Moloch of capitalism.

This America, bitter, capitalistic, avaricious, will be depicted in a book written by a Socialist author, Upton Sinclair. All the frightfulness, wickedness and spoils of capitalism are shown in the story of the heartbreaking tragedy of a Lithuanian family.