THE NEW ERA.

From every section of the country the news of the pending election gives promise of a victory for the Independence party.  The people have accepted the assurances of Harvey Trueman that he will not countenance violence on the part of the radical element of either the people or the Plutocrats.  His conspicuous action at Wilkes-Barre is an incontestible proof of his sincerity, and also demonstrates that the masses are not desirous of reverting to an appeal to force in order to regain their rights.  If the man whom the public hails as a deliverer can be elected, all the evils of the Trusts and monopolies, it is believed, can be settled amicably.

So strong has the sentiment in favor of the Independence party become, that for days before the election great parades of the workingmen in the principal cities celebrate the coming victory of the people.

Yet the subsidized press maintains a defiant position, and gloomily predicts that anarchy will prevail upon the announcement of the election of the Independence party’s candidates.

This foreboding has little or no effect on the minds of the earnest workers; they are ready to trust their interests to men who have proven themselves honest champions of right, rather than suffer the bondage imposed by the Magnates.

Trueman, since the hour of his marriage, has spent much of his time in Wilkes-Barre.  He decides that it is better for him to guide the closing days of the campaign from his home.

After settling the estate of Gorman Purdy, and turning over to the workingmen the mines, furnaces and breakers that were owned by the late Coal King, Harvey and his wife go to live in a comfortable villa in the suburbs.

By her voluntary surrender of the $160,000,000 which the criminal practices of Gorman Purdy had amassed, Ethel becomes the idol of the people, not only of Wilkes-Barre, but of the entire country.  She gives substantial proof of the sincerity of her promise made at the grave of her father.  This act of altruism does much to avert any reaction of the turbulent elements of the large cities.

The prospect of regaining the public utilities by purchase and the establishment of governmental departments to control them in the interests of the people as a whole, is made bright by the magnificent example that is furnished by the towns of Pennsylvania.

Harvey Trueman establishes the leaders of the Unions as the managers of the mines and breakers.  Under his direction the profits of the business are divided proportionately among all the inhabitants of the town in which the works are located; those who work receive as their wage one-half of the net proceeds from the sale of their products.  The remaining fifty per cent, is turned into the public treasury.

Had the millions of the Purdy fortune been distributed to the people by a per capita allotment, each man and woman of Wilkes-Barre might have been made independently rich.  But this would defeat the ends which Ethel and Harvey wish to attain.  They desire to see every citizen prosper according to his or her personal effort.  So when every one in Wilkes-Barre is set to work at a profitable trade or occupation, the residue of the fortune, some $125,000,000, is used to establish a similar system of co-operation in neighboring mining districts.