The New International Encyclopædia/Gronlund, Lawrence

GRONLUND, grǒn'lụnd, Lawrence (1847-99). An American Socialist, born in Denmark. He received the degree of Master of Arts in the University of Copenhagen in 1865, and two years afterwards came to the United States. He was converted to socialism by Pascal's Pensées, and gave up the practice of law to write and lecture on socialism. His principal works are: The Coming Revolution (1880); the Coöperative Commonwealth (1884); Ça Ira, or Danton in the French Revolution (1888); Our Destiny (1890); Insufficiency of Henry George's Theory (1887); and The New Economy (1898). He published Ça Ira to prove that Danton had been misjudged. He considered the United States more advanced, and therefore better fitted for a socialistic régime, than any other country; that the only obstacle is the negro problem, but that social equality between the black and white races can and will be established. A vast national organization, composed of energetic young men from every locality, could bring about a peaceful revolution in a few years. He thought that the reforms proposed by Henry George were not comprehensive, and that the coöperative association of Jean Godin was inadequate because it paid too little attention to the social life of the people. He wrote Our Destiny to prove that, instead of being necessarily associated with atheism, socialism would reveal to all the immortality of the soul.