the economic panic of 1893 put additional stress on the movement, reducing organizational strength and putting "the new nation" under financial strain. with his finances dwindling and beginning to suffer from the tuberculosis which would eventually kill him, bellamy suspended publication of "the new nation" in 1894. he also wanted to concentrate upon writing a new political novel to carry forward the story of his protagonist in "looking backward," a book published in 1897 as "equality."