,_ histrairel, he has lifted the burden of the industry from his shoulder to l
—   _-_his.·»mii1d; and the problem has become complex; while the iittiest to snr-
` ` ` ’. .—vive, the law in this age of evolutLon—-the same law which bids the tallest V
;_ Qtree steal the first sunbeam and drink the purest rain-drop while the dwarf-
_  ed sapling struggles beneath-the law which lavishes to tl1e intellectually I
’ `"strong and refuses to pity the ignorant weak never before was felt as it is '
in this time of conquering mind} . ‘
Oui civilization hasbruught new conditions. Un one hand the industri· , _
al king, whose power consists not in the elangor of arms, but in the silence l
of wealth. Un the other hand, as labor becomes more enlightened it grows ,
more discontent with its lot, and is feeling more keenly the injustice from _
greed. - w-
‘ · What once was the strength of two barbarians joined to drag the veuion
from the forest, what was once two shoulders to lift the log to its placeosn
the hut, to-day is the mighty corporation, formed by the combination of
wealth with industry and inventive genius, which manufactures with great
economy of product and energy, which transports with marvelous rapidity
the building stone and steel and plank, tl1e heating coal, the light-giving
- oil, the nourishing bread and beef, and the countless necessities and lux- i
uries of life, which gives labor better opportunities to improve its condi-
4 tions, a cottage instead of a hut, an electric globe instead of a tallow c ip,
but which accumulate on the one hand wealth in piles and power beyond
the dreams of Lydia’s richest king, which abused cities and filled them
with toiling men and children, subjected and succumbing to vice, and these
· are the evils which we would eliminate or at least would control.
Aristotle said that if some power other than man’s own could be learned j
i to Love the shuttle. that the problem ol. slavery would ne solved; but man
knows the power of Niagara, he has read the law cf the lightning, and bids
them ruaand rule his machine, but never before were the inequalities
. greater, or the utilization of common interests for private ends more marked
Our statutes are llllcd with laws to regulate these evils, the party platforms
are making the trusts an issue for a coming campaign, the pages of the
press are fill d with articles from the brain and thought of the land; that
something is wrong all are determined; that something all are endeavoring
to eliminate.
When in the last century the political inequalities became too great,
‘ when kings asserted tothe Saxon their ·=divine right" to rule, and when . .
. they built their thrones out ot the tears and blood of a tolling serf, with
redder blood and brinier tears than built them they were swept away, and
the scrf became, however humble, a citizen. But the thorns or greed and
‘— the industrial inequalities have not been created by birthright are armies, . , .
- nor can strikes or armies iliminate them.
. e Socialism is pl reed as the gold of human endeavor and honest men are
advocating it for the solutionof our economic conditions. In its broad
theory 1t is beautiful, grand, ultimate. No special development of a class
at the subjection and sacrilicc of another class; no society formed out of
warring individuals, but an organic whole, in a word, self supplanted by
altruism, a dream too far in the l`uLure to bc realized in our present condi-
· tions. For, if we understand the plan by which they would accomplish it ,
can a government make cipialities? .()an any code of laws determine who