take it for granted; our papers tell of it, and the presses
are not stopped -- our churches know of it, and do not close
their doors -- the people behold it, and do not rise up in
horror and revolution!

"Or perhaps Manchuria is too far away for you -- come
home with me then, come here to Chicago. Here in this
city tonight ten thousand women are shut up in foul pens,
and driven by hunger to sell their bodies to live. And
we know it, we make it a jest! And these women are
made in the image of your mothers, they may be your
sisters, your daughters; the child whom you left at home
tonight, whose laughing eyes will greet you in the morn~
ing -- that fate may be waiting for her! Tonight in
Chicago there are ten thousand men, homeless and
wretched, willing to work and begging for a chance, yet
starving, and fronting in terror the awful winter cold!
Tonight in Chicago there are a hundred thousand children
wearing out their strength and blasting their lives in the
effort to earn their bread! There are a hundred thousand
mothers who are living in misery and squalor, struggling
to earn enough to feed their little ones! There are a
hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless, waiting
for death to take them from their torments! There are a
million people, men and women and children, who share
the curse of the wage-slave; who toil every hour they can
stand and see, for just enough to keep them alive; who are
condemned till the end of their days to monotony and
weariness, to hunger and misery, to heat and cold, to dirt
and disease, to ignorance and drunkenness and vice! And
then turn over the page with me, and gaze upon the other
side of the picture. There are a thousand -- ten thousand,
maybe -- who are the masters of these slaves, who own
their toil. They do nothing to earn what they receive,
they do not even have to ask for it -- it comes to them of
itself, their only care is to dispose of it. They live in
palaces, they riot in luxury and extravagance -- such as no
words can describe, as makes the imagination reel and
stagger, makes the soul grow sick and faint. They spend
hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes, a handkerchief, a

[[363]]

p362 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p363w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p364

v?