garter; they spend millions for horses and automobiles and
yachts, for palaces and banquets, for little shiny stones
with which to deck their bodies. Their life is a contest
among themselves for supremacy in ostentation and reck~
lessness, in the destroying of useful and necessary things,
in the wasting of the labor and the lives of their fellow-
creatures, the toil and anguish of the nations, the sweat
and tears and blood of the human race! It is all theirs --
it comes to them; just as all the springs pour into stream~
lets, and the streamlets into rivers, and the rivers into the
ocean -- so, automatically and inevitably, all the wealth
of society comes to them. The farmer tills the soil,
the miner digs in the earth, the weaver tends the loom,
the mason carves the stone; the clever man invents, the
shrewd man directs, the wise man studies, the inspired man
sings -- and all the result, the products of the labor of brain
and muscle, are gathered into one stupendous stream and
poured into their laps! The whole of society is in their
grip, the whole labor of the world lies at their mercy --
and like fierce wolves they rend and destroy, like ravening
vultures they devour and tear! The whole power of man~
kind belongs to them, forever and beyond recall -- do what
it can, strive as it will, humanity lives for them and dies
for them! They own not merely the labor of society, they
have bought the governments; and everywhere they use
their raped and stolen power to intrench themselves in
their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels
through which the river of profits flows to them! -- And
you, working-men, working-men! You have been brought
up to it, you plod on like beasts of burden, thinking only
of the day and its pain -- yet is there a man among you
who can believe that such a system will continue forever
-- is there a man here in this audience tonight so hardened
and debased that he dare rise up before me and say that he
believes it can continue forever; that the product of the
labor of society, the means of existence of the human race,
will always belong to idlers and parasites, to be spent for
the gratification of vanity and lust -- to be spent for any
purpose whatever, to be at the disposal of any individual

[[364]]

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v?