The twenty-five millions of wage-workers in the United States are twenty-five millions of twentieth century slaves. This is the plain meaning of what is known as THE LABOR MARKET. And the labor market follows the capitalist flag. The most barbarous fact in all christendom is the labor market. The mere term sufficiently expresses the animalism of commercial civilization. They who buy and they who sell in the labor market are alike dehumanized by the inhuman traffic in the brains and blood and bones of human beings. The labor market is the foundation of so-called civilized society. Without these shambles, without this commerce in human life, this sacrifice of manhood and womanhood, this barter of babes, this sales of souls, the capitalist civilizations of all lands and all climes would crumble to ruin and perish from the earth. Twenty-five millions of wage-slaves are bought and sold daily at prevailing prices in the American Labor Market. This is the PARAMOUNT ISSUE in the present national campaign. Let me say at the very threshold of this discussion that the workers have but the one issue in this campaign, the overthrow of the capitalist system and the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery. The capitalists may have the tariff, finance, imperialism and other dust-covered and moth-eaten issues entirely to themselves. The rattle of these relics no longer deceives workingmen whose heads are on their own shoulders. They know by experience and observation that the gold standard, free silver, fiat money, protective tariff, free trade, imperialism and anti-imperialism all mean capitalist rule and wage-slavery. Their eyes are open and they can see; their brains are in operation and they can think. The very moment a workingman begins to do his own thinking he understands the paramount issue, parts company with the capitalist politician and falls in line with his own class on the political battlefield. The political solidarity of the working class means the death of despotism, the birth of freedom, the sunrise of civilization. Having said this much by way of introduction I will now enter upon the actualities of my theme. THE CLASS STRUGGLE. We are entering tonight upon a momentous campaign. The struggle for political supremacy is not between political parties merely, as appears upon the surface, but at bottom it is a life and death struggle between two hostile economic classes, the one the capitalist, and the other the working class. The capitalist class is represented by the Republican, Democratic, Populist and Prohibition parties, all of which stand for private ownership of the means of production, and the triumph of any one of which will mean continued wage-slavery to the working class.