"At the time of which we speak, four-fifths of the aggregate wealth of the country had passed into the hands of a small fraction of the people, and millions were landless, homeless and dependent for subsistence upon the crumbs, so to speak, that fell from the tables of their lordly masters who controlled every avenue to employment and dictated the terms upon which they were permitted to live. Being few in numbers, they could and did co-operate with each other for their mutual advantage. All they had to do in order to keep wages at a minimum was to leave a large number of applicants unemployed, and hence very poor, who at all times, would be ready to take the place of workmen who demanded more liberal wages. The self-employed farmers were but little better off than the wage workers, as they were forced to sell their products and purchase their supplies at prices fixed by the great financial, industrial and commercial combines which controlled the business of the country. Under the inequitable methods of exchange which existed at that time, the masses of the people were powerless to help themselves. The fortunate few who controlled money, dictated how much they might receive for their labor or its products and how much of the products created by the labor of others they could purchase with the proceeds. "To us the natural remedy for discriminations of this kind, so unjust and oppressive to the masses of the people seems so self-evident and easy of application that it is not strange that many have been inclined to doubt the correctness of much that is recorded in the history of the economic conditions which existed under the old civilisation, when human selfishness ruled supreme in business affairs. But when we take into consideration the fact, that at that time, the world had never had a single object lesson large enough to be seen by the great of mankind, as to what would constitute an equitable system of distribution, we are forced to the conclusion that the adverse conditions existing during the Transition Period were just what might have been expected under the circumstances. The few who had the ability to conduct the business of the world did not understand that the productive power of the earth is practically unlimited so that under an equitable system of exchange there is absolutely no possibility of any person being reduced to poverty. Then, too, the great masses were but a few generations removed from a condition of absolute serfdom, and were just what ages of drudgery had made them, and could not be expected to take broad and comprehensive views of the great economic problems by which they were confronted. The world had never known anything but the private ownership of all the means of production and distribution and the desire to lay up treasures was universally regarded as laudable and praiseworthy. Under these circumstances neither the few who had monopolized the earth nor the many who were disinherited could have