"But notwithstanding these facts and opinions, one sometimes finds in the Bible things that are true. Sometimes they are not only true, but they are also good. Again they are good in fact, in sentiment, and in diction. Now when this sort of conjunction occurs, I am strongly moved to drop for the time such differences as I may have with other portions and sentiments, and give due credit where credit is due. "Therefore, when I find in the tenth chapter of Proverbs this: 'The rich man's wealth is his strong city; the destruction of the poor is their poverty,' I shake hands with the author, and travel with him for this trip at least. The prophet does not say that their destruction is ignorance, or vice, or sin, or any of the ordinary blossoms of poverty which it is the fashion to refer to as its root. He tells us the truth--the destruction of the poor _is_ their _poverty._ "And who are the poor? Are they not those who, in spite of their labor, their worth, and their value to the state as good citizens are still dependent upon the good-will--the charity, I had almost said--of someone else who has power over the very food they have earned a hundred times over, and the miserable rags they are allowed to wear instead of the broadcloth they have earned? Are they not those who, because of economic conditions, are suppliants where they should be sovereign citizens, dependents where they should be free and independent and self-respecting persons?" "Right you are!" "Drive it home!" came with the applause from the audience. "Are they not those who must obey oppressive laws made by those who legislate against the helpless and in favor of the powerful? Are they not those whose voices are silenced by subjection, whose wishes and needs are trampled beneath the feet of the controlling class?" The applause was ready now and instant. Avery paused. There was silence. "And who are these?" he asked, and paused again. "What class of people more than any other--more than all others--fits and fills each and every one of these queries?" "Laboring men!" shouted several. "All of us!" "No," said Avery, "you are wrong. To all of you--to all so-called laboring men they do apply; but more than to these, in more insidious ways, do they apply to laboring women. To all women, in fact; for no matter how poor a man is, his wife and daughters are poorer; no matter how much of a dependent he is, the woman is more so, for she is the dependent of a dependent, the serf of a slave, the chattel of a chattel! The suppliant, not only for work and wage, but the suppliant at the hands of sex power for equality with even the man who is under the feet and the tyranny of wealth. They share together that tyranny and poverty, but he thrusts upon her alone the added outrage of sex subjugation and legal disability." He paused, and held up his hand. Then he said, slowly, making each word stand alone:--