and in their eagerness to grasp the very newest and latest doctrine will fall easy victims of the first windy and pretentious fakir who comes along. Ask any one of these fellows who tells you that the Marxian theory of Value has been exploded, to state the new and correct theory of Value that has taken its place and you will find that he cannot state a theory that you or I or any other man can understand. He will either admit he is floored, or else he will emit a dense fog of words. I challenge any one of them to state a theory of value that he himself can understand, let alone make any one else understand. Now the Marxian theory of Value can be clearly stated so that you and I can understand it. But let us begin with surplus-value. This theory of surplus-value is simply the scientific formulation of the fact that workingmen had been conscious of in a vague way long before Karl Marx's day, the fact that the workingman don't get a fair deal, that he don't get all he earns. This fact had been formulated as long ago as 1821 by the unknown author of a letter to Lord John Russell on "The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties." In this letter the very phrases "surplus produce" and "surplus labor" are used. You will find that Marx refers to this letter in a note on page 369 (Humboldt edition, 644 Kerr edition) of the American edition of Capital. The Russian writer, Slepzoff, quotes several passages from this letter in an article in the December, 1899, number of _La Revue Socialiste_, and it is amazing to see how near to Marx's conclusions this unknown writer had come eighty years ago, but the conditions were not ripe and his letter would to-day be forgotten if Marx had not embalmed it in a footnote. I confess I was surprised to learn that this was not a purely original discovery of Marx's, but the fact that it is not is one more signal confirmation of the theory I have given in this lecture of the double or multiple discovery of great ideas. But let us resume the discussion of Surplus Value and see just what it really is. No matter where you, my workingman hearer or reader may work, the person or corporation or trust for whom or which you work gets back more out of your labor, than he or it pays you in wages. If this is not so, your employer is either running a charitable institution or he is in business for his health. You may have employers of that kind here on the East Side of New York, but I have never met any of them elsewhere. It is impossible to conceive of a man going on day after day, week after week, year after year, paying you wages, unless he receives more for the product of your labor than he pays you in wages. Now, this difference between what you get and what he gets is what we call surplus-value.