A century or two ago our ancestors were governed, “by grace of God,” by an unamiable old gentleman over in England, who controlled their destinies, and sent his representatives over here to tax and oppress them; and they impiously rose up and adopted a declaration to the effect that all men were born free and equal; and they seized the property and revenues of their king, and thereafter managed the country for their own benefit solely. “No taxation without representation,” had been their doctrine beforehand. And you, who are an American, and celebrate the Fourth of July, and teach your children to admire the men who threw the tea into Boston Harbour—do you think that you could give me any reason why a man has a right to be represented where he pays his taxes, and no right to be represented where he gets his daily bread? Do you not perceive that a man who can say to me, “Do thus, or you and your children can have nothing to eat,” is just as much my lord and master as the man who can say to me, “Do thus, or be put into jail?” You stop and think. “The case is not quite the same,” you say. “One is not represented, to be sure; but certainly every man has a right to get his daily bread as he pleases.” Indeed, I answer. Suppose, for instance, that his occupation happens to be that of a steel-worker; has he any way of getting his daily bread, except upon certain precise terms which a certain group of men offer him? “H’m,” you say, “that’s so. But then, if he doesn’t like it, can’t he change his occupation?” My answer is, I do not believe that George the Third would have had any objection to one of our ancestors going to France to become a subject of King Louis. But I understand that freedom began in America when the men of Lexington and Bunker Hill resolved to _stay at home_ and be free. “This is all very well in theory,” you say, “but how can it ever be realised?” As I said before, I expect to see it realised in the United States of America within the next ten years. I expect to see it, exactly as I should have expected to see the French Revolution, had I known what I know now; understood that institutions and systems have their day, and perceived the signs of a breakdown as they existed in France in 1780, and as they exist in America in 1907.