The task was simply too hard for the Spanish nation; they had lived for centuries in imminent proximity to an enemy of an alien faith, and the result was the fastening upon the people of a system of military despotism and religious bigotry. And when the danger was by, when the work of these forces was done, and the time came for the people of Spain to throw them off, their efforts were of no avail; their kings and their priests tortured them and burned them at the stake; and so the impulse died, and never afterwards did they lift their heads. In the same way consider the “Negro question,” as we have it in the United States. Here also we are dealing with a defeated race; a race which was bred where nature proved too strong for man—where savage beasts fell upon him, and deadly diseases smote him, and the swift powers of the jungle balked his every effort to rise. So for centuries and ages he was trampled upon and crushed, until every spark of genius was extinguished in him; and now we strive with all the resources of our civilisation—our noblest and best have given their lives to the task; and we do not know yet if we are to win or lose. Let the reader of this book get a clear understanding upon at least one point—that no Socialist expects to abolish competition, and the survival of the fittest; all that any Socialist expects to do is to change the _kind_ of competition and the standard of the fitness. The purpose of industrial competition is to raise up the industrially fit, and to establish a system for the feeding and clothing of men. The sign that the former task is done is the outcry against the money-madness of the time; the sign that the latter is done is “overproduction” and the “trust.” The purpose of this little book is to lay before candid and truth-seeking Americans the overwhelming evidence which exists of the fact that industrial competition, as an evolutionary force, has done its work in our society: that it has disciplined our labourers in diligence and skill, and our leaders in foresight, enterprise and administrative capacity; that it has built us up a machine for the satisfying of all the material needs of civilisation, a machine that has only to be used; and that until we have found out how to use it, our national life must remain at a standstill, stagnation must take the place of progress, and in every portion of our body politic, the symptoms of disease and decay must multiply and grow more and more alarming.