Here is another thing that Socialists hope the people will soon understand. The policy of permitting a few men to use the machinery with which all other men must work or starve compels all other men to become competitors for its use. If there were no more workers than the capitalists must have, there would not be such competition. But there must always be more workers than the capitalists can use. The fact that the capitalist demands a profit upon the worker’s labor renders the worker incapable of buying back the very thing he has made. Under present conditions, trade must, therefore, always be smaller than the natural requirements of the people for goods. And since, with machinery, each worker can produce a vast volume of goods, it inevitably follows that only a part of the workers are required to make all of the goods that can be sold at a profit. That is why there is not always work for all. With more workers than there are jobs, it thus comes about that the workers are compelled to compete among themselves for jobs. Only part of the workers can be employed and the struggle of each is to become one of that part. The workers who are out of employment are always willing to work, if they can get no more, for a wage that represents only the cost of the poorest living upon which they will consent to exist. It therefore follows that wages are always based upon the cost of living. If the cost of living is high, wages are high. If the cost of living is low, wages are low. In any event, the worker has nothing left after he has paid for his living. Socialists say this is not just. They can understand the capitalist who buys labor as he buys pig-iron, but they say labor is entitled to more consideration than pig-iron. The price of labor, they declare, should be gauged by the value of labor’s product, instead of by the direness of labor’s needs. They say the present situation gives to the men who own machinery most of its benefits and to the many who operate it none of its hopes. Now. as of old, the average worker dare hope for no more than enough to keep him alive. Again and again and again the census reports have shown that the bulk of the people in this country are so poor that they do not own even the roofs over their heads.