Yet, this country, as it stands to-day, is not for everybody. Everybody has not an equal opportunity in it. A few do nothing and have everything. The rest do everything and have nothing. A great many gentlemen are engaged in the occupation of trying to make these wrongs seem right. They write political platforms to make them seem right. They make political speeches to make them seem right. They go to Congress to make them seem right. Some go even to the White House to make them seem right. But no mere words, however fine, can make these wrongs right. The conditions that exist in this country to-day are indefensible and intolerable. This should be a happy country. It should be a happy country because it contains an abundance of every element that is required to make happiness. The pangs of hunger should never come to a single human being, because we already produce as much food as we need, and with more intelligent effort could easily produce enough to supply a population ten times as great. Yet, instead of this happy land, we have a land in which the task of making a living is constantly becoming greater and more uncertain. Everything seems to be tied up in a knot that is becoming tighter. You do not know what is the matter. Your neighbor does not know what is the matter. Why should you know what is the matter? You never listen to anybody who wants you to find out. You listen only to men who want to squeeze you out. Their word is good with you every time. You may not think it is good, but it is good. You may not take advice from Mr. Morgan, but you take advice from Mr. Morgan’s Presidents, Congressmen, writers, and speakers. You may not take advice from Mr. Ryan, but you take advice from the men whom Mr. Ryan controls. If you should go straight to Mr. Ryan you would get the same advice. What these men say to you, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Ryan say to them. You listen as they speak. You vote as they vote. They get what they want. You don’t get what you want. But you stick together. You seem never to grow tired. You were with them at the last election. Many of you will be with them at the next election. But you will not be with them for a while after the next election. They will go to their fine homes, while you go to your poor ones. They will take no fear with them, save the fear that some day you will wake up; that some day you will listen to men who talk to you as I am talking to you. But you will take the fear of poverty with you, and it will hang like a pall over your happiness. If you have lost your hope of happiness, get it back. This can be a happy nation in your time. This country is for you. It is big. It is rich. It is all you need. But you will have to take it, and the easiest way to take it is with ballots. CHAPTER II WHAT SOCIALISM IS AND WHY IT IS