Socialists believe it would be better not to promise so much and to perform more. They believe it would be better to promise each industrious man approximately the present comfort-equivalent of $5,000 a year _and give it to him_, than to hold out to him the hope of great riches and give him, instead, great poverty or great uneasiness because of the fear of poverty. The Socialists may be wrong in all of this, but they cheerfully place the burden of proof that the world is well upon those who make the claim that it is well. They ask the capitalists to find more than the exceptional, rare man who has realized more than a fraction of the promises that were held out to him in his youth. For every such man that the capitalists may produce, the Socialists will undertake to find twenty men who are living from hand to mouth, either in poverty or in the fear of poverty. Such is the Socialist position with regard to “rising” in the world. So far as Socialists are able to discover, all of the rising that most persons do is done in the early morning—about an hour before the 7 o’clock whistle blows. “Early to bed and early to rise” is not in violation of the Socialist constitution, but Socialists respectfully contend that the rising should be made worth while. And, they also contend that if the people must be promised something to make them rise, it is better, in the long run, to promise something and give it to them than to promise more and not give it to them. The best that can be said for the latter plan is that it has been a long time tried and until recently has worked satisfactorily for those who made the promises they failed to keep. CHAPTER IV WHY SOCIALISTS PREACH DISCONTENT Rich men tell poor men to beware of Socialism because Socialists preach discontent. Rich men also tell poor men to beware of Socialism because Socialists “preach the class struggle,” and try to “array class against class,” politically. It is all true. Socialists do these things. They make no bones about doing them. They say they would feel ashamed of themselves if they did not do them. If they had a thousand times the power they have, they would do these things a thousand times harder than they do. Just so rapidly as they gain power, they are doing these things harder. What is it that they do? Let us see. Socialists preach discontent. Discontent with what? Discontent with home? Discontent with children? Discontent with friends? Discontent with honest labor? Discontent with ambition? Discontent with life as a whole? Why, nothing of the kind. _Socialists preach discontent only with poverty that is made by robbery, and the ills that follow in its wake._ The Hon. Charles Russell, of England, said in 1912 that 12,000,000 of England’s 45,000,000 population were on the verge of starvation—shall we be satisfied with that?