Socialists differ from each of these gentlemen. Socialists say much is the matter with this country. Socialists say much is the matter with any country, most of whose people are in want or in fear of want, and some of whose people are where want never comes or can come. Some such conditions might have been tolerated a thousand years ago. Socialists will not tolerate them to-day. They say the time for poverty has passed. They say the time for poverty passed when man substituted steam and electricity for his muscles and machinery for his fingers. But poverty did not go out when steam and electricity came in. On the contrary, the fear of want became intensified. Now, nobody who has not capital can live unless he can get a job. In the days that preceded the steam engine, nobody had to look for a job. Everybody owned his own job. The shoemaker could make shoes for his neighbors. The weaver could weave cloth. Each could work at his trade, without anybody’s permission, because the tools of their trades were few and inexpensive. Now, neither of them can work at his trade, because the tools of his trade have become numerous and expensive. The tools of the shoemaker’s trade are in the great factory that covers, perhaps, a dozen acres. The tools of the weaver’s trade are in another enormous factory. Neither the shoemaker nor the weaver can ever hope to own the tools of his trade. Nor, with the little hand-tools of the past centuries, can either of them compete with the modern factories. The shoe trust, with steam, electricity and machinery, can make a pair of shoes at a price that no shoemaker, working by hand, could touch. Thus the hand-workers have been driven to knock at the doors of the factories that rich men own and ask for work. If the rich men can see a profit in letting the poor men work, the poor men are permitted to work. If the rich men cannot see a profit in letting the poor men work, then the poor men may not work. Though there be the greatest need for shoes, if those in need have no money, the rich men lock up their factories and wave the workers away. The workers may starve, if they like. Their wives and children may starve. The workers may become tramps, criminals or maniacs; their wives and their little children may be driven into the street—but the rich men who closed their factories because they could see no profit in keeping them open—these rich men take no part of the responsibility. They talk about the “laws of trade,” go to their clubs and have a little smoke, and, perhaps, the next week give a few dollars to “worthy charity” and forget all about the workers.