The times again call loudly for such a man. Chattel slavery is dead, but a greater slavery has grown up in its place. Wage slavery is as much greater than chattel slavery as the white people in this country are more numerous than the black people. Poverty is widespread and the fear of poverty is all but universal. No one knows how much longer he will have employment. No one can know how much longer he will have employment. A few own all of the machinery without which we cannot be employed. These few have it in their power to say whether we shall be permitted to earn the means of life. We may want to work as much as we please, but we cannot work unless they please. They do not please to let us work unless they believe they can see a profit in so doing. That we need work means nothing to those who own the great industries of the country. Nor does the fact that the people need the things we could make. They consider only the question: “Is there profit in it?” By their answer, we eat or hunger, live or die. Such times could not help but call for great men, even in little places. The times call for great men to take charge of municipal affairs, lest the poor shall be tortured with bad tenements and robbed of their last nickels by little grafters while greater grafters are taking their dollars. The times call for great men in state offices, in judicial positions, in Congress and in the White House. But, in response to the White House call, who answered in 1912? Mr. Roosevelt answered. Mr. Wilson answered. Socialists do not regard either Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Wilson as a fraudulent “radical,” in the sense that they believe either of them to be intent upon wantonly fooling the people. We regard Mr. Roosevelt as being something of a self-seeker. We regard him as the embodiment of inconsistency. We know that when he was President he never tried to do some of the things that he later promised to do if we would again make him President. We know he does not now promise to try to take away the club with which robbery is committed. He is still picking at the splinters, taking care to lay no hand upon the club itself. And, so far as concerns Mr. Wilson, we regard him as an amiable, cultured gentleman, who, meaning well, as he doubtless does, lacks the understanding without which he can not do well. We also call attention to the fact that immediately following Mr. Wilson’s nomination he began to placate the great grafters. He invited them to his home to hold counsel with him. And, in his speech of acceptance, he all but laid himself at their feet. He said nothing worth saying. He confined himself to platitudes. He swore allegiance to the “rule of right” as applied to government, without giving the slightest indication of his definition of right. Wall Street applauded him. Stocks went up. But would stocks have gone up if Wall Street had believed that, under Wilson, grafters would not be permitted to continue to rob you?