Freedom of political party organization and association. This indicates the stage at which we have arrived in the development of freedom for the working class. These _preliminary_ forms of freedom are _the means with which, if we have pride enough, we shall secure freedom indeed—freedom in getting a living_, freedom from capitalist employers who, with soldiers and the lash of starvation, force us into wage contracts, freedom from the blue-blood social parasites who despise our common blood in social relations, suck our blood in industrial relations, and waste our blood in war.[353] In the evolution of mankind the ancient free barbarian, taken prisoner in war, loudly and grandly protesting, became a chattel slave without any kind of freedom; the chattel slave became a serf without industrial freedom or any other kind in reality and completeness; the serf became a wage-earner, a wage-slave, without industrial freedom—that is, without the _fundamental_ freedom, freedom in getting a living. However, in very recent times the wage-earner has come into the possession of several of those extremely _important forms of freedom with which he can defend himself_ as soon as he has sufficient self-respect to do so. Thus and therefore the QUESTION OF OUR DAY is this: ARE THE WORKING CLASS PROUD AND KEEN ENOUGH TO USE THE FREEDOM THEY HAVE, TO SECURE THE FREEDOM THEY NEED MOST—NAMELY, FREEDOM IN INDUSTRY, FREEDOM IN GETTING A LIVING IN A SOCIALIZED SOCIETY, A SOCIETY WITH EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL, ALL OF US WITH OUR FEET FIRMLY PLANTED ON THE COLLECTIVELY OWNED INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY, A SOCIETY OF RATIONAL MUTUALISM, WITH JUSTICE, PLENTY AND PEACE? Reader, if you are with us in our peaceful struggle to win the world for the workers, start a fire—in your neighbor’s mind (if he has one)—hand him a torch, a torch of truth. Let us shake hands and fight—the enemy—with light. With the truth we shall halt the galloping cavalry, silence the cannon, “ground arms,” and close the class struggle—in a co-operative commonwealth. With a dollar’s worth of literature you can reach a hundred brains. It is your move. ----- Footnote 332: _Christianity and the Social Crisis_, p. 350. Footnote 333: It is true that even before this time woman occupied a servile position and virtually constituted an industrial class. See August Bebel’s _Woman—Past, Present and Future_. Footnote 334: Professor E. A. Ross (Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin) gently hints thus (_Social Control_, p. 86): “Under the ascendency of the rich and leisured, property becomes more sacred than persons, moral standards vary with the pecuniary status, and it is felt that ‘God will think twice before He damns a person of quality.’” Footnote 335: