AND WHEN THEY DO UNDERSTAND, their class loyalty and class pride will astonish the world. They will stand erect in their vast class strength and defend—THEMSELVES. They will cease to coax and tease; they will make _demands_—unitedly. They will desert the armory; they will spike every cannon on earth; they will scorn the commander; they will never club or bayonet another striker; and in the legislatures of the world they will shear the fatted parasites from the political and industrial body of society. But these things they will not do and _can not_ do till they are _roused_—roused _because_ they understand. Therefore, I “rise to a point of order”: The most important thing on the program in the politics of the world today is to rouse the working class to realize itself, to be conscious of itself, to see itself and also see distinctly the age-long conspiracy of the ruling class; the first thing is to rouse the working class to unite socially and unite industrially and unite politically and seize all the powers of government in all the world—for self-defense; the supreme business of the hour is to rouse the working class for the crowning victory in the evolution of mankind—for the industrial freedom of the working class, for the peace and the calm born of justice, for the beauty and the glory of the brotherhood of man. This book is written to help instruct and rouse the working class; and if in some small measure this unpretentious book carries light to the brains of my younger brothers on the big steel battleships, in the barren gloomy barracks, and to my abused and cheated brothers (and sisters) in the mills and mines and on the farms—and thus helps _stir my class to a consciousness of their class and thus helps advance the demand for justice and the demand for a reconstructed, socialized society_, my reward will seem abundant. GEORGE R. KIRKPATRICK. July 4, 1910. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION: A few amusingly oracular and pitifully (not to say pardonably) impotent voices have been raised—necessarily not very high, of course—against the style of this book. Deferring, for the present, any discussion of certain evident pedagogical exigencies, my reply is: In the ninth month from the date of first issue, the book is in its Fifth Edition, Thirtieth Thousand. G. R. K. May 24, 1911. * * * * * The pictures in this book add much to its interest and usefulness. Those on pages 31 and 33 were made by Mr. Ryan Walker, of New York; all the others were made by Mr. John Sloan, also of New York. The author is genuinely grateful for their kind cooperation. Ready.