662 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



farms that will suffer, but those who now pride themselves 

 on their good management and success will not be able to 

 stem the current of cheap labor and low prices. As cer- 

 tain as * ' like causes produce like effects, ' ' will the present 

 system gradually force us to the same condition that it has 

 the producers of the countries of Europe. 



What is the spectacle presented to our view? Crime 

 reaching a magnitude it never did before; poverty increas- 

 ing with frightful rapidity; intense and steadily increasing 

 competition with labor in nearly every vocation of industry; 

 an army of idlers crowding upon the workers everywhere; 

 the man who is driven by necessity or want to work or die 

 of starvation is compelled to fight his own fellow-laborer 

 or be guarded by the police in the discharge of his duties. 

 A decrepit, homeless humanity, swelling in numbers every 

 x day, audible groans of want, woe and misery coming up 

 from every mining, manufacturing and commercial district, 

 and from many agricultural localities throughout the civil- 

 ized world. Strikes on every hand and general discontent 

 prevailing. What does it all mean? Where and when in 

 name of earth's suffering millions will, it end? How long 

 must it be endured? To what end does statesmanship serve 

 the world if not for the amelioration of suffering and misery 

 consequent upon human ignorance, selfishness and tyranny? 

 The centralization of wealth means the centralization of 

 power. The people had as well delegate to a few men 

 their right of franchise as to foster a system of laws that 

 will enable the few to obtain and control the wealth of the 

 nation. 



Some years ago a writer in the Spectator, London, 

 England, said: 



u The present state of affairs suggests the existence of 

 some influence which is not generally recognized, though 

 its power must be overruling and its operation universal. It 

 is not seen, yet it reverses the councils of governments 



