be rational and not be a socialist. All life is the same life. Out of this, the Holy Ghost, has come the birth of social consciousness. The greatest thought of mankind before the present century was the value of the individual; one man was worth more than a whole material universe. We must not lose this thought. This value of the individual was a great lesson of Christianity. The Declaration of Independence is a political expression of this thought. Little by little we have come to see that humanity is not as the separate grains of sand upon the seashore, but, that it is a living organism where the hand cannot say to the foot "I have no need of thee."

This has given us the idea of society as the unit. The individual must do his duty toward all other individuals. This is democracy, this is love. This is the philosophic basis of the social revolution. Practically it is the application of the ideal to every day life; an endeavor to live harmoniously with the whole world. We do not believe things we used to. Hell has become a joke. You smiled because I mentioned Hell. The old Heaven is a myth-or the old idea of Heaven. It has become immoral for a man to want to be saved from eter

nal perdition to which other men are sent. The idea of being righteous because you are a part of one great human body is gaining ground.

Three men contemplate a certain act. One says, "I will not do that because I'll get hurt." I do not care much whether he does it or not. That is not a high motive. The second man says "I'll not do that because it is repulsive to me." That is better, but still not the highest type. The third man says, "I'll not do that, for if I do, I may keep back the progress of Humanity." That is the kind of man to make a better world. He has the 20th century idea. Until within fifty years we never had a science of economics. Now, it is a leading chair in the colleges. Until the middle of this century nobody ever asked how wealth ought to be distributed.

The present condition of affairs has come about naturally and is due to several causes :

Ist. The invention of gunpowder. This was a great

social leveller and as some one says, made the man with a gun, equal to the man on horseback.

on foot

2d. The invention of printing. This was the great intellectual and educational leveller.

3d. The discovery of new worlds. Africa, Asia and America were found to contain more wealth than the world had ever dreamed of.

4th. The invention of machinery. Machinery in Massachusetts alone is reported as doing the work of 50,000,000 men. All these have worked together and caused a revolution in former conditions. They have, vastly increased wealth. Mr. Gladstone is authority for the statement, that the wealth of this world increased during the first half of this century as much as there was of wealth then existing, and as much more in the succeeding twenty-five years. We sometimes hear it said that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. That is not altogether true. The rich are,,undoubtedly growing richer but the poor are not growing poorer; because a working man lives in luxury now, as compared with former years. Relatively, however, the poor man may be poorer now than formerly because the rich man is so much richer. The gulf between the rich and the poor was never more marked than it is at present.

A nation's prosperity depends largely on what it does with its surplus. Egypt with her surplus built the pyramids. China in a fit of patriotism built the Great Wall surrounding the Empire, Mediaeval Europe built costly cathedrals covering acres of ground. We have used our surplus produing machines, to produce more surplus.

At the present rate of increase, inside of twenty-five years we shall have the first billionaire and inside of fifty years we shall have have several billionaires. Yet with all this wealth. one third of the people of New York own absolutely nothing. Ninety-nine per cent of the people of the United States own less than half the wealth.

A woman in Chicago went to the opera wearing a $50,000 dress. She had three or four detectives to guard her. A

man in San Francisco built a house containing five bath rooms that cost $10,00 apiece. We have recently had a $500,000 ball, and one man has built a $6,000,000 palace in the wilderness. On the other hand, one tenth of those who die in New York are buried in Potter's Field. Thirty thousand families, in that city, are annually turned out of their homes for nonpayment of rent.

There are many times enough for us all but we rush, and grab, and push each other aside. Suppose we had a table, here, spread with good things to eat, with ten times enough for us all, but, instead of helping each other we all should rush at the table, crowding and pushing each other, and each selfishly grabbing all he could get. That is precisely the method pursued in business in our country to-day.

First: The ordinary man is separated from the sources of great wealth. No great fortune was ever earned. I do not mean that it was not honestly acquired, by our former standard, but I mean that no adequate return was made for it. We have no moral standard requiring a rich person to work, yet we seem to think there is something radically wrong with a person who is poor and does not work.

Great wealth is acquired by inheritance, by interest on money, by shrewd control of the land and the treasures of the land, and by an unfair division of the profits of labor.

Mr. Wanamaker has said that a man could honestly accumulate $20,000 or $50,000, or such amount, but if he has more than that he captured it. That word, "captured," interests me. When does a man cease to earn and begin to capture money?

Second-The ordinary man is separated from his employer. There was once a fellowship between the employer and his his employee. The apprentice married the employer's daughter and succeeded to the business. His apprentice in turn married his daughter and so on. Now we have a corporation, the employer separated from the employee by a manager. At the other end the employee is ground down by this manager in order to produce greater profits for the coporation in competition with another corporation.

Third: The workman is being separated from his tools. In fact his tools are taken away from him. Fifty men with modern machinery, to-day, can do the work of all the cotton spinners of Lancashire one hundred years ago. What does this mean? Who gets the benefit? The capitalist of course; building magnificent palaces with surplus, ground out from his employees of whom he makes paupers, for his wife and daughters to practice charity upon.

Fourth-The man is separated from his work. One man to-day with a machine can make as many pins as 250 men could before the machinery was used. What becomes of the other 249 men? I admit pins are cheaper and we use more of them, and perhaps we can absorb one half the idle men making pins and other things but what is the other half to do? It seems as if invention had "given the laborer a holiday in which to starve" and more than this, in many cases woman is taking the place of the man. England employs in mills and factories more than half her adult women and the child is being put against both the man and woman, and because their labor is cheaper many men and women are in enforced idleness.

Yet they tell us the panic is due to over production. Did any one ever hear a more melancholy witticism? Over production! I've never had all I wanted and I've fared pretty well. There never will be over production until every rational want of every individual is fully supplied.

Fifth-The ordinary man is separated from political power. Our courts are controlled by financial interest. President Havemeyer swore before the Trust Investigating Commission that the sugar trust had paid $250,000 to Republicans in Republican States and $250,000 to Democrats in Democratic states so that no matter which party succeeded it would be well for the sugar trust.

There are several remedies for these conditions; some radical, some palliative. Among the latter the Trade Union is good but it pre-supposes a state of war and does its work imperfectly. Other schemes are (1) Government regulation of wages, (2) Employers sharing profits with their workmen, and

(3) Co-operation. At present the profit sharing scheme generally works satisfactorily. The trouble is that if all firms were to adopt this scheme the old competition would result and conditions would practically be where they are at present. Profit sharing differs from cooperation in that one is paternal, the other fraternal.

There are three radical schemes for bettering conditions. (1) The anarchist theory, (2) the socialist and (3) a combination of both. The first is the theory of the individual. The anarchist thinks we are all so good we do not need a government; we all want to be good,but cannot because of the restrictions thrown around us. Between the anarchrist and socialist comes the Single Taxer. He says the land alone should be taxed so every one may have an equal chance. The socialist says that not only the land but all wealth producing machinery as well should belong to all the people. Socialism is "the management of industry by salaried officers for the benefit of the community." Whether or not we like it the era of socialism is almost here. By and by we shall become good enough. to be anarchists. The law is our educator. Socialism is not communism, not the equal distribution of money. Socialism allows every man to earn as much money as he can and use it as he chooses. Ruskin, Grant Allen, Hall Caine, Richard Wayne, Lady Henry Somerset, Frances E. Willard were Socialists. The post office and the public schools are perfect illustrations of socialism. Let anyone who says it is impractical look at these institutions. Others will object, saying there would be no incentive to work.

Where is it now?

I see men working now for 14, 16, yes even 18 hours a day. It is infamous to suggest that greed is a greater incentive to production than love. I can see objections to the new schemes, but not so great as are the objections to our present system. Some one says you would have to change human nature. Well, change it. It was meant to change. I never lie awake worrying about the progress of the world. Things are evil only in comparison with the past. Unrest indicates that we have a higher ideal. Republican government and universal