organized
labor are intermingled with the underground conspiracy of social
revolution. The public mind is confused. Something approaching to a
social panic appears. To some minds the demand for law and order
overwhelms all other thoughts. To others the fierce desire for social
justice obliterates all fear of a general catastrophe. They push nearer
and nearer to the brink of the abyss. The warning cry of "back" is
challenged by the eager shout of "forward!" The older methods of social
progress are abandoned as too slow. The older weapons of social defense
are thrown aside as too blunt. Parliamentary discussion is powerless. It
limps in the wake of the popular movement. The "state", as we knew it,
threatens to dissolve into labor unions, conventions, boards of
conciliation, and conferences. Society shaken to its base, hurls itself
into the industrial suicide of the general strike, refusing to feed
itself, denying its own wants.

This is a time such as there never was before. It represents a vast
social transformation in which there is at stake, and may be lost, all
that has been gained in the slow centuries of material progress and in
which there may be achieved some part of all that has been dreamed in
the age-long passion for social justice.

For the time being, the constituted governments of the world survive as
best they may and accomplish such things as they can, planless, or
planning at best only for the day. Sufficient, and more than sufficient,
for the day is the evil thereof.

Never then was there a moment in which there was greater need for sane
and serious thought. It is necessary to consider from the ground up the
social organization in which we live and the means whereby it may be
altered and expanded to meet the needs of the time to come. We must do
this or perish. If we do not mend the machine, there are forces moving
in the world that will break it. The blind Samson of labor will seize
upon the pillars of society and bring them down in a common destruction.

* * * * *

Few persons can attain to adult life without being profoundly impressed
by the appalling inequalities of our human lot. Riches and poverty
jostle one another upon our streets. The tattered outcast dozes on his
bench while the chariot of the wealthy is drawn by. The palace is the
neighbor of the slum. We are, in modern life, so used to this that we no
longer see it.

Inequality begins from the very cradle