out the country I have met many thousands of little
children and their fresh and eager faces have always given me joy and
their merry voices have filled me with delight and made me stronger for
my work.

These children are not yet old enough to join the Socialist party and
have an active part in its great work, but they are old enough to
understand why their parents belong to it, and why they are proud of
their card of membership, and of the red button they wear, to show that
they are socialists and that as socialists they are working hand in hand
with thousands and thousands of others to change things so that this
world may be a better, kinder and sweeter world for us all to live in.

Now let me talk directly as I may to the more than thirty millions of
children and young folks in our country who are less than eighteen years
of age. I fancy I can see them all spread out in all directions, far as
the eye can reach, and farther and farther still to the very shores of
the seas and lakes and gulf that bound our western continent.

What a wonderful audience I am about to address! Not a grown person in
it. Only children. Millions of them and all eager to hear the message
that socialism has to offer to the child-world.

My dear little children, I am sure you will understand me when I say
that in speaking to you of socialism I feel very near to all of you and
I know you will believe me when I tell you that I would if I could make
you all happy and keep you sweet and loving toward each other all your
lives. Most of you are the children of the poor, some of the well-to-do,
and a few of the rich, but all of you are the children of the same
Father and all of you are sisters and brothers in the same great family
of humankind.

If any of you feel that you are better than others because you wear
better clothes or live in better houses or go in what you think is
"better society," it is because your young minds and hearts have been
tainted by wrong example and wrong education. It is this wicked feeling
that corrupts the conscience and hardens the heart and begets the envy
and hate of our fellow-beings, instead of their love and good will.

When that best friend the children ever had on earth said, "Suffer
little children and forbid them not, to come unto me; for such is the
kingdom of heaven" he meant all children, poor and rich, but especially
the poor. He loved and pitied them because of their poverty and
suffering.

He himse