ing class and
the country. In this campaign there are but two parties and but one
issue. There is no longer even the pretense of difference between the
so-called Republican and Democratic parties. They are substantially one
in what they stand for. They are opposed to each other on no question of
principle but purely in a contest for the spoils of office.

To the workers of the country these two parties in name are one in fact.
They, or rather, it, stands for capitalism, for the private ownership of
the means of subsistence, for the exploitation of the workers, and for
wage-slavery.

Both of these old capitalist class machines are going to pieces. Having
outlived their time they have become corrupt and worse than useless and
now present a spectacle of political degeneracy never before witnessed
in this or any other country. Both are torn by dissension and rife with
disintegration. The evolution of the forces underlying them is tearing
them from their foundations and sweeping them to inevitable destruction.

We have before us in this city at this hour an exhibition of capitalist
machine politics which lays bare the true inwardness of the situation in
the capitalist camp. Nothing that any Socialist has ever charged in the
way of corruption is to be compared with what Taft and Roosevelt have
charged and proven upon one another. They are both good Republicans,
just as Harmon and Bryan are both good Democrats--and they are all
agreed that Socialism would be the ruination of the country.

_Puppets of the Ruling Class._

Taft and Roosevelt in the exploitation of their boasted individualism
and their mad fight for official spoils have been forced to expose the
whole game of capitalist class politics and reveal themselves and the
whole brood of capitalist politicians in their true role before the
American people. They are all the mere puppets of the ruling class. They
are literally bought, paid for and owned, body and soul, by the powers
that are exploiting this nation and enslaving and robbing its toilers.

What difference is there, judged by what they stand for, between Taft,
Roosevelt, La Follette, Harmon, Wilson, Clark and Bryan?

Do they not all alike stand for the private ownership of industry and
the wage-slavery of the working class?

What earthly difference can it make to the millions of workers whether
the Republican or Democratic political machine of capitalism is in
commission?

That these two parties diff