of being the private
property of the few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the
common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of
all.

"John D. Rockefeller has today an income of sixty million dollars a
year, five million dollars a month, two hundred thousand dollars a day.
He does not produce a penny of it. I make no attack upon Mr. Rockefeller
personally. I do not in the least dislike him. If he were in need, and
it were in my power to serve him, I should serve him as gladly as I
would any other human being, I have no quarrel with Mr. Rockefeller
personally, nor with any other capitalist. I am simply opposing a social
order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing
that is useful, to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars,
while millions of men and women who work all of the days of their lives
secure barely enough for existence.

"This order of things cannot always endure. I have registered my protest
against it. I recognize the feebleness of my effort, but fortunately I
am not alone. There are multiplied thousands of others who, like myself,
have come to realize that before we may truly enjoy the blessings of
civilized life, we must reorganize society upon a mutual and
co-operative basis; and to this end we have organized a great economic
and political movement that is spread over the face of all the earth.

"There are today upwards of sixty million Socialists, loyal, devoted,
adherents to this cause, regardless of nationality, race, creed, color
or sex. They are all making common cause. They are all spreading the
propaganda of the new social order. They are waiting, watching and
working through all the weary hours of the day and night. They are still
in the minority. They have learned how to be patient and abide their
time. They feel--they know indeed--that the time is coming in spite of
all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will
spread among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the
triumphant majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate the greatest
change in history.

"In that day we will have the universal commonwealth--not the
destruction of the nation, but, on the contrary, the harmonious
co-operation of every nation on earth. In that day war will curse this
earth no more.

"Your Honor, I ask no mercy. I plead for no immunity. I realize that
finally the right must prevail. I never more clearly com