f improving the
condition of the "aged and deserving poor." The report read: "Cases
are too often found in which poor and aged people, whose conduct and
whose whole career has been blameless, industrious and deserving, find
themselves from no fault of their own, at the end of a long and
meritorious life, with nothing but the workhouse or inadequate outdoor
relief as the refuge for their declining years."

And what is true of England in this respect is equally true of
America.

Let me repeat here that I am not defending intemperance. I believe
with all my heart that we must fight intemperance as a deadly enemy of
the working class. I want to see the workers sober; sober enough to
think clearly, sober enough to act wisely. Before we can get rid of
the evils from which we suffer we must get sober minds, friend
Jonathan. That is why the Socialists of Europe are fighting the drink
evil; that is why, too, the Prussian Government put a stop to the
"Anti-Alcohol" campaign of the workers, led by Dr. Frolich, of Vienna.
Dr. Frolich was not advocating Socialism. He was simply appealing to
the workers to stop making beasts of themselves, to become sober so
that they could think clearly with brains unmuddled by alcohol. And
the Prussian Government did not want that: they knew very well that
clear thinking and sober judgment would lead the workers to the ballot
boxes under Socialist banners.

I care most of all for the suffering of the innocent little ones. When
I see that under our present system it is necessary for the mother to
leave her baby's cradle to go into a factory, regardless of whether
the baby lives or dies when it is fed on nasty and dangerous
artificial foods or poor, polluted milk, I am stirred to my soul's
depths. When I think of the tens of thousands of little babies that
die every year as a result of these conditions I have described; of
the millions of children who go to school every day underfed and
neglected, and of the little child toilers in shops, factories and
mines, as well as upon the farms, though their lot is less tragic than
that of the little prisoners of the factories and mines--I cannot find
words to express my hatred of the ghoulish system.

I should like you to read, Jonathan, a little pamphlet on _Underfed
School Children_, which costs ten cents, and a bigger book, _The
Bitter Cry of the Children_, which you can get at the public library.
I wrote these to lay before thinking men and women som