up the primitive communism of prehistoric man; another change in the
methods of production hurled the feudal barons from power and forced
the establishment of a new social system. And now, we are on the eve
of another great change--nay, we are in the very midst of the change.
Capitalism is doomed! Not because men think it is wicked, but because
the development of the great industrial trusts compels a new political
and social system to meet the needs of the new mode of production.

Something has got to give way to the irresistible growing force! A
change is inevitable. And the change must be to Socialism. That is the
belief of the Socialists, Jonathan, which I am trying to make you
understand. Mind, I do not say that the coming change will be the
_last_ change in human evolution, that there will be no further
development after Socialism. I do not know what lies beyond, nor to
what heights humanity may attain in future years. It may be that
thousands or millions of years from now the race will have attained to
such a state of growth and power that the poorest and weakest man then
alive will be so much superior to the greatest men alive to-day, our
best scholars, poets, artists, inventors and statesmen, as these are
superior to the cave-man. It may be. I do not know. Only a fool would
seek to set mete and bound to man's possibilities.

We are concerned only with the change that is imminent, the change
that is now going on before our eyes. We say that the outcome of
society's struggle with the trust problem must be the control of the
trust by society. That the outcome of the struggle between the master
class and the slave class, between the _wealth makers_ and the _wealth
takers_, must be the victory of the makers.

Throughout all history, ever since the first appearance of private
property--of slavery and land ownership--there have been class
struggles. Slave and slave-owner, serf and baron, wage-slave and
capitalist--so the classes have struggled. And what has been the
issue, thus far? Chattel slavery gave way to serfdom, in which the
oppression was lighter and the oppressed gained some measure of human
recognition. Serfdom, in its turn, gave way to the wages system, in
which, despite many evils, the oppressed class lives upon a far higher
plane than the slave and serf classes from whence it sprang. Now, with
the capitalists unable to hold and manage the great machinery of
production which has been developed, with the