he death-rates. One reason is that only fairly
robust men enter the trade to begin with. Another reason is that a
great many, finding they cannot stand the strain, after they have
become infected, leave the trade for lighter occupations. I think
there can be no doubt that the _true_ mortality from Consumption among
iron and steel workers is much higher than the figures show. But,
taking the figures as they are, confident that they understate the
extent of the ravages of the disease in these occupations, we find
that the mortality is more than two and a half times greater than
among capitalists.

Now, these are very serious figures, Jonathan. Why is the mortality so
much less among the capitalists? It is because they have better homes,
are not so overworked to physical exhaustion, are better fed and
clothed, and can have better care and attention, far better chances of
being cured, if they are attacked. They can get these things only from
the labor of the workers, Jonathan.

_In other words, they buy their lives with ours. Workers are killed to
keep capitalists alive._

It used to be frequently charged that drink was the chief cause of the
poverty of the workers; that they were poor because they were drunken
and thriftless. But we hear less of that silly nonsense than we used
to, though now and then a Prohibitionist advocate still repeats the
old and long exploded myth. It never was true, Jonathan, and it is
less true to-day than ever before. Drunkenness is an evil and the
working class suffers from it to a lamentable degree, but it is not
the sole cause of poverty, it is not the chief cause of poverty, it is
not even a very important cause of poverty at all.

It is true that intemperance causes poverty in some cases, it is also
true that drunkenness is very frequently caused by poverty. They act
and react upon each other, but it is not doubted by any student of our
social conditions whose opinion carries any weight that intemperance
is far more often the result of poverty and bad conditions of life and
labor than the cause of them.

The International Socialist Congress which met at Stuttgart last
summer very rightly decided that Socialists everywhere should do all
in their power to combat alcoholism, to end the ravages of
intemperance among the working classes of all nations. For drunken
voters are not very likely to be either wise or free voters: we need
sober, earnest, clear-thinking men to bring about better co