bly
decrease or, worse still, cease, these educated members of the liberal
professions will desert the army of Capital and bring a much-needed
reinforcement to the Army of Labor.

Some of the more far-seeing upholders of the present system are keenly
conscious of this danger. And this danger (even though most of the
expansionists may not realize it), is one of the most potent causes of
the Imperialism, Militarism, and Jingoism which are at present
disgracing the civilized world. England in Africa, and America in the
Philippines are pursuing their present criminal policies, not solely to
open new markets for English and American goods, but also to secure new
fields for the investment of English and American capital, and thus to
stop the continuous dropping of the rate of interest and profits, for if
this cannot be stopped, the intellectual proletariat will join the
sweating proletariat, and the Co-operative Commonwealth will be
established and then the poor capitalists will have to work for their
livings like other people.

This was clearly pointed out by a capitalist writer in an essay in a
recent number of the Atlantic Monthly, who warned the capitalist
opponents of McKinley, Destiny & Co.'s policy of expansion that they
were attempting to close the only safety-valve which under present
conditions could, not avert, but postpone the Social Revolution.[3]

But, friends, nothing can postpone it long, for the industrial crises
and financial panics are recurring at shorter and shorter intervals, and
the process of recovery from them is slower and slower, and every panic
and crisis forces thousands of educated, intelligent members of the
middle class off their narrow and precarious foothold down into the
ranks of the proletariat, where the hard logic of the facts will convert
them to class-conscious Socialism.

Workingmen, I congratulate you upon the approaching victory of the
workers and the advent of the Co-operative Commonwealth, for I tell you,
in the language of an English comrade:

"Failure on failure may seem to defeat us; ultimate failure is
impossible.

Seeing what is to be done then, seeing what the reward is,

Seeing what the terms are,--are you willing to join us? Will you
lend us the aid of your voice, your money, your sympathy?

May we take you by the hand and call you 'Comrade'?"

FOOTNOTE:

[3] The expansion policy also acts as a safety-valve by promoting the
emi