now the Plutocracy is taking it away from you. In the end it will take
it all away from you. And then you will cease to be the middle class.
You will descend to us. You will become proletarians. And the beauty of
it is that you will then add to our strength. We will hail you brothers,
and we will fight shoulder to shoulder in the cause of humanity.

"You see, labor has nothing concrete of which to be despoiled. Its
share of the wealth of the country consists of clothes and household
furniture, with here and there, in very rare cases, an unencumbered
home. But you have the concrete wealth, twenty-four billions of it, and
the Plutocracy will take it away from you. Of course, there is the large
likelihood that the proletariat will take it away first. Don't you
see your position, gentlemen? The middle class is a wobbly little lamb
between a lion and a tiger. If one doesn't get you, the other will. And
if the Plutocracy gets you first, why it's only a matter of time when
the Proletariat gets the Plutocracy.

"Even your present wealth is not a true measure of your power. The
strength of your wealth at this moment is only an empty shell. That is
why you are crying out your feeble little battle-cry, 'Return to the
ways of our fathers.' You are aware of your impotency. You know that
your strength is an empty shell. And I'll show you the emptiness of it.

"What power have the farmers? Over fifty per cent are thralls by virtue
of the fact that they are merely tenants or are mortgaged. And all of
them are thralls by virtue of the fact that the trusts already own or
control (which is the same thing only better)--own and control all
the means of marketing the crops, such as cold storage, railroads,
elevators, and steamship lines. And, furthermore, the trusts control
the markets. In all this the farmers are without power. As regards their