figures of which were made public), the number of child
laborers was placed at 1,752,187.

"But to return to my indictment. If modern man's producing power is
a thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, why then, in the
United States to-day, are there fifteen million people who are not
properly sheltered and properly fed? Why then, in the United States
to-day, are there three million child laborers? It is a true indictment.
The capitalist class has mismanaged. In face of the facts that modern
man lives more wretchedly than the cave-man, and that his producing
power is a thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, no other
conclusion is possible than that the capitalist class has mismanaged,
that you have mismanaged, my masters, that you have criminally and
selfishly mismanaged. And on this count you cannot answer me here
to-night, face to face, any more than can your whole class answer the
million and a half of revolutionists in the United States. You cannot
answer. I challenge you to answer. And furthermore, I dare to say to
you now that when I have finished you will not answer. On that point
you will be tongue-tied, though you will talk wordily enough about other
things.

"You have failed in your management. You have made a shambles of
civilization. You have been blind and greedy. You have risen up (as you
to-day rise up), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and declared
that profits were impossible without the toil of children and babes.
Don't take my word for it. It is all in the records against you. You
have lulled your conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet ideals and
dear moralities. You are fat with power and possession, drunken with
success; and you have no more hope against us than have the drones,
clustered about the honey-vats, when the worker-bees spring upon them