This seems quite visionary to some of you, and especially to those of
you who know nothing about economics. I could not begin to tell you the
story of social evolution this afternoon; of how these things are doing
day by day, of how the world is being pushed into Socialism, and how it
is bound to arrive, no matter whether you are for it or against it. It
is the next inevitable phase of civilization. It isn’t a scheme, it
isn’t a contrivance. It isn’t anything that is made to order. The day is
coming when you will be pushed into it by unseen hands whether you will
or not. Nothing can be introduced until the people want it, and when the
majority want it they will know how to get it.
I venture the prophecy that within the next five years you will be
completely dispossessed. You are howling against the trusts, and the
trusts are laughing at you. You keep on voting in the same old way and
the trusts keep on getting what you produce. You say congress will give
you some relief. Good heavens! Who will save us from congress? Don’t you
know that congress is made up almost wholly of trust lawyers and
corporation attorneys? I don’t happen to have the roll of this one, but
with few exceptions they are all lawyers. Now, in the competitive system
the lawyer sells himself to the highest bidder the same as the
workingman does. Who is the highest bidder? The trust and corporation,
of course. So the trust buys the best lawyer and the common herd gets
the shyster.