Page:May Walden - Socialism and the Home (1900).pdf/24

 24 of society upon the dominant class. All women are in the same class with the workingmen so far as certain rights and privileges are concerned. All workers are in one class without regard to sex. There is no spot in the United States where a worker without money may take hold and make something without first asking if he or she may do it. If he is refused he is without means to earn his bread and butter. He must either beg it or steal it. It is not just that any man or woman shall be denied the right to earn a living. How shall we make things just? By making these means of production the common property of all the people and letting all have a right to work, and a right to all they make—no more, no less.

Let us sum up now some of the things which go to break up homes under capitalism: Adulterated food, starvation, ragged clothing, unhealthful houses, bad sanitation, epidemics, high death rate, lack of education, low wages, lack of employment, families abandoned, divorces, prostitution, illegitimacy, suicides! Is not this an awful charge to bring against any system? And is not every charge true? Yes, and there are many more I have not made. How dark the world would be if we did not have the hope before us, which is now becoming a surety, that a better time is near! How shall we bring it about? BY THE CLASS STRUGGLE. Socialism is not a theory, it is the next stage in the devolpment of society. In every stage of society the state has been in the hands of the ruling class. And the only way we can control the state is to replace capitalist legislators by those of the working class. "Then the working class will be on top and things will be as bad or worse than before!" No, because in establishing socialism, all will have equal opportunities, and from an economic standpoint all classes will be abolished.