Page:May Walden - Socialism and the Home (1900).pdf/6

 6 forced and will not be so long as the food supply is run by private owners for the sake of profit.

No matter who earns the food, whether man, woman or child, generally the woman has to get it ready to eat. So, wives, mothers and daughters, it is your concern as much or more than that of any one else that the food be fresh and nourishing.

There isn't a problem on earth we cannot solve if we set about it; now how shall we begin on this? You remember we found that the cause of adulterated food was the desire for profits by the people who produce and market it. So we must get our food without its being necessary for the producers to live by profits.

To do this we must ALL own the food, and own ALL the things that are necessary to produce it and distribute it. That means that we shall own the seeds, the ground, the farm machinery, the farm animals, the dairies, the ice, the bakeries, and factories, the market places, the gas, electricity, oil wells and coal mines, the railroads, steamboats and everything else that is used in producing, preparing and distributing our food. A system will then be perfected so that we shall each have enough to eat and none will have a great deal more than they need. The food will be produced under conditions that are healthful, so that it will not be possible for us to be made sick because of eating or drinking infected or adulterated food. Our babies will be furnished pure milk, and the ice will not be kept in storage until prices go up, but we shall have our food and all other things we need at what it costs to produce them.

Our next necessity is clothing. We must not only have plenty of it in order to keep clean, but it must be comfortable and pleasing to us. We cannot have much self-respect when our clothing is dirty, ragged and ill-fitting. Yet so common is