Excerpt from Social Struggles: The Fundamental Facts and Principles, Relative to Values, Prices, Money and Interest, National Banks, Franchises, the Silver Question, Socialism, Capital and Labor, and Business Derangement

A Widely spread feeling of dissatisfaction with the present organization of society exists in every civilized nation. In some countries this discontent has assumed the form of secret organizations, one of the objects of which is to destroy the lives of kings and other representatives of the present social system. Europe, in time of peace, is covered with vast standing armies, armed with the most deadly weapons ingenuity has created, and trained to use those arms with special reference to the destruction of human life. The ostensible necessity of these armies is to protect one nation from the aggressions of others. But another and a deeper intent lies behind those armed millions. That partially veiled purpose is to prevent the masses of the population from rebelling against their own governments and destroying the existing social fabric. The net result of what is called the "highest civilization" is the virtual admission that it is so hateful to the. majority living under it, that huge armies of blood-hounds must be kept to compel submission. Many European thinkers believe that continent drifting into a terrible revolution.

Within a century this country has increased in population about sixteenfold. The increase in wealth, however, has been still greater. But it is a startling fact that every year the inequality between the amount of this vast wealth possessed by each individual grows wider and wider. We formerly supposed that our laws and institutions produced both political and social equality, and that the class distinctions and consequent bitter hatreds and jealousies of European society could not here flourish.

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