A few centuries ago the great majority of all human beings were
slaves or serfs. The noblest of human brains, those of the Greek
philosophers, wrote and lived in the midst of slavery. Even as
great a man as Aristotle could not conceive a society based on a
non-slave-holding system.
But except in some African jungle, here and there among savage
and semi-savage races, no man is a slave now. And where slavery
does exist it exists in stagnant pools of humanity, and it exists
side by side with the other monsters, cruel superstition and
widespread disease, that progressive humanity has left behind.
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Every century of which the history has been preserved shows us
its horrid side of life, its cruelties, its sufferings without
number. But each succeeding century shows also some one point
gained, some one hideous feature of life eliminated.
The enemy of the world to-day, the monster in the path of
progress, is organized greed, the insane desire of a few men to
take from others, and for themselves, what they do not need.
The trust, seeking through capital to reintroduce slavery under
another form, and to establish the tyranny of money in place of
the tyranny of swords and bullets, represents the present
problem.
This problem, like all the others, will be solved in its turn.
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