As for the American people the thing to bear in mind is that here the ballot can be so wielded that there shall be no need of resorting to force for the cure of any public evil however deep rooted or malignant. -- John Swinton's paper.

The above is the concluding paragraph of a lengthy article of John Swinton's paper last week. We are surprised to see our old friend bow at the shrine of that capitalistic humbug -- the ballot.

America is not a free country. The economic condition of the workers here are precisely the same as they are in Europe. A wage-slave is a slave everywhere, without any regard to the country he may happen to have been born in or made the living in.

Friend Swinton, how can the industrially enslaved be politically free? How can a man without the right to live possess the right to vote?

You give the facts and illustrations in your own columns which proves that the hand which holds the bread can alone wield the ballot.

What do you mean by "public evils"? Do you mean the political offices with its bribery and corruption? And that

all the workers have to do in order to be saved is to "turn the rascals out?" Well, from a democratic point of view, Cleveland will do that after the 4th of March next. The "outs" will go in and the "ins" will go out. But surely you cannot mean that the wage-slave will no longer be a slave?

Here in America the worker is deprived of life, liberty and happiness (The Declaration of Independence to the contrary notwithstanding) in spite of, yes, mainly by means of the ballot. With a copy of the Declaration in one hand and the ballot in the other, the wage-worker is deluded into the belief that he is a free man and a sovereign?

The poor have no votes; poverty can't vote -- for itself Wealth alone can vote. The workers vote wrong, because they are poor, and are poor because they are robbed. Robbed of theor inheritance-- the land; robbed of their right to the free use of all the resources of life -- the means of existence. The workers are deprived of all opportunity to acquire and apply knowledge. They are deprived of all access to culture and refinement. For the perpetuation of these evils they have to thank government, the state, and ballot box and the politicians. Politicians and the State are the legitimate, inevitable outgrowth of the profit-mongering system of wage-slavery, based upon competition and wages. We cannot get rid of the former until we remove the latter.

The deep rooted, malignant evil which compels the

wealth-producers to become the dependent hirelings of a few capitalistic Czars, cannot be reached by means of the ballot.

The ballot can be wielded by free men alone; but slaves can only revolt and rise in insurrection against their despoilers.

Let us bear in mind the fact that here in America, as elsewhere, the worker is held in economic bondage by the use of force, and the employment of force therefore becomes a necessity to his ecomonic emancipation! Poverty can't vote!

P.