Lincoln went to the root of the chattel slavery question.
When he had finished, the chattel slavery question was no longer a question—it was a corpse. After wasting years of his life as an anti-slavery “radical” he became an anti-slavery revolutionist and destroyed slavery. Lincoln, during the last two years of his life, became a real radical. A real radical and a revolutionist are but different names for the same thing.
The working class is suffering from robbery. The working class has always suffered from robbery. Never has there been a time when a little crowd of grafters were not feeding upon the workers.
In the beginning, the working class were held as chattel slaves, the only possible cure for which was the utter destruction of chattel slavery.
Then the workers became the serfs of feudal lords, the only possible cure for which was the destruction of feudalism.
Now the toilers are robbed by the private ownership of the means of production, the only possible cure for which is the destruction of such ownership and the substitution of public ownership through the agency of government.
No tinkering will do. Tinkering could not and did not settle the white man’s or the black man’s slavery question. Nothing but the absolute destruction of the capitalist system can remove the poverty, the ignorance, the crime and the vice that are inevitable products of the system.
But do not expect capitalists to remove this system for you. They will not.
You never saw a tiger feed its prey. You never saw a burglar mend a victim’s roof. You may see both of these sights some day. If you should, you may, perhaps, prepare yourself to behold the more marvelous spectacle of the capitalist class financing the campaign of a genuine radical who is bent upon taking the capitalist class off your back.
But until you see a tiger feeding its prey, you may well ask yourself whether “radicals” whose campaigns are financed by great capitalists are radical enough to do you any good.