These are high lights upon the revolution—­granted, but they are also facts.  And they are given to the rulers and the ruling classes, not in bravado, not to frighten them, but for them to consider more deeply the spirit and nature of this world-revolution.  The time has come for the revolution to demand consideration.  It has fastened upon every civilized country in the world.  As fast as a country becomes civilized, the revolution fastens upon it.  With the introduction of the machine into Japan, socialism was introduced.  Socialism marched into the Philippines shoulder to shoulder with the American soldiers.  The echoes of the last gun had scarcely died away when socialist locals were forming in Cuba and Porto Rico.  Vastly more significant is the fact that of all the countries the revolution has fastened upon, on not one has it relaxed its grip.  On the contrary, on every country its grip closes tighter year by year.  As an active movement it began obscurely over a generation ago.  In 1867, its voting strength in the world was 30,000.  By 1871 its vote had increased to 1,000,000.  Not till 1884 did it pass the half-million point.  By 1889 it had passed the million point, it had then gained momentum.  In 1892 the socialist vote of the world was 1,798,391; in 1893, 2,585,898; in 1895, 3,033,718; in 1898, 4,515,591; in 1902, 5,253,054; in 1903, 6,285,374; and in the year of our Lord 1905 it passed the seven-million mark.

Nor has this flame of revolution left the United States untouched.  In 1888 there were only 2,068 socialist votes.  In 1902 there were 127,713 socialist votes.  And in 1904 435,040 socialist votes were cast.  What fanned this flame?  Not hard times.  The first four years of the twentieth century were considered prosperous years, yet in that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the ranks of the revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of bourgeois society and taking their stand under the blood-red banner.  In the state of the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed and registered revolutionist.

One thing must be clearly understood.  This is no spontaneous and vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people—­ a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt.  On the contrary, the propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic necessity and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable people have not yet revolted.  The revolutionist is no starved and diseased slave in the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but is, in the main, a hearty, well-fed working-man, who sees the shambles waiting for him and his children and recoils from the descent.  The very miserable people are too helpless to help themselves.  But they are being helped, and the day is not far distant when their numbers will go to swell the ranks of the revolutionists.