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huddling around the factory gates, the poor little things whose bones are not yet hard; when we see them clutched from the hearthstone, taken from the family altar, and carried to the bastilles of labor and their little bones ground up into gold-dust to bedeck the form of some aristocratic Jezebel—then it stirs me and I speak out. We plead for the little ones; we plead for the oppressed; we seek redress for those who are wronged; we seek knowledge and intelligence for the ignorant; we seek liberty for the slave; Socialism secures the welfare for every human being.
Your honor, if you will permit it, I would like to stop now and resume to-morrow morning.
The Court here adjourned until 10 o'clock the following day.
MR. PARSONS RESUMES.
Your honor, I concluded last evening at that portion of my statement before you which had for its purpose a showing of the operations and effects of our existing social system, the evils which naturally flow from the established social relations, which are founded upon the economic subjugation and dependence of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor and the resources of life. I sought in this connection to show that the ills that afflict society—social miseries, mental degradations, political dependence—all resulted from the economic subjugation and dependence of the man of labor upon the monopolizer of the means of existence; and as long as the cause remains the effect must certainly follow.
I pointed out what Bradstreet's had to say in regard to the destruction of the middle class last year. As it affects the small dealers, the middle class men of our shop streets, the same influences are likewise at work among the farming classes. According to statistics 90 per cent of the farms of America are to-day under mortgage. The man who a few years ago owned the soil that he worked is to-day a tenant at will, and a mortgage is place upon his soil and when he—the farmer whose hand tickles the earth and causes it to blossom as the rose and bring forth its rich fruits for human sustenance—even while this man is asleep the interest upon the mortgage continues. It grows and it increases, rendering it more and more difficult for him
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