Life of Albert Parsons

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Let us go still a step higher among these representatives of "law and order," Grinnell and his associates have permitted perjury, and I say that they have done it knowingly. The proof has been adduced by my counsel, and with my own eyes I have seen Grinnell point out to Gilmer, eight days before he came upon the stand, the persons of the men whom he was to swear against.

While I, as I have stated above. believe in force for the sake of winning for myself and fellow workmen a livelihood such as men ought to have, Grinnell, on the other hand, through his police and other rogues, has suborned perjury in order to murder seven men, of whom I am one.

Grinnell had the pitiful courage, here in this court room, where I could not defend myself. to call me a coward! The scoundrel! A fellow who ha leagued himself with a parcel of base hireling knaves to bring me to the gallows. Why? For no earthly reason save a contemptible selfishness-a desire to "rise in the world"-to "make money," forsooth!

This wretch-who, by means of the perjuries of other wretches is going 10 murder seven men-is the fellow who calls me "coward '" And yet you blame me for despising such "defenders of the law"-such unspeakable hypocrites'

The judge himself was forced to admit that the State's attorney had not been able to connect me with the bomb throwing. The latter knows how to get around it, however. He charges me with being a "conspirator." How does he prove it? Simply by declaring the International Workingmen's Association to be a' "conspiracy." I was a member of that body, so he has the charge securely fastened on me. Excellent! Nothing is too difficult for the genius of a State's attorney!

It is hardly incumbent upon me to review the relations which I occupy to my companions in misfortune. My friend Spies has already explained how we became acquainted with each other. I can say truly and openly that I am not as intimate with my fellow prisoners as I am with Captain Schaack.

The universal misery, the ravages of the capitalistic hyena have brought us together in our agitation, not as persons, but as workers in the same cause. Such is the "conspiracy" of which you have convicted me.

I protest against the conviction, against the decision of the court. I do not recognize your law, jumbled together as it is by the nobodies of by-gone centuries, and I do not recognize the decision of the court. My own counsel have conclusively proven from the decisions of equally high courts that a new trial must be granted us. The State's attorney quotes three times as many decisions from perhaps still higher courts to prove the opposite, and I am convinced that if, in another trial, these decisions should be supported by twenty-five volumes, they will adduce one hundred in support of the contrary. if it is Anarchists who are to be tried. And not even under such a law, a