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of ignorance, intemperance, crime, and misery. There were very few Socialists or "Communists," as the daily papers were fond of calling them, in Chicago at that time. The result was, the more I investigated and studied the relations of poverty to wealth, its causes and cure, the more interested I became in the subject. In 1876 a workingmen's congress of organized labor met in Pittsburgh, Pa. I watched its proceedings. A split occurred between the conservatives and radicals, the latter of whom withdrew and organized the "Workingmen's Party of the United States." The year previous I had become a member of the "Social-Democratic Party of America." This latter was now merged into the former. The organization was at once pounced upon by the monopolist class, who through the capitalist press everywhere, denounced us as "Socialists, Communists, robbers, loafers," etc.
This was very surprising to me, and also had an exasperating effect upon me, and a powerful impulse possessed me to place myself right before the people by defining and explaining the objects and principles of the Workingmen's party, which I was thoroughly convinced were founded both in justice and on necessity. I therefore entered heartily into the work of enlightening my fellow-men: first, the ignorant and blinded wage-works who misunderstood us, and secondly, the educated labor exploiters who misrepresented us. I soon unconsciously became a "labor agitator," and this brought down upon me a large amount of capitalist odium. But this capitalist abuse and slander only served to renew my zeal all the more in the great work of social redemption. In 1877 the great railway strike occurred; it was July 21, 1877, and it is said 30,000 workingmen assembled on Market street, near Madison, in mass meeting. I was called upon to address them. In doing so, I advocated the programme of the Workingmen's party, which was the exercise of the sovereign ballot for the purpose of obtaining State control of all means of production, transportation, communication, and exchange, thus taking these instruments of labor and wealth out of the hands or control of private individuals, corporations, monopolists, and syndicates. To do this, I argued that the wage-workers would first have to join the Workingmen's party. There was great enthusiasm, but
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