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cruel, and oppressive conditions under which they were forced to labor. The power to withhold bread and doom the workers to a life of misery, hunger, and death was possessed and exercised by the capitalistic czars of South Bend, as everywhere else. The right to lvie carried with it the right to the free use of all the means of life, and those who were denied that right were the bondsmen and slaves of those who do. The capitalistic system of labor had divided the people into classes, and had rendered the natural law, the solidarity of interests among the people, an impossibility. This system had created masters and slaves, rulers and ruled, robbers and robbed. In South Bend Olliver, of the plow works, who performed no labor at all, received an income of $1,500 clear profit each day, while his 1,00 wage-slaves did ten hours' work each and received for each day's work in wages a sum that was equivalent to three hours' work. What became of the other seven hours? Olliver got it, and this was what made his $1,500 per day. If the men struck against these terms they were discharged and made to suffer the pangs of hunger and want. Such was the power which the private-property system conferred upon the owners of capital. Studebaker, and Singer, and all the other property beasts could and did exercise the same despotic power. Where, then, is the boasted liberty of the American wage-worker? In what does their freedom consist? They enjoyed the right to be wage-slaves; or, striking and refusing to be such, they were free to starve!
Late January in South Bend the workers struck against starvation wages, and, drive to desperation and madness, they sought to destroy those who were enslaving and destroying them. What the property class do? They had the military and police called out to arrest and shoot their rebellious wage-slaves. The Grand Army of the Republic, which, twenty-five years ago, drew its sword to liberate the black chattel slave from bondage, came to South Bend, and with gleaming bayonets and flashing swords riveted the chains of slavery upon wage-laborers and compelled them to submit to the dilatation of the property beasts.
[Great sensation. The crowed pressed nearer the speaker, and on the outskirts the cry went up: "That's a lie, and the Grand Army
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