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Life of Albert Parsons

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p114

this, and they gain some adherents, too. Religion in this form comes cheap; you can take it on the sidewalk or elsewhere, as necessity or convenience dictates. Between the actual hell and the fear of a future one they keep the ignorant and superstitious in a great ferment. The Captain of the company is a young woman of 17 summers, which is quite an attractive feature. A Lieutenant, another young woman, has already become a Mary Magdalene, but unlike Christ, their master, they have not only cast the first but the last stone at her, and she is now an outcast. Here, as elsewhere, the churches are the partners of mammon. The Catholic priest tells his congregation to beware of the godless Socialists and Anarchists, and warns them against the evils of social revolution. In his speech here recently he said to them that when they become hungry they must go to the authorities first, and if they refuse to give, then take food, and if arrested they must not resist, but obey the authorities and go quietly to prison. "All things work together for good to them who love God," says he, quoting the scripture.

Nevertheless, there is a most decided revolutionary spirit among the men generally; they all feel that something must be done and quite a number have the courage to say so, and a few are prepared to act.

They all declare that the existing system is infamous, but their respect for the law, for authority, both on earth and in heaven, as taught them by the press, politician, and priest, restrains them from taking decided action. The burden meanwhile grows heavier and more heavy, and it will ere long become unendurable, when, God or no God, law or no law, they will cast it off.

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