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not see them perish with want and hunger, yourselves killed or cut down like dogs in the streets—Americans, as you love liberty and independence, arm! Arm yourselves! A voice then said to me, 'We are ready now.' I did not understand exactly what the gentleman said, but I made that reply, as has been testified to by many here. I called attention to the fact that the constitution of the United States gave to every man the right to keep and bear arms, but monopoly was seeking to deprive the citizen of that right. I called attention to the fact that the constitution guaranteed us right of free speech, of free press, and of unmolested assembly, but that corporations and monopoly, by paid-for decisions of Courts, had trampled these rights under foot, or were attempting to do so. I called attention to the fact that the Government of the United States was in the hands of the money power, and that from this fact—the sway of this money power—it was almost impossible for a poor man to get justice in a court of law; that law was for sale, just like bread; if you had no money you could get no bread, and without money you could get no justice; that justice was almost beyond the reach of the poor, and that the poor were made poor and kept poor by the grinding processes of corporations and monopolies. I then called attention to Socialism, and explained what it was. I gave them Webster's definition of it—that it meant a more equitable arrangement of society, a more just and equitable arrangement of social affairs; that there was nothing in the word or in the purposes of Socialism for anybody to become alarmed at. On the contrary, it should be hailed with delight by all, as it was designed to make all happy and prosperous. I then spoke in this connection of the wage system of industry, and showed that the wage system of industry was despotism, inherently and necessarily so, because under it the wage-worker is forced and compelled to work on such conditions at such terms as the employers of labor may see fit to dictate to him. This I defined to be slavery, hence I said they were wage-slaves, and that the wage system was what Socialism proposed to displace. I then showered the power that the wage system gave to the employing class by the lock-out, the black-list, and the discharged; that I myself had been black-listed because I exercised my right of free speech as an Ameri-
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