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is at once as a scab by the Unionist, and war is made upon him. Now, Socialists don't do this; they regard these men as the victims of a false system and to be pitied. The scabs might be compared to fleas on a dog. The Unionist wants to kill the fleas, but the Socialist would kill the dog; that dog is the wage-system of slavery.
"I then pointed to the ballot—how we were swindled at the ballot-box and defrauded and cheated how we were bulldozed and intimidated and bribed and corrupted—yes, corrupted by the very money that had been stolen from us. Men would come to us when we were poor and give us bread money if we would vote their ticket, and we often did it through necessity; and for these and other reasons, through this intimidation, bribery, and corruption, the workingmen and but little to expect from the ballot. I said we had petitioned and passed resolutions, and had done everything in our power for redress, but there had been no relief and no redress; in fact, there was a rebuff on every occasion. I then said to them: 'Gentlemen, Socialism means the free association of the people for the purposes of production and consumption—in other words, universal co-operation. This is the sum total of Socialism, and the only solution of the present difficulties between capital and labor. I said that monopoly and corporation had form a gigantic conspiracy against the working classes.
"I then called upon them to unite, to organize, to make every endeavor to obtain eight hours; that the eight-hour movement meant a peaceful solution of the labor trouble; that if the employers in this and all other countries would concede this demand if meant peace, if they refused it meant war, not by the working class, not by laborers, but the monopolists and corporations upon the lives, liberty and happiness of the working classes. I said that the Government, in the hands of corporations and monopoly, deprived the laborers of their labor product, of their right to live, and was driving labor into open revolt and forcing people to defend themselves and to protect and maintain their right to self-preservation. I said that the monopoly conspiracy originated in the great railroad strike of 1877; that this conspiracy since that time had proposed to use force, and that they had used force. Vanderbilt said: 'The public be
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