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to get along or making his living. In the meantime the railway corporations place upon the traffic all that the market will bear. The Board of Trade sharks run their corners until—what? Until it occurs, as stated in the Chicago Tribune about three months ago, that a freight train of corn from Iowa, cosigned to a commission merchant in Chicago, had to be sold for—well for less than the cost of freight, and there was a balance due to the commission man on the freight of $3 after he had sold the corn. The freight upon that corn was $3 more than the corn brought in the market. So it is with the tenant farmers of America.
Your honor, we do not have to go to Ireland to find the evils of landlordism. We do not have to cross the Atlantic ocean to find Lord Lietriem's rack-centers, landlords who evict their tenants. We have them all around us. There is Ireland right here in Chicago and everywhere else in this country. Look at Bridgeport, where the Irish live! Look! Tenants at will, huddled together as State Attorney Grinnell calls them, like rats; living as they do in Dublin, living precisely as they do in Limerick—taxed to death, unable to meet the extortions of the landlord.
We are told by the prosecution that law is on trial; that Government is on trial. That is what the gentlemen on the other side stated to the jury. The law in on trial, and Government is on trial. Well, up to near the conclusion of this trial we, the defendants, supposed that we were indicted and being tried for murdered. Now, if the law is on trial and if the Government in on trial, who has placed it upon trial? And I leave it to the people of America whether the prosecution in this case have made out a case; and I charge it here now frankly that in order to bring about this conviction the prosecution, the representatives of the State, the sworn officers of the law, those whose obligation it is to the people to obey the law and preserve order—I charge upon them a willful, a malicious, a purposed violation of every law which guarantees every right to every American citizen. They have violated free speech. In the prosecution of this case they have violated a free press. They have violated the right of public assembly. Yes, they have even violated and denounced the right of self-defense. I charge the crime home to them. These great blood-bought rights, for which our forefathers spent centuries
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