Life of Albert Parsons

mind," and nothing could stay its progress. Gibbets, stakes, tortures and dungeons were of no avail. On the contrary, the blood of the martyrs only intensified the flame of liberty, until it sprang from land to land, kindling everywhere the discontent of the oppressed in its irresistible triumphant course.

These ruins still bear evidence of its tremendous force I The most momentous thing accomplished by this rebellious and lawless spirit, however, was the opening of the new world. The reformation gave birth to the young giant, America; it gave England a Cromwell and France a Richelieu. Its fermenting forces drove the Huguenots from France and the Puritans from England. But for the reformation and the persecution of its adherents, these early settlers of the western hemisphere would have remained in France and England as good and law-abiding citizens. As dangerous elements, society had to protect itself against them, and they fled over the Atlantic rather than to suffer martyrdom at home for their "advanced ideas."

The reformation, my friends, which started right here, in the country where four centuries later the "Barbarian Anarchists" come from, "who cannot comprehend the spirit of the American institutions" etc ........... broke down the feudal barriers which impeded human progress. It was asserted in a thirty years' war, a war which laid the continent desolate, that the exercise of free thought and opinion and that scientific investigation should no longer be suppressed because they conflicted with religious superstition and dogma generally believed in and sanctified by custom. The "good and law-abiding" people were fanatically opposed to those in favor of the imperative change, and oceans of blood had to be shed in consequence. The ruins you see here wherever you turn your eyes bear witness of the terrible war that has not yet ended-the war for human emancipation and freedom: economic, political and religious. Every one of these ruins is a milestone on the path of social progress. At our feet lies the historic chaussee upon which Napoleon's victorious armies, much against the intention of the grand empereur, carried the seed of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" to the far east, and there opened a new perspective to the purblind eyes of the oppressed and down-trodden millions of our race. Aye, even now that seed is bringing forth good fruit. Russian dungeons, gibbets and Siberia bear witness.

Now friends, before we retire from this retrospective view, look once more in the mirror of the past 1,000 years, observe closely the traces that lead from yonder chapel to this castle, from here to the Wartburg, from the Wartburg to the battlefield below here and to these ruins, and then follow them to England, France and America; follow them up to this day and tell me if you do not see the contours of the future reflected ......You do!......have dwelt at great length in describing my (barbarian) birthplace, but in so doing I have traversed in a general way over the history of 1,000 years. The present status of society is but the result of the struggle of human kind during this and preceding periods-yes, struggle! "You cannot reform