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CHAPTER II.
THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.
PARSONS ANCESTORS IN AMERICA—EARLY LIFE IN TEXAS—IN THE SOUTHERN ARMY—"THE SPECTATOR"—HE FALLS IN LIFE—LEAVES TEXAS AND SETTLES IN CHICAGO—BECOMES INTERESTED IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT—THE GREAT STRIKE OF 1877—DISCHARGED, BLACKLISTED, AND THREATENED—FORCIBLY EJECTED FROM THE "TRIBUNE" COMPOSING ROM—JOINS THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR—THE TRADES ASSEMBLY—"THE SOCIALIST"—THE WORKINGMEN'S MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS—THE DISARMAMENT—WORKINGMEN ABJURE POLITICAL METHODS TO RIGHT ECONOMIC WRONGS—THE PITTSBURGH MANIFESTO—"THE ALARM"—THE INTERNATIONAL SUPPORTS THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT—THE UNEQUAL STRUGGLE OF PERSONS VS. PROPERTY.
Albert R. Parsons was born in the city of Montgomery, Ala., June 20, 1848. My father, Samuel Parsons, was from the State of Maine, and he married into the Tompkins-Broadwell family, of New Jersey, and settled in Alabama at an early day, where he afterward established a shoe and leather factory in the city of Montgomery. My father was noted as public-spirited, philanthropic man. He was a Universalist in religion and held the highest office in the temperance movement of Louisiana and Alabama. My mother was a devout Methodist, of great spirituality of character, and known far and near as an intelligent and truly good woman. I had nine brothers and sisters. My ancestry goes back to the earliest settles of this country, the first Parsons family landing on the shores of Narragansett Bay from England, in 1632. The Parsons family and their descendants have taken an active and useful part in all the social, religious, political and revolutionary movements in America. One of the
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