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CHAPTER 11.
LETTER FROM TOPEKA, KANSAS.
LARGE AND ENTHUSIASTIC MEETINGS IN TOPEKA, KAN., IN JULY, 1885—CAPIATLISTIC PAPERS THREATEN—LARGE AUDIENCES IN ST. JOSEPH, MO.—ORGANIZATIONS AT FIRST HOSTILE TURN TO BE HEART AND SOUL WITH HIS WORK—OTHER MEETINGS IN OMAHA, NEB.; KANSAS CITY, MO.; AND SCAMMONVILLE, WEIR CITY, AND PITTSBURG, KAN.—CONDITION OF WAGE-SLAVES IN THESE MINING AND SMELTING TOWNS—THE OWNERS ABSOLUTE DOMINIION—LARGE NUMBERS OF UNEMPLOYED.
Comrades:
After my visit to Ottawa, Kan., on the Fourth of July last, where I delivered an address to the working people of that section on the "Social Revolution," which was received by them with unbounded enthusiasm, I on Monday, by way of Kansas City, made my way to Topeka, a city of 25,000 people and Capital of the State of Kansas. I visited the local assembly of the Knights of Labor, which has a very large membership here, and made a short talk to them, when they resolved to hold an open-air meeting on the Thursday following, and invited me to address it. In Topeka I found such stalwart champions of revolutionary Socialism as Comrades Henry, Blakesley, Whiteley, Vrooman, Bradley, and others—intelligent and fearless young men who cry out against and spare not the infamies of the capitalistic system.
On Thursday I returned to Kansas City and spoke at a mass-meeting of the working people at that place held on Thursday, July 7, which had been arranged by Comrades Bestman, Schwab, and others. The meeting was held in Armory hall, where at the hour named, though the weather was oppressively hot, fully 400 persons were assembled. They remained for over two hours while I discussed the
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