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sand copies of the following hand-bill were distributed on Wednesday:
Workingmen's massing, Thursday, September 24, at 7:30 p.m, in front of Court House. Subject: "Low wages, Hard Times, and No Work. What Shall We Do?" Every workingmen and woman in South Bend should attend.
The Committee
At the time appointed over 1,000 men and women had gathered in response to the call. Mr. Frank Avery of Mishawanka, acted as Chairman and introduced A. R. Parsons, of Chicago. Mr. Parsons stepped forward and began distributing among the audience copies of Victor Hugo's "Message to the Rich and Poor."
The speaker then said that no doubt his hearers had often read about the Anarchists, Communists, and Socialists. To-nighyt they could see and hear one and judge for themselves of the merits of Socialism. The speaker said that Socialism declared the rich to be "devils bred in hell, and dogs with hearts of stone," because their paradise is made out of the hells of the poor;" and Socialism proclaimed that "not to be a slave was to dare and do." The slavery of labor to capital was as complete in South Bend as anywhere else. Men of families were working for 80 cents per day, and hundred were walking the streets unable to find any employment at all. The slavery of labor was seen in the fact that wage-workers were compelled to do ten hours' work for three hours' pay, and their only choice was between such a condition of labor or compulsory idleness, which meant no bread at all. Low wages and no work created hard times, and "hard times" was created by the private-property system, which deprived the people of their inalienable right to the free use of all the means of life.
Shakespeare had Shylock say: "You do take my life when you take the means whereby I live," and this is precisely what every capitalist has done; they have made capital private property, and thus deprived the workers of the means of life and the right to live. The Czar of Russia possessed no more despotic power than that which the propertied class exercised over the propertyless. Every capitalist could and did discharge from employment the worker or workers who complained of the unfair, and unjust, and
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