Parsons, A.R. (1887). Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis. Chicago, Mrs. A. R. Parsons [c1887].
CHAPTER II.
VIEWS OF THE PRISONERS.
Following are extracts from the speeches of the eight Chicago anarchists, relating to anarchy, made by them in reply to the question of the court why sentence should not be pronounced; including also other extracts from their writings:
August Spies On Anarchy.
* * *
"From their testimony one is forced to conclude that we had, in our speeches and publications, preached nothing else but destruction and dynamite. The court has this morning stated that there is no case in history like this. I have noticed, during this trial, that the gentlemen of the legal profession are not well versed in history. In all historical cases of this kind truth had to be perverted by the priests of the established power that was nearing its end. "What have we said in our speeches and publications?
"We have interpreted to the people their conditions and relations in society. We have explained to them the different social phenomena and the social laws and circumstances under which they occur. We have, by way of scientific investigation, incontrovertibly proved and brought to their knowledge that the system of wages is the root of the present social iniquities--iniquities so monstrous that they cry to Heaven. We have further said that the wage system, as a specific form of social development, would, by the necessity of logic, have to make room for higher forms of civilization; that the wage system must prepare the way and furnish the foundation for a social system of co-operation -that is, socialism. That whether this or that theory, this or that scheme regarding future arrangements were accepted was not a matter, of choice, but one of historical necessity, and that to us the tendency of progress seemed to be, anarchism--that is, a free society without kings or classes--a society of, sovereigns in which the liberty and economic equality of all would furnish an unshakable equilibrium as a foundation and condition of natural order.
"It is not likely that the honorable Bonfield and Grinnell can conceive of a social order not hold intact by the policeman's club and pistol, nor of a free society without prisons, gallows, and State's attorneys. In such a society they probably fail to find a place for themselves. And is this the reason why anarchism is such a pernicious and damnable doctrine?
"Grinnell has intimated to us that anarchism was on trial. The theory of anarchism belongs to the realm of speculative philosophy. There was, not a syllable said about anarchism at the Haymarket meeting. At that meeting the very popular theme of reducing the hours of toil was discussed. But, 'anarchism is on trial' foams Mr. Grinnell. If that is the case, your honor, very well; you may sentence me, for I am an anarchist. I believe with Buckle, with Paine, Jefferson, Emerson, and Spencer, and many other great thinkers of this century, that the state of castes and classes-the state where one class dominates over and lives upon the labor of another class, and calls this order-yes; I believe that this barbaric form of social organization, with its legalized plunder and murder, is doomed to die, and make room for a free society, voluntary association, or universal brotherhood, if you like. You may pronounce the sentence upon, me, honorable judge, but let the world know that in A. D. 1886, in the State of Illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because they believed in a better future; because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice! 'You have taught the destruction of society and civilization,' says the tool and agent of the Bankers' and Citizens' Association, Grinnell. That man has yet to learn what civilization is. It is the old, old argument against human progress. Read the history of Greece, of Rome; read that of Venice; look over the dark pages of the church, and follow the thorny path of science. 'No change! No change! You would destroy society and civilization!' has ever been the cry of the ruling classes. They are so comfortably situated under the prevailing system that they naturally abhor and fear even the slightest change. Their privileges are as dear to them as life itself, and every change threatens,, these privileges. But civilization is a ladder whose steps are monuments, of such changes! Without these social changes-all brought about against the will and the force of the ruling classes-there would be no civilization. As to the destruction of society which we have been accused of seeking, sounds this not like one of aesop's fables-like the cunning of the fox? We, who have jeopardized our lives to save society from the fiend-the fiend who has grasped her by the throat; who sucks her life-blood, who devours her children-we, who would heal her bleeding wounds, who would free her from the fetters you have wrought around her; from the misery you have brought upon her-we her enemies!!
"Honorable judge, the demons of hell will join in the laughter this irony provokes!
"We have preached dynamite. Yes, we have predicted from the lessons history teaches, that the ruling classes of to-day would no more listen to the voice of reason than their predecessors; that they would attempt by brute force to stay the wheel of progress. Is it a lie, or was it the truth we told? Are not already the large industries of this once free country conducted under the surveilance of the police, the detective, the military and the sheriffs-and is this return to militancy not developing from day to day. American sovereigns--think of it-working like the galley convicts under military guards! We have predicted this, and predict that soon these conditions will grow unbearable. What then? The mandate of the feudal lords of our time is slavery, starvation and death! This has been their programme for the past years. We have said to the toilers, that science had penetrated the mystery of nature-that from Jove's head once more has sprung a Minerva-dynamite! If this declaration is synonymous with murder, why not charge those with the crime to whom we owe the invention? To charge us with an attempt to overthrow the present system on or about May 4th by force, and then establish anarchy, is too absurd a statement, I think, even for a political office-holder to make. If Grinnell believed that we attempted such a thing, why did he not have Dr. Bluthardt make an inquiry as to our sanity? Only mad men could have planned such a brilliant scheme, and mad people cannot be indicted or convicted of murder. If there had existed anything like a conspiracy or a pre- arragement (sic), does your honor believe that events would not have taken a different course than they did on that evening and later? This "conspiracy" nonsense is based upon an oration I delivered on the anniversary of Washington's birthday at Grand Rapids, Mich., more than a year and a half ago. I had been invited by the Knights of Labor for that purpose. I dwelt upon the fact that our country was far from being what the great revolutionists of the last century had intended it to be. I said that those men if they lived to-day would clean the Augean stables with iron brooms, and that they, too, would undoubtedly be characterized as wild socialists.' It is not unlikely that I said Washington would have been hanged for treason if the revolution had failed. Grinnell made this 'sacreligious remark' his main arrow against me. Why? Because he intended to inveigh the know-nothing spirit against us. But who will deny the correctness of the statement? That I should have compared myself with Washington, is a base lie. But if I had, would that be murder? I may have told that individual who appeared here as a witness that the workingmen should procure arms, as force would in all probability be the ultima ratio; and that in Chicago there were so and so many armed, but I certainly did not say that we proposed to 'inaugurate the social revolution.'
And let me say here: Revolutions are no more made than earthquakes and cyclones. Revolutions are the effect of certain causes and conditions. I have made social philosophy a specific study for more than ten years, and I could not have given vent to such nonsense! I do believe, however, that the revolution is near at hand-in fact, that it is upon US. But is the physician responsible for the death of the patient because he, foretold that death? If any one is to be blamed for the coming revolution it is the ruling class who steadily refused to make concessions as reforms became necessary; who maintain that they can call a halt to progress, and dictate a stand-still to the enternal forces, of which they themselves are but the whimsical creation.
"The position generally taken in this case is that we are morally responsible for the police riot on May 4th. Four or five years ago I sat in this very court room as a witness. The workingmen had been trying to obtain redress in a lawful manner. They had voted, and among others, had elected their aldermanic candidate from the fourteenth ward. But the street car company did not like that man. And two of the three election judges of one precinct, knowing this, took the ballot box to their home and 'corrected' the election returns, so as to cheat the constituents of the elected candidate of their rightful representative, and give the representation to the benevolent street car monopoly. The workingmen spent $1,500 in the prosecution of the perpetrators of this crime. The proof against them was so overwhelming that they confessed to having falsified the returns and forged the official documents. Judge Gardner, who was. presiding in this court, acquitted them, stating that 'that act had apparently not been prompted by criminal intent.' I will make no comment. But when we approach the field of moral responsibility, it has an immense scope! Every man who has in the past assisted in thwarting the efforts of those seeking reform is responsible for the existence of the revolutionists in this city to-day! Those, however, who have sought to bring about reforms must be exempted from the responsibility--and to these I belong.
"If the verdict is based upon the assumption of moral responsibility, your honor, I give this as a reason why sentence should not be passed.
"If the opinion of the court given this morning is good law, then there is no person in this country who could not lawfully be hanged. I vouch that, upon the very laws you have read, there is no person in this courtroom now who could not be 'fairly, impartially and lawfully' hanged! Fouche, Napoleon's right bower, once said to his master: 'Give me a line that any one man has ever written, and I will bring him to the scaffold.' And this court has done essentially the same. Upon that law every person in this country can be indicted for conspiracy, and, as the case may be, for murder. Every member of a trade union, Knights of Labor, or any other labor organization, can then be convicted of conspiracy, and in cases of violence, for which they may not be responsible at all, of murder, as we have been. This precedent once established, and you force: the masses who are now agitating in a peaceable way into open rebellion! You thereby shut off the last safety valve-and the blood which will be, shed, the blood of the innocent-it will come upon your heads!
" Seven policemen have died,' said Grinnell, suggestively winking at, the jury. You want a life for a life, and have convicted an, equal number of men, of whom it cannot be truthfully said that they had anything whatsoever to do with the killing of Bonfield's victims. The very same principle of jurisprudence we find among various savage tribes. Injuries among them are equalized, so to speak. The Chinooks and the Arabs, for instance, would demand the life of an enemy for every death that, they had suffered at their enemy's hands. They were not particular in regard to the persons, just so long as they had a life for a life. This principle also prevails to-day among the natives of the Sandwich Islands. If we are to be hanged on this principle then let us know it, and let the world know what a civilized and christian country it is, in which the Goulds, the Vanderbilts, the Stanfords, the Fields, Armours, and other local money hamsters have come to the rescue of liberty and justice!
"Grinnell has repeatedly stated that our country is an enlightened country, (sarcastically.) The verdict fully corroborates the assertion! This verdict against us is the anathema of the wealthy classes over their despoiled victims-the vast army of wage workers and farmers. If your honor would not have these people believe this; if you would not have them believe that we have once more arrived at the Spartan Senate, the Athenian Areopagus, the Venetian Council of Ten, etc.,then sentence should not be pronounced. But, if you think that by hanging us, you can stamp out the labor movement- the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery-the wage slavesexpect salvation-if this is your opinion, then bang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but there, and there; and behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You, cannot put it out.
"The ground is on fire upon which you stand. You can't understand it. You don't believe in magical arts, as your grandfathers did who burned witches at the stake, but you do believe in conspiracies; you believe that all these occurrences of late are the work of conspirators! You resemble the child that is looking for his picture behind the mirror. What you see, and what you try to grasp is nothing but the deceptive reflex of the stings of your bad conscience. You want to 'stamp out the conspirators'--the'agitators?' Ah, stamp out every factory lord who has grown wealthy upon the unpaid labor for his employes. Stamp out every landlord who has amassed fortunes from the rent of over-burdened workingmen and farmers. Stamp out every machine that is revolutionizing industry and agriculture, that intensifies the production and ruins the producer, that increases the national wealth, while the creator of all these things stands. amidst them, tantalized with hunger! Stamp out the railroads, the telegraph, the telephone, steam and yourselves--for everything breathes the revolutionary spirit.
"You, gentlemen, are the revolutionists! You rebel against the effects of social conditions which have tossed you, by the fair hand of fortune, into a magnificent paradise. Without inquiring, you imagine that no one else has a right in that place. You insist that you are the chosen ones, the sole proprietors. The forces that tossed you into the paradise, the industral forces, are stl1l at work. They are growing more active and intense from day to day. Their tendency is to elevate all mankind to the same level, to have all humanity share in the paradise you now monopolize. You, in your blindness, think you can stop the tidal wave of civilization, and human emancipation by placing a few policemen, a few gatling guns, and some regiments of militia on the shore-you think you can frighten the rising waves back into the unfathomable depths, whence they have risen, by erecting a few gallows in the perspective. You, who oppose the natural course of things, you are the real revolutionists. You and you alone are the conspirators and destructionists!
"Said the court yesterday, in referring to the board of trade demonstration: 'These men started out with the express purpose of sacking the board of trade building.' While I can't see what sense there would have been in such an undertaking, and while I know that the said demonstration was arranged simply as a means of propaganda against the system that legalizes the respectable business carried on there, I will assume that the three thousand workingmen who marched in that procession really intended to sack the building. In this case they would have differed from the respectable board of trade men only in. this-that they sought to recover property in an unlawful way, while the others sack the entire country lawfully and unlawfully--this being their respectable profession. This court of "justice and equity" proclaims the principle that when two persons do the same thing, it is not the same thing. I thank the court for this confession. It contains all that we have taught, and for which we are to be hanged, in a nut shell! Theft is a felony when resorted to in self preservation by the other class. Rapine and pillage are the order of a certain class of gentlemen who find this mode of earning a livelihood easier and preferable to honest labor-this is the kind of order we have attempted, and are now trying, and will try as long as we live to do away with. Look on the economic battlefields. Behold the carnage and plunder of the christian patricians! Accompany me to the quarters of the wealth-creators in this city. Go with me to the half-starved miners of the Hocking Valley. Look at the pariahs in the Monongahela Valley, and many other mining districts in this country, or pass along the railroads of that great and most orderly and law-abiding citizen, Jay Gould. And tell me whether this order has in it any moral principle for which it should be preserved. I say that the preservation of such an order is criminal, is murderous. It means the preservation of the systematic destruction of children and women in factories. It means the preservation of enforced idleness of large armies of men and their degradation. It means the preservation of misery, want, and servility on one hand, and the dangerous accumulation of spoils, idleness, voluptuousness and tyranny on the other. It means the preservation of vice in every form.
"And last but not least, it means the preservation of the class struggle of strikes, riots and bloodshed. That is your order,' gentlemen; yes, and it is worthy of you to be the champions of such an order. You are eminently fitted for that role. You have my compliments!
"Grinnell spoke of Victor Hugo. I need not repeat what he said, -but will answer him in the language of one of our German philosphers:
Our bourgeoisie erect monuments in honor of the memory of the classics. If they had read them they would burn them!' Why, amongst the articles read here from the Arbeiter-Zeitung, put in evidence by the State, by which they intend to convince the jury of the dangerous character of the accused anarchists, is an extract from Goethe's Faust.
'Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte, We eine ew'ge Krankheit fort,' etc.
(Law and class privileges are transmitted like an hereditary disease.') And Mr. Ingham in his speech told the christian jurors that our comrades, the Paris communists, had in 1871, dethroned God, the Almighty, and had put up in his place a low prostitute. The effect was marvelous! The good christians were shocked.
"I wish your honor would inform the learned gentlemen that the episode related occurred in Paris nearly a century ago, and that the sacrilegious perpetrators were the contemporaries of the founders of the Republie-and among them was Thomas Paine. Nor was the woman a prostitute, but a good citoyenne de Paris, who served on that occasion simply as an allegory of the goddess of reason.
"Referring to Most's letter, read here, Mr. Ingham said: 'They,' meaning Most and myself, 'They might have destroyed thousands of innocent lives in the Hocking Valley with that dynamite.' I have said all I know about the letter on the witness stand, but will add that two years ago I Went through the Hocking Valley as a correspondent. While -there I saw hundreds of lives in the process of slow destruction, gradual destruction. There was no dynamite, nor were they Anarchists who did that diabolical work. It was the work of a party of highly respectable monopolists, law-abiding citizens, if you please. It is needless to say the murderers were never indicted. The press had little to say, and the State of Ohio assisted them. What a terror it would have created if the victims of this diabolical plot had resented and blown some of those respectable cut-throats to atoms. When, in East St. Louis, Jay Gould's hirelings, 'the men of grit,' shot down in cold blood and killed six inoffensive workingmen and women, there was very little said, and the grand jury refused to indict the gentlemen. It was the same way in Chicago, Milwaukee and other places. A Chicago furniture manufacturer shot down and seriously wounded two striking workingmen last spring. He was held over to the grand jury. The grand jury refused to indict the gentleman.
"But when, on one occasion, a workingman in self defense resisted the murderous attempt of the police and threw a bomb, and for once blood flowed on the other side, then a terrific howl went up from the land:Conspiracy has attacked vested rights!' And eight victims are demanded for it. There has been much said about the public sentiment. There has been much said about the public clamor. Why, it is a fact, that no citizen dared express another opinion than that prescribed by the authorities of the State, for if one had done otherwise, he would have been locked up; he might have been sent to the gallows to swing, as they will have the pleasure of doing with us, if the decree of our I honorable court' is consummated.
"'These men,' Grinnell said repeatedly, 'have no principles; they are common murderers, assassins, robbers,' etc. I admit that our aspirations and objects are incomprehensible to unprincipled ruffians, but surely for this we are not to be blamed. The assertion, if I mistake not, was based on the ground that we sought to destroy property. Whether this perversion of fact was intentional, I know not. But in justification of our doctrines I will say that the assertion is an infamous falsehood. Articles have been read here from the Arbeiter-Zeitung and Alarm to show the dangerous characters of the defendants. The files of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and Alarm have been searched for the past years. Those articles which generally commented upon some atrocity committed by the authorities upon striking workingmen were picked out and read to you. Other articles were not read to the court. Other articles were not what was wanted. The State's Attorney upon those articles (who well knows that he tells a. falsehood when he says it), asserts that 'these men have no principle.'
"A few weeks before I was arrested and charged with the crime for which I have been convicted, I was invited by the clergymen of the Congregational Church to lecture upon the subject of socialism, and debate. with them. This took place at the Grand Pacific Hotel. And so that it cannot be said that after I have been arrested, after I have been indicted, and after I have been convicted, I have put together some principles to, justify my action, I will read what I said then
"CAPT. BLACK: 'Give the date of the paper.'
"MR. Spies: 'January 9, 1886.'
"CAPT. BLACK: 'What paper, the Alarm?'
"MR. Spies: The Alarm. When I was asked upon that occasion what socialism was, I said this:
"Socialism is simply a resume of the phenomena of the social life of the past and present traced to their fundamental causes, and brought into, logical connection with one another. It rests upon the established fact that the economic conditions and institutions of a people form the ground. work of all their social conditions, of their ideas-aye, even of their religion, and further, that all changes of economic conditions, every stop in advance, arises from the struggles between the dominating and dominated. class in different ages. You, gentlemen, cannot place yourselves at this standpoint of speculative science; your profession demands that you occupy the opposite position, that which professes acquaintance with things as they actually exist, but which presumes a thorough understanding of matters which to ordinary mortals are entirely incomprehensible. It is for this reason that you cannot become Socialists (cries of 'Oh! oh!'). Lest you should be unable to exactly grasp my meaning, however, I will now state the matter a little more plainly. It cannot be unknown to you that in the course of this century there have appeared an infinite number of inventions and discoveries, which have brought about great, aye, astonishing changes in the production of the necessities and comforts of life. The work of machines has to a great extent, replaced that of men.
"Machinery involves a great accumulation of power, and always. a greater division of labor in consequence.
"The advantages resulting from this centralization of production -were of such a nature as to cause its still further extension, and from this concentration of the means of labor and of the operations of laborers, while the old system of distribution was (and is) retained, arose those improper conditions which ails society to-day. The means of production thus came into the hands of an ever decreas ing number, while the actual producers, through the introduction of machinery, deprived of the opportunity to toil, and being at the same time disinherited of the bounties of nature, were consigned to pauperism, vagabondage--the so-called crime and prostitution-all these evils which you gentlemen would like to exorcise with your little prayer-book.
"The socialists award your efforts a jocular rather than a serious attention--[symptoms of uneasiness] -otherwise, pray let us know how much you have accomplished so far by your moral lecturing toward ameliorating the condition of those wretched beings who through bitter want have been driven to crime and desperation? [Here several gentlemen sprang to their feet, exclaiming, 'We have done a great deal in some directions!'] Aye,in some cases you have perhaps given a few alms; but what influence has this, if I may ask, had upon societary conditions, or in affecting any change in the same? Nothing; absolutely nothing. You may as well admit it, gentlemen, for you cannot point me out a single instance. "Very well. Those proletarians doomed to misery and hunger through the labor-saving of our centralized production, whose number in this country we estimate at about a million and a half, is it likely that they and the thousands who are daily joining their ranks, and the millions who are toiling for a miserable pittance, will suffer peacefully and with christian resignation their destruction at the hand of their theivish and murderous, albeit very christian wage-masters? They will defend themselves. It will come to a fight.
"The necessity of common ownership in the means of toil will be realized, and the era of socialism, of universal co- operation begins. The dispossesssing of the usurping classes-the socialization of these possessions-and the universal co- operation of toil, not for speculative purposes, but for the satisfaction of the demands which we make upon life; in short co-operative labor for the purpose of continuing life and of enjoying it-this in general outlines, is socialism. This is not, however, as you might suppose, a mere 'beautifully conceived plan," the realization of which would be well worth striving for if it could only be brought about. No; this socialization of the means of production, of the machinery of commerce, of the land and earth, etc., is not only something desirable, but has become an imperative necessity, and where ever we find in history that something has once become a necessity there we always find that the next step was the doing away with that necessity by the supplying of the logical want.
"Our large factories and mines, and the machinery of exchange and transportation, apart from every other consideration, have become too vast for private control. Individuals can no longer monopolize them.
"Everywhere, wherever we cast our eyes, we find forced upon our attention the unnatural and injurious effects of unregulated private production. We see how one man, or a number of men, have not only brought into the embrace of their private ownership a few inventions in technical lines, but have also confiscated for their exclusive advantage all natural powers, such as water, steam, and electricity. Every fresh invention, every discovery belongs to them. The world exists for them only. That they destroy their fellow-beings right and left they little care. That, by their machinery, they even work the bodies of little children into gold pieces they hold to be an especially good work and a genuine christian act. They murder, as we have said, little children and women by hard labor, while they let strong men go hungry for lack of work.
"People ask themselves how such things are possible, and the answer is that the competitive system is the cause of it. The thought of a co-operative, social, rational, and well-regulated system of management irresistibly impresses the observer. The advantages of such a system are of such a convincing kind, so patent to observation-and where could there be any other way out of it? According to physical laws a body always moves itself, consciously or unconsciously, along the line of least resistance. So does society as a whole. The path to co-operative labor and distribution is leveled by the concentration of the means of labor under the private capitalistic system. We are already moving right inthat track. We cannot retreat even if we would. The force of circumstances drives us on to socialism.
"'And now, Mr. S., won't you tell us how you are going to carryout the expropriation of the possessing classes?' asked Rev. Dr. Scudder.
"'The answer is in the thing itself. The key is furnished by the storms raging through the industrial life of the present. You see bow penuriously the owners of the factories, of the mines, cling to their privileges, and will not yield the breadth of an inch. On the otherhand, you see the half-starved proletarians driven to the verge of violence.'
"'So your remedy would be violence?'
"'Remedy? Well, I should like it better if it could be done without violence, but you, gentlemen, and the class you represent, take care that it cannot be accomplished otherwise. Let us suppose that the workingmen to-day go to their employers, and say to them: 'Listen! Youradministration of affairs don't suit us any more; it leads to disastrous consequences. While one part of us are worked to death, the others out of employment, are starved to death; little children are ground to death in the factories, while strong, vigorous men remain idle; the masses livein misery while a small class of respectables enjoy luxury and wealth; all this is the result of your maladministration, which will bring misfortune even to yourselves; step down and out now; let us have your property, which is nothing but unpaid labor; we shall take this thing in our hands now; we shall administrate matters satisfactorily, and regulate the institutions of society; voluntarily we shall pay you a life-long pension
Now , do you think the 'bosses' would accept this proposition? You certainly don't believe it. Therefore force will have to decide-or do you know of any any other way?
"'So you are organizing a revolution?'
"It was shortly before my arrest, and I answered: 'Such things are hard to organize. A revolution is a sudden upwelling- a convulsion of the fevered masses of society.
"We are preparing society for that, and insist upon it that workingmen should arm themselves and keep ready for the struggle. The better they are armed the easier will the battle be, and the less the bloodshed.
"'What would be the order of things in the new society?'
"'I must decline to answer this question, as it is, till now, a mere matter of speculation. The organization of labor on a co-operative basis offers no difficulties. The large establishments of to-day might be used as patterns. Those who will have to solve these questions will expediently do it, instead of working according to our prescriptions (if we should make anything of the kind); they will be directed by the circumstances and. conditions of the time, and these are beyond our horizon. About this you needn't trouble yourselves.'
"'But, friend, don't you think that about a week after the division, the provident will have all, while the spendthrift will have nothing?'
"'The question is out of order,' interfered the chairman; 'there was not anything said about division.'
"Prof. Wilcox: 'Don't you think the introduction of socialism will destroy all inviduality (sic)?'
"'How can anything be destroyed which does not exist? In our times there is no individuality; that only can be developed under socialism, when mankind will be independent economically. Where do you meet to-day with real individuality? Look at yourselves, gentlemen! You don't dare to give utterance to any subjective opinion which might not suit the feeling of your bread-givers and customers. You are hypocrites [murmurs of indignation]; every business man is a hypocrite. Everywhere is mockery, servility, lies and fraud. And the laborers! There you feign anxiety about their individuality; about the individuality of a class that has been degraded to machines-used each day for ten or twelve hours as appendages of the lifeless machines! About their individuality you are anxious!'
"Does that sound as though I had at that time, as has been imputed to me, organized a revolution-a so-called social revolution, which was to occur on or about the 1st of May to establish anarchy in place of our present 'ideal order?' I guess not.
"So socialism does not mean the destruction of society. Socialism is a constructive and not a destructive science. While capitalism expropriates the masses for the benefit of the privileged class; while capitalism is, that school of economics which teaches how one can live upon the labor (i.e., property) of the other; socialism teaches how all may possess property, and further teaches that every man must work honestly for his own living, and not be playing the 'respectable board of trade man,' or any other highly (?) respectable business man or banker, such as appeared here as talesman in the jurors' box, with the fixed opinion that we ought to be hanged. Indeed, I believe they have that opinion! Socialism, in short, seeks to establish a universal system of co-operation, and to render accessible to each and every member of the human family the achievements and benefits of civilization, which, under capitalism, are being monopolized by a privileged class and employed, not as they should be, for the common good of all, but for the brutish gratification of an avaricious class. Under capitalism the great inventions of the past, far from being a blessing for mankind, have been turned into a curse! Under socialism the prophecy of the Greek poet, Antiporas, would be fulfilled, who, at the invention of the first water-mill, exclaimed: 'This is the emancipator of male and female slaves'; and likewise the prediction of Aristotle, who said: 'When, at some future age, every tool, upon command or by predestination, will perform its work as the art-works of Daedalus did, which moved by themselves; or like the three feet of Hephaestus, which went to their sacred -work instinctively, when thus the weaver shuttles will weave by themselves, then we shall no longer require masters and slaves.' Socialism says this time has come, and can you deny it? You say: 'Oh, these heathens, what did they know?' True! They knew nothing of political economy; they knew nothing of christendom. They failed to conceive how nicely these man-emancipating machines could be employed to lengthen the hours of toil and to intensify the burdens of the slaves. These heathens, yes, they excused the slavery of one on the ground that thereby another would be afforded the opportunity of human development. But to preach the slavery of the masses in order that a few rude and arrogant parvenues might become 'eminent manufacturers,' 'extensive packing-house owners,' or 'influential shoo-black dealers,' to do this they lacked that specific Christian organ.
"Socialism teaches that the machines, the means of transportation and communication are the result of the combined efforts of society, past and present, and that they are therefore rightfully the indivisible property of society, just the same as the soil and the mines and all natural gifts should be. This declaration implies that those who have appropriated this wealth wrongfully, though lawfully, shall be expropriated by society. The expropriation of the masses by the monopolists has reached such a degree that the expropriation of the expropriateurs has become an imperative nesessity, an act of social self-preservation. Society will reclaim its own, even though you erect a gibbet on every street corner. And anarchism, this terrible 'ism,' deduces that under a co-operative organization of society, under economic equality and individual independence, the 'State'-the political State-will pass into barbaric antiquity. And we will be where all are free, where there are no longer masters and servants, where intellect stands for brute force, there will no longer be any use for the policemen and militia to preserve the so-called 'peace and order'-the order that the Russian general spoke of when he telegraphed to the Czar after he had massacred half of Warsaw, 'Peace reigns in Warsaw.'
"Anarchism does not mean bloodshed; does riot mean robbery, arson, etc. These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic features of capitalism. Anarchism means peace and tranquility to all. Anarchism, or socialism, means the reorganization of society upon scientific principles and the abolition of causes which produce vice and crime. Capitalism first produces these social diseases and then seeks to cure them by punishment.
"Your honor has said this morning, we must learn their objects from what they have said and written, and in pursuance thereof the court has read a number of articles.
"Now, if I had as much power as the court, and were a law-abiding citizen, I would certainly have the court indicted for some remarks made during this trial. I will say that if I had not been an anarchist at the beginning of this trial I would be one now. I quote the exact language of the court on one occasion. 'It does not necessarily fellow that all laws are foolish and bad because a good many of them are so.' That is treason, sir! if we are to believe the court and the state's attorney. But, aside from that, I cannot see bow we shall distinguish the good from the bad laws. Am I to judge of that? No; I am not. But if I disobey a bad law, and am brought before a bad judge, I undoubtedly would be convicted.
"In regard to a report in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, also read this morning, the report of the Board of, Trade demonstration, I would say-and this is the only defense, the only word I have to say in my own defense, that I did not know of that article until I saw it in the paper, and the man who wrote it, wrote it rather as a reply to some slurs in the morning papers. He was discharged. The language used in that article would never have been tolerated if I had seen it.
"Now, if we cannot be directly implicated with this affair, connected with the throwing of the bomb, where is the law that says, 'that these men shall be picked out to suffer?' Show me that law if you have it. If the position of the court is correct, then half of this city-half of the population of this city--ought to be banged, because they are responsible the same as we are for that act on May 4th. And if not half of the population of Chicago is hanged, then show me the law that says, 'eight. men shall be picked out and hanged as scapegoats!' You have no such law. Your decision, your verdict, our conviction is nothing but an arbitrary will of this lawless court. It is true there is no precedent in jurisprudence in this case. It is true we have called upon the people to arm themselves. It is true that we have told them time and again that the great, day of change was coming. It was not our desire to have bloodshed. We are not beasts. We would not be socialists if were beasts. It is because of our- sensitiveness that we have gone into this movement for the emancipation of the oppressed and suffering. It is true we have called upon the people to arm and prepare for the stormy times before us.
"This seems to be the ground upon which the verdict is to be sustained.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce the people under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and provide new guards for their future safety."
"This is a quotation from the Declaration of Independence. Have we broken any laws by showing to the people how these abuses, that have occurred for the last twenty years, are invaribly pursuing one object, viz: to establish an oligarchy in this country as strong and powerful and monstrous as never before has existed in any country? I can well understand why that man Grinnell did not urge upon the grand Jury to charge us. with treason. I can well understand it. You cannot try and convict a man for treason who has upheld the constitution against those who try to trample it under their feet. It would not have been as easy a job to do that, Mr. Grinnell, as to charge 'these men' with murder.
"Now, these are my ideas. They constitute a part of myself. I cannot divest myself of them, nor would I, if I could. And if you think that you can crush out these ideas that are gaining ground more and more every day, if you think you can crush them out by sending us to the gallows-if you would once more have people to suffer the penalty of death because they have dared to tell the truth-and I defy you to show us where we have told a lie--I say, if death is the penalty for proclaiming the truth, then I will proudly and defiantly pay the costly price! Call your hangman. Truth crucified in Socrates, in Christ, in Giordano, Bruno, in Huss, Gallileo, still lives-they and others whose number is legion have preceded us on this path. We are ready to follow!
Address Of Michael Schwab.
* * *
"To term the proceedings during the trial justice, would be a sneer. Justice has not been done, more than this, could not be done. If one class is arrayed against the other, it is idle and hypocritical to think. about justice. Anarchy was on trial, as the state's attorney put it in his closing speech. A doctrine, an opinion hostile to brute force, hostile to our present murderous system of production and distribution. I am condemned to die for writing newspaper articles and making speeches. The state's attorney knows as well as I do that that alleged conversation between Mr. Spies and myself never took place. He knows a good deal more than that. He knows of all the beautiful work of his organizer, Furthman. When I was before the coroner's jury, two or three detectives swore very positively of having seen me at the haymarket when Mr. Parsons finished his speech. I suppose they wanted at that time to fix the bombthrowing on me. For the first dispatches to Europe said that M. Schwab had thrown several bombs at the police. Later on they sent detectives to Lake View, and found that would not do. And then Schnaubelt was the man.
"Anarchy was on trial. Little did it matter who the persons were to be honored by the prosecution. It was the movement the blow was aimed at: it was directed against the labor movement; against socialism, for to-day every labor movement must, of necessity, be socialistic.
"Talk about a gigantic conspiracy! A movement is not a conspiracy. All we did was done in open daylight.
"There were no secrets. We prophesied in word and writing the coming of a great revolution, a change in the system of production in all industrial countries of the globe. And the change will come, and must come. Is it not absurd, as the state's attorney and his associates have done, to suppose that this social revolution--a change of such immense proportions- was to be inaugurated on or about the first of May in the city of Chicago by making war on the police? The organizer, Furthman searched hundreds of numbers of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and the Alarm, and so the prosecution must have known very well what we understood when we talked about the coming revolution. But the prosecuting attorney preferred to ignore these explanatory articles.
"The articles in evidence were carefully selected and paraded as samples of violent language, but the language used in them was just the same as newspapers used in general against us and their enemies. Even against the police and their practices they used words of the same kind as we did.
"The president of the Citizens' Association, Edwin Lee Brown, after the last election of Mayor Harrison, made a speech in north side Turner Hall in which he called on all good citizens to take possession of the court-house by force, even if they, had to wade in blood. It seems to me that the most violent speakers are not to be found in the ranks of the Anarchists.
"It is not violence in word or action the attorneys of the State and their urgers-on are waging war against; it is our doctrine anarchy.
"We contend for communism and anarchy--why? If we had kept silent, stones would have cried out. Murder was committed day by day. Children were slain, women worked to death, men killed inch by inch, and these crimes are never punished by law. The great principle underlying the present system is unpaid labor. Those who amass fortunes, build palaces, and live in luxury, are doing that by virtue of unpaid labor. Being directly or indirectly the possessors of land and machinery, they dictate their terms to the workingman. He is compelled to sell his labor cheap, or to starve. The price paid him is always far below the real value. He acts under compulsion, and they call it a free contract. This infernal state of affairs keeps him poor and ignorant; an easy prey for exploitation.
"I know what life has in store for the masses. I was one of them. I slept in their garrets, and lived in their cellars. I saw them work and die. I worked with girls in the same factory--prostitutes they were, because they could not earn enough wages for their living. I saw females sick from overwork, sick in body and mind on account of the lives they were forced to lead. I saw girls from ten to fourteen years of age working for a mere pittance. I heard how their morals were killed by the foul and vile language and the bad example of their ignorant fellowworkers, leading them on to the same road of misery, and as an individual I could do nothing. I saw families starving and able-bodied men worked to death. That was in Europe. When I came to the United States, I found that there were classes of workingmen who were better paid than the European workmen, but I perceived that the stake of things in a great number of industries was even worse, and that the so-called better paid skilled laborers were degrading rapidly into mere automatic parts of machinery. I found that the proletariat of the great industrial cities was in a condition that could not be worse. Thousands of laborers in the city of 'Chicago live in rooms without sufficient protection from the weather, without proper ventilation, where never a stream of sunlight flows in. There are hovels where two, three and four families live in one room. How these conditions influence the health and the morals of these unfortunate sufferers, it is needless to say. And how do they live? From the ash barrels they gather half-rotten vegetables, in the butcher shops they buy for some cents offal of meat, and these precious morsels they carry home to prepare from them their meals. The delapidated houses in which this class of laborers live need repairs very badly, but the greedy landlord waits in most cases till he is compelled by the city to have them done. Is it a wonder that diseases of all kinds kill men, women and children in such places by wholesale, especially children? Is this not horrible in a so-called civilized land where there is plenty of food and riches? Some years ago a committee of the Citizen's Association, or League, made an investigation of these matters, and I was one of the reporters that went with them. What these common laborers are to-day, the skilled laborers will be to-morrow. Improved machinery that ought to be a blessing for the workingman, under the existing condition turns for him to a curse. Machinery multiplies the army of unskilled laborers, makes the laborer more dependent upon the men who own the land and the machines. And that is the reason that socialism and communism got a foothold in this country. The outcry that socialism, communism and anarchism are the creed of foreigners, is a big mistake. There are more socialists of American birth in this country than foreigners, and that is much, if we consider that nearly half of all industrial workingmen are not native Americans. There are socialistic papers in a great many states edited by Americans for Americans. The capitalistic newspapers conceal that fact very carefully.
"Socialism, as we understand it, means that land and machinery shall be held in common by the people. The production of goods shall be carried on by producing groups which shall supply the demands of the people. Under such a system every human being would have an opportunity to do useful work, and no doubt Would work. Four hours' work every day would suffice to produce all that, according to statistics, is necessary for a comfortable living. Time would be left to cultivate the mind, and to further science and art.
"That is what the socialists propose. Some say it is un-American! Well, then, is it American to let people starve and die in ignorance? Is exploitation and robbery of the poor, American? What have the great political parties done for the poor? Promised much; done nothing, except corrupting them by buying their votes on election day. A poverty-stricken man has no interest in the welfare of the community. It is only natural that in a society where women are driven to sell their honor, men should sell their votes.
"But we 'were not only socialists and communists; we were anarchists.'
"What is anarchy?
"Is it not strange that when anarchy was tried nobody ever told what anarchy was. Even when I was on the Witness stand, and asked the state's sttorney (sic) for a definition of anarchy, he declined to give it. But in their speeches he and his associates spoke very frequently about anarchy, and it appeared that they understood it. to be something horrible -arson, rapine, murder. In so speaking, Mr. Grinnell and his associates did not speak the truth. They searched the Alarm and the ArbeiterZeitung, and hunted up articles written years before the month of May, 1886. In the columns of these papers it is very often stated what we, the 'anarchists, understood by the term anarchy. And we are the only competent judges in this matter. As soon as the word is applied to us and our doctrine, it carries with it the meaning which we, the anarchists, saw fit to give to it. 'Anarchy' is Greek, and means, verbatim, without rulership; not being ruled. According to our vocabulary, anarchy is a state of society, in which the only government is reason.
"A state of society in which all human beings do right for the simple reason that it is right, and hate wrong because it is wrong, In such a society, no laws, no compulsion will be necessary. The attorney of the State was wrong when he said: 'Anarchy is dead.' Anarchy, up to the present day, has existed only as a doctrine, and Mr. Grinnell has not the power to kill any doctrine whatever. You many call anarchy, as defined by us, an idle dream, but that dream was dreamed by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, one of the great German poets and the most celebrated German critic of the last century. If anarchy were the thing the state's attorney makes it out to be, how could it be that such eminent scholars as Prince Kropotkin, and the greatest living geographer, Elisee Reclus, were avowed anarchists, even editors of anarchistic papers? Anarchy is a dream, but only in the present. It will be realized. Reason will grow in spite of all obstacles. Who is the man that has the cheek to tell us that human development has already reached its culminating point? I know that our ideal will not be accomplished this or next year, but 11 know that it will be accomplished as near as possible, some day, in the future. It is entirely wrong to use the word anarchy as synonymous with violence. Violence is one thing and anarchy is another. In the present state of society violence is used on all sides, and, -therefore, we advocated the use of violence against violence, but against violence only, as a necessary means of defense.
* * * * *
If I had never seen life as it is, I never would have taken to foretelling the coming downfall of this murderous system, and might now cry out like the learned and the ignorant mobsters: 'Hang the anarchists! I instead of living in the shadow of the gallows. Seeing the terrible abuses with my own eyes, seeing how girls became prostitutes, before they knew it, observing the slaughter of the little ones, the killing of workingmen by slow degrees, corruption, misery, crime, hypocrisy, poverty, dirt, ignorance, brutality and hunger everywhere,. and conceiving that all these things are the legitimate children of the capitalistic system, which, by establishing the right for single persons to possess the means of production and the land, makes the mass of the people wretched, I became a 'kicker.' For an honest and honorable man only one course -was left, andI became an opponent to the existing order of things, and was soon called an anarchist. What are my views? If we socialists, communists and anarchists held the views malicious or ignorant hirelings impute to us in their writings, we would simply be madmen who should be confined in an insane asylum forever. But if it were true that modern socialism, communism and anarchism were methodical madness, how could it be that these doctrines spread all over the world in so short a time? No doctrine whatever made so quick its march around the world; no doctrine ever gained so many converts in so few years I Our martyrs alone count hundreds of thousands in a score of years-men, women, yea even children. They perished by bullets, gallows, the sword, the guillotine; they perished in dungeons, in the wilderness, in the snow, and the mines of Siberia, under the tropical sun, they were driven from town to town, from country to country, outcast by their families. and some ended in madness brought about by persecutions such as only modern civilization could invent. Girls brought up in palatial mansions, with a life of ease and luxury before them; youths of rich and aristocratic parents worked as common factory hands, leading a life of misery, with no hope of ever gaining a reward, often enough despised and betrayed even by the class for whom they endured all this-- only to preach the gospel of the saving of mankindsocialism, communism, anarchism. Of some of these heroes not even the names are known. Even one of your famous American poets-Joaquin Miller--could not help to say, in a poem written to the praise of that noble anarchist girl, Sophia Perovskaya, who was hung, that he would rather die with her oh the gallows, than live as the Russian Czar. There is certainly truth in an idea, which has such martyrs. If our doctrine was wrong, our enemies would state the facts and it would then be comparatively easy to show the absurdity of the same. I have been a socialist for thirteen years, but never, never did I see our views correctly stated by a capitalistic newspaper. They fabricate wind mills, call them socialism, communism and anarchism and begin fighting them.
"The modern communist holds that labor is the fountain of all wealth and all culture and that, because useful labor only is possible by association of all mankind, the fruits of labor belong to all mankind. Even land has no value except where it can be put into use by labor. No empty lot in a city would have the least value, if labor had not built around it houses and streets, if business was not going on near that lot We know further, that labor is Dot paid its full value; if this were the case, it would be unprofitable to employ labor and would not be done. Let one man work alone for himself, he never could grow rich, although even in such a case his knowledge would be the, fruit of the work of others, the labor of generations. And because the latter is the case, the communist wants education, culture and knowledge for all, The land was common property thousands and thousands of years, and the private property system is-to speak historically-but of yesterday. And how was it introduced! Queen Elizabeth, that highly praised monster of murderous lust and brutality, for instance, had during her reign two millions of Irishmen killed in the usual way-battles, gallows, etc., took their land and gave it to favorites. It is not for me now to give a history how the common lands in England were stolen and robbed, but it is a historical fact that it was acquired by the forefathers of the present owners by murder, arson, theft and lesser crimes. Let the hired men of the press fill their columns with history of the crimes or land-robbing, if they dare. The sentence: 'Property is robbery,' is literally true--if you call robbery what the law calls so--of the property of the British landholders. The socialists and communists know further that the capitalistic system requires always expansion. The so-called profits-that is, the fruit of the labor withheld by the employer-are transformed into capital, to gain for him new profits. New factories are built, more machines set to work, new markets are sought for, if necessary by war. More and more nations are drawn into competition. It begins to become difficult to find buyers for the goods; each nation; each corporation, each capitalist wages war against the other for supremacy. He who sells cheapest holds the market. But not only this is required; he who is first in the market, he who can supply the demand in any emergency quick and cheap, will win the battle.
"This brings in speculation. The demand of the market is but limited, but the capitalists of all industrial countries are busy to glut it, -to overflood it with the products of their factories. To come out all right from this insane race for money, it is necessary to supply cheap and quick, so as to leave other competitors behind. The greater the plant, the better the machines, the cheaper the workmen, the more probable is -victory. The smaller manufacturer is soon driven from the contest and forced to close his establishment; new inventions of labor saving machines throw workmen out of employment and compel these forces to look ,out for new work, as machines tend to transform skilled labor into common labor. The competition for work among workingmen grows to fearful dimensions and brings wages down to a minimum. But this in turn -has its effect on production, and the battle wages more fearful than ever. But now reaction sets in. Millions of workmen are starving and leading the lives of vagabonds. Even the most ignorant wage-slave commences to think. The common misery makes it clear to them that they must combine, and they do it. The great levellers, the machines, destroyed the guild-pride of olden times. The carpenter feels that he has a common interest with the farm hand, and the printer with the hod-carrier, the German learns that his interest is that of Negro, of the Frenchman, of the American, and passing I would like to state, that in my opinion it is the, greatest merit of the order of the Knights of Labor to have carried out that principle in America in such an immense way. The workingmen learn that the capitalistic system, although necessary for some time, must make room for universal co-operation; that the land and means of production must pass from the hands of speculators, private individuals into the hands of the producing masses; this is communism.
"Any thinking man must concede that strikes, boycotts, co-operation 01, a small scale and other means will not and cannot better the condition Of the working-classes, even not so-called factory laws can bring the sought for result about. It is true the workingmen cannot help to use these insufficient means, often enough they are forced upon him. They
[pp 72-73 missing]
sorry, your honor-that is, if you can stop it or help it-I will ask you to do it-that is, to hang me, too; for I think it is more honorable to die suddenly than to be killed by inches. I have a family and children; and if they know their father is dead, they will bury him. They can go to the grave, and kneel down by the side of it; but they can't go to the penitentiary and see their father, who was convicted for a crime that he hasn't had anything to do with. That is all I have got to say. Your honor, I am sorry I am not to be hung with the rest of the men.
"Being familiar with the doctrines of socialism from my earliest youth I have held it my duty to spread these principles so dear to me whenever and wherever I could. What induced- me to become a socialist, you may ask? This I will relate in a few words:
"It happened during the last year of my school days that our tutor of historical science one day chanced to refer to socialism, which movement was at that time beginning to flourish in Germany, and which he told us meant 'division of property.' I am inclined to believe now that it was a general instruction given by the government to the patriotic pedagogues to periodically describe to their elder pupils socialism as a most horrible It is, as is well known, a customary policy on the part of the respective monarchial governments of the old world to prejudice the undeveloped minds of the youth against everything which is disagreeable to the despots through the medium of the school teachers. For instance, I :remember quite distinctly that before the outbreak and during the FrancoGerman war we were made to believe by our teacher's that every Frenchman was at least a scoundrel, if not a criminal. On the other hand, the kings were praised as the representatives of God, and obedience and loyalty to them was described as the highest virtues* Thus the minds of the children are systematically poisoned, and the fruits of this practice are made use of when the little ones become men and women. [Enough at the mentioned occasion our teachers told us that the socialists were a lot of drunkards, swindlers and idlers, who were opposed to work.] 'The time draws nigh,' that worthy said, placing his forefinger significantly alongside of his roman nose, 'when you young men will have to earn your daily bread in the sweat of your brow. Some of you may acquire wealth, while others will be less fortunate. Now, these socialists- mark you, who are a lazy set of people- intend to forcibly make you divide with them everything you possess at the termination of every year. For instance, if you should call two pairs of boots your own, one of these socialistic scoundrels will kindly relieve you of one pair. How would you like this?' Certainly, we thought we did not like this at all. Neither would I consent to anything of that sort to-day. Most decidedly Dot. Such an arrangement, I fancied, would be absurd. Now I knew it to be a fact that my father took part in socialistic meetings very frequently, and I wondered that day why he-whom I thought to be so good-should have
intercourse with such a bad class of men, whose object it was to lead a lazy life and to make the sober, industrious working people, at the termination of each year, divide their earnings with them. When I reached home that day I intimated to my father what (according to what the teacher had fold us) bad people the socialists must be. Much to my surprise may dear father laughed aloud and embraced me very affectionately. 'Dear Adolph,' he said, 'if socialism is what your teacher explained it to be, why then the very same institutions which prevail now, would be socialistic.' And my father went on to show me how, in fact, there were so many idlers and indolent people under the now existing form of society, who were residing in palatial houses and living luxuriously at the expense of the sober and indtustrious working people, and that socialism had the mission to abolish such unjust division. After this day I accompanied my father to socialistic gatherings, and soon became convinced of the truth of what he bad said.
" The capitalistic papers of this country sneered at a certain Indian chief; I think Red Cloud, who, they reported had said: 'What we (the Indians) want is white men to plant oar corn, hoe it, harvest it, and put it into barns which they will build for us.' Now, I cannot comprehend why the capitalistic press considers this utterance, of Red Cloud as a peculiar one. Have not the capitalists put this very same idea into practice? Let us investigate. Instead of the words 'white men,' use the expression 'workingmen,' and it will read thus: 'What we (the capitalists, the privileged class) want is workingmen to plant our corn, hoe it, harvest it, and put it into barns which they will build for us.' Well, nevertheless, these conditions exist to- day. The wage-slaves really produce everything, and store their products away into warehouses which they build for their masters; and besides they build for them also palaces such as Red Cloud never had on his programme. Yes; and the toilers do more than that; they decorate their masters with diamonds, and over-burden them with luxuries and riches of which Red Cloud never dreamed Who can deny this fact?
"In order to illustrate the existing social 'order,' I will draw the following parable:
A long time ago the forests of a tropical land were populated by a, happy lot of monkeys. They lived together like a large family and quarrelling and discontentedness were qualities totally unknown to them. For a livelihood they searched the surroundings for food for themselves and. their young ones in a harmonious way and without grudge. They were happy, indeed. One day some cunning monkeys were overcome by a very smart idea. They erected fences around the best parts of the forests and forbade their fellow-monkeys to hunt for food inside of the hedged regions. They named these pieces of land property. Now, the propertyless monkeys were in utter despair, for they did not know where to get food for themselves and families. They called upon the property-owners and complained of their impossibility of making, a livelihood. The propertied monkeys said unto them: 'We may allow you to seek food on our property under the condition that yon will give us half of the result of your. labor.' This offer the poor propertyless monkeys were compelled to, accept, as there was no other way of making a living. No other choice
was left open to them as either to accept or starve. The propertyless-monkeys had to build large ware-houses for their 'employers,' into which to store away their products. As a compensation they received so much for their services as was sufficient to keep themselves and families alive. This was called 'means.' The property-owning monkeys became very wealthy, and were living in luxury and idleness. And Why should they not? Did not the poor monkeys work for them, and thus enable them to be idle and yet debauch in abundance?
For a long time the working monkeys did not grumble, but were -very obedient. Generations thus passed, and the monkeys thought that the 'social institutions' could not be otherwise and that there had to be rich and poor monkeys, because these were the conditions which existed already when they were born. But the employers grew continually richer whilst the portion of the products of the workers, which they received as a compensation, were reduced to the lowest standard. Consequently the poor working monkeys were living in destitution and misery, notwithstanding the fact that the warehouses were filled with food. Discontentedness among the workers was the natural result of the growing wealth on one side and increasing poverty on the other. In order to keep the grumbling monkeys in subjection and maintain the respect for the existing institutions (which were called 'law and order') the propertied classes hired numbers of able-bodied monkeys from the ranks of the propertyless classes. Those men were called police, sheriffs, malitia, a.s.f.
"Now, the dissatisfied monkeys assembled frequently for the purpose of seeking remedy for the existing evils. As the opinions as to ways and means to secure better conditions were very different they formed -various organizations. Some of the workers aimed at I higher wages' and others wanted to work less time. Still another class of workers -held that the I wage- system should be abolished entirely. They said that the propertied monkeys had accumulated their riches by robbing the workers out of the major part of the results of their labor. Furthermore, they claimed that the wealthy classes had no right to monopolize the natural resources of existence and thereby force their fellow-monkeys into -their services, but that the mother-earth and her products belonged to the monkey race in common. The monkeys who confessed the latter ideas were considered very dangerous by the privileged class. 'Law and order is ,endangered,' the wealthy cried. 'Those anarchists want to overthrow our glorious institutions and turn everything topsy-turvy. We must do away with those bloodthirsty rascals, who want to take our property and who are undermining our free and glorious institutions.' The propertied monkeys were also opposed to that part of the working monkeys who only demanded a larger compensation for their work; but their hate against those who wanted to abolish their privileges altogether was immeasurable.
"The capitalistic press, and even numerous labor journals, define anarchism as. murder, plunder, arson and outrage upon society in general. These 'learned' journalists, or at least a majority of them thus defining anarchism, misrepresent the object and aims of this teaching maliciously. Anarchism does not, mean plunder And outrage upon, society;. contrarily, its mission is to outroot the systematical plunder of a vast majority of the people by a comparatively few-the working classes by the capitalists. It aims at the extermination of the outrages committed by the reigning classes upon the wage-slaves, under the name of 'law and order.' Murder, plunder, robbery, outrages. Is an anarchist really the impersonation of all crimes, of everything dastardly and damnable?' The 'International Working Peoples' Association, the organization of the anarchists, has the following platform, which was agreed upon at the congress at Pittsburg in October, 1883. Let this platform be the answer to the question I have raised before:
"1. Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, i.e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary and international action.
"2. Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative organization of production.
"3. Free exchange of equivalent; products by and between the productive organizations without commerce and profit- mongery.
"4. Organization of education on a secular, scientific and equal basis for both sexes.
"5. Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race.
"6. Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis.
"Does this sound like outrages and crime?
"In the course of my observations I will dwell more thoroughly on the aims and objects of anarchy.
"Many people undoubtedly long to know what the relationship between anarchism and socialism is, and whether these two doctrines have anything in common with each other. A number of persons claim that an anarchist cannot be a socialist, and a socialist not an anarchist. This is wrong. The philosophy of socialism is a general one, and covers several subordinate teachings. To illustrate, I will cite the word 'Christianity.' There are Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and various other religious sects, all of whom call themselves Christians. Although every Catholic is a Christian, it would not be correct to say that every Christian believes in Catholicism. Webster defined socialism thus: 'A more orderly, equitable and harmonious arrangement of social affairs than has hitherto prevailed.' Anarchism is aiming at this; anarchism is seeking a more just form of society. Therefore every anarchist is a socialist but every socialist is not necessarily an anarchist. The anarchists again are divided into two factions; the communistic anarchists and the Proudhon or middle-class anarchists. The 'International Working Peoples' Association is the representative organization of the communistic anarchists. Politically we are anarchists, and economically, communists or socialists. With regard. to political organization the communistic anarchists demand the abolition of political authority, the state; we deny the right of a single class or single individual to govern or rule another class or individual. We hold that, as long as one man is under the dictation of another, as long as one man can in any form subjugate his fellow man, and as long as the means of existence can be monopolized by a certain class or certain individuals, there can be no liberty. Concerning the economical form of society, we advocate the communistic or co-operative method of production.
"As to the distribution of products, a free exchange between the organizations of productions without profit-mongery would take place. Machinery and the means of production in general would be the common servant, and the products certainly the common property of the whole of the people. In what respect do the social-democrats differ from the anarchists? The state-socialists do not seek the abolition of the, state, but they advocate the centralization of the means of production in the hands of the government; in other words, they want the government to be the controller of industry. Now, a socialist who is not a state-socialist must necessarily be an anarchist. It is utterly ridiculous for men like Dr. Aveling to state that they are neither state-socialists nor anarchists,. Dr. Aveling has to be either one or the other.
"The term I anarchism I is of Greek origin and means I without govemment, or, in other words, 'without oppression.', I only wish that every workingman would understand the proper meaning of this word. It is an absurd falsehood if the capitalists and their hired editors say that anarchism is identical with disorder and crime. On the contrary, anarchism wants to do away with the now existing social disorder; it aims at the establishment of the real-the natural-order. I think every sensible man ought to conceive, that where ruling is existing on one hand, there must be submission on the other. He who rules is a tyrant, and he who submits is a slave. Logically there can be no other outlet, because submission is the antithesis of rule. Anarchists hold that it is the natural right of every member of the human family to control themselves. If a centralized power-government-is ruling the mass of people (no matter, whether this government 'represents the will of the majority of the people I or not) it is enslaving them, and a direct violation of the laws of nature. When laws are made there must be certain interests which cause their issue. Now every statute law, and consequently every violation thereof-crime- can be traced back to the institution of private property. The state protects the interests of the owners of private property (wealthy class), and therefore does not and cannot possibly protect the interests of the nonpossessing people (the wage- workers), because the interests of both are of an opposite nature. The capitalists who have taken possession of the means of production-factories, machinery, land; etc., are the masters, and the workingmen who have to apply to the capitalists for the use of the means of production (for which they receive a small compensation in order to live), are the slaves. The interests of the capitalistic class are backed by the state (militia, sheriffs, and police) while the interests of the non- possessing people are not protected. Anarchists say that there should be no class interests, but that every human being should have free access to the means of existence and that the pantries of mother-earth should be accessible to all of her children. One part of the great human family has no right to deprive their brothers and sisters of their legitimate place at the common table, which is set so richly by generous moter-nature for all Anarchists, as well as all other thinking people, claim, that in the present society, a great number of people are deprived of a decent existence. We demand the re-installation of the disinherited! Is this a crime?. Is this an outrage upon society? Are we therefore dangerous criminals, whose lives should be taken in the interests of the common good of society?
* * * * *
"Yes, the anarchists demand the re-installation of the disinherited members of the human family. It is, therefore, quite natural that the privileged classes should hate them. Why, do not wrong doing parties always hate those who disclose the nature of their transactions and open the eyes of their ignorant victims? Certainly they do. The anarchists are very much hated by the extortioners; indeed, they are proud of it. To them, this is a proof that they are on the right road. But the ruling classes very cunningly play the role of the thief, who, when pursued by his discoverers, cries out, 'stop the thief,' and by this manipulation succeeds in making good his escape. The anarchists have proven that the existing form of society is based upon the exploitation of one class by another; in plain words, upon legalized robbery. They say that few persons have no right whatever, to monopolize the resources of nature; and they urge the victims, the toilers, to take possession of the means of production, which belong to the people in common, and thus secure the full benefit of their toil. Anarchists do not want to deprive the capitalists of their existence, but they protest against the capitalists depriving the toilers ,of their right to a decent existence. Should the communistic form of production prevail, the capitalists of to-day would not have to starve; they would be situated just as comfortably and would be just as happy (yea, happier than they are now) as the rest of the people. But, certainly -they would have to take an active part in the production and be satisfied with their respective share of the results of labor, performed in common with their fellowmen. The strongest bulwark of the capitalistic system is -the ignorance of its victims. The average toiler shakes his head like the incredulous Thomas, 'when one tries to make plausible to him that he is held in economic bondage. And yet this is so easily to be seen if one only takes. the pains to think a little. Working at my trade alongside my colleagues, whom I tried to convince of my ideas, I used to tell them a story about some foxes: 'Several foxes, in speculating about some scheme which would enable them to live without hunting for food themselves, succeeded at last in discovering one. They took possession of all the springs and other water-places. Now, as the other animals came to quench their thirst, the foxes said unto them: The water- places belong to us; if you want to drink, you must bring us something in return, you must bring us food for compensation. The other animals were foolish enough to obey, and, in order to drink, they had to hunt the whole day for food for the foxes, so that they themselves had to live very meagerly. 1 asked one of -my colleagues, who was prominent as a denunciator of socialism, what his opinion was concerning the just mentioned story. He said that the animals who were thus swindled by the foxes were very foolish in obeying them, and ought to drive the latter away from the water-places. When I directed his attention to the fact that a similar practice Was being cultivated- in modern society, with the only difference that the role of the foxes was occupied by the capitalists, and the water-places were represented by the means of production, and that he (my colleague) was very inconsistent in condemning the one and defending the other, he owed me the answer. This, for instance, illustrates the ignorance and indifference of the average workingmen. In the case of the foxes, they see no more and no less than robbery in their schemes, whilst in the case of the capitalists they approve of their methods.
"Many inconsistent objections to anarchism are being made by its opponents. Some people have the impression that in an anarchistic society, where there is nobody to govern and nobody to be governed, every person would be isolated. This is false. Men have implanted by nature an impulse to associate with their fellow men. In a free society men would form economic as well as social associations; but all organizations would be voluntary, not compulsory. As I have asserted before, laws and the violations thereof, crimes, are attributed to the institution of private property, especially to the unequal distribution of the means of existence, to degradation and want. When the institution of private property will be abolished; when economic and social equalities will be established; when misery and want will belong to the past, then crime will be unknown and laws will become superfluous. It is a wrong assertion when people claim that a man is a criminal because of a natural disposition to crime. A man, as a rule, is but the reflex of the conditions which surround him. In a society, which places no obstacles in the road of free development of men, and which gives everybody an equal share to the pursuit of happiness, there will be no course which will induce men to become bad.
"The legalized private-property system gives birth to crime and at the same time punishes it because it exists. The mother punishes her own child because it is born. Do away with the systems that produce evils and the latter will vanish. The removal of the cause is synonymous with the removal of the effects; but the social diseases will never be cured if you declare war against the victims and on the other hand defend the cause which produced them. If one has the small-pox it would not cure the disease if one would scratch the scabs off. The disease in this case is the system of private-property, and the scabs its evil effects.
"How will the anarchists realize their ideas? What means do they intend to employ to accomplish the realization of a free society. Much has been written and talked on this subject, and, as an avowed anarchist, I will in plain terms give my individual opinion to the readers of this journal. The 'anarchism' itself does not indicate force; on the contrary it meanspeace. But I believe that everybody who has studied the true character of the capitalistic form of society, and who will not deceive himself, will agree with me that now and never will the ruling classes abandon their privileges peaceably. Anarchism demands a thorough transformation of society, the total abolition of the private-property system. Now, history shows us that even reforms within the frame of the existing society have never been accomplished without the force of arms. Feudalism received its death blow through the great French revolution a century ago, which at the same time gave form to modern capitalism. Capitalism now is speedily attaining its most extreme character, that is, it is develop
into monopolism. Wealth concentrates itself more and more in a few hands and the misery and poverty of the great mass of people is consequently enlarging in the same degree. The rich got richer and the poor poorer. Like the ruling classes in the eighteenth century, so the same classes at the eve of the nineteenth century are deaf to the complaints and warnings of the disinherited, and blind to the misery and degradation which surround their luxuriously outfitted palaces. The natural result will be that perhaps before the nineteenth century will wing its last hours the people will arise en masse, expropriate the privileged and proclaim the freedom of the human race. It is wrong if people assert that the anarchists will be responsible for the coming revolution. No, the drones of society are the parties who will have to answer to the charge of being the cause of the prospective uprising of the people; for the rich and mighty have ears and hear not, and eyes and yet see not.
"To abolish chattel slavery in this country a long and awful war took place. Notwithstanding the fact that indemnification was offered for their losses, the slaveholders would not bestow freedom upon their slaves. Now, in my judgment, he who believes that the modern slave holders-the capitalists- would voluntarily, without being forced to do so, give up their privileges and set free their wage-slaves, are poor Students. Capitalists possess too much egotism to give way to reason. Their egotism is so enormous that they even refuse to grant subordinate and insignificant concessions. Capitalists and syndicates, for instance, rather lose milions of dollars than to accept the eight-hour labor system. Would a peaceable solution of the social question be possible, the anarchists would be the first ones to rejoice over it.
"But is it riot a fact that on the occasion of almost every strike the minions of the institution of private property- militia, police, deputy sheriffs, yea, even federal troops-are being called to the scenes of the conflict between capital and labor, in order to protect the interests of capital. Did it ever happen that the interests of labor were guarded by these forces? What peaceable means should the toilers employ? There is, for example. the strike. If the ruling classes want to enforce the 'law' they can have every striker arrested and punished for 'intimidation' and conspiracy. A strike can only be successful if the striking workingmen prevent their places being occupied by others. But this prevention is a crime in the eyes of the law. Boycott! In several states the 'courts of justice' have decided that the boycott is a violation of the law, and in consequence thereof a number of boycotters have had the pleasure of examining the inner construction of penitentiaries 'for conspiracy' against the interests of capital. 'But,' says some apostle of harmony, 'there is something left which will help us; there is the ballot.' No doubt many people -who say this are honest in their belief.
"But scarcely did the workingmen participate in the elections as a class, many representatives of 'law and order' advocate a limitation (in many instances even the total abolition) of the right of the proletarian to -vote. People who readthe Chicago Tribune and Times and other representative capitalistic organs, will confirm my statement. The propaganda among capitalists in favor of limiting the right to vote to tax payers property owners--only is increasing constantly, and will be realized whenever the political movement of the workingmen becomes really dangerous to the interests of capital. The 'Law and Order League I of capitalists, recently organized all over the country to defeat the demands of organized labor, has declared that the workingmen must not be allowed to obtain power over the ballot box. They have so resolved everywhere.
"The anarchists are not blind. They see the development of things and predict that a collision between the plebeians and patricians is inevitable. Therefore in time for the coming struggle--to arms! If threatening clouds are visible on the horizon, I advise my fellow-man to carry an umbrella with him, so be will not get wet. Am I then the cause of the rain? No. So let me say plainly that, in my opinion, only by the force of arms can the wage slaves make their way out of capitalistic bondage.
"As the court a., well as the states-attorney have plainly said, the verdict of death was rendered for the purpose of crushing the. anarchistic and the socialistic movement. But I am satisfied that just the contrary has been accomplished by this barbarous measure. Thousands of workingmen have been led by our 'conviction' to study anarchism, and if we are executed, we can ascend the scaffold with the satisfaction that by our death, we have advanced our noble, cause more than we could possibly have done had we grown as old as Methusalah."
ADDRESS OF LOUIS LINGG.
"COURT OF JUSTICE! With the same irony with which you have regarded my efforts to win, in this 'free land of America,' a livelihood such as human kind is worthy to enjoy, do you now, after condemning me to death, concede me the liberty of making a final speech.
"I accept your concession; but it is only for the purpose of exposing the injustice, the calumnies, and the outrages which have been heaped upon me.
"You have accused me of murder, and convicted me: what proof have you brought that I am guilty?
"In the first place, you have brought this fellow Seliger to testify against me. Him I have helped to make bombs, and you have further proven that with the assistance of another, I took those bombs to No. 58 Clybourne avenue, but what you have not proven--even with the assistance of your bought 'squealer,' Seliger, who would appear to have acted such a prominent part in the affair-is that any of those bombs were taken to the haymarket. A couple of chemists also, have been brought here as specialists, yet they could only state that the metal of which the haymarket bomb was made bore a certain resemblance to those bombs of mine, and your Mr. Ingham has vainly endeavored to deny that the bombs were quite differenent He had to admit that there was a difference of a full half inch in their diameters, although he suppressed the fact that there was also a difference of a quarter of an inch in the thickness of the shell. This is the kind of evidence upon which you have convicted me.
"It is not murder, however, of which you have convicted me. The judge has stated that much only this morning in his resume of the case, and Grinnell has repeatedly asserted that we were being tried, not for murder, but for anarchy, so that the condemnation is-that I am an anarchist!
"What is anarchy" This is a subject which my comrades have explained with sufficient clearness, and it is unneccessary for me to go over it again. They have told you plainly enough what our aims are. The state's attorney, however, has not given you that information. He has merely criticized and condemned not the doctrines of anarchy, but our methods of giving them practical effect, and even here he has maintained a discreet silence as to the fact that those methods were forced upon us by the brutality of the police. Grinnell's own proffered remedy for our grievances is the ballot and combination of trades unions, and Ingham has even avowed the desirability of a six-hour movement! But the fact is, that at every attempt to wield the ballot, at every endeavor to combine the efforts of workingmen, you have displayed the brutal violence of the police club, and this is why I have recommended rude force, to combat the ruder force of the police.
"You have charged me with despising 'law and order.' What does your 'law and order' amount to? Its representatives are the police, and they have thieves in their ranks. Here sits Captain Schaack. He has himself admitted to me that my hat and books have been stolen from him in his office-stolen by policemen. These are your defenders of property rights!
"The detectives again, who arrested me, forced their way into my room like house breakers, under false pretences, giving the name of a carpenter, Lorenz, of Burlington street. They have sworn that I was alone in my room, therein perjuring themselves. You have not subpoenaed this lady, Mrs. Klein, who was present, and could have sworn that the aforesaid detectives broke into my room under false pretenses, and that their testimonies are perjured.
"But let us go further. In Schaack we have a captain of the police, and he also has perjured himself. He has sworn that I admitted to him being present at the Monday night meeting, whereas, I distinctly informed him that I was at a carpenter's meeting at Zepf's Hall. He has sworn again that I told him that I had learned how to make bombs from Herr Most's book. That, also, is a perjury.
"Let us go still a step higher among these representatives of law and order. Grinnell and his associates have permitted perjury, and I say that they have done it knowingly. The proof has been adduced by my counsel, and with my own eyes I have seen Grinnell point out to Gilmer, eight days before he came upon the stand, the persons of the men whom he was to swear against.
While I, as I have stated above, believe in force for the sake of winning for myself and fellow-workmen a livelihood such as men ought to have, Grinnell, on the other hand, through his police and other rogues, has suborned perjury in order to murder seven men, of whom I am one.
"Grinnell bad the pitiful courage here in the courtroom, where I could not defend myself, to call me a coward! The scoundrel! A fellow who has leagued himself with a parcel of base, hireling knaves, to bring me to the gallows. Why? For no earthly reason save a contemptible selfishness--a desire to 'rise in the world'--to 'make money" forsooth.
"This wretch-who, by means of the perjuries of other wretches is going to murder seven men-is the fellow who calls me 'coward!' And yet you blame me for despising such 'defenders of the law'-such unspeakable hypocrites!
"Anarchy means no domination or authority of one man over another, yet you call that 'disorder.' A system which advocates no such 'order' as shall require the services of rogues and thieves to defend it you call 'disorder.'
"The Judge himself was forced to admit that the state's attorney had not been able to connect me with the bomb throwing. The latter knows how to get around it, however. He charges me with being a 'conspirator.' How does he prove it? Simply by declaring the International Workingmens' Association to be a 'conspiracy.' I was a member of that body, so he has the charge securely fastened on me. Excellent! Nothing is too difficult for the genius of a state's attorney!
"It is hardly incumbent upon me to review the relations which I occupy to my companions in misfortune. I can say truly and openly that I am not as intimate with my fellow prisoners as I am with Captain Schaack.
"The universal misery, the ravages of the capitalistic hyena have brought us together in our agitation, not as persons, but as workers in the same cause, Such is the 'conspiracy' of which you have convicted me.
I protest against the conviction, against the decision of the court. I do not recognize your law, jumbled together as it is by the nobodies of bygone centuries, and I do not recognize the decision of the court. My own counsel have conclusively proven from the decisions of equally high courts that a new trail must be granted us. The state's attorney quotes three times as many decisions from perhaps still higher courts to prove the opposite, and I am convinced that if, in another trial, these decisions should be supported by twenty-five volumes, they will adduce one hundred in support of the contrary, if it is anarchists who are to be tried. And not even under such a law, a law that a schoolboy must despise, not even by such methods have they been able to 'legally' convict us.
"They have suborned perjury to boot.
"I tell you frankly and openly, I am for force. I have already told Captain Schaack, 'if they use cannons against us, we shall use dynamite against them."
"I repeat that I am the enemy of the 'order' of to-day, and I repeat that, with all my powers. so long as breath remains in me, I shall combat it. I declare again, frankly and openly, that I am in favor of using force. I have told Captain Schaack, and I stand by it. 'if you cannonade, us we shaIl dynamite you.' You laugh' Perhaps you think, 'you'll throw no more bombs;' but let me assure you that I die, happy on the gallows so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words; and when you shall have hanged us, then, mark my words, they will do the bomb- throwing! In this hope do I say to you: 'I despise you. I despise your order; your laws, your force-propped authority.' HANG ME FOR IT!
GEORGE ENGELL, ON ANARCHISM.
This is the first occasion of my standing before an American court, and on this occasion it is murder of which I am accused. And for what reasons do I stand here? For what reasons am I accused of murder? The same that caused me to leave Germany-the poverty--the misery of the working classes.
"And here, too, in this 'free republic,' in the richest country of the world, there are numerous proletarians for whom no table is set; who, as outcasts of society, stray joylessly through life. I have seen human beings gather their daily food from the garbage heaps of the streets, to quiet there with their knawing hunger.
"I have read of occurrences in the daily papers which proves to me that here, too, in this great 'free land,' people are doomed to die of starvation. This brought me to reflection, and to the question: What are the peculiar causes that could bring about such a condition of society? I then began to give our political institutions more attention than formerly. My discoveries brought to me the knowledge that the same society evils exist here that exist in Germany. This is the, explanation of what induced me to study the social question, to become a socialist. And I proceeded with all the means at my command, to make myself familiar with the new doctrine.
in 1878, I came here, from Philadelphia, I strove to better my condition, believing it would be less difficult to establish a means of livelihood here than in Philadelphia, where I had tried in vain to make a living. But here, too, I found myself disappointed. I began to understand that it made no difference to the proletarian, whether he lived in New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago. In the factory in which I worked I became acquainted with a man who pointed out to me the causes that brought about the difficult and fruitless battles of the workingmen for the means of existence. He explained to me, by the logic of scientific socialism, how mistaken I was in believing, that I could make an independent living by the toil of my hands, so Iong, as machinery, raw material, etc., were guaranteed to the capitalists as private property by the State. That I might further enlighten my mind in regard to these facts, I purchased with money earned by myself and family, socialogical works, among them those of LaSalle, Marx, and Henry George. After the study of these books, it became clear to me, why a workingman could not decently exist in this rich country. I now began to think of ways and means to remedy this. I hit upon the ballot box; for it had been told me so often that this was the means by which workingmen could better their condition.
"I took part in politics with the earnestness of a good citizen-, but I was soon to find that the teachings of a 'free ballot box' are a myth, and that I had again been duped. I came to the opinion that as long as workingmen are economically enslaved they cannot be politically free. It became clear to me that the working classes would never bring about a form of society guaranteeing work, bread, and a happy life by means of the ballot
"Before I had lost my faith in the ballot-box the following occurrences transpired which proved to me that the politicians of this country were through and through corrupt. When, in the fourteenth ward, in which I lived and had the right to vote, the Social- democratic party had grown to such dimensions as to make it dangerous for the republican and democratic parties, the latter forthwith united and took stand against the social democrats. This, of course, was natural; for are not their interests identical? And as the social-democrats nevertheless elected their candidates, they were beaten out of the fruits of their victory by the corrupt schemes of the old political parties. The ballot-box was stolen and the votes so 'corrected' that it became possible for the opposition to proclaim their candidates elected. The workingmen sought to obtain justice through the courts, but it was all in vain. The trial cost them fifteen hundred dollars, but their rights they never obtained.
"Soon enough I found that political corruption had burrowed through the ranks of the social-democrats. I left this party and joined the International Working People's Association, that was just being organized. The members of that body have the firm conviction that the workingman can free himself from the tyranny of capitalism only through force; just as all advances of which history speaks, have been brought about through force alone. We see from the history of this country that the first colonists won their liberty only through force; that through force slavery was abolished, and just as the man who agitated against slavery in this country, had to ascend the gallows, so also must we. He who speaks for the workingman to-day must hang. And why? Because this republic is not governed by people who have obtained their office honestly.
"Who are the leaders at Washington that are to guard the interests of this nation? Have they been elected by the people, or by the aid of their money? They have no right to make laws for us, because they were not elected by the people. These are the reasons why I have lost all respect for American laws.
The fact that through the, improvement of machinery so many men are thrown out of employment, or at best, working but half the time, brings them to reflection. They have leisure, and they consider how their conditions can be changed. Reading matter that has been written in their interest gets into their hands, and faulty though their education may be, they can nevertheless cull the truths contained in those writings. This, of course, is not pleasant for the capitalistic class, but they cannot prevent it. And it is my firm conviction that in a comparatively short time the great mass of proletarians will understand that they can be freed from their bonds only through socialism. One must consider what Carl Schurz said scarcely eight years ago: That, 'in this country there is no space for socialism;' and yet to-day socialism stands before the bars of the court. For this reason it is my firm conviction that if these few years suffice to make socialism one of the burning questions of the day, it will require but a short time more to put it in practical operation.
"All that I have to say in regard to my conviction is, that I was not at all surprised; for it has ever been that the men who have endeavored to enlighten their fellow man have been thrown into prison or put to death, as was the case with John Brown. I have found, long ago, that the workingman has no more rights here than anywhere else in the world. The state's attorney has stated that we were not citizens. I have been a citizen this long time; but it does not occur to me to appeal for my rights as a citizen, knowing as well as I do that this does not make a particle of difference. Citizen or not-as a working man I am without rights, and therefore I respect neither your rights nor your laws, which are made and directed by one class against the other; the working class.
"Of what does my crime consist?
"That I have labored to bring about a system of society by which it is impossible for one to board millions, through the improvements in machinery, while the great masses sink to degradation and misery. As water and air are free to all, so should the inventions of scientific men be applied for the benefit of all. The statute laws we have are in opposition to the laws of nature, in that they rob the great masses of their rights to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
"I am too much a man of feeling Hot to battle against the societary conditions of to-day. Every considerate person must combat a system which makes it possible for the individual to rake and board millions in a few years, while, on the other side, thousands become tramps and beggars.
"Is it to be wondered at that under such circumstances men arise who strive and struggle to create other conditions, where the humane humanity shall take precedence of all other considerations. This is the aim of socialism, and to this I joyfully subscribe.
"The state's attorney said here that 'anarchy' was 'on trial.'
"Anarchism and socialism are as much alike, in my opinion, as one egg is to another. They differ only in their tactics. The anarchists have abandoned the way of liberating humanity which socialists would take to accomplish this. I say: Believe Do more in the ballot, and use all other means at your command. Because we have done so we stand arraigned here to-day--because we have pointed out to the people the proper way. The anarchists are being hunted and persecuted for this in every clime, but in the face of it all anarchism is gaining more and more adherents, and if you cut off our opportunities of open agitation, then will all the work be done secretly. If the state's attorney thinks he can root out socialism by banging seven of our men and condemning the other to fifteen years servitude, he is laboring under a very wrong impression. The tactics simply will be changed-that is all. No power on earth can rob the workingman of his knowledge of how to make bombs-and that knowledge be possessess. I do not wish for state's attorney Grinnell and his assistant, Furthman, the fate of the Chief of Police Rumpff.
"If anarchism could be rooted out, it would have been accomplished .long ago in other countries. On the night on which the first bomb in this country Was thrown, I was in my apartments at home. I knew nothing of the conspiracy which the state's attorney pretends to have discovered.
"It is true I am acquainted with several of my fellow defendants; with most of them, however, but slightly, through seeing them at meetings, and hearing them speak. Nor do I deny that I too have spoken at meetings, saying that, if every working man had a bomb in his pocket, capitalistic rule would soon come to an end.
"That is my opinion, and my wish -I it became my conviction, when I mentioned the wickedness of the capitalistic conditions of the day.
"When hundreds of workingmen have been destroyed in mines in consequence of faulty preparations, for the repairing of which the owners were too stingy, the capitalistic papers have scarcely noticed it. See with what satisfaction and. cruelty they make their report, when here and there workingmen have been fired upon, while striking for a few cents increase in their wages, that they might earn only a scanty subsistence.
Can any one feel any respect for a government that accords rights only to the privileged classes, and none to the workers? We have seen but recently how the coal barons combined to form a conspiracy to raise the price of coal, while at the same time reducing the already low wages of their men. Are they accused of conspiracy on that account? But When working-men dare ask an increase in their wages, the militia and the police are sent out to shoot them down.
"For such a government as this I can feel no respect, and will combat them despite their power, despite their police, despite their spies.
"I hate and combat, not the individual capitalist, but the system that gives him those privileges. My greatest wish is that workingmen may recognize who are their friends and who are their enemies.
"As to my conviction, brought about as it was, through capitalistic influence, I have not one word to say.
SAMUEL FIELDEN ON SOCIALISM AND ANARCHISM.
I came to the United States in 1868. I have preached in Ohio, and I came to Chicago in 1869. There are monuments of beauty, of stability, and evidences of progress in the city of Chicago, and you can hardly go through a street in this city that I have not dropped my sweat upon, that had been produced by the labor of my hand. And just here let me tell you that when the indictment had been procured against me and my comrades here, it was accompanied by the statement that these men had been deluding their dupes in order to make money out of them. When the trial was in progress the only man who could have answered the question as to whether we had made money out of our organization was Zeller, the Secretary of the Central Labor Union, and when he was asked the question whether we ever received any money for speaking and organizing unions in that organization, the gentlemen who had been instrumental in attaching that to the indictment in, order to prejudice the people against us before the trial should come on against us-for there is nothing in the world that can prejudice a man so much as to be charged with having imposed on some one for mercenary motives, and this is creditable to society -when the trial came on and this man who could have testified to thatwho could have substantiated it if it had been true-was asked the question, each one of the gentlemen who were interested in its being proven true for their side of the case at once sprang to their feet and objected to the question being asked. We have been tried by a jury that have found us guilty. You will be tried by a jury now that will find you guilty.
Being of an inquiring disposition or turn of mind, and having observed that there was something wrong in our social system, I attended some meetings of workingmen and compared what they said with my own observation. I knew there was something wrong. My ideas did not become settled as to what was the remedy, but when they did I carried the same energy and the same determination to bring about that remedy that I had applied to ideas which I had possessed years before. There is always a period in every individual's life when some sympathetic chord is touched by some other person. That is the open sesame that carries conviction. The ground may have all been prepared. The evidence may all have been accumulated, but it has not formed any shape. In fact, the child has not been born. The new idea has not impressed itself thoroughly when that sympathetic chord is touched, and the person is thoroughly convinced of the truth of the idea. It was so in my investigation of political economy. I knew there was something wrong, but I did not know what the remedy was; but discussing the condition of things and the different remedies one day, a person said to me that socialism meant equal opportunities-and that was the touch. From that time I became a socialist; I learned more and more what it was. I knew that 1 had found the right thing; that I bad found the medicine that -was calculated to cure the ills of society. Having found it I had a right to advocate it, and I did. The constitution of the United States, when it says: 'The right of free speech shall not be abridged,' gives every man the right to speak his thoughts. I have advocated the principles of socialism and social economy, and for that and no other reason am I here, and is sentence of death to be pronounced upon me? What is socialism? Taking somebody else's property? That is what socialism is in the common acceptation of the term. No. But if I were to answer it as shortly and as curtly as it is answered by its enemies, I would say it is preventing somebody else from taking your property. But socialism is equality. Socialism recognizes the fact that no man in society is responsible for what he is; that all the ills that are in society are the production of poverty; and scientific socialism says you must go to the root of the evil. There is no criminal statistician in the world but will acknowledge that all crime, when traced to its origin, is the product of poverty. It has been said that it was inflammatory for me to say that the present social system degraded men until they became mere animals. Go through this city into the low lodging houses where men are huddled together into the smallest possible space, living in an infernal atmosphere of death and disease, and I will ask you to draw your silks and your broadecloths close to you when these men pass you. Do you think that these men deliberately, with a fullknowledge of what they are doing, choose to become that class of animals? Not one of them. They are the products of conditions, of certain environments in which they were born, and which have impelled them resistlessly into what they are. And we have this loadstone. You who wish it could be taken from the shoulders of society. What is it? When those men were children, put them into an environment where they have the best results of civilization around them, and they will never willfully choose a condition like that. Some cynic might say that this would be a very nice thing for these men. Society, with its rapidity of production of the means of existence, is capable of doing that without doing injury to a singleindividual; and the great masses of wealth owned by individuals in this and the old world have been produced in exactly the same proportion as these men have been degraded-and they never could have been accumulated in any other way. I do not charge that every capitalist willfully and maliciously conspires to bring about these results; but I do charge that it has been done, and I do charge that it is a very undesirable condition of things, and I claim that socialism would cure the world of that ulcer. These are my ideas in short, on socialism. The ultra patriotic sentiment of the American people and I suppose the same comparative sentiment is felt in England and France and Germany-is that no man in this country need be poor. The class who are not poor think so. The class who are poor are beginning to think differently; that under existing conditions it is impossible that some people should not be poor.
"Why is it that we have 'over-production?' And why is it that our warehouses are full of goods, and our workshops have to shut up, and our workmen are turned out on the highway because there is nothing to do? What is this tending to? Lot me show the change of conditions |
