The Chicago Martyrs by John P. Altgeld

1]4
ADDRESS OF ALBER'f R. PARSONS,
ADDRESS OF ALBERT R. PARSONS.
115
the testimony fairly amI iLDp_,rtialiy ann dedde whether they are guilty or
innocent? "
Juryman Reed said:
"When they do not teach a doctrine that undermines the law, that don't
break the law, then there is no flbjection to the labor organizations. There
could not be any. I have a prejudice against any man who seeks to undermine
the Bocial and political laws of the country. I am a Freethinker."
Now, this man condemned us to death, becaustl we seek to undermine
the social and political laws of the country. He is a Freethinker; w~ accepted
him for that reason, because we thought that, as he claimed the right of free
thought on religious matters, he would certainly be consistent and give us the
right of free thought on political and social questions. But alas! Juryman
Reed is a Boston man. That is the country where they used to bum witches
and condemn religious beretics to death. Tbe right to free thought has been
acquhed after a century of bloollalJed and struggle, and now, because we, the
Anarchists, are social and .political heretics, he strangles us on the gibbet.
Juryman Reed concedes the right of free thought while he denies us the right
of free action. What is the one worth without the other? What a mockery
to say to the slave, "You are free to think yOJl ought to be free, but you have
no right to be free." To compel me to work and to suffer for yoUI' benefit,
and then console me with the aEsurance that I,am free to think what I please
about it, is the very mockery of liberty. This is the fruit of authority, of
force, of government. Juror Reed would have been hung one hundred years
ago. He hangs me today. Do you \\onder that I am an Anarchis.?
I will read from the Ala1"l)) an article headed" White Slaves-The Bitter
Cry of Poor Working Girls-ATrue Picture of Civilization Under·the Infamies
of Capitalism-Life, Liberty, and Happiness in Amer,ica-Facts for Fathers and
Mothers to Consider." Then follows a two column article in t,he New York
Evening Telegm'm, a capitalistic newspaper, descriptive of the life of the sewing
girls in New York city-American girls-the future mothers of American
citizens. 1 will not take up the time of the court in reading it in full. I will
read a short extract as follows:
'
" It must be confessed that the outlook for labor in all its brancbes of
industry is most discouraging, and revives the idea of that terrible story ill
Blackwood, where a prison of iron bas been so constructed as to gradually
contract until it becomes an iron shroud that crushes the prisoner within to
a shapeless pulp. Labor is encircled by an iron shroud made of two factions,
the tendency of capital to concentrate itself in few hands and the undeniable
fact that the number of laborers will alwa,ys increase in greater ratio than the
amount of employment for them. These items alone would, if not counteracted
by some system that is vital, reduce the working class in time to a condition
far worse 'than slavery. In fact, elavery has been in all past ages the
one remedy for the overpowering woes of labor, but a remedy that undermined
and ruined each civilization in its turn. In the meantime, it is to be hoped
, that the women of America will take up the cause of their sex and publicly
denounce the monsters who propose to young girls to work sixty hours a week
for less than will feed and clothe them. Young as is the American nationality,
it stands front to front today with the wonderful problem of civilization.
The cause of the striking girls at Wallack'a shirt factory is not only the cJ.,.~e.
of womanhood throughout the world; it is also the entering wedge for the
great problem, I What are rights of labor?' It mllst be obvious to every sen­
Rtor and congressman and to every dabbler in.political economy tbat life is
not worth living when honest gids cannot support themselves, by .sixty hours
of intense labor. It is idle to prate about the great laws of supply and demand
in the face of this present fact that an honest girl, who works ceaselessly
throughout the week, has not enough wages to pay for her board and clothes.
In America.we change conditions and right wrong by inquhy. In Europe a
social revolution is brewing, hl1wever, before which the great revolution of
France will pale."
I merely quoted this article in order to show that class of people who are
crying out that our grievances are imaginary-that these grievances are facts­
DOt imaginary.
Well, now, I come to consiller our city of Chicago. Take the management
of the political affairs of the city, your honor. They are Doted for their political
corruption. Take these policemen-now, I do not aonse the policemen;
the policeman is a workingman the same as 1 am. Now, a man's standing on
the police force, it is notorious, depends. entirely upon his ability and his will- •
ingness to club, and club often-hit everything that comes along and drag it
in. The policemen have to get their positions through the aldermen. It is
notorious that they have to use corrupt methods to do it, and when a man is
once on the force, imagine how subject he is to his higher officials. Whatever
his superior bands him to do he must do. He must obey. He must do it or '
he will lose his job. 1 do not blame tbe police. It is not the individuals that
I blame at all. I say here, as I said at the Haymarket-it is not individuals,
it is not against the man, but it is against the system that prodnces the~e
things that we contend: We object to that.
The charge is made that we are " foreigners," as though it were'a crime
to be born in some other country.
My ancestors came to tbis country a good while ago. My friend Neebe
here is the descendant of a Pennsylvania Dutchman. Be and I are the only
two who had the fortune, or the misfortnne, as some people may 'look at it-I
don't know and I dou't care-to be born in this country. My ancestors had a
hand in drawing up and maintaining the Declaration of Independence. My
great great grand-uncle lost a hand at the Battle of Bunker Hill. I had a
great great grand-uncle with Washington at Braddywine, Monmouth and
Valley Forge. I have been here long enough, I think, to have rights guaranteed,
at least in the constitution of the country. I am an internationalist.
My patriotism covers mOl'e than the boundary lines of a single State; 'tbe
world is my country, all mankind my conntrymen. Tbat is what the emb1801
of the red flag signifies; it is the symbol of the free, of emancipated labor.
The workers are without a country. In all the lands they are disinherited,
ann America is no exception. Tbe wage, slaves are the dependent hireling~of
tho dch in every land. They are everywhere social pariahs "itbout home VI'
I\ollntry. As til y create all wealth, Rt> also they .fight every battle, not fol'
thlllllH( IVOA but, for their JOl\Hters. There is an end to tbis self-de~radation.
III t,hl' rllturll JulioI' will flJ.:ht only in self-defense and work for itself and not