The Chicago Martyrs by John P. Altgeld

122
ADDRESS OF ALBERT R. PARSONS.
ADDRESS OF ALBERT R. PARSONS.
1211
Socialism, your honor, means the abolition of wage slavery, because it
allows the people to carryon production and consumption by means of a system
of universal co-operation. That is what I said at the Haymarket. I
pointed out at the Haymarket the fact that the workingmen were being deprived,
according to Colonel 'Wright, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor
Statistics of the United States. He proves by the statistics that they were
producing values to the extent of $10 a day, and receiving $1.15; that they
were being deprived of $8.85. Now, I said to them: "Here," said I, "Socialism
will give you that $8.85; under Socialism you would get that whole $10,
whereas under the wage system you receive $1.15 of it. But that is not all:
Socialism will make your labor saving machinery a blessing instead of a curse
to you; by it wealth will be increased, and drudgery diminished indefinitdy.
Socialism is simple justice, because wealth is a social, not an individual product,
and its appropriation by a few members of society creates a privileged
class-a class who monopolize all the benilfits of society by enslaving the producing
class." Now, your honor, this is what makes the monopolists mad at
the Anarchists. This angers the corporation men. See what they say. The
result is that a verdict must be brought against Socialism; .because, as the
district attorney states here, the law, and the government, and Anarchy are
upon trial. That is the reason. Not for what I did, but it is for what I b,,­
lieve. It is what I say that these men object to. The verdict was against
Socialism, as said by the Ohicago Times the day after the verdict.
"In the opihion of many thoughtful men the labor questiou has reachell
a point where 'blood-letting has become necessary," says the Cllicago hon­
Monger.
"The execution of the death penalty upon the Socialist malefactors in
Chicago will be in its effect the execution of the death penalty upon the Socialistic
propaganda in this country.
'~The verdict of death pronounced by a Chicago jury and court against
these Socialist malefactors is the verdict of the American people against the
crime called Socialism," says the Chicago Times. By the American people
the Times means the monopolists.
In niore familiar words, as used heretofore by the Times, "other workingmen
will take warning from their fate, and learn a valuable lesson." The
Times in 1878 advised that" hand grenades (bombs) should be thrown among
the striking sailors," who were striving to obtain higher wages, "as by such
treatment they would be taught a valuable lesson, and other strikers would
take warning from their fate."
So it seems, "hand grenades for strikers," and" the gallows for Socialists,"
are recommended by the organ of monopoly, as a terror to both.
Socialism aims not at the lives of individuals but at the system which
makes paupers and -millionaires possible. SocialisIll aims at the death of no
wan nor the destruction of property, and the capit.alistic press lies, and they
know it, when they make such,charges against Socialists. They lie about us
in order to deceive the people; but the people will not be deceived much
longer. 1\0, they will not. The monopolist organs of our cities have advised
hand grenades, strychnine, arsenic and lead instead of bread, for the unemployed
and those seeking to better their condition, long enough. It is time
for this to stop. When will it stop? In the sermon on the mount Christ said:
it What man is there of you who, if his son shall ask him for bread, will give
him a stone, or if he shall ask for fish will give him a serpent? All things,
therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so
unto them." It was, howeYer, reserved for the close of the nineteenth century,
of the Christian era, in the city of Chicago, and by the editor and proprietor
of the Chicago T1'ibune, to permit to be said, unrebuked, in his paper: "When
a tramp "-an unemployed and starving laboring man-"asks you for bread
put strychnine or arsenic on it and he will not trouble you any more, and
others will keep out of the neighborhood." I suppose, your honor, this was
said by a law-and-order pharisee.
'
This verdict, as it now stands, proclaims to the world that he who throws
a bomb and kills a score of people is safe, while he who speaks or writes or
works to organize labor and peaceably remove-because I deny the charge of
any organization to attack anybody; the proof does not show it, nor sustain it,
nor maintain it-to peaceably remove the cause of the people's discontent is
in danger of dungeons and of the scaffold.
Every man called upon to act upon the jury, swore that he was an enemy
to the labor movement, was prejudiced against the idea of Socialism or free
labor. Not satisfied with such a jury, the enemies of free rights resorted to
perjury and other inhuman acts to bring about a conviction. A few days ago,
in an interview in the New York World and copied in the Chicago papers,
Mayor Harrison said: "Right here I would like to say there has been the
heartiest co-operation between Mr. Grinnell and myself from first to last, for
without me he would never have been able to get certain evidence to obtain
which I did that which, if it had been done in the city of London, would upset
the throne of Victoria; that which could be done in no monarchical country
with safety was done here; because in full sympathy with the people as a servant
of the people I did precisely what I knew the people wanted done and
would sustain, something which, if wrong, they could easily rectify." Now,
your honor, there were wrongs done here. The mayor says so. Yon can rectify
them. Suspend your sentence. Give us a chance in a new triai. Now,
here is the officer highest in the city, who frankly admits that he employed
unlawful means in order to arrest us, because the people wanted bim to do it.
Has this court, has the State's attorney and the police done the same thing
in order to convict us? Mayor Harrison refers to the arrest of persons, the
seizure of property, the searches of bomes and places of bueiness without warrant,
and in admitted disregard of constitutional and legal guarantees of personal
liberty and right, which was done by the city police immediately after
the meeting of May 4, 1886. As proof of what he said, there followed that
night in this city an era of official lawlessness in these respects, which according
to Mayor Harrison, would not have been tolerated in any other civilized
country in the world, and which if done in the city of London would have
npset the throne of Victoria, and which the mayor said could not have been
rtone in any monarchical country with safety. The mayor's confession is charmlugly
frank, and is significant. Is it then true that in this land, which boailts
of iis lih I'ty, pI i vate right can be more safely disregarded in obedience to pub­
III' ('11\11101' thun in any other civilized country? Is it true that the ruling, the