The Chicago Martyrs by John P. Altgeld

18
ADDRESS OF MICHAEL SCHWAB.
ADDRESS OF MICHAEL SCHWAB.
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 tbese
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 these things by virtue of unpaid labor. Being directly or
indirectly the possessors of land and machinery, they dictate 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 vile language and the bad example
of their ignorant fellow workers, leading them on the same road to misery,
and as an individual I could do nothing. I saw families starving and ablebodied
men worked to death. Tbat was in Europe. When I came to the
United States, I found that there were classes of workingmen who were better
paid than the EUl'opean workmen, but I perceived that the state of things in
a great number of industries were even worse, and that tbe Eo-called better
paid skilled laborers were degenerating rapidly into mere automatic Pl'l'ts 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, in which never a stream of sunlight flows. 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 halfrotten
vegetables; in the butcher shops they buy for a few cents offal of meat,
and these precious morsels they carry home to prepare from them their meals.
Tlip dilapidated houses in which this class of laborers live need repairs verv
badly, but the greedy landlord waits in most cases till he is compelled by th~
city to have them done. Is it a wonder that diseases of all kinds kill men,
womell 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 Citizens' Association, or League,
made an investigation of these matters, and I was one of the reporters that
,,"ent with them.
What these common laborers are today, the skilled laborers will be tomorrow.
Improved machinery that ought to be a blessing for the workingman,
under the existing conditions becomes for him a curse. Ma~inery
rnnltiplies thp. army of unskilled laborers, makes the laborer more dependent
upon the men who own the land and 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 more than half of all industrial
worki.ngmen are 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 com~on by the people. The production of goods shall be carried on
by productive 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. Some hours' work even day would suffice
to produce all, according to statistics, that is necessary for a comfortable living.
Time would be left to cultivate the mind, and to further soience 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 robberv of the poor, American? "What have the great political parties
done for th~ 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
attorney for a definition of Anarchy, he declined to give it. But in the~r
speeche~ he and his associates spoke very frequently about Anarchy, an.d It
appeared that they understood it to be something horrihle-arson, rapme,
murder. In so speaking, Mr. Grinnell and his assoeiates did not speak the
truth. They searcbed the Alumli and the Al'ue'ite'I'-Zeitwlig, and hunted up.
articles written veal'S before the month of May, 1880. In the columns of these
papers it is ve;y often stated what we, the Anarchists, nnderstood 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 o~r
vocabulary, Anarchy is a state of society, in which the only government IS
reason' a state vf society in which all human beings do right for the simple
reason 'tbat it is right, and bate wrong because it is wrong. In such a society,
no laws, no compulsion will be necessary. The attorney, for the State was
wrong when he said: "Anarchy is dead:" Anarchy, up to the presen~ day,
has existed only as a doctrine, and Mr. Grinnell has not the power to kIll any
doctrine whatever. You may call Anarchy, as defined by us, an dIe dream,
hut that dream was dreamed by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, one of the three
I-(reat German poets and the mORt celebrated German critic of the last centnry.
If Anard,y were till. t,hin~ the Htate's attorney makes it ont to he, how could
,