Anarchic update news all over the world - Part 1 - 15.04.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Australia, mac group: The Anvil Vol8/No3, May 2019
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  cnt-ait: INDONESIA: REPRESSION AGAINST ANARCHOSYNDICALIST
      COMPANIONS (ca, fr) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  ait russia: WE DO NOT CARE WHAT A CLIC WILL FORM THE
      GOVERNMENT - IT IS IMPORTANT FOR US TO LIVE BETTER![machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Holand, Congress of the Vrije Bond August 23-25 2019! 30
      years anniversary - Join in the celebrations and the struggle!
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  US, black rose fed: ALBERT PARSONS: ANARCHIST AND LABOR
      MARTYR IN HIS OWN WORDS -- Introduction by José Antonio
      Gutiérrez Dantón (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1

Dear comrades and friends,
Here is the new Anvil issue (Vol.8/No3) dealing with the upcoming federal elections in 
Australia and also the Julian Assange case.

https://melbacg.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/anvil-201905-v-web.pdf





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Message: 2




A wave of repression of unheard-of violence fell on our anarchosyndicalist and anarchist 
companions in Indonesia. ---- In Bandung alone, the police arrested 619 people, who were 
penned, undressed, head-shaved, piled up and taken away in pick-up , shorn and marked with 
red paint. (see for more info and photos: 
http://blog.cnt-ait.info/public/INTERNATIONAL/INDONESIE/INDONESIE_2019-05-01_en.pdf) ---- 
The anarchist movement has been growing steadily in recent years in Indonesia, attracting 
more and more young people who reject traditional parties or unions, as well as ancestral 
and religious customs and traditions. ---- Last year, our companions from PPAS staged a 
UBER driver strike, which strongly angered KSPSI, Indonesia's largest union. Regularly 
KSPSI attacks the gatherings of our companions. ---- On the pretext of minor incidents on 
May 1 in various cities (and largely provoked by the police and its savage repression), 
the union and the police found the pretext they were searching for to get rid of our 
companions, by designating them as the organizers of a vast plot hatched from abroad, some 
newspapers incriminating even the IWA (international anarchosyndicalist organization). An 
"anarchosyndicalist witch-hunt" has been launched by the Indonesian Police Chief, relayed 
by leading local newspapers.

Today several people have been arrested including one of our companions. They risk heavy 
penalties.

Our companions need our solidarity, especially financial.

Those who wish to contribute can contact us by email: contact@cnt-ait.info

CNT-AIT Paris
http://blog.cnt-ait.info

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Message: 3





Statement by the Russian Regional Section of the International Association of Workers ---- 
WE DO NOT IMPORTANT WHAT A CLIC WILL FORM THE GOVERNMENT - IT IS IMPORTANT FOR US TO LIVE 
BETTER! ----We demand real freedom of assembly, rallies, strikes, trade union activities! 
---- We demand an end to the antisocial policy: the policy of low wages and the systematic 
reduction of the real incomes of wide sections of the population, the destruction of 
social guarantees, the commercialization of education and medicine, privatization, the 
constant increase in prices ... ---- We demand to stop the "economic reforms", from which 
businessmen, bankers and officials get richer, and ordinary people become poorer more and 
more. All these measures should be canceled immediately! ---- We demand to abolish the 
shameful law against "extremism", to stop the arbitrariness of the open and secret police, 
the petty and big authorities: people need rights, not repressions and extortions! Our 
cities and villages are for residents, not for officials!

We need not "fair elections" in which "Putinists", liberals, "pseudo-red" and brown ones 
are fighting for who will tear up three skins from us. We need a decent life!

We demand:

- increase the level of wages to the average European level

- automatic salary increase, in accordance with price increases

- 6 hour working day and 5-day working week without a reduction in earnings

- paid leave for a period of at least 1 month and paid sick leave for all workers

- reduction and freezing of prices for basic goods and services

- prohibition of dismissals without the consent of the labor collective

- free medicine, education, urban transport and utility services

- the complete abolition of the "pension reform" of 2018

Any authority that does not accept these demands must leave immediately!

We do not believe that representative democracy with its elections, presidents, 
governments and Dumas will be able to solve our problems. They have no right to decide and 
speak for us. Only with a system of universal self-government and "direct democracy" at 
the place of residence, work and study, can we all become the masters of our own destiny.

Take your life in your hands!

Resistance - Self-organization - Self-government!

Russian Section of the International Association of Workers

Read on:

Chronicles of a dive "bomber": Tale on the topic of the 2011 Duma elections in three parts 
with the addition of

https://aitrus.info/node/1800

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Message: 4




Dear comrades, ---- Our beloved Vrije Bond has been a shining beaken of light on the 
barricades of the activist world in the Netherlands and Belgium. ---- Of course we have to 
celebrate this. It is also a perfect moment to reflect on the past, present and future of 
the Vrije Bond. ---- We are working hard on organizing the Congress at the end of August 
at the anarchist camping in Appelscha. ---- We need some help with the following: ---- Do 
you have memories, experiences, photo's, posters, old publications or other stuff related 
to the Vrije Bond. Please send them to us digitally at congresvrijebond2019 (at) 
lists.riseup (dot) net, so we can include them in the reader for the congress. ---- Talk 
to your local group and with Vrije Bond members about the way the Vrije Bond is 
functioning now, what is going right, what can be improved. Please write down your ideas 
and reflections. Send us your proposals for the agenda of the congress, about things you 
really want us to talk about, etc, etc.

Last but not least, our comrades from the mobile action kitchen Le Sabot
will cook for us at the congress. It would be nice to let us know
whether you are coming, so we can make an estimate of the amount of
people to cook for.

We are looking forward to a couple of fantastic days full of
conversations, dreams, crafty plans and nice encounters this August.

Long live Anarchy,
Preparation group of the Congress

congresvrijebond2019 (at) lists.riseup (dot) net

Vrije Bond Secretariaat

https://www.vrijebond.org/appelscha-congres-30-jaar-vrije-bond/

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Message: 5






As a tribute to one of the most remarkable agitators in labor history, we publish on May 
Day the autobiography of Albert Parsons. He was one of the five Chicago Anarchists who 
were tried in 1886-1887 and executed in November 1887 for their role as 8-hour working-day 
agitators and as anarchist militants. This mock-trial in ‘the land of liberty' is one of 
the most shameful events in the history of labor in the whole world, and gave rise to May 
Day commemorations all over the world. The day was chosen due to the repression which 
ended up in the ‘legal lynching' of the Chicago Martyrs following the general strike for 
the 8 hours working-day on May 1st, 1886. ---- This day is commemorated all over the world 
in memory of the Chicago Martyrs - unsurprisingly, one of the few countries which does not 
commemorate May Day is the land where this barbaric crime took place -the United States. 
They invented their own ‘Labor Day' in September, with the purpose of severing the working 
class in the U.S. from its radical tradition, and to devoid of meaning the conquest of the 
8 hour working-day, a product of struggle and enormous sacrifice, not a gift from the 
capitalists.

The life of Albert Parsons is instructive of the trajectory of many working class 
agitators in the US in the 19th century, a period of remarkable radicalism which was 
crushed with unspeakable ruthlessness and repression. His life story goes from fighting in 
the Confederate States Army during the US Civil War as a 13 year old, to republican and 
civil rights' agitator, advocate of the emancipation of the slaves, then trade unionist, 
socialist and anarchist. He was married to Lucy Parsons, a mixed race woman herself born a 
slave, who would become a prominent socialist and anarchist, and who was a founding member 
of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905.

A remarkable organizer and orator, he was the soul of the most progressive and active 
workers' movement in the USA at the time based in Chicago. Parsons was the only US citizen 
of ‘pure stock' among the Chicago Martyrs (his ancestry going back all the way to one of 
the pilgrims in the Mayflower in 1632) - whereas all his comrades being German. The 
immigrant nature of these anarchists was the cause for a racist and xenophobic uproar that 
no doubt was crucial to justify their barbaric execution - these racist, xenophobic 
tendencies are still alive and healthy in the USA, as we can see from the current state of 
affairs in the country.

This is why, being not only a remarkable speaker, but also a self-educated man (at a time 
when the workers' movement still placed much emphasis on the self-education of the 
workers), he chose to strike a chord with public opinion and counter arguments that 
socialism and anarchism were ‘foreign' and ‘alien' ideas, by appealing to texts such as 
the US Declaration of Independence and opinions of Thomas Jefferson, while also appealing 
to the conservative and religious frame of mind prevalent, ended up by quoting the Bible. 
Of course, nothing would save him from the fury of the capitalists' class hatred, but this 
autobiography is a masterpiece of engaging with the prevalent environment at the time from 
a radical perspective, of showing in a sober manner his process of radicalization and the 
logic behind it, and also, a staunch defense of the anarchist principles by which he lived 
and which he did not betrayed when confronted with execution.

Our best tribute to this titanic figure is to resist the current onslaught of the global 
capitalists against hard-won workers' rights, while to keep faithful to the cause of a 
free and just world.

In compliance with your request I write for publication, in the Knights of Labor, the 
following "brief story of my life, a history of my experience and connection with Labor, 
Socialistic and Anarchistic organizations, and my views as to their aims and objects and 
how they will be accomplished, and also my connection with the Haymarket meeting of May 4, 
1886, and my views as to the responsibility for that tragedy."

I, Albert R. Parsons was born in the city of Montgomery, Ala., June 24, 1848. My father, 
Samuel Parsons, was from the State of Maine and he married into the Tompkins-Broadwell 
family, of New Jersey, and settled in Alabama at an early day, where he afterward 
established a shoe and leather factory in the city of Montgomery. My father was noted as a 
public spirited, philanthropic man. He was a Universalist in religion and held the highest 
office in the temperance movement of Louisiana and Alabama. My mother was a devout 
Methodist, of great spirituality of character, and known far and near as an intelligent 
and truly good woman. I had nine brothers and sisters; my ancestry goes back to the 
earliest settlers of this Country, the first Parsons family landing on the shores of 
Narragansett Bay, from England, in 1632. The Parsons family and their descendants have 
taken an active and useful part in all the social, religious, political and revolutionary 
movements in America. One of the Tompkins', on my mother's side, was with Gen. George 
Washington at the battle of Brandywine, Monmouth and Valley Forge. Major Gen. Samuel 
Parsons, of Massachusetts, my direct ancestor, was an officer in the Revolution of 1776, 
and Capt. Parsons was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill. There are over 90,000 
descendants from the original Parsons family in the United States.

My mother died when I was not yet two years old and my father died when I was five years 
of age. Shortly after this my eldest brother, William Henry Parsons, who had married and 
was then living at Tyler, Tex., became my guardian. He was proprietor and editor of the 
Tyler Telegraph; that was in 1851, '52, '53. Two years later our family moved West to 
Johnston county, on the Texas frontier, while the buffalo, antelope and Indian were in 
that region. Here we lived, on a ranch, for about three years, when we moved to Hill 
county and took up a farm in the valley of the Brazos river. My frontier life had 
accustomed me to the use of the rifle and the pistol, to hunting and riding, and in these 
matters I was considered quite an expert. At that time our neighbors did not live near 
enough to hear each other's dog bark, or the cocks crow. It was often five to ten or 
fifteen miles to the next house.

Albert and Lucy Parsons.
In 1859, 1 went to Waco, Texas, where, after living with my sister (the wife of Maj. Boyd) 
and going to school, meantime, for about a year, I was indentured an apprentice to the 
Galveston Daily News, for seven years, to learn the printer's trade. Entering upon my 
duties as a "printer's devil," I also became a paper carrier for the Daily News, and in a 
year and a half was transformed from a frontier boy into a city civilian. When the 
slave-holder's rebellion[U.S. Civil War]broke out in 1861, though quite small and but 
thirteen years old, I joined a local volunteer company called the "Lone Star Greys." My 
first military exploit was on the passenger steamer Morgan, where we made a trip out into 
the Gulf of Mexico and intercepted and assisted in the capture of U.S. Gen. Twigg's army, 
which had evacuated the Texas frontier forts and came to the sea coast at Indianapolis to 
embark for Washington, D.C.

My first military exploit was a "run-away" trip on my part for which I received an ear 
pulled from my guardian when I returned. These were stirring "wartimes" and, as a matter 
of course, my young blood caught the infection. I wanted to enlist in the rebel army and 
join Gen. Lee in Virginia, but my guardian, Mr. Richardson, proprietor of the News, a man 
of 60 years, and the leader of the secession movement in Texas, ridiculed the idea, on 
account of my age and size, and ended by telling me that "it's all bluster anyway. It will 
be ended in the next sixty days and I'll hold in my hat all the blood that's shed in this 
war." This statement from one whom I thought knew all about it, only served to fix all the 
firmer my resolve to go and go at once, before too late. So I took "French leave" and 
joined an artillery company at an improvised fort at Sabine Pass, Texas, where Capt. 
Richard Parsons, an older brother, was in command of an infantry company. Here I exercised 
in infantry drill and served as "powder monkey" for the cannoneers.' My military 
enlistment expired in twelve months, when I left Fort Sabine and joined Parson's Texas 
cavalry brigade, then on the Mississippi river. My brother, Maj. Gen. W.H. Parsons (who 
during the war was by his soldiers invested with the sobriquet "Wild Bill,") was at that 
time in command of the entire cavalry outposts on the west bank of the Mississippi river 
from Helena to the mouth of the Red river. His cavalrymen held the advance in every 
movement of the Trans-Mississippi army, from the defeat of the Federal General Curtis on 
White river to the defeat of Gen. Banks' army on Red river, which closed the fighting on 
the west side of the Mississippi. I was a mere boy of 15 when I joined my brother's 
command at the front on White river, and was afterward a member of the renowned Mclnoly 
scouts under Gen. Parson's orders, which participated in all the battles of the Curtis, 
Canby and Banks campaign.

On my return to Waco, Texas, at the close of the war, I traded a good mule, all the 
property I possessed, for forty acres of corn in the field standing ready for harvest, to 
a refugee who desired to flee the country. I hired and paid wages (the first they had ever 
received) to a number of ex-slaves, and together we reaped the harvest. From the proceeds 
of its sales, I obtained a sum sufficient to pay for six months' tuition at the Waco 
university, under control of Rev. Dr. R. B. Burleson, where I received about all the 
technical education I ever had. Soon afterwards I took up the trade of type-setting, and 
went to work in a printing office in the town.

In 1868 1 founded and edited a weekly newspaper in Waco, named The Spectator. In it I 
advocated, with General Longstreet, the acceptance, in good faith, of the terms of 
surrender, and supported the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth constitutional 
amendments, and the reconstruction measures, securing the political rights of the colored 
people. (I was strongly influenced in taking this step out of respect and love for the 
memory of dear old "Aunt Ester," then dead, and formerly a slave and house servant of my 
brother's family, she having been my constant associate, and practically raised me, with 
great kindness and a mother's love.) I became a Republican, and, of course, had to go into 
politics. I incurred thereby the hate and contumely of many of my former army comrades, 
neighbors, and the Ku Klux Klan.' My political career was full of excitement and danger. I 
took the stump to vindicate my convictions. The lately enfranchised slaves over a large 
section of the country came to know and idolize me as their friend and defender, while on 
the other hand I was regarded as a political heretic and traitor by many of my former 
associates. The Spectator could not long survive such an atmosphere.

In 1869 I was appointed traveling correspondent and agent for the Houston Daily Telegraph, 
and started out on horseback (our principal mode of travel at that time) for a long tour 
through northwestern Texas. It was during this trip through Johnson county that I first 
met the charming young Spanish Indian maiden who, three years later, became my wife. She 
lived in a most beautiful region of country, on her uncle's ranch, near Buffalo Creek. I 
lingered in this neighborhood as long as I could, and then pursued my journey with fair 
success.

In 1870, at 21 years of age, I was appointed Assistant Assessor of United States Internal 
Revenues, under General Grant's administration.' 1 About a year later I was elected one of 
the secretaries of the Texas State Senate, and was soon after appointed Chief Deputy 
Collector of United States Internal Revenue, at Austin, Texas, which position I held, 
accounting satisfactorily for large sums of money, until 1873, when I resigned the 
position. In August, 1873, 1 accompanied an editorial excursion, as the representative of 
the Texas Agriculturist at Austin, Texas, and in company with a large delegation of Texas 
editors, made an extended tour through Texas, Indian Nation, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, 
Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as guests of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway, I decided to 
settle in Chicago. I had married in Austin, Texas, in the fall of 1872, and my wife 
joining me at Philadelphia we came to Chicago together, where we have lived till the 
present time.

I at once became a member of Typographical Union No. 16, and "subbed" for a time on the 
Inter-Ocean, when I went to work under "permit" on the Times. Here I worked over four 
years holding a situation at "the case." In 1874 1 became interested in the "Labor 
question," growing out of the effort made by Chicago working people at that time to compel 
the "Relief and Aid Society," to render to the suffering poor of the city an account of 
the vast sums of money (several millions of dollars) held by that society and contributed 
by the whole world to relieve the distress occasioned by the great Chicago fire of 1871. 
It was claimed by the working people that the money was being used for purposes foreign to 
the intention of its donors; that rings of speculators were corruptly using the money, 
while the distressed and impoverished people for whom it was contributed, were denied its 
use. This raised a great sensation and scandal among all the city newspapers, which 
defended the "Relief and Aid Society," and denounced the dissatisfied workingmen as 
"communists, robbers, loafers," etc. I began to examine into this subject, and I found 
that the complaints of the working people against the society were just and proper. I also 
discovered a great similarity between the abuse heaped upon these poor people by the 
organs of the rich and the actions of the late Southern slave holders in Texas toward the 
newly enfranchised slaves, whom they accused of wanting to make their former masters 
"divide" by giving them "forty acres and a mule," and it satisfied me there was a great 
fundamental wrong at work in society, and in existing social and industrial arrangements.

 From this time dated my interest and activity in the labor movement. The desire to know 
more about this subject led me in contact with socialists and their writings, they being 
the only people who at that time had made any protest against or offered any remedy for, 
the enforced poverty of the wealth producers and its collateral evils of ignorance, 
intemperance, crime and misery. There were very few socialists or "communists" as the 
daily papers were fond of calling them, in Chicago at that time. The result was, the more 
I investigated and studied the relations of poverty to wealth, its causes and cure, the 
more interested I became in the subject. In 1876, a workingmen's congress of organized 
labor met in Pittsburgh, Pa. I watched its proceedings. A split occurred between the 
conservatives and radicals, the latter of whom withdrew and organized the "Workingmen's 
Party of the United States." The year previous I had become a member of the "Social 
Democratic Party of America." This latter was now merged into the former. The organization 
was at once pounced upon by the monopolist class, who, through the capitalist press 
everywhere, denounced us as "socialists, communists, robbers, loafers," etc.

This was very surprising to me, and also had an exasperating effect upon me, and a 
powerful impulse possessed me to place myself right before the people by defining and 
explaining the objects and principles of the workingmen's party, which I was thoroughly 
convinced were founded both in justice and on necessity. I therefore entered heartily into 
the work of enlightening my fellow men. First, the ignorant and blinded wage-workers who 
misunderstood us, and secondly, the educated labor exploiters who misrepresented us. I 
soon unconsciously became a "labor agitator," and this brought down upon me a large amount 
of capitalist odium. But this capitalist abuse and slander only served to renew my zeal 
all the more in the great work of social redemption.

Federal troops clash with strikers in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
In 1877 the great railway strike occurred; it was July 21, 1877, and it is said 30,000 
workingmen assembled on Market street near Madison, in mass meeting. I was called upon to 
address them. In doing so, I advocated the programme of the workingmen's party, which was 
the exercise of the sovereign ballot for the purpose of obtaining state control of all 
means of production, transportation, communication and exchange, thus taking these 
instruments of labor and wealth out of the hands or control of private individuals, 
corporations, monopolies and syndicates. To do this, I argued, that the wage worker would 
first have to join the workingmen's party. There was great enthusiasm, but no disorder 
during the meeting. The next day I went to the Times office to go to work as usual, when I 
found my name stricken from the roll of employees. I was discharged and blacklisted by 
this paper for addressing the meeting that night. The printers in the office admired 
secretly what they termed "my pluck," but they were afraid to have much to say to me. 
About noon of that day, as I was at the office of the German labor paper, 94 Market Street 
(organ of the workingmen's party - the Arbeiter-Zeitung, printed tri-weekly), two men came 
in and accosting me said Mayor Heath wanted to speak to me. Supposing the gentleman was 
downstairs, I accompanied them, when they told me he was at the mayor's office. I 
expressed my surprise, and wondered what he wanted with me. There was great newspaper 
excitement in the city, and the papers were calling the strikers all sorts of hard names, 
but while many thousands were on strike there had been no disorder. As we walked hurriedly 
on, one on each side of me, the wind blew strong and their coat tails flying aside, I 
noticed that my companions were armed. Reaching the city hall building I was ushered into 
the Chief of Police's presence (Hickey) in a room filled with police officers. I knew none 
of them but I seemed to be known by them all. They scowled at me and conducted me to what 
they called the mayor's room.

Here I waited a short while when the door opened and about thirty persons, mostly in 
citizens dress, came in. The chief of police took a seat opposite to and near me. I was 
very hoarse from the outdoor speaking of the previous night, had caught cold, had had but 
little sleep or rest and had been discharged from employment. The chief began to catechize 
me in a brow-beating, officious and insulting manner. He wanted to know who I was, where 
born, raised, if married and a family, etc. I quietly answered all his questions. He then 
lectured me on the great trouble I had brought upon the city of Chicago and wound up by 
asking me if I didn't "know better than to come up here from Texas and incite the working 
people to insurrection," etc.? I told him I had done nothing of the sort or at least I had 
not intended to do so, that I was simply a speaker at the meeting, that was all. I told 
him that the strike arose from causes over which 1, as an individual, had no control; that 
I had merely addressed the mass meeting advising to not strike but go to the polls, elect 
good men to make good laws and thus bring about good times. Those present in the room were 
much excited and when I was through explaining some spoke up and said "hang him," "lynch 
him", "lock him up," etc., to my great surprise holding me responsible for the strikes in 
the city. Others said it would never do to hang or lock me up. That the working men were 
excited and that act might cause them to do violence. It was agreed to let me go.

I had been there about two hours. The Chief of Police as I rose to depart took me by the 
arm, accompanied me to the door where we stopped. He said, "Parsons, your life is in 
danger, I advise you to leave the city at once. Beware. Everything you say or do is made 
known to me. I have men on your track who shadow you. Do you know you are liable to be 
assassinated any moment on the street?" I ventured to ask him who by and what for? He 
answered: "Why, those board of trade men would as leave hang you to a lamp post as not." 
This surprised me and I answered, "If I was alone they might, but not otherwise." He 
turned the spring latch, shoved me through the door into the hall, saying in a hoarse tone 
of voice, "Take warning," and slammed the door to.

I was never in the old rookery before. It was a labyrinth of halls and ,doors. I saw no 
one about. All was still. The sudden change from the tumultuous inmates of the room to the 
dark and silent hall affected me. I didn't know where to go or what to do. I felt alone, 
absolutely without a friend in the wide world. This was my first experience with the 
"powers that be," and I became conscious that they were powerful to give or take one's 
life. I was sad, not excited. The afternoon papers announced in great headlines that 
Parsons, the leader of the strikers, was arrested. This was surprising and annoying to me, 
for I had made no such attempt and was not under arrest. But the papers said so.

That night I called at the composing room of the Tribune office on the fifth floor partly 
to get a night's work and partly to be near the men of my own craft, whom I instinctively 
felt sympathized with me. The men went to work at 7 p.m. It was near 8 o'clock as I was 
talking about the great strike, and wondering what it would all come to, with Mr. Manion, 
Chairman of the Executive Board of our union, when from behind some one took hold of my 
arms and jerking me around to face them, asked me if my name was Parsons. One man on each 
side of me took hold of one arm, another man put his hand against my back, and began 
dragging and shoving me toward the door. They were strangers. I expostulated. I wanted to 
know what was the matter. I said to them: "I came in here as a gentleman, and I don't want 
to be dragged out like a dog." They cursed me between their teeth, and, opening the door, 
began to lead me down-stairs. As we started down one of them put a pistol to my head and 
said: "I've a n-tind to blow your brains out." Another said: "Shut up or we'll dash you 
out the windows upon the pavements below." Reaching the bottom of the five flights of 
stairs they paused and said: "Now go. If you ever put your face in this building again 
you'll be arrested and locked up." A few steps in the hallway and I opened the door and 
stepped out upon the sidewalk. (I learned afterward from the Tribune printers that there 
was great excitement in the composing room, the men threatened to strike then and there on 
account of the way I had been treated; when Joe Medill, the proprietor, came up into the 
composing-room and made an excitable talk to the men, explaining that he knew nothing 
about it and that my treatment was done without his knowledge or consent, rebuking those 
who had acted in the way they had done. It was the opinion of the men, however, that this 
was only a subterfuge to allay the threatened trouble which my treatment had excited.)

The streets were almost deserted at that early hour, and there was a hushed and expectant 
feeling pervading everything. I felt that I was likely to fall a pitiless, unknown 
sacrifice at any moment. I strolled down Dearborn street to Lake, west on Lake to Fifth 
avenue. It was a calm, pleasant summer night. Lying stretched upon the, curb, and 
loitering in and about the closed doors of the mammoth buildings on these streets, were 
armed men. Some held their muskets in hand, but most of them were rested against the 
buildings. In going by way of an unfrequented street I found that I had got among those 
whom I sought to evade-they were the First regiment, Illinois National Guards. They seemed 
to be waiting for orders; for had not the newspapers declared that the strikers were 
becoming violent, and "the Commune was about to rise!" and that I was their leader! No one 
spoke to or molested me. I was unknown.

The next day and the next the strikers gathered in thousands in different parts of the 
city without leaders or any organized purpose. They were in each instance clubbed and 
fired upon and dispersed by the police and militia. That night a peaceable meeting of 
3,000 workingmen was dispersed on Market street, near Madison. I witnessed it. Over 100 
policemen charged upon this peaceable mass-meeting, firing their pistols and clubbing 
right and left. The printers, the iron-molders, and other trades unions which had held 
regular monthly or weekly meetings of their unions for years past, when they came to their 
hall-doors now for that purpose, found policemen standing there, the doors barred, and the 
members told that all meetings had been prohibited by the Chief of Police. All mass 
meetings, union meetings of any character were broken up by the police, and at one place 
(Twelfth Street Turner hall), where the Furniture-Workers' Union had met to confer with 
their employers about the eight-hour system and wages, the police broke down the doors, 
forcibly entered, and clubbed and fired upon the men as they struggled pell-mell to escape 
from the building, killing one workman and wounding many others.

The following day the First regiment, Illinois National Guards, fired upon a crowd of 
sight-seers, consisting of several thousand men, women, and children, killing several 
persons, none of whom were ever on strike, at Sixteenth street viaduct.

For about two years after the railroad strike and my discharge from the Times office I was 
blacklisted and unable to find employment in the city, and my family suffered for the 
necessaries of life.

The events of 1877 gave great impulse and activity to the labor movement all over the 
United States, and, in fact, the whole world. The unions rapidly increased both in number 
and membership. So, too, with the Knights of Labor. In visiting Indianapolis, Ind., to 
address a mass-meeting of workingmen on the Fourth of July, 1876, I met the State 
Organizer, Calvin A. Light, and was initiated by him as a member of the Knights of Labor 
and I have been a member of that order ever since. That organization had no foothold, was 
in fact unknown, in Illinois, at that time. What a change! Today the Knights of Labor has 
nearly a million members, and numbers tens of thousands in the State of Illinois. The 
political labor movement boomed also. The following spring of 1877 the Workingmen's Party 
of the United States nominated a full county ticket in Chicago. It elected three members 
of the Legislature and one Senator. I received as candidate for County Clerk, 7,963 votes, 
running over 400 ahead of the ticket. About that time I became a member of local assembly 
400 of the Knights of Labor, the first Knights of Labor assembly organized in Chicago, 
and, I believe, in the State of Illinois. I also served as a delegate to district assembly 
24 for two terms, and was, I think, made its Master Workman for one term.

I have been nominated by the workingmen in Chicago three times for Alderman, twice for 
County Clerk, and once for Congress. The Labor party was kept up for four years, polling 
at each election from 6,000 to 12,000 votes. I was in 1878 a delegate to the national 
convention of the Workingmen's Party of the United States, held at Newark, N.J. At this 
labor congress the name of the party was changed to "Socialistic Labor party." In 1878, at 
my instance and largely through my efforts, the present Trades Assembly of Chicago and 
vicinity was organized. I was its first President and was re-elected to that position 
three times. I remained a delegate to the Trades Assembly from Typographical Union No. 16 
for several years. I was a strenuous advocate of the eight-hour system among trade unions. 
In 1879 1 was a delegate to the national convention held in Allegheny City, Pa., of the 
Socialistic Labor party, and was there nominated as the Labor candidate for President of 
the United States. I declined the honor, not being of the constitutional age - 35 years. 
(This was the first nomination of a workingman by workingmen for that office in the United 
States.)

During these years of political action every endeavor was made to corrupt, to intimidate, 
and mislead the Labor party. But it remained pure and undefiled; it refused to be cowed, 
bought, or misled. Beset on the one side by the insinuating politician and on the other by 
the almighty money-bags, what between the two the Labor party - the honest, poor party - 
had a hard road to travel. And, worst of all, the workingmen refused to rally en masse to 
their own party, but doggedly, the most of them, hugged their idols of Democracy or 
Republicanism, and fired their ballots against each other on election days. It was 
discouraging.

But the Labor party moved forward undaunted, and each election came up smiling at defeat. 
In 1876 the Socialist, an English weekly paper, was published by the party, and I was 
elected its assistant editor. About this time the Socialist organization held some monster 
meetings. The Exposition building on one occasion contained over 40,000 attendants, and 
many could not get inside. Ogden's grove on one occasion held 30,000 persons. During these 
years the labor movement was undergoing its formative period, as it is even now. The 
un-American utterances of the capitalist press - the representatives of monopoly - excited 
the gravest apprehension among thoughtful working people. These representatives of the 
moneyed aristocracy advised the use of police clubs, and militia bayonets, and gatling 
guns to suppress strikers and put down discontented laborers struggling for better pay - 
shorter work-hours. The millionaires and their representatives on the pulpit and rostrum 
avowed their intention to use force to quell their dissatisfied laborers. The execution of 
these threats; the breaking up of meetings, arrest and imprisonment of labor "leaders," 
the use of club, pistol, and bayonet upon strikers; even to the advice to throw 
hand-grenades (dynamite) among them - these acts of violence and brutality led many 
workingmen to consider the necessity for self-defense of their persons and their rights. 
Accordingly, workingmen's military organizations sprang up all over the country.

So formidable did this plan of organization promise to become that the capitalistic 
Legislature of Illinois in 1878, acting under orders from millionaire manufacturers and 
railway corporations, passed a law disarming the wage-workers. This law the workingmen at 
once tested in the Courts of Illinois, and afterward carried it to the Supreme Court of 
the United States, where it was decided by the highest tribunal that the State 
Legislatures of the United States had a constitutional right to disarm workingmen. 
Dissensions began to rise in the Socialist organizations over the question of methods. In 
the fall and spring elections of 1878-'79-'80 the politicians began to practice ballot-box 
stuffing and other outrages upon the Workingmen's party. It was then I began to realize 
the hopeless task of political reformation. Many workingmen began to lose faith in the 
potency of the ballot or the protection of the law for the poor. Some of them said that 
"political liberty without economic (industrial) freedom was an empty phrase." Others 
claimed that poverty had no votes as against wealth; because if a man's bread was 
controlled by another, that other could and, when necessary, would control his vote also. 
A consideration and discussion of these subjects gradually brought a change of sentiment 
in the minds of many; the conviction began to spread that the State, the Government and 
its laws, was merely the agent of the owners of capital to reconcile, adjust, and protect 
their - the capitalists' - conflicting interests; that the chief function of all 
Government was to maintain economic subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of 
the means of labor - of life - to capital.

These ideas began to develop in the minds of workingmen everywhere (in Europe as well as 
America), and the conviction grew that law - statute law - and all forms of Government 
(governors, rulers, dictators, whether Emperor, King, President, or capitalist, were each 
and all of the despots and usurpers), was nothing else than an organized conspiracy of the 
propertied class to deprive the working class of their natural rights. The conviction 
obtained that money or wealth controlled politics; that money controlled, by hook or 
crook, labor at the polls as well as in the workshop. The idea began to prevail that the 
element of coercion, of force, which enabled one person to dominate and exploit the labor 
of another, was centered or concentrated in the State, the Government, and the statute 
law, that every law and every Government in the last analysis was force, and that force 
was despotism, an invasion of man's natural right to liberty.

In 1880 I withdrew from all active participation in the political Labor party, having been 
convinced that the number of hours per day that the wage-workers are compelled to work, 
together with the low wages they received, amounted to their practical disfranchisement as 
voters. I saw that long hours and low wages deprived the wage-workers, as a class, of the 
necessary time and means, and consequently left them but little inclination to organize 
for political action to abolish class legislation. My experience in the Labor party had 
also taught me that bribery, intimidation, duplicity, corruption, and bulldozing grew out 
of the conditions which made the working people poor and the idlers rich, and that 
consequently the ballot-box could not be made an index to record the popular will until 
the existing debasing, impoverishing, and enslaving industrial conditions were first 
altered. For these reasons I turned my activities mainly toward an effort to reduce the 
hours of labor to at least a normal working day, so that the wage-workers might thereby 
secure more leisure from mere drudge work, and obtain better pay to minister to their 
higher aspirations.

Several trades unions united in sending me throughout the different States to lay the 
eight-hour question before the labor organizations of the country. In January, 1880, the 
"Eight-Hour League of Chicago" sent me as a delegate to the national conference of labor 
reformers, held in Washington, D.C. This convention adopted a resolution which I offered, 
calling public attention of the United States Congress to the fact that, while the 
eight-hour law passed years ago had never been enforced in Government departments, there 
was no trouble at all in getting through Congress all the capitalistic legislation called 
for. By this national convention Richard Trevellick, Charles H. Litchman, Dyer D. Lum, 
John G. Mills, and myself were appointed a committee of the National Eight-Hour 
Association, whose duty it was to remain in Washington,

D.C., and urge upon the labor organizations of the United States to unite for the 
enforcement of the eight-hour law.

About this time there followed a period of discussion of property rights, of the rights of 
majorities and minorities. The agitation of the subject led to the formation of a new 
organization, called the International Working People's Association. I was a delegate in 
1881 to the labor congress which founded the former, and afterward also delegate to the 
Pittsburgh (Pa.) congress in October, 1883, which revived the latter as a part of the 
International Working People's Association, which already ramified Europe, and which was 
originally organized at the world's labor congress held at London, England, in 1864. 1 
cannot do better than insert here the manifesto of the Pittsburgh congress which clearly 
sets forth the aims and methods of the International, of which I am still a member, and 
for which reason myself and comrades are condemned to death. It was adopted as follows:

TO THE WORKINGMEN OF AMERICA
Fellow Workmen: The Declaration of Independence says:

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, 
evinces a design to reduce them (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 
security."

This thought of Thomas Jefferson, was the justification for armed resistance by our 
forefathers, which gave birth to our republic, and do not the necessities of our present 
time compel us to re-assert their declaration?

Fellow-workmen, we ask you to give us your attention for a few moments. We ask you to 
candidly read the following manifesto issued in your behalf; in behalf of your wives and 
children; in behalf of humanity and progress.

Our present society is founded on the exploitation of the propertyless by the propertied. 
The exploitation is such that the propertied (capitalist) buy the working force body and 
soul of the propertyless, for the price of the mere cost of existence (wages), and take 
for themselves, i.e., steal the amount of new values (products) which exceeds the price, 
whereby wages are made to represent the necessities instead of the earnings of the wage 
laborer.

As the non-possessing classes are forced by their poverty to offer for sale to the 
propertied their working forces, and as our present production on a grand scale enforce 
technical development with immense rapidity, so that by the application of an always 
decreasing number of human working force, an always increasing amount of products is 
created; so does the supply of working force increase constantly, which the demand 
therefore decreases. This is the reason why the workers compete more and more intensely in 
selling themselves, causing their wages to sink of at least on the average, never raising 
them above the margin necessary for keeping intact their working ability.

Whilst by this process the propertyless are entirely debarred from entering the ranks of 
the propertied, even by the most strenuous exertions, the propertied, by means of the 
ever-increasing plundering of the working class, are becoming richer day by day, without 
in any way being themselves productive.

If now and then one of the propertyless class become rich it is not by their own labor, 
but from opportunities which they have to speculate upon, and absorb the labor product of 
others.

With the accumulation of individual wealth, the greed and power of the propertied grows. 
They use all the means for competing among themselves for the robbery of the people. In 
this struggle generally the less-propertied (middle-class) are overcome, while the great 
capitalists, par excellence, swell their wealth enormously, concentrate entire branches of 
production as well as trade and intercommunication into their hands and develop into 
monopolies. The increase of products, accompanied by simultaneous decrease of the average 
income of the working mass of the people leads to the so-called "business" and 
"commercial" crises, when the misery of the wage-workers is forced to the extreme.

For illustration: The last census of the United States shows that after deducting the cost 
of raw material, interest, rents, risks, etc., the propertied class have absorbed - i.e., 
stolen - more than five-eighths of all products, leaving scarcely three-eighths to the 
producers. The propertied class being scarcely one-tenth of our population, and in spite 
of their luxury and extravagance, and unable to consume their enormous "profits", and the 
producers, unable to consume more than they receive - three-eighths - so-called 
"over-productions" must necessarily take place. The terrible results of panics are well known.

The increasing eradication of working forces from the productive process annually 
increases the percentage of the propertyless population, which becomes pauperized and is 
driven to "crime," vagabondage, prostitution, suicide, starvation, and general depravity. 
This system is unjust, insane and murderous. It is, therefore, necessary to totally 
destroy it with and by all means, and with the greatest energy on the part of every one 
who suffers by it, and who does not want to be made culpable for its continued existence 
by his inactivity.

Agitation for the purpose of organization; organization for the purpose of rebellion. In 
these few words the ways are marked which the workers must take if they want to be rid of 
their chains; as the economic condition is the same in all countries of so- called 
"civilization," as the government of all monarchies and republics work hand in hand for 
the purpose of opposing all movements of the thinking part of the workers; as finally the 
victory in the decisive combat of the proletarians against their oppressors can only be 
gained by the simultaneous struggle along the whole line of the bourgeois (capitalistic) 
society, so, therefore, the international fraternity of people as expressed in the 
International Working People's Association presents itself a self-evident necessity.

True order should take its place. This can only be achieved when all implements of labor, 
the soil and other premises of production, in short, capital produced by labor, is changed 
into societary property. Only by this presupposition is destroyed every possibility of the 
future spoilation of man by man. Only by common, undivided capital can all be enabled to 
enjoy in their fullness the fruits of the common toil. Only by the impossibility of 
accumulating individual (private) capital can everyone be compelled to work who makes a 
demand to live.

This order of things allows production to regulate itself according to the demand of the 
whole people, so that nobody need work more than a few hours a day, and that all 
nevertheless can supply their needs. Hereby time and opportunity are given for opening to 
the people the way to the highest possible civilization; the privileges of higher 
intelligence fall with the privileges of wealth and birth. To the achievement of such a 
system the political organizations of the capitalistic classes - be they monarchies or 
republics - form the barriers. These political structures (states), which are completely 
in the hands of the propertied, have no other purpose than the upholding of the present 
disorder of exploitation.

All laws are directed against the working people. In so far as the opposite appears to be 
the case, they serve on one hand to blind the worker, while on the other hand they are 
simply evaded. Even the school serves only the purpose of furnishing the offspring of the 
wealthy with those qualities necessary to uphold their class domination. The children of 
the poor get scarcely a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly directed to 
such branches as tend to producing prejudices, arrogance and servility" in short, want of 
sense. The church finally seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass and to make them 
forgo the paradise on earth by promising a fictitious heaven. The capitalistic press on 
the other hand, takes care of the confusion of spirits in public life. All these 
institutions far from aiding in the education of the masses, have for their object the 
keeping in ignorance of the people. They are all in the pay and under the direction of the 
capitalistic classes. The workers can therefore expect no help from any capitalistic party 
in their struggle against the existing system. They must achieve their liberation by their 
own efforts. As in former times a privileged class never surrendered its tyranny, neither 
can it be expected that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without 
being forced to do it.

If there ever could have been any question on this point it should long ago have been 
dispelled by the brutalities which the bourgeois of all countries - in America as well as 
in Europe - constantly commits as often as the proletariat anywhere energetically move to 
better their conditions. It becomes, therefore, self-evident that the struggle of the 
proletariat with the bourgeois will be of a violent, revolutionary character.

We could show by scores of illustrations that all attempts in the past to reform this 
monstrous system by peaceable means, such as the ballot, have been futile, and all such 
efforts in the future must necessarily be so, for the following reasons:

The political institutions of our time are the agencies of the propertied class; their 
mission is the upholding of the privileges of their masters; any reform in your own behalf 
would curtail these privileges. To this they will not and can not consent, for it would be 
suicidal to themselves.

That they will not resign their privileges voluntarily we know; that they will not make 
any concessions to us we likewise know. Since we must then rely upon the kindness of our 
master for whatever redress we have, and knowing that from them no good may be expected, 
there remains but one resource - FORCE! Our forefathers have not only told us that against 
despots force is justifiable, because it is the only means, but they themselves have set 
the immortal example.

By force our ancestors liberated themselves from political oppression, by force their 
children will have to liberate themselves from economic bondage. "It is, therefore, your 
right, it is your duty," says Jefferson - "to arm!"

What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly and simply:

First - Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, i.e., by energetic, 
relentless, revolutionary and international action.

Second - Establishment of a free society based upon cooperative organization of production.

Third - Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive organizations 
without commerce and profit-mongery.

Fourth - Organization of education on a secular, scientific and equal basis for both sexes.

Fifth - Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race.

Sixth - Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between autonomous 
(independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis.

Whoever agrees with this ideal let him grasp our outstretched brother-hands!

Proletarians from all countries unite!

Fellow-workmen, all we need for the achievement of this great end is ORGANIZATION and UNITY!

The day has come for solidarity. Join our ranks! Let the drum beat defiantly the roll of 
battle: "Workmen of all countries unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you 
have the world to win!"

Issued by the Pittsburgh Congress of the "International Working People's Association" on 
October 16, 1883

In all these matters here enumerated, I took an active, personal interest. October 1, 
1884, the International founded in Chicago The Alarm, a weekly newspaper, of which I was 
elected to the position of editor, and I have held that position until its seizure and 
suppression by the authorities on the 5th day of May, 1886, following the Haymarket 
tragedy. In the year 1881, the capitalist press began to stigmatize us as Anarchists, and 
to denounce us as the enemies of all law and government. They charged us with being the 
enemies of "law and order," as breeders of strife and confusion. Every conceivable bad 
name and evil design was imputed to us by the lovers of power and haters of freedom and 
equality.

Labor, socialist, and anarchist newspapers of Chicago during the Haymarket period.
Even the workingmen in some instances, caught the infection and many of them joined in the 
capitalist hue and cry against the anarchists. Being satisfied of ourselves that our 
purpose was a just one, we worked on undismayed, willing to labor and to wait, for time 
and events to justify our cause. We began to allude to ourselves as anarchists, and that 
name which was at first imputed to us as a dishonor, we came to cherish and to defend with 
pride. What's in a name? But names sometimes express ideas; and ideas are everything.

What, then, is our offense, being anarchists? The word anarche is derived from two Greek 
words an, signifying no, or without, and arche, government; hence anarchy means no 
government. Consequently anarchy meant a condition of society which has no king, emperor, 
president or ruler of any kind. In other words anarchy is the social administration of all 
affairs by the people themselves; that is to say, self government, individual liberty. 
Such a condition of society denies the right of majorities to rule over or dictate to 
minorities. Though every person in the world agree upon a certain plan and only one 
objected thereto, the objector would, under anarchy, be respected in his natural right to 
go his own way. And when such person is thus held responsible by all the rest for the 
violation of the inherent right of any one how then, can injustice flourish or wrong 
triumph? For the greatest good to the greatest number anarchy substitutes the equal right 
of each and every one. The natural law is all sufficient for every purpose, every desire 
and every human being. The scientist then becomes the natural leader, and is accepted as 
the only authority among men. Whatever can be demonstrated will by self interest be 
accepted, otherwise rejected. The great natural law of power derived alone from 
association and co-operation will of necessity and from selfishness be applied by the 
people in the production and distribution of wealth, and what the trades unions and labor 
organizations seek now to do, but are prevented from doing because of obstruction and 
coercion, will under perfect liberty - anarchy - come easiest to hand. Anarchy is the 
extension of the boundaries of liberty until it covers the whole range of the wants and 
aspirations of man - not men, but Man.

Power is might, and might always makes its own right. Thus in the very nature of things, 
might makes itself right whether or no. Government, therefore, is the agency or power by 
which some person or persons govern or rule other persons, and the inherent right to 
govern is found wherever the power or might to do so is manifest. In a natural state, 
intelligence of necessity controls ignorance, the strong the weak, the good the bad, etc. 
Only when the natural law operates is this true, however. On the other hand when the 
statute is substituted for the natural law, and government holds sway, then, and then 
only, power centers itself in the hands of a few, who dominate, dictate, rule, degrade and 
enslave the many. The broad distinction and irreconcilable conflict between wage laborers 
and capitalists, between those who buy labor or sell its products, and the wage worker who 
sells his labor (himself) in order to live, arises from the social institution called 
government; and the conflicting interests, the total abolition of warring classes, and the 
end of domination and exploitation of man by man is to be found only in a free society, 
where all and each are equally free to unite of disunite, as interest or inclination may 
incline.

The anarchists are the advance guard in the impending social revolution. They have 
discovered the cause of world-wide discontent which is felt but not yet understood by the 
toiling millions as a whole. The effort now being made by organized and unorganized labor 
in all countries to participate in the making of laws which they are forced to obey will 
lay bare to them the secret source of their enslavement by capital. Capital is a thing - 
it is property. Capital is the stored up, accumulated savings of past labor, such as 
machinery, houses, food, clothing, all the means of production (both natural and 
artificial) of transportation, and communication, - in short the resources of life, the 
means of subsistence. These things are, in a natural state, the common heritage of all for 
the free use of all, and they were so held until their forcible seizure and appropriation 
by a few. Thus the common heritage of all seized by violence and fraud, was afterwards 
made the property - capital - of the usurpers, who erected a government and enacted laws 
to perpetuate and maintain their special privileges.

The function, the only function of capital is to appropriate or confiscate the labor 
product of the propertyless, non-possessing class, the wage-workers. The origin of 
government was in violence and murder. Government disinherits and enslaves the governed. 
Government is for slaves; free men govern themselves. Law, statute, man-made law is 
license. Anarchy - natural law - is liberty. Anarchy is the cessation of force. Government 
is the rulership or control of man by men. In the name of law - by means of statute law - 
whether that control be by one man (mon-arche) or by a majority (mob-arche). The effort of 
the wage-slave (now being made) to participate in the making of laws will enable them to 
discover for the first time that a human law-maker is a human humbug. That laws, true, 
just and perfect laws, are discovered, not made. The law-making class - the capitalists - 
will object to this, they (the capitalists) will remonstrate, they will fight, they will 
kill, before they permit laws to be made, or repealed, which deprive them of their power 
to rule and rob. This fact is demonstrated in every strike which threatened their power; 
by every lock-out, by every discharge, by every black-list. Their exercise of these powers 
is based upon force and every law, every government in the last analysis is resolved into 
force.

Therefore, when the workers, as they are now everywhere preparing to do, insist upon and 
demand a participation in, or application of democratic principles in industrial affairs, 
think you the request will be conceded? nay, nay: The right to live, to equality of 
opportunity, to liberty and the pursuit of happiness is yet to be acquired by the 
producers of all wealth. The Knights of Labor, unconsciously stand upon a State Socialist 
programme. They will never be able to seize the state by the ballot, but when they do 
seize it, (and seize it they must) they will abolish it. Legalized capital and the state 
stand or fall together. They are twins. The liberty of labor makes the state not only 
unnecessary, but impossible. When the people - the whole people - become the state, that 
is, participate equally in governing themselves, the state of necessity ceases to exist. 
Then what? Leaders, natural leaders, take the place of the overthrown rulers; liberty 
takes the place of statute laws, of license; the people voluntarily associate or freely 
withdraw from association, instead of being bossed or driven as now. They unite and 
disunite, when, where and as they please. Social administration is substituted for 
governmentalism, and self-preservation becomes the actuating motive as now, minus the 
dictation, coercion, driving and domination of man by man.

Do you say this is a dream! That it is the millenium! Well, the crisis is near at hand. 
Necessity, which is its own law, will force the issue. Then whatever is most natural to do 
will be the easiest and best to do. The workshops will drop into the hands of the workers, 
the mines will fall to the miners and the land and all other things will be controlled by 
those who possess and use them. This will be, there can then be no title to anything aside 
from its possession and use. Only the statute law and government stand to-day as a barrier 
to this result, and all efforts to change them failing, will inevitably result in their 
total abolition.

Anarchy, therefore, is liberty; is the negation of force, or compulsion, or violence. It 
is the precise reverse of that which those who hold and have power would have their 
oppressed victims believe it is.

Anarchists do not advocate or advise the use of force. Anarchists disclaim and protest 
against its use, and the use of force is justifiable only when employed to repel force. 
Who, then, are the aiders, abettors and users of force? Who are the real revolutionists? 
Are they not those who hold and exercise power over their fellows? They who use clubs and 
bayonets, prisons and scaffolds? The great class conflict now gathering throughout the 
world is created by our social system of industrial slavery. Capitalists could not if they 
would, and would not if they could, change it. This alone is to be the work of the 
proletariat, the disinherited, the wage-slave, the sufferer. Nor can the wage-class avoid 
this conflict. Neither religion nor politics can solve it or prevent it. It comes, as a 
human, an imperative necessity. Anarchists do not make the social revolution; they 
prophesy its coming. Shall we then stone the prophets? Anarchists do not use or advise the 
use of force, but point out that force is ever employed to uphold despotism to despoil 
man's natural rights. Shall we therefore kill and destroy the Anarchists? And capital 
shouts "yes, yes! exterminate them!"

In the line of evolution and historical development, anarchy - liberty - is next in order. 
With the destruction of the feudal system, and the birth of commercialism and 
manufacturies in the Sixteenth century, a contest long and bitter and bloody, lasting over 
a hundred years, was waged for mental and religious liberty. The Seventeenth and 
Eighteenth centuries, with their sanguinary conflicts, gave to man political equality and 
civil liberty, based on the monopolization of the resources of life, capital - with its 
"free laborers," freely competing with one another for a chance to serve king capital and 
"free competition" among capitalists in their endeavors to exploit the laborers and 
monopolize the labor products. All over the world the fact stands undisputed that the 
political is based upon, and is but the reflex of, the economic system, and hence we find 
that whatever the political form of the government, whether monarchical or republican, the 
average social status of the wage-workers is in every community identical. The class 
struggle of the past century is history repeating itself, it is the evolutionary growth 
preceding the revolutionary denouement. Though liberty is a growth, it is also a birth, 
and while it is yet to be, it is also about to be born. Its birth will come through 
travail and pain, through bloodshed and violence. It cannot be prevented. This, because of 
the obstruction, impediments and obstacles which serve as a barrier to its coming. An 
anarchist is a believer in liberty, and as I would control no man against his will, 
neither shall any one rule over me with my consent. Government is compulsion; no one 
freely consents to be governed by another, therefore there can be no just power of 
government. Anarchy is perfect liberty, is absolute freedom of the individual. Anarchy has 
no schemes, no programmes, no systems to offer or to substitute for the existing order of 
things. Anarchy would strike from humanity every chain that binds it, and say to mankind: 
"Go forth! you are free. Have all; enjoy all."

Anarchism nor anarchists either advises, abets, nor encourages the working people to the 
use of force or a resort to violence. We do not say to the wage-slaves: "You ought, you 
should use force." No. Why say this when we know they must - they will be driven to use it 
in self-defense, in self-preservation against those who are degrading, enslaving and 
destroying them?

Already the millions of workers are unconsciously Anarchists. Impelled by a cause the 
effects of which they feel but do not wholly understand, they move unconsciously, 
irresistibly forward to the social revolution. Mental freedom, political equality, 
industrial liberty!

This is the natural order of things; the logic of events. Who so foolish as to quarrel 
with it, obstruct it, or attempt to stay its progress? It is the march of the inevitable; 
the triumph of the MUST.

The examination of the class struggle demonstrates that the eight-hour movement was doomed 
by the very nature of things to defeat. But the International gave its support to it for 
two reasons, viz.: First, because it was a class movement against class don- domination, 
therefore historical and revolutionary and necessary; and secondly, because we did not 
choose to stand aloof and be misunderstood by our fellow workers. We therefore gave it all 
the aid and comfort in our power. I was regularly accredited under the official seal of 
the Trade and Labor Unions of the Central Labor Union, representing twenty thousand 
organized workingmen in Chicago to assist them in the organization of Trades and Labor 
Unions, and do all in my power for the eight-hour movement. The Central Labor Union, in 
conjunction with the International, publishes six newspapers in Chicago, to wit: One 
English weekly, two German weeklies, one Bohemian weekly, one Scandinavian weekly and one 
German daily newspaper.

Haymarket martyrs memorial at Forest Home Cemetery outside of Chicago.
The trade and labor Unions of the United States and Canada having set apart the first day 
of May, 1886, to inaugurate the 8-hour system, I did all in my power to assist the 
movement. I feared conflict and trouble would arise between the authorities representing 
the employers of labor and the wage-workers, who only represented themselves. I know that 
defenseless men, women and children must finally succumb to the power of the discharge, 
black-list and lockout and in consequent misery and hunger enforced by the militiaman's 
bayonet and the policeman's club. I did not advocate the use of force. But I denounced the 
capitalists for employing it to hold the laborers in subjection to them and declared that 
such treatment would of necessity drive the workingmen to employ the same means in self 
defense.

The labor organizations of Cincinnati, Ohio, decided to make a grand eight-hour 
demonstration of the 8-hour work-day. On their invitation I went there to address them and 
left Chicago on Saturday, May 1, for that purpose. Returning on Monday night I reached 
Chicago on the morning of Tuesday, May 4th, the day of the Haymarket meeting. On arriving 
home, Mrs. Parsons, who had theretofore attended and assisted in several large mass 
meetings of the sewing girls of the city, to organize them for the eight hour work day, 
suggested to me to call a meeting of the American Group of the International for that 
evening, in order to make arrangements, i.e., appropriate money for hall rent, printing 
hand-bills, provide speakers, etc., to help to organize the sewing women for 8 hours. I 
left home about 11 A.M., and, not being able to get a hall, finally published an 
announcement that the meeting would be held at 107 Fifth avenue, the office of the Alarm 
and Arbeiter Zeitung. We had often held business meetings at the same place. Late in the 
afternoon I learned, for the first time, that a mass meeting had been called at the 
Haymarket for that evening, the object being to help on the 8-hour boom, and to protest 
against the police atrocities upon 8-hour strikers at McCormick's factory the day before, 
where it was claimed six workmen had been shot down by the police and many others wounded. 
I did not fancy the idea of holding the meeting at that time, and said so, stating that I 
believed the manufacturers and corporations were so incensed at the 8-hour movement that 
they would defend the police in coming to the meeting to break it up, and slaughtering the 
work people. I was invited to speak there, but declined, on the ground that I had to 
attend another meeting that night.

About 8 o'clock P.M., accompanied by Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Parsons and my two children (a boy 
six years old and a girl four years old) we walked from home to Halsted and Randolph 
streets. There we observed knots of people standing about, indicating that a mass meeting 
was expected. Two newspaper reporters, one for the Tribune the other for the Times, whom I 
recognized, were strolling around, picking up items, and observing me they inquired if I 
was to speak at the Haymarket meeting that night. I told them that I was not. That I had 
to attend another meeting and would not be there, and the ladies, the children and myself 
took a street car for down town. Reaching the place of meeting of the American group of 
the International, it was at once called to order and the objects of the meeting were 
stated to be how best to organize the sewing women of the city in the speediest manner. It 
was decided to print circulars, hire halls and appoint organizers and speakers, and money 
was appropriated for the purpose, when about 9 o'clock a committee entered the meeting and 
said there was a large mass meeting at the Haymarket but no speakers except Mr. Spies, and 
they were sent over to request Mr. Fielden and myself to come there at once and address 
the crowd.

We adjourned in a few moments afterwards and went over to the Haymarket in a body, where I 
was introduced at once and spoke for about an hour to the 3,000 persons present urging 
them to support the eight-hour movement and stick to their unions. There was little said 
about the police brutalities of the previous day, other than to complain of the use of the 
military on every slight occasion. I said it was a shame that the moderate and just claims 
of the wage- workers should be met with police clubs, pistols, and bayonets, or that the 
murmurs of discontented laborers, should be drowned in their own blood. When I had 
finished speaking and Mr. Fielden began, I got down from the wagon we were using as a 
speaker's stand, and stepping over to another wagon nearby on which sat the ladies (among 
them my wife and children), and it soon appearing as though it would rain, and the crowd 
beginning to disperse and the speaker having announced that he would finish in a few 
moments; I assisted the ladies down from the wagon and accompanied them to Zepf's hall, 
one block away, where we intended to wait for the adjournment and the company of other 
friends on our walk home. I had been in this hall about five minutes and was looking 
towards the meeting, expecting it to close every moment, and standing nearby where the 
ladies sat, when there appeared a white sheet of light at the place of meeting, followed 
instantly by a loud roar. This was at once followed by a fusillade of pistol shots (in 
full view of my sight) which appeared as though fifty or more men had emptied their 
self-acting revolvers as rapidly as possible. Several shots whizzed by and struck beside 
the door of the hall, from which I was looking, and soon men came rushing wildly into the 
building. I escorted the ladies to a place of safety in the rear where we remained about 
20 minutes. Leaving the place to take the ladies home we met a man named Brown (who was 
well known to us) at the corner of Milwaukee avenue and Desplaines street, and asking him 
to loan me a dollar, he replied that he didn't have the change, whereupon I borrowed a 
five-dollar gold piece from him. We then parted, he went his way and we started towards 
home. (This man Brown told of the circumstance the next day that he had met and loaned me 
$5. He was at once arrested and indicted for conspiracy and unlawful assembly, thrown into 
prison, where he has lain ever since.)

The next day, observing that many innocent people who were not even present at the meeting 
were being dragooned and imprisoned by the authorities, and not courting such indignities 
for myself I left the city, intending to return in a few days, and publishing a letter in 
the newspapers to that effect. I stopped at Elgin two days in a boarding-house, when I 
went from there to Waukesha, Wis., a place noted for its beautiful springs and 
health-giving waters, pure air, etc. At this summer resort I soon obtained employment 
first at carpentering and then as a painter, which occupations I pursued for seven weeks, 
or until my return and voluntary surrender to the Court for trial. I procured the Chicago 
newspapers every day, and from them I learned that 1, with a great many others, had been 
indicted for murder, conspiracy and unlawful assembly at the Haymarket. From the 
editorials of the capitalist papers every day for two months during my seclusion, I could 
see that the ruling class were wild with rage and fear against labor organizations. Ample 
means were offered me to carry me safely to distant parts of the earth, if I chose to go. 
I knew that the beastly howls against the Anarchists, the demand for their bloody 
extermination, made by the press and pulpit, was merely a pretext of the ruling class to 
intimidate the growing power of organized labor in the United States. I also perfectly 
understood the relentless hate and power of the ruling class. Nevertheless, knowing that I 
was innocent and that my comrades were innocent of the charge against them, I resolved to 
return and share whatever persecution labor's enemies could impose upon them. 
Consequently, on the night of June 20th, I left Waukesha. At 4:30 A.M., June 21st, I 
boarded a St. Paul train at the union depot at Milwaukee, and arrived in Chicago at 7:30 
or 8 o'clock, and repaired to the house of Mrs. Ames at 14 S. Morgan street.

I sent for my wife, who came to me, and a few minutes later I conveyed word to Captain 
Black, our attorney, that I was prepared to surrender. After an affectionate parting with 
my noble, brave and loving wife and several devoted friends, who were present, I at a 
little past 2 o'clock p.m. June 21, accompanied by Mrs. Ames and Mr. A.H. Simpson to the 
court house entrance, was there joined by my attorney, Capt. Black. We walked up the broad 
stairway, entered the court then in session, and standing before the bar of the court 
announced my presence and my voluntary surrender for trial, and entered the plea "not 
guilty." After this ceremony was over I approached the prisoner's dock, where sat my 
arraigned comrades Fielden, Spies, Engel, Fischer, Lingg, Neebe and Schwab, and shaking 
hands with each as I took a seat among them. After the adjournment of the court I was 
conveyed with the others to a cell in the Cook county bastille, and securely locked up.

Leaflet calling for meeting in Haymarket square in protest of the killing of several strikers.
What of the Haymarket Tragedy?
It is simple enough. A large number, over 3,000 of citizens, mostly workingmen, peaceably 
assemble to discuss their grievances, viz.: The eight-hour movement and the shooting and 
clubbing of the McCormick and lumber-yard strikers by the police of the previous day.

Query. Was that meeting, thus assembled, a lawful and constitutional gathering of 
citizens? The police, the grand jury, the verdict, the court, and the monopolists all 
reply: "It was not."

After 10 o'clock, when the meeting was adjourning, two hundred (200) armed police in 
menacing array, threatening wholesale slaughter of the people, there peaceably (the mayor 
of Chicago and others who were present testified so before the jury) assembled, commanded 
their instant dispersal, under the pains and penalties of death.

Was the act of the police lawful and constitutional? The p-3lice, the grand jury, the 
verdict, the court, and the monopolists all reply: "It was."

Some person (unknown and unproven) threw a dynamite bomb among the police. Whether it was 
thrown in self- defense or in furtherance of monopoly's conspiracy against the 8-hour 
movement is not known.

Was that a lawful, a constitutional act? The ruling class shout in chorus: "It was not!"

My own belief, based upon careful examination of all the conditions surrounding this 
Haymarket affair, is that the bomb was thrown by a man in the employ of certain 
monopolists, who was sent from New York city to Chicago for that purpose, to break up the 
eight-hour movement, thrust the active men into prison, and scare and terrify the 
workingmen into submission. Such a course was advocated by all the leading mouth-pieces 
(newspapers) of monopoly in America just prior to May 1. They carried out their programme 
and obtained the results they desired.

Is it lawful and constitutional to put innocent men to death? Is it lawful and 
constitutional to punish us for the deed of a man acting in furtherance of a conspiracy of 
the monopolists to crush out the eight-hour movement? Every "law and order" tyrant from 
Chicago to St. Petersburg cries, "Yes!"

Six of the condemned men were not present at the meeting at the time of the tragedy, two 
of them were not present at any time. One of the latter was addressing a mass-meeting of 
2,000 workingmen at Deering's Harvester works, in Lake View, five miles away. The other 
one was at home abed, and knew not of the affair till the next day. His verdict is fifteen 
years in the penitentiary. These facts stand unquestioned and undenied before the court. 
There was no proof of our complicity with or knowledge of the person who threw the bomb, 
nor is there any proof as to who did throw it. The whole question as to who did the deed 
is resolved upon motive. What motive controlled the person who did the deed?

The rapid growth of the whole labor movement had, by May 1, given the monopolists of the 
country much cause for alarm. The organized power of labor was beginning to exhibit 
unexpected strength and boldness. This alarmed King money-bags, who saw in the Haymarket 
affair their golden opportunity to make a horrible example of the Anarchists, and by their 
dreadful fate give the discontented American workingmen a terrible warning!

This verdict is the suppression of free speech, free press and the assemblage of people to 
discuss their grievances. More than that, the verdict is the denial of the right of 
self-defense; it is the condemnation of the law of self- preservation in America.

As to the responsibility for the Haymarket tragedy? You have heard the side of the ruling 
class. I now speak for the people - the ruled. The Haymarket tragedy was the immediate 
result of the blood-thirsty officiousness of Police Inspector Bonfield. Mayor Harrison 
(commander in chief of police) was present at this meeting, and testified before the court 
that he heard the speeches and left just before its adjournment and went to the police 
station and advised Bonfield that everything at the meeting was peaceable and orderly. The 
mayor left for his house. Soon thereafter, Bonfield thirsting for promotion and the blood 
money which he knew that monopolists were eager to bestow, gathered his army and marched 
them down upon a peaceable, orderly meeting of workingmen, where he expected to 
immortalize himself by deeds of carnage and slaughter that would put to shame a horde of 
Apache Indians. Had he not done such brutal things before with the striking streetcar 
Knights of Labor, Trades Unionists and other workingmen? Why not repeat it that night 
also? He had received the plaudits of the capitalistic press for such acts done on other 
occasions. Why not again?

But Police Inspector Bonfield was only a willing agent, not the dastardly principal in 
this outrage. He held plenary power and obeyed what he knew to be the express desire of 
his masters - the money kings - who want to suppress free speech, free press, and the 
right of workingmen to assemble and discuss their grievances. Let the responsibility for 
the Haymarket tragedy rest where it belongs, to wit: Upon the monopolists, corporations 
and privileged class who rule and rob the working people, and when they complain about it 
discharge, lock-out and black-list them, or arrest, imprison and execute them. The 
Haymarket tragedy was, undoubtedly, the work of a deep laid monopolistic conspiracy 
originating in New York City and engineered by the Pinkerton thugs. Its object was to 
break down the eight-hour movement and Chicago was selected by these conspirators as the 
best place to do the work because Chicago was the center of the movement in the United 
States. Now, what are the facts about the conspiracy against the eight-hour movement which 
has resulted in breaking it down and consigning us to the executioner?

Just prior to the time set apart to inaugurate the eight-hour work day, (the latter part 
of April, 1886,) the New York Herald, in reference to the question, said:

"Two hours, taken from the hours of labor, throughout the United States by the proposed 
eight-hour movement, would make a difference annually of hundreds of millions in values, 
both to the capital invested in industries and existing stocks."

Now what did this mean? It meant that the issue of the hour with the New York and Chicago 
Stock Exchanges, Board of Trade, and Produce Exchangers in every commercial and industrial 
center, was how to preserve the steadiness of the market and maintain the fictitious 
values of the four-fold watered stocks, then listed and then rapidly shrinking in value 
under the paralyzing influence of the impending eight-hour demand of the united army of 
labor. Hundreds of millions in money were at stake. What to do to save it? Clearly, the 
thing to do was to stop the eight-hour movement. The New York Times came promptly forward 
with its scheme to save the sinking market values. Accordingly, just four days before the 
grand national strike for eight hours and only one week before the Haymarket tragedy, the 
New York Times, one of the leading organs of railroad, bank, telegraph and telephone 
monopoly in America, published in its issue of April 25, 1886, an editorial on the 
condition of the markets, the causes of existing decline and panicky symptoms, in which it 
said:

"The strike question is, of course, the dominant one and is disagreeable in a variety of 
ways. A short and easy way to settle it is urged in some quarters, which, is to indict for 
conspiracy every man who strikes, and summarily lock him up. This method would undoubtedly 
strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of the working classes.

"Another way suggested is to pick out the labor leaders, and make such examples of them as 
to scare the others into submission."

The sentiment was echoed at once by the New York Tribune, which said:

"The best policy would be to drive the workingmen into open mutiny against the law."

The organs of monopoly (including the Chicago press), all over the United States took up 
the cry, and re-echoed the diabolical scheme. Something must be done to trump up charges 
against the leaders.

The first of May arrives, the great eight-hour strike is inaugurated. Forty thousand men 
are standing out for it in Chicago. Chicago is the stronghold of the movement, and 40,000 
more threaten to join in the demand. An eight-hour mass meeting is held on the Haymarket, 
Tuesday, May 4. A bomb is thrown, several policemen killed, the leaders are arrested, 
indicted for conspiracy and murder, and seven of them sentenced to death. What's the 
result? It worked as the monopolists said it would. The labor leaders are 11 "picked out 
and made such examples of as to scare the others into submission." Strikers were 
"summarily locked up. This method would undoubtedly strike a wholesome terror into the 
hearts of the working classes," said the Times.

The eight-hour strike is broken and the movement fell to pieces, all over the country.

Commenting on the business situation on the 8th day of May, 1886, four days after the 
Haymarket tragedy, Bradstreet, in his weekly review, said, as telegraphed through the 
Associated Press and published in all the Chicago papers: "Of the 325,000 men who struck 
for eight hours, about 65,000 have gained it. Chicago was the center of the strike, but 
the movement all over the country has greatly weakened in the past few days. Stocks were 
very much depressed the first two days of the week (the 3rd and 4th of May, the days of 
the McCormick and Haymarket trouble), but have recovered their strength the last days of 
the week." The eight-hour strike is practically ended, since the Haymarket affair in Chicago.

The desired result was attained. Prices of stocks, bonds, etc., were restored. It was 
accomplished by the fatal Haymarket bomb.

Who threw the bomb? Who inspired its throwing? John Philip Deluse, a saloon-keeper, living 
in Indianapolis, Indiana, makes an affidavit, supported by the affidavits of two other 
men, who were present, and witnessed and heard it (all three men well- known citizens of 
Indianapolis), that a stranger stepped into his place on Saturday, May 1, with a satchel 
in his hand, which he placed upon the bar while he ordered a drink. The stranger said he 
came from New York City, and was on his way to Chicago. He spoke of the labor troubles. 
Pointing to his satchel he said: "I have got something in here that will work. You will 
hear of it." Turning at the door as he went out, he held up his satchel and pointing to it 
again, said, "You will hear of it soon."

The prediction of the man came to pass. It was heard round the world. The description of 
this man tallies exactly with that given by the witness Burnett, who saw him throw the 
bomb at the Haymarket.

The leaders, as well as many others, not at the meeting of the Haymarket, were arrested 
and punished, the others "scared into submission," and it resulted as the New York Times 
said, viz.: "This method will undoubtedly strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of the 
working classes."

The conspiracy to bring about this result originated among the monopolists of New York 
City, at Pinkerton's headquarters.

Was Police Inspector Bonfield, and States Attorney Grinnell a party to it? Was the 
n-dllionaire "Citizen's Association" of Chicago a party to it? They have, I understand, 
supplied unlimited sums of money to bring about our conviction. I solemnly believe all 
these men were either parties to the Haymarket tragedy, or to the conspiracy for our 
conviction. This conclusion is irresistible, when taken in connection with the admitted 
fact that, to bring about our conviction, the constitution and the law has been ruthlessly 
trampled under foot.

Without fear, or favor, or reward, I have given the untiring energies of the past ten 
years of my life to ameliorate, to emancipate my fellow wage-slaves from their hereditary 
servitude to capital. I do not regret it; rather while I feel the satisfaction of duty 
performed, I regret my inability to have accomplished more than I have done.

During these ten years (from 1876 to 1886) 1 have traversed the states of Nebraska, Iowa, 
Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, 
and New York, sometimes under the auspices and direction of the Knights of Labor, at other 
times Trades Unions and socialist organizations. Covering this space of time I have 
addressed probably a half million workingmen and women, and organized, or assisted in 
organizing many labor organizations. No man can truthfully say I have ever yet betrayed a 
trust, violated a pledge, or swerved from my conception of duty in the labor movement.

I have worked for my living and supported myself since 12 years of age. I have made some 
enemies. My enemies in the southern states consisted of those who oppressed the black 
slave. My enemies in the north are among those who would perpetuate the slavery of the 
wage workers. My whole life has been sober and industrious; was never under the influence 
of liquor, was never arrested for any offense, and voluntarily surrendered for trial in 
the present case.

I married in 1872 and since 1873 have lived in Chicago with my family. In all my labors 
for the up-lifting and emancipation of the wage-worker I have had the earnest, honest, 
intelligent, unflagging support of that grandest, noblest, bravest of women-my loving 
wife. We have two children, a boy of 7 years, and a girl 4 years old.

For free speech and the right of assembly, five labor orators and organizers of labor are 
condemned to die. For free press and free thought three labor editors are sent to the 
scaffold. "These eight men," said the attorneys of the monopolists, "are picked up by the 
grand jury because they are the leaders of thousands who are equally guilty with them and 
we punish them to make examples of them for the others." This much for opinion's sake, for 
free thought, free speech, free press and public assembly.

This Haymarket affair has exposed to public view the hideous enormities of capitalism and 
the barbarous despotism of government. The tragedy and the effects of it have demonstrated 
first: That government is power, and statute law is license, because it is privilege. It 
has shown the people, the poor, the wage-slaves, that law, statute law is a privilege, and 
that privileges are for sale to those who can buy them. Government enacts law; the police, 
the soldier and the jailor at the behest of the rich enforce it. Law is license, the whole 
earth and all it contains has been sold to a few who are thus authorized by statute law, 
licensed to rob the many of their natural inheritance. Law is license. The few are 
licensed by law to own the land, the machinery, the houses, food, clothes and shelter of 
the people, whose industry, whose labor created them. Law is license; law, statute law, is 
the coward's weapon, the tool of the thief. By it humanity has ever been degraded and 
enslaved. By law mankind is robbed of its birthright, liberty transformed into slavery; 
life into death; the fair earth into a den of thieves and murderers. The untold millions, 
the men, women and children of toil, the proletariat, are by law deprived of their lives, 
their liberties and their happiness. Law is license; Government - authority - is despotism.

Anarchy, natural law, is liberty. Liberty is the natural right to do what one pleases, 
bounded and limited only by the equal right of every one else to the same liberty. 
Privileges are none; equal rights for all. Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.

The trial throughout was a travesty on justice. Every law, natural and statute, was 
violated in response to the clamor of the capitalist class. Every capitalist newspaper in 
the city, with one exception, called for our blood before the trial began, demanded our 
lives during the trial and since. A class jury, class law, class hate, and a court blinded 
by prejudice against our opinions, has done its work, we are its victims. Every juryman 
swore he was prejudiced against our opinions; we were tried for our opinions and convicted 
because of them. The jury according to its own statements since the verdict (they served 
nearly two months) entertained themselves each night with either card playing or they 
played the fiddle, the guitar, the piano, and "sang songs" and gave parlor recitations and 
theatricals. They had carriage rides at the expense of the people amounting to one hundred 
and forty dollars; and their board bill was $3.50 per day at a fashionable hotel amounting 
to over $2,300; they had a fine time, a very pleasant and merry time. Mr. Juryman Todd 
said he was a "clothing salesman and a Baptist." "Then," said he, "this was a picked jury, 
they were all gentlemen." Of course, these gentlemen, who have a profound contempt for the 
vulgar, dirty working classes had to bring a verdict befitting gentlemen. So highly 
appreciated was their verdict that Chicago millionaires proposed and so far as any one 
knows did contribute a purse of ($ 1 00,000) one hundred thousand dollars to this jury as 
a reward for their verdict. The jury has besides been lionized, wined, dined, banqueted, 
and given costly presents, and sums of money, since the rendering of their verdict.

The influences which are at work forcing upon the people the social revolution arise out 
of the capitalist system. Necessity is the mother of invention; it is also the father of 
progress and civilization. The justification for the social revolution is recorded 
throughout all the pages of history. Our fathers proclaimed it in the immortal 
Declaration, July 4th, 1776, as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they were 
endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are 
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that 
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is THE RIGHT OF THE 
PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT.

Will the Coming Revolution be Peaceable or Violent?
But now, when the workingmen of American refuse to "give their consent to be any longer 
governed" by the profit mongers, labor exploiters, children slayers and home despoilers, 
they are at once put down, and kept down by the strong arm of military power, against 
their will and without "their consent," in the name of "law and order."

It is against this barbaric use of force, this violation of every natural right that 
Anarchists protest, and for protesting, die!

The only fact established by proof, as well as by our own admission, cheerfully given 
before the jury, was that we held opinions and preached a doctrine that is considered 
dangerous to the rascality and infamies of the privileged, law-creating class known as 
monopolists, to whom, with the prophets of old, we say:

Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your 
riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; 
and the rust of them shall be a witness against you; and shall eat your flesh as it were 
fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days.

- James V., 1-3

José Antonio Gutiérrez Dantón is a Chilean journalist, educator, and anarchist militant 
based in Dublin, Ireland.

The introduction by José Antonio Gutiérrez Danton has been lightly edited for clarity and 
originally appeared with the text by Albert Parsons at www.anarksimo.net.

http://blackrosefed.org/albert-parsons-anarchist-and-labor-martyr/


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