Albert Parsons

“ 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. And I knew that if we were sacrificed by the money maloch it would be with the sole view to making examples of us from which workingmen could take warning by our fates. ”

“ The whole earth & 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 & shelter of the people - whose industry; whose labor created them. Law is license; law - statue law - is the coward's weapon, the tool of the thief. By it humanity has ever been degraded & enslaved. By law mankind is robbed of its birthright, liberty transformed into slavery; life into death ”

“ This Haymarket affair has exposed to public view the hideous enormities of capitalism & the barbarous despotism of government. The tragedy & the effects of it has 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, & that privileges are for sale to those who can buy them. Government enacts law; the police, the soldiers & the jailors at the behest of the rich enforce it. Law is license. ”

“ All over the world the fact stands undisputed that the political is based upon and is but the reflex of the economic system, & hence, we find that whatever the political form of the government - whether monarchical or Republican, the average social status of the wage-worker is in every country 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. ”

“ Consequently, Anarchy means 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 agreed upon a certain plan & only one objected thereto the objector would under Anarchy be respected in his natural right to go his own way. ”

“ 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 form the consent of the governed ”

“ The broad distinction and irreconcilable conflict between wage-laborers & capitalists, between those who buy labor and sell its products, & the wage-worker who sells his labor (himself) in order to live, arises from the social institution called government & statute law. On the other hand, the reconciliation of 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 & each are equally free to unite or disunite, as interest or inclination may incline. ”

“ Anarchy is the extension of the boundaries of liberty until it covers the whole range of the wants & aspirations of man. Not men, but man.
Power is might & might always makes 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 whenever 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. ”

“ 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 & murder. Government disinherits and enslaves the governed. Government is for slaves; freemen govern themselves. Law - statute, man-made law - is license. Anarchy - natural law - is liberty. Anarchy is the rule of man by law. ”

“ And when each person is thus held responsible by all the rest for the violation of the inherent right of anyone how then can injustice flourish or wrong triumph? For the greatest good to the greatest number, Anarchy substitutes the equal right of each & every one. The natural law is all-sufficient for every purpose, every desire of every human being. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who, then, are the aiders, abettors & users of force? Who are the real revolutionists? Are they not those who hold and exercise power over their fellows, they who use clubs & bayonetts, prisons & scaffolds? The great class conflict now gathering throughout the world is created by our social system of industrial slavery. ”

“ The Anarchists are the advance guard in the impending social revolution. They have discovered the cause of the world-wide discontent which is felt but not yet understood by the toiling millions as a whole. The effort now being made by organized & 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 to Capital. Capital is a thing - it is property. ”

“ Covering this space of time I have addressed probably a half-million workingmen & women, and organized or assisted in organizing many labor organizations. No man can 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 & supported myself since 12 years of age. I have made some enemies. My enemies in the South 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-slave. My whole life has been sober & industrious ”

“ Their exercise of these powers is based upon force & 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 & 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 & the pursuit of happiness is yet to be acquired by the producers of all wealth. ”

“ I saw that long hours & low wages deprived the wage-workers, as a class of the necessary time, and means, & 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 & bull-dozing grew out of the conditions which made the working people poor & the idlers rich & that consequently the ballot-box could not be made an index to record the popular will until the existing, debasing, impoverishing & enslaving industrial conditions were first altered. ”

“ With the destruction of the feudal system, and the birth of commercialism & manufacturers in the 16th century, a contest long & bitter & bloody lasting over a hundred years was waged for mental & religious liberty. The 17th and 18th centuries with their Sanguinary conflicts gave to man political equality & 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; & "free competition" among capitalists in their endeavors to exploit the laborers & monopolize their labor products. ”

“ Social administration is substituted for governmentalism, and self-preservation becomes the actuality motive as now, minus the dictation, coercion, driving & domination of man by man. Do you say this is a dream! That it is the millennium! 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 & the land & all other things - property - will be controlled by those who possess & use it. ”

“ The scientist becomes then the natural leader & 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 & co-operation will be necessity & from selfishness be applied by the people in the production & distribution of wealth, and what the Trades Unions and labor organizations seek now to do but are prevented from doing because of obstructions & coercions will under perfect liberty - Anarchy - come easiest to hand. ”

“ So highly appreciated was their verdict that Chicago millionaires proposed & so far as any one knows did contribute a purse of one hundred ($100,000) thousand dollars to this jury as a reward for their verdict. The jury has besides been lionized, wined, dined, banqueted, & given costly presents, & 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 & civilization. ”

“ 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. Capital & 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 ”

“ For free speech and the right of assembly five labor orators & organizers 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 out 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." ”

“ I was a delegate in 1881 to the labor congress which founded the former and afterwards also a delegate to the Pittsburg, Pa. congress in Oct. 1883 which revived the latter as a part of the International Working People's Association which already ramified Europe and which originally organized at the World's Labor Congress held in London, England, in 1864. I cannot do better than insert here the manifesto of the Pittsburg Congress which clearly sets forth the aims & methods of the International of which I am still a member & for which reasons myself & comrades are condemned to death. ”

“ The rapid growth of whole labor movement had by May first given the monopolists of the country much cause for alarm. The organized power of labor was beginning to exhibit unexpected strength & boldness. This alarmed King Money-Bags who saw in the Haymarket affair their golden opportunity to make a horrible example of the Anarchists, & by "the deep damnation of their taking off" give the discontented American workingmen a terrible warning. ”

“ This method would undoubtably 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."
This 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 millionaires & their representatives on the pulpit & rostrum avowed their intention to use force to quell their dissatisfied laborers. The execution of these threats, the breaking up of meetings, arrest, & imprisonment of "leaders" the use of the club, pistol & bayonet upon strikers, even to the advise to throw handgrenades (dynamite) among them, these acts of violence & brutality led many workingmen to consider the necessity for self-defense of their person and their rights. ”

“ The execution of this verdict will demonstrate to the working people of the United States that whoever writes, speaks, or works to help organize the working class to obtain their rights is liable to imprisonment & death, but whoever uses a ten (10) cent bomb in self-defense & destroys those who would have destroyed them, or uses it in the interests of a monopolist conspiracy to put down the labor movement is in no danger at all, if they go about their business and say nothing to anyone. ”