Albert Richard Parsons

“ Every great robbery that was ever perpetrated upon a people has been by virtue of and in the name of law. By this tool of thieves the great mass of the people who inhabit our planet have been robbed of their equal right to the use of the soil and of all other natural opportunities. In the name of this monster (statute law) large sections of our race have been bought and sold as chattels; by it the vast majority of the human race are today held in the industrial bondage of wage slavery, and in its name our fair earth has been times without number deluged in human blood. ”

“ Your honor Socialism comes to the people and asks them to look into this thing, to discuss it, to reason, to examine it, to investigate it, to know the facts, because it is by this and this alone that violence will be prevented and bloodshed will be avoided; because as my friend here has said, men in their blind rage, in their ignorance not knowing what ails them, knowing that they are hungry, that they are miserable and destitute, strike blindly, and do as they did with Maxwell here, and fight the labor saving machinery. ”

“ We stand upon the right of free speech, of free press, of public assemblage, unmolested and undisturbed. We stand upon the constitutional right of self-defense, and we defy the prosecution to rob the people of America of these dearly bought rights. But the prosecution imagines that they have triumphed because they propose to put to death seven men. Seven men to be exterminated in violation of the law, because they insist upon the inalienable rights granted them by the constitution. Seven men are to be exterminated, because they demand the right of free speech and exercise it. ”

“ The whole force of the organized power of the government is thrown against the workers, whom the so-called better class denominates a mob. Now, when the workers of America refuse to starve according to law and order, and when they begin to think and act, why, the street drill begins. The enslavers of labor see the coming storm. They are determined, cost what it may, to drill these people and make them their slaves by holding in their possession the means of life as their property, and thus enslave the producers. Workingmen—we mean women, too,—arise! ”

“ Anarchists are not that kind. We object to those laws. Now, whether the government consists of one over the million, or a million over one, an Anarchist is opposed to the rule of majorites as well as minorities. If a man has a right he has a right, whether that right be denied by a million or by one. Right is right, and the majority that sets itself up to dictate to minorities simply transform itself into tyrants; they become usurpers; they deny the natural right of their fellowmen. Now, sir, this would put an end to the law factory business. What would become of your law makers? ”

“ These Americans—sovereigns—millions of them do not know where they could get a bed or a supper. Your ballot—what is it good for? Can a man vote himself bread, or clothes, or shelter, or work? In what does American wage slaves' freedom consist? The poor are the slaves of the rich everywhere. The ballot is neither a protection against hunger nor against the bullets of the military. Bread is freedom; freedom bread. The ballot is no protection against the bullets of those who are practicing the street-riot drills in Chicago. The ballot is worthless to the industrial slave under these conditions. ”

“ Socialism aims not at the lives of individuals but at the system which makes paupers and millionaires possible. Socialism aims at the death of no man nor the destruction of property, and the capitalistic press lies, and they know it, when they make such charges against Socialists. They lie about us in order to deceive the people; but the people will not be deceived much longer. No, they will not. The monopolist organs of our cities have advised hand grenades, strychnine, arsenic and lead instead of bread, for the unemployed and those seeking to better their condition, long enough. ”

“ It is the abolition of authority; it is the dawn of peace; it is the end of war, because war cannot exist unless there is somebody to make war upon, and dynamite makes that unsafe, undesirable, and absolutely impossible. It is a peace-maker; it is man's best and last friend; it emancipates the world from the domineering of the few over the many, because ail government, in the last resort, is violence; all law, in the last resort, is force. Everything is based upon force. Force is the law of the universe ”

“ Is it true that the ruling, the moneyed class can set aside the law with impunity? Is it true that we are in an era when only property is sacred, and not the liberty or right of the common citizen; when the poor man may be arrested, or a hated minority hung with impunity, but to touch the institution of property is sacrilege? Is it true that the processes which resulted in this verdict were as illegal as those original proceedings against us were high-handed, unauthorized, and unconstitutional, as confessed by the mayor? ”

“ The legal right of the capitalist to rent and interest and profit is the absolute denial of the natural right of labor. Free access to the means of production is the natural right to labor. Free access to the means of production is the natural right of every man able and willing to work. It is the legal right of the capitalist to refuse such access to labor, and to take from the laborer all the wealth he creates over and above a bare subsistence for allowing him the privilege of working. ”

“ This verdict, as it now stands, proclaims to the world that he who throws a bomb and kills a score of people is safe, while he who speaks or writes or works to organize labor and peaceably remove—because I deny the charge of any organization to attack anybody; the proof does not show it, nor sustain it, nor maintain it—to peaceably remove the cause of the people's discontent is in danger of dungeons and of the scaffold.
Every man called upon to act upon the jury, swore that he was an enemy to the labor movement, was prejudiced against the idea of Socialism or free labor. ”

“ The whole trial was conducted to condemn Anarchy. "Anarchy is on trial," said Mr. Ingham. "Hang these eight men and save our institutions," shouted Grinnell; "these are the leaders; make examples of them," yelled the prosecution in addressing the court and jury. Yes, we are Anarchists, and for this, your honor, we stand condemned. Can it be that men are to suffer death for their opinions? "These eight defendants," said the State's attorney to the jury, "were picked out and indicted by the grand jury. They are no more guilty than are the thousands who follow them. ”

“ I have been here long enough, I think, to have rights guaranteed at least in the constitution of the country. I am an internationalist.
My patriotism covers more than the boundary lines of a single State; the world is my country, all mankind my countrymen. That is what the emblem of the red flag signifies; it is the symbol of the free, of emancipated labor. The workers are without a country. In all the lands they are disinherited, and America is no exception. ”

“ His labor is a commodity which under the guise of free labor he is forced by necessity to hand over to another party. The whole of the wage laborer's activity is not the product of his labor—far from it. The silk he weaves, the palace he builds, the ores he digs from out the mines, are not for him. The only thing he produces for himself is his wages, and the silk, the ores, and the palace which he built, are simply transformed for him into a certain kind of means of existence, namely, a cotton shirt, a few pennies, and the mere tenancy of a lodging house. ”

“ Men are taught to be hypocrites, to carry a mask on their face, to lie, to misrepresent everything. No man can be honest and succeed in business or make money. It is impossible. Honesty is punished with poverty, while dishonesty revels in every luxury.
Now, sir, is it fair to try a man by a class jury for disloyalty to that class? A verdict of guilty from such a source is a foregone conclusion. Do you call such a trial as that a fair, impartial, or unprejudiced trial? Nonsense. I believe if there had been some workingmen on that jury they would have understood something about this question ”

“ For these reasons I ask the suspension of your sentence, for the reasons that have been stated here; that there was no conspiracy, that it was an organization for defense; that the meeting was peaceable; that it was a lawful meeting, as the mayor of the city of Chicago declared it upon the stand to be, and as Bonfield and Haas both said, the morning after the Haymarket tragedy, that the bomb did not come from the alley, but south of it. I ask your honor to suspend your judgment and give us innocent men a chance, in a new trial, to prove these facts beyond any question. ”

“ Why, a human law maker, your honor, in my humble judgment, is a human humbug. Yes, sir, just think of these law factories that we have throughout the country, the legislatures of our states and the union, where they manufacture laws just as we go to a factory to manufacture a pair of boots! Why, your honor, the same pair of boots won't fit every man; how can you make a law that will apply to the individual cases of each one? ”

“ The idea of a man striking a match in an alley to light a bomb in the midst of a crowd, the people and police standing all around him! It seems to me that such a statement as that ought to, among sensible men, on the face of it, carry its own refutation. Perfectly absurb! If this statement bore the semblance of truth with regard to Gilmer, or was the truth, not one of these defendants would shrink from the responsibility of the right of self-defense, your honor, and of free speech, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble. ”

“ I believe, sir, that the representatives of that millionaire organization of Chicago, known as the Chicago Citizens' Association stand to a man demanding of your honor our immediate extinction and suppression by an ignominious death. Now, I stand here as one of the people, a common man, a workingman, one of the masses, and I ask you honor to give ear to what I have to say. ”

“ It must be confessed that the outlook for labor in all its branches of industry is most discouraging, and revives the idea of that terrible story in Blackwood, where a prison of iron has been so constructed as to gradually contract until it becomes an iron shroud that crushes the prisoner within to a shapeless pulp. Labor is encircled by an iron shroud made of two factions, the tendency of capital to concentrate itself in few hands and the undeniable fact that the number of laborers will always increase in greater ratio than the amount of employment for them. ”

“ Now, sir, is this the kind of testimony upon which you intend to deprive us of our lives and liberty? Is this the great crime for which we must suffer death? Because we have held such meetings, and made such speeches, you claim that we are responsible for the action of the person who threw the bomb at the Haymarket. If this is law, then every dissatisfied workingman and woman in America could be convicted for the same reason.
Your honor, this was a class verdict. I will admit one thing: I believe the jury were to a large extent imposed upon. ”

“ This is the labor question. Wealth is power; poverty is weakness.
If I had time I might stop here to answer some suggestions that probably arise in the minds of some persons, or perhaps of your honor, not being familiar with this question. I imagine I hear your honor say, "Why, labor is free. This a free country." Now, we had in the southern states for nearly a century a form of labor known as chattel slave labor. That has been abolished, and I hear you say that labor is free; that the war has resulted in establishing free labor all over America. ”

“ All political law, statute and common, gets its right to operate from the statute; therefore all political law is statute law. A statute law is a written scheme by which cunning takes advantage of the unsuspecting, and provides the inducement to do so, and protects the one who does it. In other words, a statute is the science of rascality or the law of usurpation. If a few sharks rob mankind of all the earth, turn them all out of house and home, make them ragged slaves and beggars, and freeze and starve them to death, still they are expected to obey the statute because it is sacred. ”

“ Whoever violates the right of another, sooner or later punishes himself. Nature is inexorable. From her penalty there is no escape. But in a court of law—of so-called "justice"—if you are a member of the Citizens' Association, or if you have a big bank account, in other words, if you are a member of the propertied class, you crawl out of anything you want to, for law is for sale; that is to say, whoever can purchase the lawyers, stock the jury and bribe the court, can win. There is only one law for the poor, to wit: Obey the rich. ”