Oscar William Neebe

“ The time will come that you will see them. You rich men don't want the poor educated. You don't want anybody to be educated. You want to keep them down in the mud so you can squeeze the last drop of blood out of their bones. ”

“ Maybe they need them to make a case sometimes, and they don't arrest them; but when it comes to arresting a poor workingman they are all there. On May 9 when I came home, my wife, who is delicate, told me that the patrol wagon with twenty-five police, came to search my house. I must be a very dangerous man to require so many police. They searched the whole house and they found a revolver. That is a deadly weapon and a dangerous weapon. I don't think anybody have revolvers but Anarchists and Socialists and labor agitators. ”

“ I saw that the bakers in this city were treated like dogs. The baker bosses treated their dogs better than they treated their men. I said to myself: "These men have to be organized; in organization there is strength;" ”

“ We want to educate the masses and keep them back from destroying life and property, but we are not able to hold the masses when starvation brings them out of their holes like rats. I have walked along the streets of this city and I have seen the rats come from their holes by the hundreds in the basements, where men pay five and ten cents for lodgings. ”

“ I said to myself: "If you organize these men they can live like men. Yon can help to make good citizens of them." And everybody said: "They are down low; they are drunkards." I went to work and organized them. I rented a hall and issued an appeal for them, and got them to come, and I organized the men. On Saturday, May 1 or May 2, I was conferring with the beer brewer bosses of Chicago and we had a meeting. I was the chairman of the committee, and I asked the beer brewer bosses to reduce the hours of labor down to ten hours a day, and they did it. ”

“ He is the editor of a labor paper." As she said that he snatched the lady, and she protested as an American woman, and as she protested he said: "Shut up, you bitch, or I will knock you down." I repeat the same words here, and I have a right to, as the noble officers of Chicago have used this language. That is one of your men, Mr. Grinnell—just like you. You have insulted ladies when you have not dared to insult gentlemen. Mrs Parsons was called the same name by the officers. They called her a black bitch, and wanted to knock her down; and they said they would not let us publish any paper ”