Active agitation at once commenced in various parts of the city. Meetings were held wherever possible in the poorer sections of the North and West Divisions. In all speeches the prevalent distress was dwelt upon and the people were urged to combine against capital. Some of the points made at these gatherings may be judged from the remarks of the agitators at a meeting of the various sections of the party at No. 68 West Lake Street on the 1st of March, 1874. While the sentiments were somewhat rabid, there was no encouragement to deeds of violence. One of the speakers, Mr. Zimple, spoke of the object of the meeting as being “to devise means for marching on the bulwarks of aristocracy, and gain for the working classes that social position to which they were by right entitled.” Then followed an invective against capital and society. “All existing things must be torn down,” he continued, “and a new system of society built up.” Slaves even were allowed to live, but, as things were then, workingmen, who could work no longer, had to starve. If they stood together and elected good men to the Legislature next fall, this state of affairs would be changed. Legislators were too stupid to make a living by honest work, therefore they had to subsist by robbing the people. Mr. Thorsmark expressed confidence in the success of Socialism and said that if all workingmen would do their duty “the present state of society would be re-formed, not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of mankind.” Carl Klings could conceive of “nothing more inhuman, cruel and outrageous than the present state of society,” and it was for this reason, he said, that they had banded together to “strike a blow which would effect a change for all time to come.” The same tyrants, he argued, who had slaughtered their brethren in cold blood and oppressed them in France, could be found in Chicago. The workingmen of America had not accomplished anything as yet, because they were not yet fully prepared, but gradually they were becoming a great power, and soon would “no longer be compelled to drink the bitter poison from the cup of the aristocrats.” Mr. McAuliff touched on the wrongs of the existing state of society as he saw it and held that “they all had to unite in one common body and seek success at the ballot-box.” To gain political power, the Socialists made their first attempt by placing a ticket in the field. A convention was held in Thieleman’s Theater, in the North Division of the city, on the 29th of March, 1874. Although there were general city officers to be elected the following month, the Socialists confined their efforts to making nominations only for the town offices of North Chicago, in which section their theories seemed, at that time, to have found the most fertile soil. Their ticket was made up as follows: Assessor, George F. Duffy; Collector, Philip Koerber; Supervisor, August Arnold; Town Clerk, Frederick Oest; Constable, James Jones.