People who had remained passive up to this time were now aroused to the gravity of the situation. The pending crisis was near at hand, and a general uprising of the laboring people to assert their rights was imminent. The tyrannical and dogged persistency of plutocratic capital to dominate over the laboring classes with utter disregard for their constitutional rights, was nothing more or less than an open declaration of despotic supremacy, and the outcome was looked forward to with the gravest apprehension. The following communication addressed to the chairman of the National Committee of the Peoples Party was sent to Washington, D. C. "To the Hon. H. E. Taubeneck, chairman National Committee, Peoples Party: "Through the gloom of civil war the enemies of human liberty laid the foundation upon which the giant monopolies of to-day have been built. On public lands, with public funds they built the railroads which they now use to plunder the producers of this nation, and with the wealth and power thus obtained they now usurp the power and functions of government to reduce the people of this country to a condition of serfdom. The workmen in the cities, the miners in their isolated communities, and the railroad men throughout the land have risen in manful protest against a threatened military government of the railroads and their associate monopolies. "In this hour of need the duty of the Peoples Party is clear and plain. "Quick as the lightning's flash will bear the message, must go forth that the Peoples Party recognize the gravity of the situation, and by common impulse aligns itself to the side of the toiler in the shop and mine, and on the railroads; their battle is our battle, because it is a struggle for liberty and the right to exist--a peaceable contest on the part of toil against the combined armies of greed and force. "The farmer knows the means best calculated to help his brother in this conflict. The railroads intend to run their trains under military guard and expect American citizen to patronize public means of traffic, operated under military despotism. The Peoples Party of Cook county, in common with organized labor demand immediate arbitration, and urges immediate action on the part of our national committee to the end that all organizations in sympathy with labor be united in common cause against a common enemy. "Signed: T. O'Brien, Chairman, I. H. Hawley, Sec'y. H. S. Taylor, Henry Vincent, John Bagley, D. M. Fielwiler, John Schwartz, C. G. Dixon, J. P. Grimes, Committee." CHAPTER XIII. AN OFFER OF SETTLEMENT.