of hired liars, the people's oppressors." Parsons claimed to have been for thirty years identified with labor interests, and said: "And in what I say upon this subject relating to the labor movement or to myself as connected in this trial or before this bar, I will speak the truth, though my tongue should be torn from my mouth and my throat cut from ear to ear, so help me God." The speaker then went into statistics, claiming that 9,000,000 out of the 12,000,000 voters in the United States were actual wage workers. He attacked the citizens' Association as an organization of millionaires, and claimed that the Court should stand between the accused and their persecutors. "Where," he asked, "are the ends of justice observed, and where is truth found in hurrying seven human beings at the rate of express speed upon a fast train to the scaffold, and an ignominious death? Why, if your Honor please, the very method of our extermination, the deep damnation of its taking off, appeals to your Honor's sense of justice, of rectitude, and of honor. A judge may also be an unjust man. Such things have been known. We have in our histories heard of Lord Jeffreys. It need not follow that because a man is a judge he is also just. * * * Now, I hold that our execution, as the matter stands just now, would be judicial murder, and judicial murder is far worse than lynch law--far worse. But, your Honor, bear in mind please, this trial was conducted by a mob, prosecuted by a mob, by the shrieks and the howls of a mob, an organized powerful mob. The trial is over. Now, your Honor, you sit there judicially, calmly, quietly, and it is now for you to look at this thing from the standpoint of reason and from common sense. * * * Now, the money-makers, the business men, those people who deal in stocks and bonds, the speculators and employers, all that class of men known as the money-making class, they have no conception of this labor question; they don't understand what it means. To use the street parlance, with many of them it is a difficult matter for them to 'catch onto' it, and they are perverse also; they will have no knowledge of it. They don't want to know anything about it, and they won't hear anything about it, and they propose to club, lock up, and if necessary strangle those who insist on their hearing this question. Now, your Honor, can you deny that there is such a thing in the world as the labor question? I am an Anarchist. Now strike! But hear me before you strike. What is Socialism, briefly stated? It is the right of the toiler to the free and equal use of the tools of production, and the right of the producer to their product. That is Socialism. The history of mankind is one of growth. It has been evolutionary and revolutionary."