"The world is never lastingly horrified and deterred from evil by the mere letting of blood. Crime can be obliterated only by reformation of the criminal element of society. Condemnation of individuals who are caught is productive of little good. "The destruction even of an army momentarily shocks; but in the one breath the people will cry, 'war is hell; let us have war, for peace sake.' And when war comes it never affects the cowards, the usurers, the rogues; they stay at a safe distance from the scenes of action, and, with the instinct of the hyena, they profit on the nation's calamity. Our trusts are the result of the jobbing that was started during the Civil War, and which has never lagged since. "The fight that I would have you make is against forty cowards and scoundrels who are sucking the very life out of the country--the forty who represent the high council of the magnates. Let it be a personal fight, a tourney; you the Knights Errant who ride against the dragons. "When the world awakens some morning and reads that at a given hour the forty Robbers of America were sent to their eternal resting place with their crimes on their heads, the shock will not pass away in a day. It will be far different from reading of a battle fought six thousand miles from Washington. Then will be the time for the men who have the good of the people at heart to reestablish them in their rights. "Money is the god that the Nation is asked to worship. It makes fools of the majority and knaves of the rest. "It will take some unprecedented occurrence to stir the masses. The firing on Fort Sumter shook the Nation more than the carnage of Gettysburg. The Nation has come to be apathetic on a vital question; even more so than in the ante-bellum days. The dry-rot of Commercialism is consuming us. We are governed by dividend worshipers. We must act, if our manifest destiny to be a lasting republic is to be fulfilled. "If the taking off of the forty men would do the work that I wish to see done I would be glad; but it will require a sacrifice on our part of more than our prejudice against taking of life. We shall each have to kill our man, and then commit suicide." "What!" ejaculate several. "We shall be obliged to commit suicide. There is no other course open for us, for if, on the announcement that the forty men have been murdered, there is not the still more surprising statement that the murderer of each is found dead beside the slain, the effect will be common-place, and everyone will say it is a cowardly plot to kill forty of the 'best citizens.' There is no way out of it. You would all gladly fight with an enemy of the country to the death. To rescue the flag from the enemy you would face a hail of lead. "This flag of Freedom is defiled to-day by the Magnates. You are asked to rescue it. It was snatched from my hands on the highway as I went to present a petition to my fellow citizens.