"To carry on a crusade one must surrender self. "If our plan did not embrace more than the annihilation of forty of the Transgressors it would not be raised to a higher plane than wholesale homicide. "But we are to follow the course which the Plutocrats have traversed. They have destroyed individual liberty; they have entrenched themselves in our halls of legislature by bribery; our executives are their puppets; our courts are their final buttress. To reclaim the rights of the people we must reach the powers in control; the actual men who engineer the scheme of public loot. These men have sacrificed human lives to attain their ascendency. We must demand, we must enforce an atonement. "Because we are to deal with the chief transgressors, who represent a small number, our deed will be regarded in the light of murder. "Were the magnates in the field as an open foe our assault upon them would be hailed as an act of heroism. Shall we be deterred by consideration of a difference in mere words? "I propose to vindicate these so-called murders, which we are to commit. The atonement will be frightful. Will it be more so than the conditions which necessitate it? "Are the lives of forty soulless men to be compared with those of thousands who are yearly sacrificed to sordid commercialism? "Are we to extend our commerce at the price of a life for every dollar of foreign trade? "Men prospered in this country before the reign of the Trust Magnates; men grew rich through ordinate profits, and the prosperity of the country was the prosperity of all. To-day men seek to enrich themselves by preying on the necessities of their fellowmen. "Can the cry of tyrants and sycophants drown the wail of the innocent children and women who have been chained to the wildcat car of Modern Commercialism? "In compiling the list of Transgressors, I have selected no man merely because he is possessed of great wealth. There are many millionaires who have earned their fortunes by honest endeavor and in strict conformity with the laws of the land. I have discriminated against those who have prostituted the laws of God and man; not a man whom I shall declare proscribed but he is known to all men as stained with the blood of innocents. "'The voice of the people is the voice of God.' This voice cries to us from four million mothers' mouths for deliverance from tyrants who compel them to work for a living even in the hours of their pregnancy. The child laborers of this land of freedom raise a piteous plea. "Do you wait for an actual rain of hell-fire as a sign that God's will is not being done? "It is our duty to strike a blow at Plutocracy that shall destroy it for all time. We will act as sovereigns of the land. In us resides the supreme rights of mankind. Our edict cannot be enforced by the courts, so we will act for ourselves. "The names I read are not given in any fixed order; each man is equally guilty."