Comrades and fellow workers: I am indeed gratified with this splendid reception. In fact, I am always pleased with a New York audience, and I hope this will be no different from the many audiences that I have addressed in this city.

I am here tonight, as the chairman has stated, to speak on "Socialism, the Hope of the Working Class." (Applause.) And there are some differences between Socialists. If we are to judge socialism by the opinions that have recently been expressed in the present controversy going on in our Socialist papers, and if our judgment were based on those ingredients, I am sure that we would have a mental chop suey (laughter and applause), the mysticism of which would baffle the ingenuity of the brain of a Chinese mandarin. (Laughter.) But not all the things that you have read from the pens of our very learned brothers are socialism. Socialism is so plain, so clear, so simple that when a person becomes intellectual he doesn't understand socialism. (Applause.)

In speaking to you of socialism tonight I would urge that you do not turn your minds to the legislative halls at Albany or the halls of congress in Washington or the council chambers of the city hall in New York. I would prefer that you turn your minds inward and think of the machines where you are employed every day. I would like you to think of the relation that you hold to society, which occurs in three distinct phases: First, the individual relation, the relation to your home and family, the conditions that present themselves there; then the group relation, the industrial relation, without any regard to craft or trade divisions—not thinking that you are a particular craft man, but that you are working in some particular line of industry which is absolutely interdependent with all other industries; and then, having left your shop, your group or industrial relation, I would like your mind to turn home again, and you will not find that home isolated. It is a group of many homes. And there you assume another relation. There you become, not an individual of your family group, nor an individual of your social or industrial group, but you become a unit in the fabric of society. You become one then of the entire working class. And my definition of socialism here tonight will be clear enough indeed to the working class and also to the enemy of the working class; but to the go-between, to the opportunist, it will not be clear, and in all probability they would ask me to define my definition. I am not here to waste time on the "immediate demanders" or the step-at-a-time people whose every step is just a little shorter than the preceding step. (Laughter and applause.) I am here to speak to the working class, and the working class will understand what I mean when I say that under socialism you will need no passports or citizenship papers to take a part in the affairs in which you are directly interested. The working class will understand me when I say that socialism is an industrial democracy and that industrialism is a social democracy. (Applause.)

And in this democracy we know no divisions. There will be no divisions of race, creed, sex or color. Every person who is a factor in industrial activity will take a part in this industrial democracy. Under socialism we workers will not be subjects of any state or nation, but we will be citizens, free citizens in the industries in which we are employed. Therefore, I want you at all times while I am speaking to keep your mind closely riveted on your own personal interests. You don't have to go outside of your own shop, the place where you are doing productive work, to establish socialism. Socialism is not a thing remote, and it is not necessary for you to follow our brothers who are standing on the heights of Utopia beckoning you to come up and enjoy the elysian fields, where you will receive $4 a week after you become 60 years of age (laughter and applause), and where the conditions have arrived at such a perfect stage of security that no trust can do business if it holds more than 40 per cent monopoly of any particular line of industry. (Applause.) In this place that is being mapped out for you you will find that it is very much more desirable to be exploited by three 33 1-3 per cent trusts than it is to be exploited by one 100 per cent trust.

And now we will keep distinctly in mind the shop. I want to say at this point, and emphatically, that with the success of socialism practically all of the political offices now in existence will be put out of business. (Applause.) I want to say also; and with as much emphasis, that while a member of the Socialist Party and believing firmly in political action, it is decidedly better in my opinion to be able to elect the superintendent in some branch of industry than to elect a congressman to the United States congress. (Applause.) More than that: under socialism we will have no congresses, such as exist today, nor legislatures, nor parliaments, nor councils of municipalities. Our councils will not be filled with aspiring lawyers and ministers (applause), but they will be the conventions of the working class, composed of men and women who will go there for purposes of education, to exchange ideas, and by their expert knowledge to improve the machinery so that we can use it for the advantage of the working class. We will then have made machinery the slave of the working class, rather than now when the working class is the slave of the man who owns the machinery.

Having established these facts, we will now begin to understand why the conditions are so much more violent in this stage of the world's history than at any previous period. There was never a time in all the history of the world but what the working class were dominated by tyrants. There never was a period so tyrannical as now. We have heard of the democracy of Athens and of that ancient civilization. All the beauties of that wonderful city of free men, with its marvelous sculptures of marble, rested upon the shoulders of the 300,000 slaves in the valley. There has never been a period in the world's history that the working class were free. They have been slaves, serfs, chattel slaves and today wage slaves. And more than that, they are being devoured today by the Frankenstein that they themselves created. The energy, genius and ambition of the working class have brought about this marvelous age of machinery and invention, until today a machine will do the work of ten, one hundred, aye, a thousand times as much work as a man could do 50 years ago. This then is what intensifies the struggle for existence on the part of the working class. The unemployed army is rapidly increasing, due largely to the fact that labor-saving machinery has been introduced in nearly all branches of industry. We find then that the very thing that should improve the condition of the working class has contrived to make the condition of the working class deplorable indeed.

If you would travel and visit the various industries, as I have, you could speak of these things at first hand; the changes that are going on. Even here in a city like New York you can see a period of 100 years ago still hanging on. For instance, passing this street will be a street car drawn by horses; not far distant, an eighteen or twenty story building with a platform on the top arranged for the aeroplanes that are coming as a means of transportation from one part of the city to the other. In all lines of industry the same changes have been going on. Fifty years ago the plowing on the farms was done by a yoke of cattle or a span of horses. Today it is neatly done by traction engines and steam plows. The picking of the cotton was formerly done by chattel slaves, then by wage slaves, white women—in Texas it is no unusual thing, or was no unusual thing, to see a white woman dragging an 8-foot cotton sack up and down the field all day long. In a corner of the field was something wrapped up in a bundle or a piece of blanket. As that woman approached the bundle you would see her stop quickly, pick it up and nurse it—her baby! She would nurse the little one and start again her round of weary toil. The day of the white woman and the day of the colored children in the cotton field has passed with the introduction of a great machine that goes down the field, and with a system of suction takes up all the ripe cotton, and the next day the thing is done all over again. The mining industry has been transformed in just such a manner. The steel industry like- wise. Every branch of industry. Indeed, there are few, if any, lines of trade where the workingman today controls the tools with which he lives. In the manufacture of shoes, where a man used to make a pair of shoes, or a pair of boots, he was called a shoemaker. Now in the process of manufacturing a pair of shoes it goes through at least 100 different pairs of hands, and the machinery that makes the shoe doesn't belong to the shoe manufacturer, but to the United States Shoe Machinery Company, which is an entirely different concern, and one of at least as great proportions now as the Standard Oil trust.

So we find that while the worker has gone steadily on with his toil and his inventive genius, creating all this wonderful machinery by his labor power alone, he has with every step of progress exaggerated his own struggle for existence and he has brought about a keener struggle between himself and the capitalist class. And if it were not for this struggle between the owning, employing class and the working class, the philosophy of socialism would never have been written. And here tonight, I believe, while I am speaking on the hope of the worker, that the necessity of emphasizing the class struggle is more apparent than anything else, because if the working class, if the workers will recognize this class struggle and become a part of it, there is absolutely no question as to the speedy and early results if we can ever get up against the capitalist class with our bare hands. We then will be in a position to absolutely control the situation.

And here tonight I am going to speak on the class struggle, and I am going to make it so plain that even a lawyer can understand it (laughter and applause). I am going to present the class struggle so clearly here tonight that even a preacher will know its meaning. (Applause.) And this, friends, is rather more difficult than you appreciate. The lawyer and the preacher have never fought with the under-dog. For the ages agone they have been the mouthpieces of the capitalist class. (Applause.) They are not entirely to blame. We Socialists recognize that it is largely the result of environment. You can't see the class struggle through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral. You can't see the class struggle through the spectacles of capitalist law, written by capitalist representatives in the interest of the capitalist class. To understand the class struggle you must go into the factory and you must ride on top of the boxcars or underneath the boxcars. You must go into the mills. You must look through the dirty windows of the working shop. You must go with me down into the bowels of the earth 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 feet: there by the uncertain flicker of a safety lamp, there by the rays of a tallow candle you will understand something about the class struggle.

You must know that there are two classes in society. There are no half-way measures. Just two classes. On the one side the capitalist class. On the other side the working class. On the one side those who produce all and have little or none. On the other side those who produce none and have all. (Applause.) This struggle is between capitalism and socialism. Socialists are not responsible for it. We say that it exists. We know the conditions that have brought it about and we know the only remedy for it. We say that it will continue just so long as a favored few are given the special privilege of exploiting the many. This class struggle will continue just so long as one man eats bread in the sweat of another man's face.

And now the workers are involved in this class struggle, and we will see what they are going to do. The men in the Los Angeles jail, 100 or more—they understand this class struggle, and so do the men who were taken from that jail to San Quentin. (Applause.) They know what the class struggle means. Let me say to you that while the capitalist class is writing the criminal record of the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers' Union it is no part of the duty of the Socialists to be assisting them in their work (applause), but it is our duty to compile the category of crimes perpetrated by the capitalist class. (Applause.) As for me, I am a defendant in every case where the working class or its representatives are on trial and the capitalist class is the plaintiff. (Applause.) Therefore my heart is with the MacNamara boys (applause) as long as they are fighting in the interests of the working class. (Applause.) Let the capitalist class bury its own dead. There are 21 dead in Los Angeles. We are too busy to go there, because tonight we have 207 dead in Bryceville, Tennessee. (Applause.) A federal grand jury has been selected to ferret out the men responsible for Jim MacNamara's crime in Los Angeles; there has been no grand jury selected to investigate the crime at Bryceville. And let me say that that explosion in Bryceville was just as premeditated, just as much a cold-blooded murder as though they had set the fuse or timed the clock. (Applause.) Every day in the year in this country there are 100 men and women killed; 35,000 every year. Seven hundred thousand killed and wounded in preventable accidents in the industries of this country. Let me say to you that when you hear of an explosion in a mine, you can mark it down that murder has been committed; been committed with the connivance, or at least through the deliberate negligence of the capitalist class. (Applause.) Every miner and every mine owner knows that if the mines are properly ventilated, if they are properly equipped with either air shafts or suction fans there will be no accumulation of gas or firedamp. If the coal dust is wetted down or removed there will be no explosions from this source. But it requires money, and it reduces the profit in mining coal. Human life is cheaper. Therefore, they continue to murder us by the thousands every year. And until we have brought about that condition whereby we can protect ourselves, I can't find it in my heart to condemn one of my own class. (Applause.)

So I say to you that the men in the Los Angeles jail, the men who were doing picket duty while the Llewellyn Iron Foundry workers were on strike, thrown into jail for no other reason than because they were on the picket line, because they had violated an injunction—those men understand the class struggle. In Fresno, California, not far removed from Los Angeles, 116 members of the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World were thrown into a prison intended to "accommodate" 24 persons. As the jail doors swung behind them they said with all the spirit and more of the earnestness of Patrick Henry, "Give us liberty or give us death." The sheriff of the county called out the fire department, turned three strong streams of water into that jail; the men were compelled to hold mattresses against the doors to keep their eyes and nostrils from being torn out by the water. One man had his eye torn from his head. They left them all night long standing up to their knees in water. They understand the class struggle.

The men who fought the terrible battle for free speech in Spokane, where there were 1,800 hospital cases and only 500 prisoners—they understand the class struggle. They were competent to do that. Their jaws were broken by the minions of the capitalist class.

But most of us out west understand the class struggle, and I don't know how I can better portray what the class struggle means than to give you here tonight a brief history of the Western Federation of Miners. (Applause.) I don't think I have ever told this story in the city of New York. At least it will bear repetition.

The Western Federation of Miners is a fighting organization of the working class. It was born in jail (laughter and applause), and we are proud of our birth. (Applause.) We were the child of an injunction. It was the first injunction ever issued in a labor controversy. President Taft is credited with being the father of injunctions, but that doubtful honor rests with Judge Beattie of the federal district court in Idaho, and Bill Taft is only the stepdad. (Laughter.) That injunction was issued during a strike in the Coeur d'Alenes in the Panhandle of Idaho in 1892. The miners went on strike to prevent a reduction of wages, and the mine owners, violating all laws, brought in thugs and hired gun men from foreign territory, and there was a pitched battle between union men and non-union men. A few were killed on each side, and during the fight a mill was blown up and the soldiers were sent in and 1,200 union men were arrested. They were placed in what the authorities were pleased to call a "bullpen." That particular bullpen was a hurriedly erected two-story structure built out of rough lumber, where those 1,200 men were crowded in much closer than you are here tonight. They were held, most of them, for a period of seven months. During the early weeks of their incarceration they were not permitted to leave that building, not even to answer the calls of nature. They became diseased and vermin infested, and many, many of them died as a result of that cruel imprisonment. Among the number were 14 who were arrested for violating the injunction that I referred to. They were sent to Ada county jail, and by the merest coincidence they occupied the same cells that Moyer, Pettibone and myself lived in for so many weary months, commencing some 14 years later. And it was while those 14 men were within the gloomy walls of that prison that they conceived the idea and formulated the plan of federating all the miners of the west, or amalgamating all the miners of the west into one general organization.

As soon as they were released they called a convention. It was held in Butte, Montana. And on the 15th of May, 1893, the Western Federation of Miners was born. (Applause.) Quick on the heels of its inception came the Cripple Creek strike of 1894, when the miners went out to establish an eight-hour day and a minimum wage of $3.50 to protect the members of their organization from discrimination. The mine owners at once called on the governor for the soldiers, but at this time we had a governor in the chair who was a member of the organization himself. He refused to become an ally of the operators. But they had a tool in the person of the sheriff of what was then called El Paso county, and this sheriff organized an army of deputies. Those deputies were composed, as deputy sheriffs usually are, of the dregs of society. Society, you know, is in three layers. There is the dregs on the bottom and the great working-class paystreak in the center, and the scum on the top. You can usually tell the female of the species: she is more deadly than the male. Those on the bottom begin cutting off their clothes at the bottom, and those on the top begin cutting them off at the top. The same species, scum and dregs. This army of deputies were instructed to go up and kill or capture the miners who had built a fort. I don't like to admit all these things—you will think they were not law abiding out west. (Laughter.) When I speak to you about building a fort it puts me in mind of a story that I heard about "fighting like tigers on the barricades." (Laughter and applause.) But this was really and truly a barricade, and there were miners behind it that had never read or written a brief in their lives. They had guns, and they were prepared to meet their enemies.

But remember! We also believed in political action, and had elected one of our own class as governor of the state. And he called out the militia to protect the miners and put them in between the warring factions and told the deputy sheriffs that if they didn't disband he would fire on them as insurrectos. You understand, then, why I believe in political action. (Applause.) We will have control then of whatever forces government can give us, but we will not use them to continue to uphold and advance this present system, but we will use the forces of the police power to overthrow this present system. (Applause.) And instead of using the powers of the police to protect the strike-breakers, we will use the powers of the police to protect the strikers. (Applause.) That's about as far as I go on political action. (Applause.) But that's a long way. And the reason that I don't go into the halls of parliament to make laws to govern the working class is because the working class is working with machines, and every time some fellow has a thought, inspiration, the machine changes, and I don't know that laws can be made quick enough to keep up with the changing machinery. And I know this: that laws, under socialism, will not be made to govern individuals. We have got too much of that kind of law, and we want a little freedom from now on. The only kind of government that we will have then will be that kind that will administer industry. That's all. No other kind of government. And that will apply not only in the machine shop, but in every municipality. The municipality itself will become a part of the industrial life.

But now, to get back to that fight on Bull Hill. There, when these soldiers dispersed the deputies, the miners went into session in their union hall and passed an eight-hour law. Just think of the impudence of those miners! And that law has proved to be court-decision proof. It's never been declared unconstitutional by any supreme court. (Applause.)

And now, perhaps you would consider that "direct action." I believe in direct action. If I wanted something done and could do it myself I wouldn't delegate that job to anybody. (Applause.) That's the reason I believe in direct action. You are certain of it, and it isn't nearly so expensive. (Applause.)

We won the strike on Bull Hill then because we were organized industrially and because we were in control of the situation politically. But we lost the strike in Leadville in 1896. You see, the women voted in 1894 in Colorado. They had started a campaign, and the slogan of the campaign was "Save the State!" It was the first time that the women voted. And they proceeded to defeat one of the best men in the state and elected a man for governor that they wouldn't invite into their homes. I wanted to mention this fact because of the strong campaign that is being made for woman suffrage. Now, while I believe in women having everything that men have, I believe that they are entitled—well, they're just a part of the human race, that's all, and I don't know of any reason why I should have something and deprive them of it. Give them equal rights in everything. And that's what we say in Colorado now, "Here's to the women, God bless them. Once our superiors, but now our equals." We have brought them down to our same level. (Applause.) That strike in 1896 was in the lead mines. It was lost. In 1897 and 1898 we had the same difficulty. In Leadville we had 900 men in the bullpen for eight months. Then came the second strike in the Coeur d'Alenes in 1899.

As before, the question involved was reduction of wages. And let me say to you, friends, so that you will understand the position of the Western Federation of Miners: We have never been involved in a controversy of any kind, except for the man underneath. We have always fought the battle of the under-dog. We have never tried to establish an apprentice system or to do anything especially for the skilled men. As before, the mine owners brought in deputies, and there was another mill blown up, and this time it was the Bunker Hill and Frisco. It is said that there were 3,000 pounds of powder put under that mill. Naturally, when that powder went off the mill went up, and some of it probably hasn't come down yet.

Then the troops came, which was not the militia. The militia had gone to fight in the Spanish war. It was the regular troops, sent in by President McKinley, and they were black soldiers. Another bullpen was erected, this time a low rambling one-story structure; the bare earth, no floor, rough boards to sleep on, a wisp of hay for bedding; food unfit for animals; the whole thing fenced in with barbed wire 18 and 20 strands high. On the inside of that enclosure, over a thousand union men, just as good as any of you are. And on the outside, a thousand black soldiers. And while those young miners were fighting for the flag, for the freedom, the honor of this country—I don't mean the red flag—the black soldiers were at home insulting, outraging, ravishing their wives, mothers, sisters and sweethearts.

And that brings us down then to the Colorado strike, with which you are all well acquainted. Sixteen hundred men under arrest and in the bullpen at one time; 400 deported, thrown out on the prairie without food and without water; hundreds of homes demolished. Our stores, four of them, robbed. Many of our members murdered. Many of our wives outraged.

So you understand that we know the class struggle in the west. And realizing, having contended with all the bitter things that we have been called upon to drink to the dregs, do you blame me when I say that I despise the law (tremendous applause and shouts of "No!") and I am not a law-abiding citizen. (Applause.) And more than that, no Socialist can be a law-abiding citizen. (Applause.) When we come together and are of a common mind, and the purpose of our minds is to overthrow the capitalist system, we become conspirators then against the United States government. And certainly it is our purpose to abolish this government (applause) and establish in its place an industrial democracy. (Applause.) Now, we haven't any hesitation in saying that that is our aim and purpose. Am I correct? (Tremendous applause.) Am I absolutely correct when I state this as being the position of the Socialist Party not only of New York, but of the United States and of every nation of the world? (Applause.)

Well, then, it isn't only the men of the west who understand the class struggle. You understand it here just as well as we do there.

The button workers of Muscatine, Iowa, know what it means. The miners of Lead City, South Dakota; the furniture workers of Grand Rapids, Michigan; the garment workers of Cleveland, Ohio, who have recently lost their strike; the garbage workers here in New York, the gas workers—they will learn what the class struggle means; and yes, the shirtwaist strikers. And finally, it's the same in every country of the world. And here tonight I am going to draw a panoramic view of the different nations, just to show you that the class struggle is the same. And remember that I am not going to let you leave this hall until I present to you a constructive program that will enlist the sympathy of every worker in the world—don't make any difference to me whether he is a Socialist, an anarchist, a trades unionist or what he is, if you present the struggle to him. That is, unless he is a business agent. (Laughter and applause.) If you present the struggle to him clearly and define a means by which it can be ended, you can enlist his support. And now, to show you the world-wide significance of this struggle I am going back in history just as far as Bloody Sunday, the 22nd of January, 1905.

You will all remember that day with me. There occurred a cruel, terrible massacre in St. Petersburg, Russia. It seems that the people of that country had been ground down to such a terrible condition that they could no longer stand it. Entire families were living in single-room houses, sleeping on the bare ground, their footgear scant, their clothing scant; eating out of a common bowl a coarse mush, their only food. They had no organization to meet these conditions, and, except their secret organizations, they had no societies. They determined to appeal to their White Czar, they called him their "Little Father." But these people had never learned to write, so it must be a living petition. And the word went forth. Thousands of them marched toward the holy palace in St. Petersburg. They carried the holy cross of Christ and sang religious hymns. They came within a hundred feet, or less, of the palace gates, and a volley rang out from the guns of the czar's soldiers, and hundreds of these peaceful marchers fell dead in the snow, their warm red blood mingling with and forming a dark mantle of the snow that covered Russia at that season of the year. When you heard the echo of that volley you heard the world-wide echo of the class struggle.

You heard the shrieks and groans of the Russian girls exiled from home, who were burned to death in this terrible factory fire that occurred here last winter. The same people, the same fears, the same anguish, the same struggle and the same world-wide need of socialism.

Across the sea, in Finland, we find our Finnish comrades protesting because their constitution has been abrogated, protesting because their sons are sent to war or they are compelled to pay a tribute in gold. They are protesting the same class struggle.

In Sweden only a short time ago we sent our money to assist the workers who were engaged in a general strike, a sympathetic strike to maintain the life of their organization. I met many of the workers while I was in Sweden. They told me of their privations, their suffering women and children compelled to subsist on black bread and water. They were beaten to their knees, but they were not vanquished, and as I was leaving Stockholm they said to me, "Comrade Haywood, when you come to America tell the workers of that country that we will be fighting with them in the vanguard until the working classes of the world are victorious." (Applause.)

Leaving there, I went to Spain and found the same condition prevailing and found that the workers in that country were just as class conscious as in Sweden. There it was the French bankers had made their investments in the Moor land, and the king had called upon the youth of Spain to protect the interests of the French bankers, and the Socialists being opposed to war in all nations, joined with the building trades of Barcelona and declared a general strike against war. How long would it be before the building trades of New York would declare a strike against war? (Laughter.) They couldn't declare a general strike against anything, because they are divided among themselves. (Applause.)

From Spain, through Portugal, where they had overthrown their king, and the working classes were asking—when they had political liberty they were asking for industrial liberty. From there into Wales. I was there during the general strike. It was the first one of its kind, and the workers were lined up in a mighty force, and when the king of England sent the police from the various cities—Bristol, Liverpool, Cardiff, London—the miners met the police with pick handles and clubs. (Applause.) And they say that it's wrong for me to speak to you this way; that it would be inciting the workers to riot. That's the reason that I didn't speak to the garbage workers here one night. Just as though I would try to get an unarmed garbage worker to go up against one of these murderous brutes of policemen here in New York! (Applause.) It isn't likely. But I would like to have tried to have all the working class of New York to stand by the garbage workers, even to the extent of a general strike. (Applause.) There in Wales, when they whipped the police the managers of the mines called upon the king for the soldiers. The soldiers came. Some of them had been permeated with the spirit of class consciousness. They took out and threw away part of the locks of their guns, making them useless.

I know that some of you members here will think that this is not patriotic (laughter); that really you ought to fight for the flag; that you ought to live up to your obligations and fulfil your duties. But let me say to you that that isn't being a traitor. If it is, it's better to be a traitor to your country than it is to be a traitor to your class. (Applause.) (A shout: "The working man has no country at all!") That's very well said. Not only that, but there are no foreigners in the working class. (Applause.) The only foreigner that the working class should know is the capitalist. (Applause.) And they are recognized that way in Wales, and they are fighting for socialism there. And remember that they are all industrial unionists fighting for socialism.

The same is true in Ireland now.

From there I came back to Glasgow, and let me say that in Glasgow I could tell of a condition that will interest you, especially those of you who are inclined to think that socialism means municipal ownership. In Glasgow everything is municipally owned, all street cars, the electric lights, water works, bath houses, bake shops, model tenement houses (?) and even the jails are owned by the municipality. They have model houses. Fifty thousand people there live in single rooms. One hundred thousand people in Glasgow live in two rooms. That's the condition in that municipally owned city. I told them that they were entitled to the full product of their toil and when I made speeches to them throughout Scotland I left them talking to themselves. They were not talking municipal ownership, nor government ownership, but they were talking about industrialism, socialism, the hope of the workers.

From there I went to England and was there just preceding the great general strike. I visited many of the industrial centers and found a condition in England that is even worse than here, but that we are rapidly getting down to.

I want to say, as a result of this general uprising of the workers, they have taken the crown from off the king's head; they have put it into the melting pot and made of it the golden key to unlock the chains that bind the wrists of slavery; and by the same means, by the same token, we can accomplish the same result in this country when we learn to act as a unit and when we learn to go on strike as one man. (Applause.) And, workers, this then is the spirit that has aroused every country in the world.

I am not going to take time tonight to describe to you the conditions in France, though I would like to do so, because I again want to justify direct action and sabotage. You have plenty of it over there. (Applause.) I don't know of anything that can be applied that will bring as much satisfaction to you, as much anguish to the boss as a little sabotage in the right place at the proper time. Find out what it means. It won't hurt you, and it will cripple the boss.

Now I want to come back home. I know that the hour is getting late, and I don't want to leave you without the constructive policy of this meeting. There are many ways to describe how the Socialists will get control of the industries. There are those who say that we will confiscate them. "Confiscate!" That's good. I like that word. It suggests stripping the capitalist, taking something away from him. But there has got to be a good deal of force to this thing of taking. You might have a majority of voters, but some of them might be crippled; they wouldn't be fighters. Remember that the capitalists have standing tonight their whole well-disciplined army of capitalism—bayonets, Maxim guns, long Toms, the navy, the army, the militia, the secret service, the detectives, the police are all there to protect the property of capital. I have got a better way, so I am temporarily going to pass up that confiscation idea.

Another one will say, "Well, competition. We could accomplish these things by competition." They look at the shop, it isn't a very big shop and they know that it was built by workers. "Well, why can't we build another shop and go into competition; build another railroad?" All these things can be done. But you can't build another Niagara Falls, can you, where the power is generated to run the shops? You can't build another coal bed, can you, nor another forest, nor other wheat fields? So we will have to pass up the idea of competition.

But another Socialist comes along with the idea of compensation, and that is the worst of the three C's. Really, we have already purchased these things, and haven't they been compensated enough? They have been riding on our backs all these years. (Applause.) They have enjoyed life and luxury. Compensation means, then, that we are to take control of the industries and relieve them of the responsibilities and pay them interest-bearing bonds, gold bonds, and that these capitalists, whom we have always regarded as exploiters, will have no harder work than to hire some one to clip coupons for them; that we will have a bond-holding aristocracy in this country that will ride us harder than the aristocracy of any country in the world. No, I say, pass up this compensation.

Well, there is another fellow, the Christian Socialist. (Laughter.) He has an idea of "Conversion." And I want to say to you that a Christian Socialist is one who is drunk on religious fanaticism and is trying to sober up on economic truth (laughter and applause), and when he gets about half-sober he thinks that he can convert the capitalist to Christianity and that the capitalist will be willing to turn over all these things to the brotherhood of man. He overlooks the fact that the capitalist is a child of the devil, and that's a poor place for a Christian Socialist to proselyte. We will pass up the Christian Socialist with the "conversion."

Here is another man—they all follow in the line of C's. I use the C's so that you can—I was speaking down in Missouri where I had to show them—Confiscation, Compensation, Competition, Conversion. Now, the trade unionist believes in Coercion. I like that. I believe in the strike. I believe in the boycott. I believe in coercion. But I believe that it ought to be by two million men instead of by a handful of men. If they are going to play a game of coercion, let that game be strong so that the capitalist class will know that the trade unionists will mean every word they say. But they don't. Never did. Because they no sooner have the capitalists in a position where they recognize that this coercion means something, than some of their representatives will step in with a Compromise—there is another C—and then tie them up with a contract, and that contract for an indefinite period, one, two, or three years. And let me say to you that the trade unionist who becomes a party to a contract takes his organization out of the columns of fighting organizations; he removes it from the class struggle and he binds it up and makes it absolutely useless. For instance, let me give you a humble illustration. A labor organization is a fighting machine of the working class, or ought to be. If it is not, it isn't fulfilling its mission. You will all recognize this! (holding up a clenched fist.) As a fighting weapon it is composed of many members of several organizations, and they can all fight independently, work independently. They don't bother each other when they are at work, but if called upon for defense they settle down in a common fighting machine. Now suppose that I were foolish enough to tie one of them up with an agreement, a contract, running for a period of six months, what would become of it? It would rot off, wouldn't it; die off, decay? Not only that, but it would be useless to itself and all the others. I might better cut it off altogether. And so you might better not be organized at all than to be organized as you are now. (Applause.)

And now we come to the constructive program, the program which every Industrialist understands. Remember that there isn't an Industrialist but what is a Socialist, and knows why. There are many Socialists who are trade unionists, but they couldn't tell you why in a hundred years. They couldn't justify it in a hundred years, except that they have to be to hold their jobs. Then we have the constructive program of Socialism, which means that the working class can be organized in a constructive and a defensive organization at the same time. Let me show you what I mean. Now, I want to present it to you so clearly that you will take it home with you. Suppose that the United Mine Workers of America, organized as they are industrially—but let me say they are hampered with all the tools of trade unionism—suppose that they would join hands with the Western Federation of Miners and we would cut loose entirely from the capitalist class, recognizing them on the economic as well as the political field as our enemies, having absolutely nothing to do with them. We would start a program then of organization, having for its purpose the taking in of every man employed in the mining industry throughout the United States. This work having been accomplished, or nearly perfected, is there a man or woman in this hall who believes that with such an organization we could not protect our lives? Don't you believe that if we had a class-conscious organization of the miners we could compel the mine owners to properly ventilate the mine, to remove the coal dust, to equip them with safety appliances for the protection of life and limb and to furnish a sufficient amount of timber to work them?

Can we do this? You know that we could if we had this power behind us; this organization. We then could protect our lives. We would have the mines in better shape. We could produce more coal. But first having protected our lives we would think about our families and we would improve their conditions around the mines. We would see that there were better company houses for our families to live in; that the young men had first-class up-to-date apartment houses to dwell in; that the schools were first-class. Any reason why we couldn't? Not at all.

Having preserved our lives, improved the conditions of our homes, we would become better men physically and mentally. We can produce more coal. But—you garment workers have got all the power you need; don't need any more coal. We wouldn't produce coal just for fun, nor would we let each other ever deprive us of the luxuries and necessities of life. Not at all. How then could we reduce the output of coal? We would reduce the hours of labor. If we can produce enough coal in eight hours or six or four, you wouldn't want us to work any longer, would you?

Having preserved our lives, improved our home conditions, reduced our hours of labor, what does that suggest? Well, we would look around and see that the rest of the working class had kept pace with us, every one marching in rhythm, and we would say to you, "We will cut out the capitalist class now. We will lock them out. Every man that quits his job now is a scab. We want every man to work and we in turn will contribute for your labor everything that you need." This is the understanding that we would have. There would be no capitalist class in this game. There would be nothing but the working class. And this being an accomplished fact, we would say then that the Socialists despise covering up their aims and purposes. We would say that it is our purpose to overthrow the capitalist system by forcible means if necessary.

And I urge you workers tonight: determine upon this program. Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain. (Tremendous applause and cheers.)

Text taken from International Socialist Review, Vol. 12 No. 8, February 1912.