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Bleeding to death, he crossed the Hudson; suffering agony, he dragged his bleeding body up the steep bank, and, with a last effort, pushed open the door of his cabin and fell in, to die among his starvelings, for whom he had made his last effort and gave up his life.
Their pitiful cries pierced the hearts of the men in the Steel Works. Borne across the river on the still morning air, they rung in the ears of his slayer on Corning's Island. But they never reached the ears of the Burdens.
Yet the weak, pitiful cries of that widow and her starvelings may linger in our native air until their thin volume is swelled by oppression, until it assumes the proportions of a mighty roar of maddened men. And then, Retribution!
"Justifiable homicide," says the coroner's jury. "Justifiable Hell!" grinds out a brawy iron-worker. "A cow would have been simply driven out of that potato field, not riddled with bullets. But, then," he continued, "animals are valuable; animals have owners, and STRANG had none."
Among men "live and let live" is a thing of the past; and, as civilization progresses, Murder assumes newer, safer and more enticing shapes.
Next year three costly blast furnaces will mark the spot where TOM STRANG fell, but not a stick will mark TOM STRANG'S grave.
Let me here write his epitaph :
IN MEMORY OF
THOMAS STRANG,
Who was shot on Corning's island,
Aug. 7, 1885,
while Stealing a few Potatoes to feed his Starving
Children.
MAY HE REST IN PEACE.
Note.—This outrage is only one instance of the hundreds of thousands occurring every day under all climes of the globe, and which never come to daylight If Socialism were the law of America, such outrages would be impossible. Socialism guarantees to every man and woman an independent human existence. Abolish the wage system, and join the
SOCIALISTIC LABOR PARTY.
