vested rights!" And eight victims are demanded for it. There has been much said about the public sentiment. There has been much said about the public clamor. Why, it is a fact, that no citizen dared express another opinion than that prescribed by the authorities of the State, for if one had done otherwise, he would have been locked up; he might have been sent to the gallows to swing, as they will have the pleasure of doing with us, if the decree of our "honorable court" is consummated.
"These men," Grinnell said repeatedly, "have no principles; they are common murderers, assassins, robbers," etc. I admit that our aspirations and objects are incomprehensible to unprincipled ruffians, but surely for this we are not to be blamed. The assertion, if I mistake not, was based upon the ground that we sought to destroy property. Whether this perversion of facts was intentional, I know not. But in justification of our doctrines I will say that the assertion is an infamous falsehood. Articles have been read here from the Arbeiter-Zeitung and Alarm to show the dangerous characters of the defendants. The files of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and Alarm have been searched for the past years. Those articles which generally commented upon some atrocity committed by the authorities upon striking workingmen were picked out and read to you. Other articles were not read to the court. Other articles were not what was wanted. The State's attorney (who well knows that he tells a falsehsod when he says it), upon those articles asserts that "these men have no principles."
A few weeks before I was arrested and charged with the crime for which I have been convicted, I was invited by the clergyman of the Congregational Church to lecture upon the subject of Socialism, and debate with them. This took place at the Grand Pacific Hotel. And so that it cannot be said that after I have been arrested, after I have been indicted, and after I have been convicted, I have put together some principles to justify my action, I will read what I said then—
Capt. Black: Give the date of the paper.
Mr. Spies: January 9, 1886.
Capt. Black: What paper, the Alarm?
Mr. Spies: The Alarm. When I was asked upon that occasion what Socialism was, I said this:
"Socialism is simply a resume of the phenomena of the social life of the past and present traced to their fundamental causes, and brought into logical connection with one another. It rests upon the established fact that the economic conditions and institutions of a people from the ground work of all their social conditions, of their ideas—aye, even of their religion, and further that all changes of economic conditions, every step in advance, arises from the struggles between the dominating and dominated class in different ages. You gentlemen, cannot place yourselves at this standpoint of speculative science; your profession demands that you occupy the opposite position; not that which professes acquaintance with things as they actually exist, but which presumes a thorough understanding of matters which to ordinary mortals are entirely incomprehensible. It is for this reason that you cannot become Socialists (Cries of "Oh! oh!") Lest you should be unable to exactly grasp my meaning however, I will now state the matter a little more plainly. It cannot be un-
