That poem epitomizes the aspirations, the hope, the need, of the working classes, not alone of America, but of the civilized world.
Your honor: If there is one distinguishing characteristic which has made itself prominent in the conduct of this trial, it has been the passion, the heat, and the anger, the violence both to sentiment and to person, of everything connected with this case. You ask me why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon me, or, what is tantamount to the same thing, you ask me why you should give me a new trial in order that I might establish my innocence and the ends of justice be subserved. I answer you and say that this verdict is the verdict of passion, born in passion, nurtured in passion, and is the sum total of the organized passion of the city of Chicago. For this reason I ask your suspension of the sentence and the granting of a new trial. This is one among the many reasons which I hope to present before I conclude. Now, what is passion? Passion is the suspension of reason; in a mob upon the streets, in the broils of.the saloon, in the quarrels on the sidewalk, where men throw aside their reason and resort to feelings of exasperation, we have passion. There is a suspension of the elements of judgment, of calmness, of discrimination requisite to arrive at the truth and the establishment of justice. I hold that you cannot dispute the charge which I make, that this trial has been submerged, immersed in passion from its inception to its close, and even to this hour, standing here upon the scaffold as I do, with the hangman awaiting me with his halter, there are those who claim to represent public sentiment in this city, and I now speak of the capitalistic press—that vile and infamous organ of monopoly of hired liars, the people's oppressor—even to this day these papers are clamoring for our blood in the heat and violence of passion. Who can deny this? Certainly not this court. The court is fully aware of the facts.
In order that I may place myself properly before you, it is necessary, in vindication of whatever I may have said or done in the history of my past life, that I should enter somewhat into details, and I claim, even at the expense of being lengthy, the ends of justice require that this shall be done.
For the past twenty years my life has been closely identified with, and I have actively participated in, what is known as the labor movement in America. I have some knowledge of that movement in consequence of this experience and of the careful study which opportunity has afforded me from time to time to give to the matter, and what I have to say upon this subject relating to the labor movement or to myself as connected with it in this trial and before this bar—I will speak the truth, the whole truth, be the consequences what they may.
The United States census for 1880 reports that there are in the United States 16,200,000 wage workers. These are the persons who, by their industry, create all the wealth of this country. And now before I say anything further it may be necessary in order to clearly understand what I am going to state further on, for me to define what I mean and what is meant in the labor movement by these words, wage worker. Wage workers are those who work for wages and who have no other means of subsistence than the selling of their daily toil from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year, as the case may be. Their whole property consists entirely of their labor—strength and skill or, rather, they possess nothing but their
