labor saving machinery. Imagine such an absurd thing, and yet the capitalistic press has taken great pains to say that Socialists do these things; that we fight machinery; that we fight property. Why, sir, it is an absurdity; it is ridiculous; it is preposterous. No man ever heard an utterance from the mouth of a Socialist to advise anything of the kind. They know to the contrary. We don't fight machinery; we don't oppose the thing. It is only the manner and methods of employing them that we object to. That is all. It is the manipulations of these things in the interests of a few; t is the monopolization of them that we object to. We desire that all the forces of nature, all the forces of society, of the gigantic strength which has resulted from the combined intellect and labor of the ages of the past shall be turned over to man, and made his servant, hie obedient slave forever. This is the object of Socialism. It asks no one to give up anything. It seeks no harm to anybody. But, when we witness this condition of things, when we see little children huddling around the factory gates, the poor little things whose bones are not yet hard; when we see them clutched from the hearthstone, taken from the family altar carried to the bastiles of labor and their little bones ground up into gold dust to bedeck the form of some aristocratic Jezebel, then it stirs us and we speak out. We plead for the ittle ones; we plead for the helpless, we plead for the oppressed; we seek redress for those who are wronged; we seek knowledge and intelligence for the ignorant; we seek liberty for the slave. Socialism secures the welfare of every human being.
Your honor, if you will permit it, I would like to stop now and resume tomorrow morning.
The court here adjourned until 10 o'clock the following day, when Mr. Parsons resumed his address.
Your honor, I concluded last evening; at that portion of my statement which had for its purpose a showing of the operations and effects of our existing social system, the evils which naturally flow from the established social relations, which are founded upon the economic subjection of dependence of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor and the resources of life. I sought in this connection to show that all the ills that afflict society—social miseries, mental degradations, political dependence—all resulted from the economic subjection and dependence of the man of labor upon the monopolizer of the means of existence; and as long as the cause remains the effect must certainly follow. I pointed out what Bradstreet's had to say in regard to the destruction of the middle class last year. As it affects the small dealers, the middle class men of our shop streets, the influences are likewise at work among the farming classes.
According to statistics ninety per cent of the farms of America are today under mortgage. The man who a few years ago owned the soil that he worked, is today a tenant and a mortgage is placed upon his soil, and when he, the farmer whose hand tickles the earth and causes it to blossom as the rose and bring forth its rich food of human sustenance—even while this man is asleep, the interest upon his mortgage continues. It grows and it increases, rendering it more and more difficult for him to get along or make his living. In the meantime the railway corporations place upon the traffic all that it will bear. The Board of Trade sharks run their corners until—what? Until it occurs as
