house bosses, who employ 25,000 men, called for an army of Pinkerton men to go down there, and advertised for them to come. That was before there was a strike—in mere contemplation of it, your honor. This in America—the United States! Why, is it surprising that the working people should feel indignant about these things and say to Mr. Gould or to Tom Scott: "If you are going to give us a rifle diet instead of a bread diet, as was asked of Christ, when we ask you for bread you give us a stone, and not only give us a stone, but at the point of the bayonet compel us to swallow it, where is the constitutional right of resistance to these outrages?" If I am to be deprived of my rights of defense against the administration of a rifle diet, and strychnine put upon my bread and food, which was advocated by the Chicago Tribune when it said that, when tramps come around in the neighborhood, give them a slice of bread with strychnine upon it, and other tramps will take warning and keep out of the neighborhood; if I am to be deprived of my right, what shall I do? Are not such expressions as this calculated to exasperate men? Is there no justification for these what you denominate violent speeches? Did not these monopolists bring about the inception of this language? Did they not originate it? Were they not the first to say: "Throw dynamite bombs among the strikers, and thereby make a warning to others?" Was it not Tom Scott who first said, "Give them a rifle diet?" Was it not the Tribune which first said, "Give them strychnine?" And they have done it. Since that time they have administered a rifle diet; they have administered strychnine. They have thrown hand grenades, and the hand grenade upon the Haymarket on the night of the 4th of May was thrown by the hand of a monopolist conspirator sent from the city of New York for that specific purpose, to break up the eight hour movement and bring these men to the gallows in this court. Your honor, we are the victims of the foulest and blackest conspiracy that ever disgraced the annals of time. If these men will preach these things; if the Tribune thinks that strychnine is good enough for us; if the Times thinks that hand grenades are good enough for us, why have we not got a right to say they will use it? They say they believe in it. They say they think it. What right have we to say that they will not hire some mercenary to carry out what they think, and put into practice that which they believe?
In this connection I want to call your attention to the way armed men, militiamen and Pinkerton's private army are used against workingmen, strikers; the way they'are used to shoot them, to arrest them, to put up jobs on them and carry them out. In the Alarm of Oct. 17, 1885, there is printed the following: "Pinkerton's Army. They issue a Secret Circular Offering Their Services to Capitalists for the Suppression of Strikers. The secretary of the Minneapolis, Minn, Trades and Labor Assembly sends us the following note: Minneapolis, Minn., Oct. 6, 1885. Editor of the Alarm. Dear Sir: Please pay your respects to the Pinkerton pups for their extreme kindness to labor. Try to have the government of your city do away with its metropolitan police and employ Pinkerton protectors." (Of course this is sarcastic.) "The inclosed circular fell into the hands of the Minneapolis Trades Assembly, which thought it not out of place to pass it around. Please insert it in your paper. Yours fraternally, T. W. Brosnan." That letter is under the seal of the Trade and Labor Assembly of the city of Minneapolis, Minn. Then follows
