Fight For Your Lire !
BY
BEN HANFORD
Recording Some Activities or
Labor Agitator
NEW YORK
WlLSHIRE BOOK CO.
200 WILLIAM ST.
1909
To the Jimmie Higginses,
and Those Choice Spirits
of This Earth Who Did
or Do
or Shall
Call One Another "Comrade"
Copyright, 1909, by
WILSHIRE BOOK COMPANY
New York
Biographical Sketch of Ben Hanford
By JOSHUA WANHOPE.
MOST people are familiar with the story of
the little boy who, asked if his father was
a Christian, replied that he was, but that
'Tie wasn't working at it." Some professing So-
cialists might be similarly described, but fortu-
nately for the cause there are thousands of notable
exceptions. And perhaps among them all, for in-
domitable, tireless energy and record of service,
no name stands higher than that of Ben Hanford,
the virile author of this volume. A sketch of his
activities, therefore, well may form the contents
of this introduction.
Hanford was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1861.
His mother died in his infancy, and some years
later his father married Frances Jane Thompson,
of Bangor, Maine. She is a woman of rich and
cultivated mind and rare and beautiful character,
and Hanford declares his debt to her is incalcu-
lable. Under her instruction he acquired a taste
for reading and study, and to her influence he
attributes most of whatever may be good in his
character.
Having learned the printer's trade in the office
1.626839 3
4 FIGHT FOB YOUR LIFE !
of the Marshalltown (Iowa) "Republican," Han-
ford went in 1879 to Chicago, and on February
26 of that year became a member of Chicago Typo-
graphical Union No. 16. Since then he has never
been a day without his card of membership in the
International Typographical Union. For many
years he has been a member of New York Typo-
graphical Union No. 6 — "Big Six" — and for thirty
years he has been a militant and active worker in
the trade-union movement.
Sixteen years ago he became a student of Social-
ist economics and philosophy under that gifted and
wonderful teacher, Fred Long, of Philadelphia,
also a printer. Since then the Socialist movement
has had no more indefatigable and persistent
champion than Ben Hanford.
He has been three times nominated as Socialist
candidate for Governor of the State of New York
— in 1898 being the nominee of the Socialist Labor
Party, and in 1900 and 1902 he headed the New
York State ticket for the Socialist Party. In
1901 he was chosen as Socialist Party candidate
for Mayor of New York City. In 1904 and again
in 1908 he was nominated by the Socialist Party
for Vice-President of the United States, in both
campaigns the national ticket of the Party having
been Debs and Hanford.
His activity in both the Socialist and trade-union
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 5
movements has never ceased. He generally put in
three months of each year on the lecture platform
and in making political addresses before the an-
nual election, but the day after the polls closed
saw Hanf ord back in the printing office working
at his trade. In addition to his activity as a
speaker, Hanford has been a constant contributor
to the labor press, and leaflets and pamphlets from
his pen have been circulated by millions. When
the New York "Sun" locked out its Union printers
in 1899, Hanford wrote much of the literature of
"Big Six," boycotting that paper, and openly
defied Judge Bookstaver's injunction against him-
self and other members of the Printers' Union.
As a public speaker Hanford has always heen
recognized as one of the most powerful and effect-
ive on the Socialist platform. He possesses elo-
quence, fluency, a power of piquant and effective
illustration and a wide range of economic knowl-
edge, with the ability to explain seemingly intricate
problems in clear and simple terms. The reader
of this volume will find many striking examples
of this faculty in its pages. In addition to these
qualifications, Hanford is an exceedingly formid-
able champion in debate, and has on many occa-
sions completely outclassed the ahlest apologists of
capitalism that could be found to meet him.
Though never a strong man physically, Hanford
6 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
possesses a nervous power and endurance which
enabled him for many years to undertake and suc-
cessfully carry out speaking campaigns which were
beyond the strength of men his physical superiors.
But for several years past his health has been so
broken that he has been forced for a long time (and
it is feared permanently) to abandon all public
speaking. While his physical sufferings have been
and still are most painful, he still employs his pen
in the Great Cause. It has always been his pro-
found belief that his work for Socialism has given
him a stronger hold on life, and that had it not
been for the inspiration and strength derived from
working for the Cause, he would have long since
been dead or a hopeless invalid. "Socialism is
Life" has been Hanford's motto, and this point of
vie*/ has undoubtedly influenced him in selecting
the title under which the present work appears.
Though these collected writings of this Socialist
veteran have a high economic value as Socialist
propaganda, a value which has indeed been prompt-
ly recognized in the Socialist movement, as testified
by the wide circulation many of them have enjoyed,
they are perhaps as valuable in another respect, as
displaying in the most marked degree the indom-
itable spirit, the unbounded courage, faith and
hope that makes the Socialist movement of the
world invincible and irresistible.
Preface
IN 1904, when I was for the first time made
the Socialist Party candidate for Vice-Pres-
ident of the United States, Hermon F. Titus,
in presenting my name to the Convention, spoke
of my "sacrifices" for the Socialist movement. In
accepting the nomination, I stated that it was lit-
tle that I had been able to do for Socialism, but
that it had done wonderful (almost miraculous)
things for me. I even declared (and correctly)
that work in the Socialist Movement had then
prolonged my life some years, and that to that
Movement I owed everything.
In the five years since that time my obligation
to the Labor Movement has been multiplied mani-
fold. Most of the United States Comrades know
of my broken health and acute physical suffering.
A few Comrades know how heavy was the hand
of personal and spiritual affliction that was laid
upon me. Nothing is clearer to my mental vision
than that I could not have lived those years ex-
cept for the beautiful love and stalwart support
of my Comrades the world over, and the strength
which I derived from the hope of the return of
such a. measure of health as would once more en-
8 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
able me to actively work in the Great Cause. Not
only do I owe my life to the Socialist Movement.
Until I joined that Movement I had never lived.
In this work I have made no effort to make
an exposition of Socialism. I have simply tried
to show certain phases of Capitalism in such a
way that all might understand. At the same time
I believe that I have had a measure of success in
voicing the Spirit of the Socialist Movement as
understood and felt by one who all his life has
lived in and been a part of the Class Struggle.
If this publication shall cause any one to join
the Socialist Movement, the author will be amply
repaid. Next to Socialism, the grandest and best
thing in this world is Working for Socialism.
B. H.
Brooklyn, N. Y., January, 1909.
Contents
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BEN HANFORD.
By Joshua Wanhope 3
PREFACE 7
THE JIMMIE HIGGINSES 11
THE GOSPEL OF THRIFT; or, How MUCH
MONEY DID JOHNNY SAVE? 14
THE WILD IRISHMAN .'.... 19
LABOR PRODUCES ALL WEALTH 23
CHICAGO. Address in Garrick Theatre, Chi-
cago, May 3, 1908 27
THERE AIN'T GOIN' TO BE No SERVANT GIRLS 33
I. MOTHER JONES DEPORTED 37
II. CAPITALISM'S CONFESSION 43
"SEE THE BEAUTIFUL HOUSES AT PRIMERO !"
A True Story of the Trinidad Coal Strike
(1904) 47
DON'T BE A TOMATO 51
THE JAMES BOYS; or, MODERN LAW AND
ORDER 60
"WE PROPOSE TO RUN OUR OWN BUSINESS
IN OUR OWN WAY !" . . 66
10 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
THE FREE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN AND His
SACRED RIGHT TO WORK 71
$1,318— $6,194— $120,000,000,000 76
SOCIALIST CONVENTION SPEECH. Address
Before the New York City Convention,
May 30, 1905 81
DEBS 86
OUR "IMPARTIAL" JUDICIARY. 88
His DIGNIFIED NOBS 94
YOUR UNCLE Is DEAD 98
I. WHERE ARE WE? 103
II. How TO ROB A MAN WHO Is BROKE . . 108
THE GRAND ARMY 115
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !.. , 121
The Jimmie Higginses
A COMRADE who shall be called Jimmie
Higgins because that is not his name, and
who shall be styled a painter for the very
good reason that he is not a painter, has perhaps
had a greater influence in keeping me keyed up to
my work in the labor movement than any other
person.
Jimmie Higgins is neither broad-shouldered
nor thick-chested. He is neither pretty nor strong.
A little, thin, weak, pale-faced chap. A poor dys-
peptic, asthmatic epileptic. But he is strong
enough to support a mother with equal physical
disabilities. Strong enough to put in ten years
of unrecognized and unexcelled service to the cause
of Socialism.
What did he do ? Everything.
He has made more Socialist speeches than any
man in America. Not that he did the talking;
but he carried the platform on his bent shoulders
when the platform committee failed to be on hand.
Then he hustled around to another branch and
got their platform out. Then he got a glass of
water for "the speaker." That same evening or
the day before he had distributed handbills adver-
tising the meeting.
12 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
Previously he had informed his branch as to
"the best corner" in the district for drawing a
crowd. Then he distributed leaflets at the meet-
ing, and helped to take the platform down and
carry it back to headquarters, and got subscribers
for Socialist papers.
The next day the same, and so on all through
the campaign, and one campaign after another.
When he had a job, which was none too often, for
Jimmie was not an extra good workman and was
always one of the first to be laid off, he would dis-
tribute Socialist papers among his fellows during
the noon hour or take a run down to the gate of
some factory and give out Socialist leaflets to the
employees who came out to lunch.
What did he do? Jimmie Higgins did every-
thing, anything. Whatever was to be done,
THAT was Jimmie's job.
First to do his own work; then the work of
those who had become wearied or negligent.
Jimmie Higgins couldn't sing, nor dance, nor tell
a story — but he could DO the thing to be done.
Be you, reader, ever so great, you nor any other
shall ever do more than that. Jimmie Higgins
had no riches, but out of his poverty he always
gave something, his all; be you, reader, ever so
wealthy and likewise generous, you shall never
give more than that.
THE JIMMIE HIGGINSES 13
Jimmie Higgins never had a front seat on the
platform; he never knew the tonic of applause
nor the inspiration of opposition; he never was
seen in the foreground of the picture.
But he had erected the platform and painted
the picture; through his hard, disagreeable and
thankless toil it had come to pass that liberty was
brewing and things were doing.
Jimmie Higgins. How shall we pay, how re-
ward this man? What gold, what laurels shall
be his?
There's just one way, reader, that you and I
can "make good" with Jimmie Higgins and the
likes of him. That way is to be like him.
Take a fresh start and never let go.
Think how great his work, and he has so little
to do with. How little ours in proportion to our
strength.
I know some grand men and women in the
Socialist movement. But in high self-sacrifice, in
matchless fidelity to truth, I shall never meet a
greater man than Jimmie Higgins.
And many a branch has one of him.
And may they have more of him.
To that man, and to all who would be worthy
to call him "Comrade" this book is humbly and
affectionately dedicated.
The Gospel of Thrift ; or, How
Much Money Did Johnny Save?
NOW, I am going to tell a story and ask a
question.
Once upon a time there lived a Con-
necticut Yankee who was a very smart man. Any of
you who have known any Connecticut Yankees will
not doubt their smartness. This particular Yank
had a son, and like a dutiful parent he did his best
to bring up his son in the way he should go. It
was his desire that his boy should grow into an-
other very smart man like himself, so that as he
went along life's journey he might be able to get a
shade the best of every other man's son — of course,
none of the other Connecticut Yankees were teach-
ing their sons to get the best of his son.
Among other virtues the Yank sought to de-
velop in his son was that of thrift — he desired that
the boy should be frugal and saving. One evening
just before supper the old Yank said to his boy,
said he :
"Johnny, Johnny, why don't you save your
money ?"
"Save my money?" replied Johnny. "How can
I save my money when I hain't got no money ?"
THE GOSPEL OF THRIFT 15
"Well, Johnny, I'll give you some money, and
then you can save it," said the old man.
"All right, pop, you give me the dough, and I'll
save it all right."
"Well, I'll give it to you, Johnny. But you'll
first have to do something for it; that is, you'll
have to earn it."
"All right, pop. What'll I have to do ?"
"Well, now, Johnny, I'll tell you. You go with-
out your supper to-night, and I'll give you a nickel,
and you can save the nickel."
Johnny was mighty hungry, hut he wanted the
nickel badly, thinking of the fun he would have
spending it, and so he spoke up bravely : "All right,
pop. . Gimme the nick, and I'll save it."
So Johnny went without his supper, went to bed
hungry, but he had the nickel safely put away, and
the unpleasant dreams caused by the painful knots
in his empty little insides were from time to time
relieved by visions of himself spending his hard-
earned money.
At last morning came, and Johnny, with his
nickel in his pocket, and with an awful gnawing in
his middle, came downstairs to breakfast.
"Good morning, Johnny," said his father.
"Morning, dad," said Johnny.
"Hungry, Johnny ?"
"You bet."
16 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
"Want breakfast?"
"Yep."
"Did you save your nickel, Johnny ?"
"Yep."
"Well, I'll tell ye, Johnny, you can eat breakfast
if you like, but there's something you'll have to do
first."
"What's that, pop?"
"Well, you see, Johnny, times have changed since
last night. You see, you've got money now, and
you'll have to pay board"
"What'll I have to pay, pop?" said Johnny,
weakly, feeling very faint in the stomach.
"Well, son, you give me your nickel that you
saved, and you can sit down and eat all the break-
fast that you want to."
And with sorrow, but without hesitation, Johnny
paid over his nickel for breakfast.
That's my story.
Now for my question.
If Johnny got a nickel for going without his sup-
er, and had to pay a nickel for his breakfast, How
Much Money Did Johnny Save?
No. Don't you dare to laugh. Not if you are a
workingman.
If you will think for a moment you will see that
THE GOSPEL OF THEIFT 17
Johnny saved just exactly the same amount that
you workingmen can save out of your wages. How
much is that? How much wages do you get? I
can tell you to the cent. Not perhaps just what
some particular workingman gets, but just exactly
what we all of us get for our life's work.
Yesterday we got just enough in wages to sup-
port us in such a way that we could work to-day.
Last week we received just enough in wages so
that we could work this week.
This month we will receive just enough so that
we can work next month.
This year we will receive just enough in wages
so that we can keep ourselves in condition to work
next year.
In our lifetime we shall get just enough wages so
that we can do the master's work and bring suffi-
cient children into the world to take up our task
and do our master's work after we are gone.
As a class, we workers get what economists call
the "living wage" — neither more nor less.
Ah ! say you, you know some workingmen who
get $5 a day ! Surely that is more than the living
wage.
Yes, my friends, there are a few workingmen
who get five dollars a day. But it is sometimes the
case that a man with a high money wage does not
receive more than enough to enable him to do his
18 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
work. And remember, that for every man who re-
ceives above the living wage there are whole groups
who receive below it — who get a subsistence or a
starvation wage.
And think of those who have no work and get
NO wage.
Now, why is it that at this time, when those who
do the world's work can produce more wealth with
less labor than ever before in the world's history,
why is it that a man who by his labor in a day can
produce an amount of wealth equal in value to
from two to twenty times the living wage, why is
it that under these conditions a man, a woman, or a
child works for the "living wage?" There is just
one reason, my friends. It is because the workers
do not own the means to employ themselves. In
order to live they must work. In order to work
they must sell themselves to those who own the
things with which work is done.
We Socialists want those who do the world's
work to own the things with which their work is
done. When those who work own the things with
which they work they will own the wealth produced
by their work. Then those who work will be rich
and have all the wealth they are willing to work
for and produce — which will be just enough for
them. And then those who do no work will have
no wealth — and that will be just enough for them.
The Wild Irishman
IT was 1902, the seventeenth week of the great
anthracite coal strike. Several miners had
told me about "The Wild Irishman." The
wonderful things he had done. His boldness and
bravery. Equally ready to go down the shaft in
time of danger to rescue a comrade, or to demand
of the boss a raise in wages for himself and fellow
miners, or to assist in organizing his brethren into
a union.
"I'll lose me job if I talk unionism, will I?
Well, then, I'll get another. If I can't get an-
other, I'll go without."
That was the way the Wild Irishman talked
when he was told that he would be fired for his
activity in union matters. He kept right on or-
ganizing unions. Strange to say, his bosses did
not fire him. As the Wild Irishman told me when
I saw him:
"If I lost me job, I'd have had all the more time
to organize the men."
I looked forward with interest to meeting the
Wild Irishman. At last I went to his cabin, a
company "house" in a mining camp near Wilkes-
barre, Pa. I introduced myself, and he invited
20 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
me into the back yard, the afternoon being warm.
His wife joined us. Notwithstanding all I had
heard about him, the Wild Irishman took me by
surprise. He was a man well along into the
sixties, what with the diseases and accidents inci-
dent to his trade, a rare old age for a miner. He
had begun anthracite mining in the old days when
something like decent wages were paid. I never
saw such a remarkable looking man in my life.
His scalp was scarred, and his face bore the blue
and blue-black marks of powder explosions. For
the rest, it seemed as though every bone in his
body was either fractured or dislocated. During
his many years in and about the mines he had met
with every sort of accident. Premature and de-
layed explosions. Fire damp. Pillars giving way.
Roof falling. Pumping machinery out of order
and flooding of the mine. Cables breaking.
Every sort of mining accident had happened to
him one or more times. Besides, he had gone
looking for accidents, — had both legs broken while
digging to rescue some comrades when the "hill fell
on them." Such a twisted, battered-up man I never
saw. But somehow nothing had ever been able to
"get him" in a vital spot. And regardless of the
fractures, dislocations and scar-tissue scattered
through and over his face and body, he was still a
handsome man — and a strong man, notwithstand-
THE WILD IRISHMAN 21
ing his years. Heart and lungs as sound as ever.
And an eye like an eagle. Crippled and disfigured
in half a hundred places, grizzled, and gray, and
weather heaten, but strong. He sat there on a
bench in the little back yard, telling the story of
the great strike and the causes of it.
And his good wife sat by, the most beautiful old
woman I have ever seen. Hair whiter than snow.
A fine oval face. Wrinkled. Deep lines written
there when her son was killed in the tipple. Other
lines that told of want, then and in days gone by.
And other lines that told of worry, and of the long
sleepless nights and days while she was watching
and nursing the Wild Irishman. And yet that
seamed old face was cheerful. She was one of
those women that made you feel better if she
merely nodded to you. Her "good morning"
would cheer you up for the day.
The Wild Irishman told me the tale of the strike,
what caused it and what it was for. He told me
the low wages the men made — when they had work.
He told of the short time, the lay-offs, and the
shut-downs. He told how the company stores
robbed the men, charging them two and three
prices for the staple necessaries of life; how the
men were in debt, and were compelled to trade at
the company stores; those who were not in debt
being laid off. He told how the company charged
22 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
the miner two and three times the market price
for powder. He told how the company sold coal
on a basis of 2,240 pounds to the ton, and how they
compelled the miner to give them a ton of 3,000
pounds or more. He told how the men were
docked for trifling things, and how the companies
fought against a check weighman — a measure with
no purpose except to insure the honest weighing of
the coal. He told of the company doctor, the com-
pany houses, and countless other grand and petty
forms of robbery and extortion practised by the
coal barons.
As he concluded his story of the conditions under
which he had labored for so many years, the Wild
Irishman stood up. He raised one hand as if
taking an oath and said :
"And I and the boys will never go back under
the old conditions — never — I'll ate the dirt in the
street first!"
Then the white-haired old wife spoke up. Said
she:
"Yes, and I'll cook it for him!"
That's what I call Solidarity.
I am one of those who throughout my life have
been very fortunate in my friendships. But I
never have and never shall meet a nobler man than
the Wild Irishman, nor a grander, braver man.
Why wouldn't he be — with a wife like that ?
Labor Produces All Wealth*
OTHER than the resources of nature, Social-
ists maintain that Labor of brain and
brawn, Labor of mind and limb, produces
all wealth.
Because Labor produces all wealth, we maintain
that those who do the Labor should have all the
wealth produced.
There are those who will tell you that capital
produces wealth and that Money Makes Money.
Let us consider it a moment.
Good old pious Deacon Rockefeller no doubt has
capital to the equivalent of a billion dollars. Now,
suppose that Mr. Rockefeller could get a billion
dollars in gold eagles coined at the United States
mints. And suppose that he placed that billion
dollars in gold down in New York's City Hall
Park.
How long would the pious old deacon's billion
dollars in gold have to remain there before they
added unto themselves another gold eagle? They
never would do it, and you all know it.
Nor would it change matters in the slightest if
the money were silver instead of gold.
* From lecture, "Socialism the Hope of the World,"
1903.
24 FIGHT FOB YOUR LIFE !
Let Deacon Rockefeller get a billion silver dol-
lars, every one of them coined at Mr. Bryan's sacred
ratio of sixteen to one — he is such a pious man, let
him have "In God We Trust" stamped on both
sides instead of one side of every last one of them —
how long would they have to remain buried in City
Hall Park before they became two billion dollars?
They'd never do it, and you all know it.
Though that billion of silver dollars lay in the
richest soil on earth for a billion years, they would
not in all that time add to themselves a single
dollar, or even a lead dime with a hole in it.
Ah, you say, money is only potential capital.
When Mr. Rockefeller puts his money into real cap-
ital, then it creates wealth.
Well, let us see. Suppose that the blessed old
deacon put his billion dollars into the shoe indus-
try.
Let us imagine, if we can, that over in City Hall
Park there is an immense shoe factory; that it is
fully equipped with the latest and very best tools
and machinery for the making of shoes; that his
storerooms are filled nigh on to bursting with the
raw materials of which shoes are made — leather
and findings, and eyelets and laces, and pegs and
blacking — the factory, tools, machines and raw ma-
terials all together having a value of a billion dol-
lars, and all Rockefeller's.
LABOR PRODUCES ALL WEALTH 25
Now, then, how long will that shoe factory have
to stand there before it makes a pair of shoes?
How long before the leather and findings make
themselves into shoes? They'll never do it, and
you all know it.
Another factor must be added to the raw mate-
rial and the machines before we have shoes even
from a billion-dollar shoe factory. We must have
Labor — in this case the Labor of the shoemaker.
Only when the Laborer comes along and plies the
tools, and operates the machines, and manipulates
the leather — then, and not before, we shall have
Now, if the Labor of the men in the building
trades erected the factory, if the Labor of the ma-
chinists built the machines, if the Labor of the tan-
ners made the leather, and if the Labor of the
shoemakers made the shoes — if Labor did it ALL,
where is the reason in justice that those who did
ALL the Labor are not entitled to ALL of its
fruits ?
The shoes in which we walk up Broadway in no
way differ from the bull's hide tortured by flies on
the plains of Argentina except in so far as the
bull's hide has been the receptacle of Human
Labor.
Ah, but once again say you, when you put your
money in the bank, then money makes money.
26 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
Some people seem to think that the first dollar
placed in the bank is a male dollar, and the second
dollar is a female dollar, and these male and female
dollars get married, and then every year after the
wedding ceremony these dollars have children in
the form of nickels and dimes, or annual interest
at five and ten per cent.
But it isn't so. The dollar you put in the bank
is simply the representative of wealth that was pro-
duced by Labor; and when it is taken out of the
bank it is exchanged for means of production (cap-
ital, if you please), and that capital was itself pro-
duced by Labor, and then a workingman comes
along and uses that capital, and his Labor produces
more wealth, and then that wealth produced by
Labor is exchanged for other dollars, and those
dollars that replace the principal and pay the in-
terest are placed back in the bank. And Labor
built the bank, and Labor made the safe in the
bank, and Labor made the paper and printed, or
Labor dug the gold and minted the dollars, all of
them, male, female and neuter.
And the only place where the wedding comes in
is where the Very Eminent Gentleman who is
president of the bank marries the money and takes
it to Canada with him — and that's a decree of di-
vorce from yours.
Chicago
Address at the Garrick Theatre, Chicago,
May 3, 1908
A MAN who had long resided in Chicago (he
had never lived) died, and, as a matter of
course, went to hell. But when he got there
he did not know the place. He thought it was
Heaven — he found it so much pleasanter than
Chicago.
Chicago — the place where all of Capital's dreams
come true. Straight down from the first to the
seventh hell. Then down, down to the bottom of
the bottomless pit — there is Chicago. Chicago —
an industrial penitentiary, the buildings and
grounds covering hundreds of square miles. In-
mates and keepers numbering more than two thou-
sand thousand souls — many of them dead, all
others in fever and travail. Chicago — the penal
city. Rolling mill prisons. Factory prisons. De-
partment store prisons. Reaper works prisons.
Stock yards prisons. Factory prisons full of chil-
dren. Factory prisons full of women. Factory
prisons full of men. Some of them trusties —
but they can't escape. Prisons for all who
work. All must work in prisons. None can
28 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
ever work out of prison — in Chicago. All and
each serving a life sentence. Inmates and
keepers, all must work — work, and hurry, in
Chicago. Hurry or die — hurry and die —
hurry to death — the capitalist devils can't wait
— in Chicago. Primitive men utilized cliffs and
caves for dwellings. Chicago people dwell in cliffs
and caves. Not those made by nature. Nature's
cliffs and caves are not high enough, not low
enough, not dark enough. So the Chicago prison-
ers made their own caves and cliffs — and made
them foul, and dark, and poisonous. Chicago —
peopled by souls that are dead, with hearts of lead,
in their rotting flesh, hung on brittle bones. Chi-
cago— where the buildings shake and the streets
rock and the whole place quakes always — where
they know no silence and hear no song — where
there are noises ever, and never music sounds.
Chicago — where most that is not crime or vice is
humbug — statues of plaster, pretense of marble;
buildings of staff and sand, pretense of stone ; putty
and paint, pretense of iron and steel ; men who are
devils, smug-faced, clerical-clothed, pretense of
virtue; pallid women, rouged, pretense of health;
bejeweled women, hearts of flint ; perfumed women,
fine ladies, disguising the stench of them. The
hands on the clock say the hour is morning — but
they work all night in the night time, and there is
CHICAGO <59
no day in Chicago. Hurry, hurry to work, pris-
oners and keepers — hurry all. Go faster, ever
faster. Don't lose the step. If you lose the step,
you fall. And if you fall you die— in Chicago.
Work, little child, work, and hurry. Work, little
girl, work faster. Wear crash and rags ; mind not
your withering, bending frame; work, little girl,
and hurry. Your employer's little daughter — as
your cheeks pale, so hers shall bloom. She
shall be swathed in silk and fine linen, and clothed
in lace ; she shall be light and airy as a fairy — and
as she older grows she will thank the only God she
knows she is not like you. Work, child, work, and
hurry. Work, woman, work, and hurry; faster,
faster, or you will lose your place in the prison;
work, work, work. Mind not your bruised and
faded flesh, your aching, all but breaking bones;
work, woman, work ; faster, ever faster. Wear bur-
lap and tatters over your shrivelling form. Your
employer's wife — she shall be a Juno, and arrayed
in raiment that would shame a queen ; every thread
shall be washed and dyed in your heart's blood.
Your employees many mistresses — not Venus,
with full round breast and rosy lip, shall compare
with them. They shall have the beauty that was
yours, and your sister's, and your daughter's. In a
year and a day you shall die, but they shall live
the sum of life that belonged to you, and when they
30 FIGHT FOE YOUR LIFE !
are gorged with their cannibal feast they will pray
their God of hosts for more, and thank their Holy
Ghost they are not like you. So work, woman,
work ; but hurry ; faster, faster, ever faster. Work,
man, work. Hurry. Your keepers watch. The
foreman's eyes are never closed. So bend your
back, and hurry. The load is heavy — never mind.
'Tis a load of gold, and gold is God — God of your
masters, God of your keepers, God of your City of
Death. Chicago — the sun may shine over, it never
shines upon Chicago. Always covered with a gray-
black pall of poison. Chicago — where only the
robbers and skinners live; where the workers and
doers die. Chicago — where profit blights like a
pestilence. Chicago — where inmates and keepers
live on the hell-broth brew from the witches' cal-
dron ; toads, and Crotalus, lizards, ordure, children,
women, men — heart of a girl, love of a boy, a fa-
ther's spirit, a mother's joy — all steeped together
in the blackened pit, cursed by the forked tongue
of the fanged and venomed and taloned hag.
Chicago — where railways steal their "right" of way,
steal the lake front, steal part of the lake — and are
going to steal the rest. Chicago — where the rulers
sold the people's birthright for a mess of pottage —
and then they stole the pottage. Chicago — city of
saloons, dives, brothels, dens and joints. Chicago
— where Satan is blessed and the Saint is damned.
CHICAGO 31
Chicago — city of Godless churches, dedicated to the
worship of devils and dollars. Chicago — where
Justice, with bandaged eyes, was slain in her own
temple with her own sword. Chicago — place of the
levee — where the soiled woman dies to live. Be-
fore she reached there she worked long hours for a
pittance bare to keep her body alive. But the Lord
of the Factory made her sell her soul for the chance
to work. And now on the levee, weak unto death,
she still must tribute pay to the Lord of the Land.
Worse still. The strongest men in this prison
town, its finest, bravest, best — guardians of its
peace — its Magnificent Police — this poor woman,
before feeding her child from her trade of death,
must pay tribute — blackmail — to the noble execu-
tors of the law. Oh, that monsters in the form of
man could steal the babe's milk from the famishing
mother's withered breast! But this in Chicago,
where they pillage the poor, and rob the dead and
club the unemployed. Into the cells of the bottom-
less pit, into this prison with its two millions of
souls, there penetrates one ray of light from a
single Star of Hope. Here in this hell a Working
Class Awakes. Maimed and mauled, battered and
scarred, broken and twisted, almost deafened, they
listen ; almost blinded, they see — and their look is
upward. They listen to the gospel of Brotherhood
and they look for the Star of Socialism, and even
32 FIGHT FOE YOUR LIFE !
the prisoners of this penal colony love, and grasp
each other's hands — and they are going to make
this Bedlam blossom as the rose. Long since the
seed of truth was sown in this soil of sin. Wher-
ever that seed falls there that seed shall grow
— even in the noisome gardens of Cannibal
Capitalism. But, oh, how long the time! Yet
shall there be rest for the weary — even in Chicago.
Chicago — where men live like paupers, work like
horses, and die like dogs. Even in Chicago, the
heavy laden shall find relief; the naked shall be
clothed; the famished prisoners fed; they that
mourn shall be comforted ; and the souls that thirst
shall drink of the waters of life, and love — and
Love is Life. In the Chicago that is to be. When
Capitalism dies, then shall the Free Man rise, in
the world that is to be — peopled with brothers and
sisters, and comrades and lovers — a world that is
Paradise.
There Ain't Coin' to be No
Servant Girls
FEW and far between are the crumbs of com-
fort seen as one looks over the world of
capitalism. But there are two recurrent
news items that cause me to chortle with glee and
warm the cockles of my heart.
One is the wail raised by the gentlemen of com-
merce because it is so difficult to get American-
born boys to be sailors. The other is the whining
belch of our fine ladies because of the scarcity of
servant girls.
Generally speaking, a common sailor is treated
a little better than a dog. Most servant girls are
treated worse than dogs.
"Domestics," they are called by their "mis-
tresses," but few of them meet the kindness and
consideration accorded domestic animals.
They cook the best food, and eat the leavings.
They set the table in the dining room, and eat in
the kitchen. They sweep and dust the parlor, but
they must not sit there. They empty the slops and
make the beds in fine chambers, but they sleep in
attic or cellar, or in a cubby-hole under the stairs.
Every male member of the household has a right
to insult her. No matter who or what he is —
raw and driveling youth, burly master, or drooling
and senile grandpa. Driven to bay by these fine
gentlemen, she may call for help. But there is no
help. Only mistress can hear her cry. She knows
"her boy" wouldn't do such a thing. "You are the
brazen baggage." "Leave my house — hussy !" No
reference. No "character." When attacked by
foreman or employer, the factory girl may save
her soul at the price of her place and bread, but
many times the "domestic" must give up all on
the altar of slavery.
One afternoon and one evening out every week.
Last one to bed, first to get up. Fires, dishes,
meals, slops, beds, sweeping, dusting, children,
washing, mending, windows, scouring, scrubbing
— all to be done for others, all to be done in the
way that others say.
No, dear madam, my fine, fat old female with
the double chin, there ain't goin' to be no servant
girls in the world that is to be. It's a terrible
thought. But take heart of hope. It may not be
as bad as you fear. True, there shall be no serv-
ants, but it does not follow that there shall be no
service. First of all, tools and machines, organi-
zation of labor, division and subdivision of labor,
shall do many things now done by the domestic
slave. And about machines and their labor there
NO SERVANT GIRLS 35
shall be no smell of servitude or slavery, no taint
of the "menial."
True, brass and iron, cogs and levers and springs
and steel can not do everything. There are left
tasks that must be done, tasks that only human
hands can do. That service shall be performed,
dear lady.
But not by servants, not by slaves.
It will be the service one equal performs for an-
other. The obligation will be on the side of the
one who receives the service.
Dear, dainty madam, in the day that is to be,
if you want someone to take care of your dirty
linen, you're going to be awful good to them. Yes,
you really are ; indeed, you are. You can't believe
it, but it's true. And you're not going to pay for
their service with $3 a week, and meanness, and
asperity, and airs of superiority. In the day that
is to be — not far off, dear, gentle lady — you will
find that if you want service you will have to
render service. You will find there are things that
may not be bought with a bank check, however
large.
Dear, pretty lady, do you know what you owe
your servant girl? Do you know that your fine
raiment is woven out of her rags? That your
riches are coined out of her poverty? That your
freshness and bloom are the health that was hers ?
36 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
That every minute of your leisure has been coined
out of her life?
Beautiful mistress, in the world that is to be
things will be very different. There ain't goin' to
be no servant girls. In that world you, pretty
creature, will have to be useful as well as orna-
mental. But, cheer up. It may not be as bad as
you fear. You are going to lose your servant —
that is sure.
Maybe you'll find a sister where once you had a
slave. THAT would make it worth while,
wouldn't it?
No servant to obey you, no slave to fear you,
but a sister who shall love you — even you.
I. Mother Jones Deported
IN May, 1904, I was in Trinidad, Colo., center
of the lignite coal region. For a long time
the miners had been on strike. Their de-
mands were for the enforcement of the eight-hour
clause of the Colorado State Constitution, more
air and better ventilation of the mines, abolition
of the pluck-me company stores, payment of wages
in money instead of checks, and the amelioration
of other wrongs which have followed the miners in
all the coal camps of the United States.
Inasmuch as the miners demanded that the
eight-hour mandates of the constitution be enforced
for their benefit, they were at once declared to be
in rebellion, the militia were ordered out, and Trin-
idad was placed under martial law. Of the strik-
ers, some were beaten, killed, jailed, bull-penned
or deported. There was no outrage known to sav-
age or civilized man that was not visited on the
defenseless miners of Trinidad by the mine own-
ers' detectives, deputy sheriffs or militia. In
these outrages the mine owners were at all times
aided, abetted and protected by Governor Peabody
— good friend of Theodore Eoosevelt and William
H. Taft. Do not forget the latter, Mr. Work-
38 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
ingman. You have a right and a duty to hold
him responsible for his friends.
It was not a sufficient vindication of the "maj-
esty of the law" and the power of the "good peo-
ple" of Trinidad to deport men strikers and sym-
pathizers.
One day — late one night, rather — old, white-
haired Mother Jones was taken from her bed-
room in the hotel, placed in front of fixed bay-
onets, marched to a train, and taken to the Terri-
tory of Arizona.
During my stay in Trinidad I met one of its
leading citizens, a lawyer. Discussing the strike,
I asked him if he did not think the mine owners
might have limited their war to a fight on the
men, and inquired if he did not regard it as pretty
low down to use the militia to attack and deport
a white-haired old woman like Mother Jones. At
mention of the name of Mother Jones the fel-
low's face turned fire red with excitement, and he
swelled up like a poisoned pup.
"Mother Jones !" said he. "Mother Jones ! We
ought to have deported her long before we did."
"Well, what did Mother Jones do?" I inquired
as gently as I could.
"What did she do?" howled the lawyer. "What
didn't she do?"
"Well, just mention what she did," said I.
MOTHER JONES DEPORTED 39
"What did she do? She— she talked!" he
answered, and he was livid with anger.
"Do you mean to say that you would take an
old woman in the 60's and run her out of the
state because she talked?"
"By G — d, you ought to have heard what she
said!" he replied. "And -those d — d miners be-
lieved her, every word."
"What did she say?" I questioned.
"She said everything. She deserved to be de-
ported."
"Well, now, what was the very worst thing she
said? What did she say that was not true?"
"She — she said that 'Labor produces all wealth.'
I heard her myself — right out in the street there,
in front of this very hotel — and a whole army of
these d — d strikers heard her, and believed her."
"Is that the worst she said? Did you deport
Mother Jones because she said that 'Labor pro-
duces all wealth'?"
"'No — not entirely," said Mr. Lawyer. "She
said other things — and worse. She said 'Labor
should have all it produces.'"
"Do you deny that 'Labor produces all wealth' ?
and that 'Labor should have all it produces'?"
"Deny it? Certainly I deny it. Everybody
knows it isn't so."
40 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
"And so you deported Mother Jones for saying
what everybody knows isn't so?"
"Well, d — n her, it isn't so, but she made them
think it was so !"
"It seems to me," said I, "that you might have
found a way to lessen Mother Jones' influence
over the miners much more effectual than that of
running her out of the state."
"How?" he asked, anxiously. "How? What
else could we do? We had to get rid of her
somehow."
"You are a lawyer?" I questioned.
"Yes."
"A college graduate?"
"Yes."
"Accustomed to addressing judges, juries — able
to make a public speech before your fellow citi-
zens in a creditable way, doubtless?"
"Well, my friends say so," he admitted, most
genially.
"Then," said I, "let us look at it this way:
We'll just suppose that old Mother Jones is out
on that street corner now, and that she is telling
a lot of miners that 'Labor produces all wealth.'
Now, you know that is not true. You know that
labor does not produce all wealth. You are a man
of learning. More — you are a man of trained
mind. Better still — you are familiar with the
MOTHER JONES DEPORTED 41
forum; it is a habit with you to reach the rea-
son of a judge, to rouse the emotions of a jury.
Now, then, if Mother Jones was out in the street
tonight, telling people that 'Labor produces all
wealth,' it would be absolutely foolish for you to
deport her. There is a much better way than
that — a way in which you can destroy her influ-
ence absolutely. Besides, it's legal — and as a leader
of the bar, of course you know that deporting
women for talking out loud isn't legal — that is,
not strictly."
"Well? Well? What is that way?"
"Simplest thing in the world. Can't see how
you overlooked it. Here you are : Mother Jones
out there on an old soap box tonight. She's a
stranger in Trinidad — you are well known. She
has no education — while you, you belong to a
learned profession. She has no standing here —
you are a leading, a distinguished citizen. Mother
Jones goes on with her speech. She says 'Labor
produces all wealth.' With your own ears you
hear her say so. You know it's false. But you
don't need to deport her for that. I can tell you
a way by which you can beat her game to a
frazzle. Just you"
"What? What is that way?" said Mr. Lawyer
in breathless interest.
"Easiest thing ever was. Tonight Mother
42 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
Jones says 'Labor produces all wealth.' You know
better. So tomorrow night, on that same corner,
YOU speak to the people. YOU tell them that
the statement by Mother Jones that 'Labor pro-
duces all wealth' is not so. It is a lie. YOU not
only tell the people it is not so. YOU prove it.
YOU explain to them just how wealth is produced.
YOU show them just what it is that does produce
wealth, and how it is NOT labor. See? There
you are. No soldiers, no deputy sheriffs. No need
to deport Mother Jones. She'd just have to leave
town her own self."
"Oh, what's the use ? If I was to make a speech
out on that street corner no one would come to
hear me. Besides, it wouldn't make any differ-
ence if they did. Everybody knows me around
here. Nobody'd believe anything I said."
Why should he not appeal to the police, the
bad men, the thieves, thugs and militia? How
else can his side win ? Can they win that way ?
That is another story.
II. Capitalism's Confession
THE strong man fights fair. He relies on
his strength to win.
The man with a righteous cause fights
fair. He relies on his cause to win.
The brave man fights fair. He would rather
lose with honor than win with honor lost.
Cowards, weaklings, men with a cause unjust —
such men are ever ready to foul if hard pressed
in a fight. The blow below the belt, the dagger in
the back, the venomed arrow, the poisoned well,
slander, lies — foul fighting. These are the weap-
ons of the man with a craven heart, the man who
fears.
FEAE — the most terrible thing in the world.
All this world's realities of wrong for all time do
not total such an awful sum as FEAR. Truly,
the man who fears is possessed of the devil. His
life is a burning, living death beside which death
itself is an angel of grace on a cloud of peace.
Fear is a most prolific mother. Fear breeds
greater Fear. Fear marches like the black plague,
only faster. In all the world there are no walls
so high or thick that Fear cannot mount them or
raze them. Earth has no rock-bound citadel that
Fear cannot enter. Man can make no door that
44 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE^.
Fear cannot open. In a city of a million souls,
if there be but one man who Fears, all are in dan-
ger. One may calculate, measure, limit, the power
and action of enemies, fools, scoundrels. None
can forecast the actions of the man who Fears.
Fire, fever, clubs, swords, wars — there is no limit
to the evil power of those who Fear. Their
enemies, their friends, themselves — all are endan-
gered by those who Fear.
Wherever there is a capitalist who grasps a part
of the meaning of Socialism, there is a capitalist
who Fears. He thinks that shrewdness is wisdom
and that force is power, and, moved by the lever
of Fear, he first tries to fight philosophy with
sophistry, and to oppose science with cunning.
Worsted in the test by argument, his Fear grows
greater. Then his craven heart comes to the re-
lief of his crafty mind — they are always together.
Craft tells him he cannot win by reason. Cow-
ardice t-ells him he MAY win by force. Fear eats
him like an acid.
He cannot meet the arguments of Mother
Jones. Bring on the militia. Deport the old
woman. He confesses his weakness.
He cannot answer the Socialist speaker on the
street corner. "Police!" "Arrest him. Stop
these agitators." He confesses his cause is un-
just.
CAPITALISM'S CONFESSION 45
The unemployed parade. "Police!" cries the
Capitalist in a paroxysm of FEAR. "Club them !"
"Arrest them. Disperse them !" Confession of
cowardice. He dare not even look at the main
prop of his prosperity — the unemployed.
Confession. Confession. Confession.
Confession of Wrong.
Confession of Weakness.
Confession of Cowardice.
Every anti-labor injunction, every suppression
of the rights of free speech and a free press, every
foul and unjust decision against labor by cap-
italist courts, every deportation of union men,
every call for militia — all are Confession. The
Capitalist's Confession that in opposing Social-
ism he cannot win by argument, but may by force.
Confession that he cannot win by fair means, but
may by foul. Confession that Fear — peace-de-
stroying, death-dealing Fear — is gnawing his heart
like cancer. In madness, the man who Fears de-
stroys himself.
Socialists, as the Capitalist Fears, so shall we
Hope. He will deal us some terrible blows — foul
blows, blows in the dark, blows in the back. We
shall have to stand punishment. More than once
we shall leave our dead and wounded on the field.
We shall lose some battles, but we shall not lose
the war. As the Revolutionary patriots lost their
46 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
Lexington and their Bunker Hill, so may we.
But, like them, we shall win our Saratoga and our
Yorktown — and we shall dictate the terms of peace.
The Man Who Fears has been a power for evil,
but his sun shall set on the day when he meets the
man who Hopes.
" See the Beautiful Houses at
Primero ! "*
A True Story of the Trinidad Goal Strike
(1904)
IN the Trinidad coal field the employers would
at no time confer with the officers of the
union. As usual, they said they were at all
times ready to listen to anything their employees
had to say to them as INDIVIDUALS. But
they absolutely refused to recognize the union.
Individual employees repeatedly went to them and
asked that ills be remedied.
With what result ?
With the result that so far from any of their
grievances being remedied, the individuals who
had the temerity to mention them were either dis-
*This is a chapter from "The Labor War in Col-
orado," by Ben Hanford, 1904, now out of print. It
recorded many of the events of the strikes of the coal
and metalliferous miners in Colorado, including the
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the confine-
ment of strikers and their friends in bullpens by
Governor Peabody's militia, the deportation of the
miners, and other outrages of the ruling class which
culminated in the kidnapping of Moyer, Haywood and
Pettibone two years later.
48 FIGHT FOB YOUR LIFE !
charged from their employment or placed in such
unfavorable parts of the mines that they were
worse off than before.
The coal companies redressed the grievances of
the men by the instant discharge of any man who
had a grievance.
Their method of securing contented employees
was to "fire" every employee who was discontented.
The managers of the coal companies could not
recognize the union. They could recognize the
militia, they could recognize the deputy sheriffs,
they could recognize thugs and bad men, all in
their employ and all obedient to their orders —
but they could not recognize the union.
The men who owned the coal mines could recog-
nize anything and anybody on earth except the
coal miner.
Some of the houses furnished the men by the
companies were the worst of shacks. In some
camps the companies did not have sufficient houses,
and leased the men ground on which they built
dwellings of their own — the lease, however, re-
quiring that they be vacated on five days' notice.
But in one or two camps, notably that of Primero,
the company had erected a group of houses that
were nearly fit dwelling places for human beings.
The demands of the men, as I have said, were
for increased wages, the eight-hour day, honest
"SEE THE BEAUTIFUL HOUSES !" 49
weight, wages to be paid in lawful money, and
ventilation of the mines.
So far as the employers through their flunkies
and factotums made any answer to the demands of
the men, it was one continued anthem in praise of
the "houses at Primero."
"Increase our wages," said the men. "Look at
those houses at Primero!" replied the bourgeoise
editor of the organ of the coal companies.
"Give us the eight-hour day," said the miners.
"What nonsense," said the agents of the compa-
nies. "You men don't want the eight-hour day.
Look at those beautiful houses at Primero !"
"Give us a check weighman," said the men, "so
that we shall not be required to mine 3,500 pounds
of coal in order to get credit for 2,000 pounds."
"Hogs !" responded the members of the Citizens'
Alliance, every last man of them on the side of
the coal barons. "You poor miserable children of
darkness! It is not a check weighman that you
want. A ton is a ton, isn't it, whether it weighs
3,500 or 2,000 pounds ? What can common people
like you know about honest weight, anyhow? See
the beautiful brick houses at Primero!"
"Pay us our wages in money, instead of scrip
on the company store," said the men.
"Money! Money?" yelled the chorus of little
business men in the Citizens' Alliance, who felt
50 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
themselves honored and flattered when a mine
manager spoke to them. ''Money? For coal
miners ? You're a lot of miserable foreigners !
It's not money you want. Look at the houses of
those miners at Primero! Some of them are
painted! Besides, we want all the money our-
selves !"
"Ventilate the mines as the law requires/' said
the men. "We must have air or we can't work."
"Anarchists!" yelled the bourgeoise chorus.
"You are a lot of Dagoes and Mexicans. You
want air? Look at those houses at Primero.
Some of them have windows !"
No matter what these thirteen thousand men
asked for, sufficient answer unto all to point to
the little group of cottages, and say, "Look at those
houses at Primero !"
Don't be a Tomato
MR. MAN OUT OF A JOB, I want you to
ask yourself one question.
When your wife or you go to market
to buy things, you are glad to find a large variety
and plentiful supply of those things for sale, are
you not? If there is a large variety, you can find
things of just the grade and quality that you want,
can't you ? And if there is a plentiful supply, and
a number of dealers, you can get the things you
want cheap, can't you ? The world over, you will
find that when people huy things they want them
to be cheap in price.
For instance, suppose you go to market to buy
tomatoes. If you find several marketmen with
big supplies of all kinds of tomatoes, you know
that you can get a bargain. If some of the toma-
toes are so ripe that they will not keep for more
than a day or so, you know that you can buy toma-
toes cheap.
Now, Mr. Man Out of a Job, just remember
this one thing — when you huy tomatoes you want
tomatoes to be cheap. Remember that men the
world over, when they buy things, want the price
to be low. Remember, further, that so long as
52 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
you are going to buy tomatoes you would never
do anything to raise their price, would you ?
Mr. Man Out of a Job, this is to you.
At times you have no doubt wondered why you
are out of work. It has seemed to you cruel and
unjust that a man able and willing to work at
useful and productive labor should not be allowed
to do so.
You have wondered why the "rich" men of the
country did not employ you and the millions of
your unemployed fellows.
You have wondered why Republican city officials
did nothing for the unemployed — except to have
the Republican police club them, as in Chicago.
Then you have wondered why Democratic city
officials did nothing for the unemployed — except
to have the Democratic police club them, as in
New York. These two parties are always (appar-
ently) at war with each other. Why does not one
of them help the unemployed, and so gain a great
political advantage and victory over the other?
But don't forget the tomatoes.
If city officials will do nothing for the unem-
ployed, why is it that state officials will not assist
them? Don't forget the tomatoes.
If neither city nor state officials will help the
DON'T BE A TOMATO 53
hungry man out of work, why not the national
government? Don't forget the tomatoes.
The last session of Congress appropriated over
a billion dollars for a single year's government
expenses. But not a penny was appropriated for
the relief of the unemployed. Don't forget the
tomatoes.
The national convention of the Eepublican
Party met, adopted a platform, nominated can-
didates for President and Vice-President — but did
nothing for the jobless man.
The national convention of the Democratic
Party met, adopted a platform, nominated candi-
dates for President and Vice-President — but did
nothing for the jobless man.
Mr. Man Out of Work, have you asked why
city officials, state officials and national officials
have done nothing to supply you with work?
Have you asked why the national conventions of
the Republican and Democratic Parties gave no
consideration to you and six millions of others
Avho are looking for work in this United States of
Rockefeller prosperity? Don't forget the toma-
toes.
54 FIGHT FOE YOUE LIFE!
There is plenty of work that should be done in
the United States — public buildings, libraries,
books, school books, roads, bridges, irrigation,
docks, river and harbor improvements, canals —
things innumerable that need to be done all over
this great land.
And there is plenty of money to do it with.
The Eepublican Convention solemnly declared that
this country was worth $110,000,000,000— and
nearly every dollar of it subject to taxation.
Plenty of money to be had to employ every idle
man in the whole nation.
Mr. Man Out of a Job, why did not these offi-
cials and parties do something to give you em-
ployment? Do you remember the tomatoes? So
long as you buy tomatoes, you would not do any-
thing to raise their price, would you?
Now, Mr. Man Out of a Job, just take a look
at the men who control the Eepublican and Demo-
cratic Parties. The influential men of both par-
ties are employers of labor, are they not ? An em-
ployer of labor buys labor, doesn't he ? Now, just
remember the tomatoes, Mr. Man Out of a Job.
So long as you could not get tomatoes unless you
bought them, you would not help to raise the price,
would you?
DON'T BE A TOMATO 55
So with the capitalist. Some capitalists sell
one thing, some sell another thing, and some sell
many things. But there is one thing that all
capitalists must buy. That is labor.
One capitalist owns a coal mine and sells coal
— he wants the price of coal to be high.
Another capitalist owns a railroad — he wants
the price of transportation to be high.
Another capitalist owns a department store —
he wants the price of merchandise to be high.
These capitalists sell coal, they sell transportation,
they sell merchandise.
But there is one thing the capitalist never sells
— there is one thing the capitalist always buys.
The capitalist who owns the coal mine must buy
the labor of the miners.
The capitalist who owns the railway must buy
the labor of the railway workers.
The capitalist who owns the department store
must buy the labor of the clerks and errand boys
and girls and floor walkers.
_ Always and everywhere the capitalist must buy
labor.
Now, Mr. Man Out of a Job, don't forget the
tomatoes. When you buy tomatoes the price can-
not be too low to suit you, can it?
56 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
So with the capitalist. He buys labor. The
price cannot be too low to suit him.
Mr. Man Out of a Job, you would think your-
self a fool to raise the price of tomatoes when you
buy tomatoes.
So would the capitalist be a fool to raise the
price of labor when he buys labor. Yet that is
what you expect him to do.
That is what you ask him to do. You are sur-
prised when he doesn't do it.
Mr. Man Out of a Job, if there are few toma-
toes in the market, the price is high; if there are
many tomatoes in the market, the price is low. If
some of the tomatoes are so ripe they will not
keep another day, the price is very low. When
you go to market as a buyer of tomatoes you want
to find lots of tomatoes there, some of them dead
ripe, and the price very low.
So with the capitalist. When he comes to mar-
ket to buy labor, he wants to find many unem-
ployed laborers (skilled and unskilled) ready to
sell their labor, so that he can buy all the labor
he wants. When the capitalist comes to market to
buy labor, he wants to find some unemployed
laborers dead ripe (hungry), so that he can buy
all the labor he wants cheap. The man who can't
eat until he gets work will take a job of work
cheap.
DON'T BE A TOMATO 57
Now, Mr. Man Out of a Job, do you understand
why it is that the Kepublican and Democratic
Parties will do nothing for the unemployed? I
do not say that all the men in those parties are
capitalists. But I do say that capitalists control
both of those parties. And you know it. You
need not take my word for it. There are working-
men in both parties. The workingmen are al-
lowed to furnish the votes. But employers of
labor, big and little, absolutely control both old
parties. And employers of labor are buyers of
labor. And buyers of labor want labor to be
cheap. And in the long run labor will be cheap
in just the proportion that laborers are out of work.
So, Mr. Man Out of a Job, why should you ex-
pect political officials and parties who buy labor
to help the unemployed ? Suppose the federal
government gave work to all the unemployed.
Where would the capitalist find labor when he
wanted it? He would have to outbid the govern-
ment to get men. He would have to pay a high
price when he bought labor. He no more desires
to pay a high price for labor than you desire to
pay a high price for tomatoes. If the unem-
ployed were supplied with work, not only would
the capitalist have to pay a high price for any
additional labor he might employ, but if there
were no unemployed the men now at work would
58 FIGHT FOB YOUR LIFE !
immediately demand a raise in wages. And if
there were no unemployed the capitalist would
have to give the raise demanded or cease business.
Now, Mr. Man Out of a Job, you really don't
think the capitalist wants to raise wages, do you ?
You know if he does want to raise wages, there is
nothing to stop him now, is there ? Also, you
know what it takes to make a capitalist raise wages,
don't you? It takes power: the power of labor
organized, and strong enough to beat him with
strike and boycott.
Mr. Man Out of a Job, there is a political party
that, so far as it has and gains power, will at all
times look out for the unemployed. But the polit-
ical party which has at heart the interest of the
unemployed is not controlled by capitalists. It is
not controlled by men who buy labor. The only
political party which will provide work for the
jobless man is the political party which is con-
trolled by workingmen — men who sell labor.
That party is the Socialist Party. Eead its
platform and demands, Mr. Man Out of a Job,
and you will find that you and your six million
fellows were not forgotten by the men and women
who composed the national convention of the So-
cialist Party.
DON'T BE A TOMATO 59
Don't forget the tomatoes, Mr. Man Out of a
Job.
A green tomato will keep good for two or three
weeks in a cool, dark place, and it requires neither
food nor drink. But a green (or ripe) working-
man out of a job won't keep two or three weeks
without food or drink. Next election you can
vote for the party controlled by the men who sell
their labor and want high wages, or you can vote
for the parties controlled by the men who buy
labor and want to buy it cheap.
Don't be a tomato and vote the Eepublican or
Democratic ticket for the benefit of the capitalists
who buy labor.
Be a man and vote for the ticket of the Socialist
Party and work to bring about a day in which
men and women will not be sold in the market like
green, and ripe, and over-ripe tomatoes.
Don't be a tomato, Mr. Man Out of a Job.
The James Boys; or, Modern
Law and Order*
ONCE Upon a Time, said the Young Ob-
server, there lived two men who were de-
servedly notorious, if not famous. They
were known as the James Boys, Frank and Jesse
James, brothers, and both were strong-limbed,
keen of eye, and had what is sometimes called
Nerve.
Each was a crack shot with rifle or revolver,
and Jesse could with the latter weapon hit a nail
on the head or a man in the heart at a distance of
fifty paces easily, with certainty, and, if called
upon, with most rapid succession. But he never
practised much on nail-heads, preferring, like
a True and Strenuous Sportsman, Live Game.
In addition to their splendid physical qualities,
the James Boys were great on morality, the Rights
of Property, and such things, and took especial
pride in themselves as Exponents of Law and
Order. But, alas! Like many other great men,
they lived behind their time, and their theories
•A chapter from "Railroading in the United
States," by Ben Hanford, 1901, out of print.
THE JAMES BOYS 61
were little understood and sadly unappreciated.
Some of the Most Respectable People denounced
their notion of Property Eights, and to practically
carry out their Philosophy of Law and Order they
were often compelled to resort to the most Strenu-
ous measures.
You see it was this way, continued the Young
Observer. Frank and Jesse James were often in
need of funds, and to supply themselves they
sometimes resorted to what is called (most vul-
garly, to be sure) Robbing banks, stages, railroad
trains, and so on, by the most Crude and Plebeian
methods. I do not mean that there is anything
wrong in robbing a bank; everybody — that is to
say, all really Respectable people (and I flatter
myself that I am so classified, said the Young
Observer) — recognizes the natural and inalienable
right of a man and a gentleman to rob a bank or
a railroad train. But he must always act in
accord with the rules of the game. And the two
primary rules are, first, before robbing a bank, a
man must have properly qualified himself, either
by having been born Respectable, by having Re-
spectability thrust upon him, or by having achieved
Respectability; no man has any right to rob a
bank, or even a stage coach, unless he has received
his degree from a high-class institution of learn-
ing and taken a conspicuous part in at least one
62 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
campaign as an advocate of sound money. (It is
easily to be seen by even the dullest mind that if
a man is to be robbed of his money, it is of the
highest importance that the money should be
Sound money.) These institutions and opportu-
nities, throughout the United States at least, are
open to all alike on the same and equal terms, so
that no citizen is prevented from acquiring these
essential qualifications, and none of his Inalien-
able rights are alienated. The second rule of the
bank-robbing game requires that, in addition to
his indubitable Respectability, the robber must do
his Work from the Inside. Any other procedure
is not only bad form, but can only be properly de-
scribed as Vulgarity, and utterly unworthy of a
true Gentleman.
The education of the James Boys had been
sadly neglected, went on the Young Observer, and,
reasoning from their inner consciousness, and al-
ways remembering that this was a Free Country,
they proceeded to enforce their ideas of the Sacred
Rights of Property and Law and Order by the
methods most convenient to their hands — generally
six-shooters.
This was the way of it : Frank and Jesse Jamts
would board a passenger train at some convenient
city, first taking care to purchase tickets. Both
were scrupulously honest, and made it a point of
THE JAMES BOYS 63
honor to pay their car fare. When the train was
well under way, Jesse would go forward to the
engine and request the engineer to stop the train,
in order that he and his brother Frank might
have an opportunity to give the passengers a little
lecture, with practical illustrations, on Law and
Order. The engineers always complied with any
request made by Jesse, knowing that Law and
Order was his strong point, and that he was not
to be trifled with on the subject. Then Jesse
would march the engineer back to a passenger
coach, always giving him a front seat, that he
might not miss any of the lecture. Having seated
these gentlemen (I forgot to mention, said the
Young Observer, that Jesse always invited the
fireman and conductor of the train to join the
engineer, and they never refused), as I said, hav-
ing seated these gentlemen, Jesse would stand in
the front door of the car, with a cocked six-
shooter in each hand (Jesse never was able to
make his lecture effective without his six-shooters
for pointers and to give the proper punctuation),
and deliver his justly celebrated lecture, as fol-
lows:
"Hands up! ladies and gentlemen. I am Jesse
James. This is my brother Frank. We are here
as Exponents of Law and Order. You all believe
in Law and Order. I am the Law, and it is my
64 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
Order that you hold up your hands. If any gen-
tleman (or lady) allows his (or her) hands to
drop, I will blow the Top of his (or her) Head
Off. You will understand that I am opposed to
all violence, and if you keep order there will be
no bloodshed. My brother Frank will pass
through the car with a Bag, and any jewelry or
money you have about you he will put in the Bag.
It will be entirely Safe. I have no references
with me, but I assure you that I am Jesse James,
and I feel confident that you can trust me im-
plicitly. No back talk. If you talk back, I will
treat you just as I would if you took your hands
down — that is, I will blow the Top of your
Head . Yes, this is a Free Country. I be-
lieve in Free Speech. You can talk all you Wish
when I am gone. No doubt, you would, one and
all, like to make a few remarks. No; this is not
a lecture on the Tariff ; though the Tariff is a Tax.
Yes; the Money Question is an important One.
But, friends, and I trust I may call you so, there
is no good reason for antagonism between us; our
interests are Mutual; you have my solemn assur-
ance that there will be no trouble so long as You
Obey the Law and Keep Order — or Off goes the
Top of Your Head. All right, Frank? So soon?
This is such a splendid audience — so Orderly, and
inspired with such a Respect for the Law — that I
THE JAMES BOYS 65
hate to leave them. Ah, well — every happy mo-
ment has an end. Come on, Frank. Good-night,
dear friends, good-night."
Frank and Jesse gave this entertainment many
times, and to audiences of the most varied char-
acteristics. Jesse became very proficient in his
Delivery, and wherever his lecture was delivered
it made a Deep and Lasting Impression upon all
who heard it.
But, alas for the man who lives behind his time !
Some Eminent Gentlemen — competitors of the
James Boys — who were in the Law and Order
business on Their Own Private Account, offered a
reward for Jesse, Dead or Alive, and one day he
who had always striven to carry out his Crude
theories of Law and Order, face to face, and Man
to Men, was shot in the Back and instantly Killed.
Think what Jesse James might have done had
he adopted Modern Methods. But at least he died
in the vigor of his manhood. He did not live to
work the James in literature, nor was he ever
elected to the United States Senate "as an inci-
dent in his career as a railroad man."
This, said the Young Observer, brings me to
Law and Order and Modern Methods.
The most important point about Modern Meth-
ods is, before stealing from railway passengers,
first Steal the Kailway.
"We Propose to Run Our Own
Business in Our Own Way!"
( ( "VII 7" E propose to run our own business in
\\ our own way." So says the presi-
dent of the big corporation when his
thousands of employees ask an increase in wages.
"We propose to run our own business in our
own way." So says the senior partner in the firm
when their hundreds of employees ask shorter
hours.
"I propose to run my own business in my own
way." So says the little cockroach capitalist when
his half-dozen employees ask half-way decent con-
ditions.
Then all together:
"We propose to run our own business in our
own way."
St. George F. Baer, J. Pierpont Morgan, the
president of the Typotheta?, the president of the
Mine Owners' Association, the editor of every scab
newspaper, the owner of a scab subway, the owner
of every trolley line, railway, rolling mill, shoe
factory, hat factory, bake shop — every last one of
them sits up on his hind legs and howls like a wolf
"OUIl OWN BUSINESS!" 67
or whines like a coyote, "We are going to run our
own business in our own way."
Well, why don't you run it in your own way ?
When could a boss have a better chance to run
his business in his own way than while his em-
ployees are on strike?
If Mr. Baer wanted to run his business in his
own way, why didn't he go right down under
ground and dig his own coal out of his own mine
when his miners were on strike in 1902? He
would have been entirely safe. The eleven thou-
sand militiamen of Pennsylvania could have "pro-
tected" him and all the coal he might have dug.
Why, when his men went on strike, didn't
August Belmont go down to the subway and go
to work, instead of going down to Florida to go
fishing ?
If all you union-hating gentry want to run your
business in your own way, why don't you run it ?
If you want to run your business in your own
way, what do you hire scabs for ?
If you want to run your own business in your
own way, what do you hire any one for?
If a member of the Typothetse wants to run his
own business in his own way, why does he hire
printers, pressmen, lithographers?
If the owner of a newspaper wants to run his
own business in his own way, why doesn't he sit
68 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
right down and write his newspaper, and edit his
newspaper, and then make the paper his newspaper
is printed on — all in his very own way ? Then let
him set the type in his own way, and read the
proof in his own way, and make up the forms in
his own way. Then let him put the forms on the
press and wash and ink the rollers in his own way.
Then he can fire the boiler, get up steam, run the
press and print his precious paper — all in his own
way. And let him read it himself — in his own
way.
Who or what would stop him? He would not
need even a Gatling-gun injunction.
"We propose to run our own business in our
own way." So you say — all you union-haters.
And you lie — you every one of you lie, and know
you lie, when you say it.
YOU do not propose to run your own business
in your own way.
You propose your business shall be run in
YOUR way, all right. But you propose some one
else shall run it, while YOU get the profit.
That some one else that you propose to have
run your business is a WORKINGMAN, and if
HE does not willingly run YOUR business for
you in your own way, and so far forgets himself
as to ask for something it is not to your interest
to give, and strikes in an effort to get what he
"OUR OWN BUSINESS!" 69
asks for, you do not even try to run your own
business.
Quite the contrary. Instead of going to work
and running your own business, you do your best
to starve, club or shoot that workingman back
into your shop to run it for you.
So far, Mr. Union-Hater, you have had pretty
fair success in making workingmen run your busi-
ness for you in your own way. But there will
come a day. You don't believe it? Ask the
ghosts of ten thousand tyrants of ten thousand
years that are past.
If a man wants to run his business in his own
way, the first necessary thing for him to do is to
go to some place where there are no other men —
that means the desert. Then he can indeed run
his business in his own way. He can do every-
thing just as he likes. No one will interfere with
him. No troublesome union workingmen will ask
higher wages or shorter hours. Nor will they
boycott his product for lack of the label.
Only the isolated man can — or should — have a
business of his own. Only the solitary man can —
or should — run his business in his own way.
Mr. Union-Hater, one of these days the work-
ingmen who run your business will cease to ask
you for better wages or shorter hours, or any of
these things that trouble you so.
70 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
One of these days men who run your business
FOR YOU will discover that if they can run it
FOR YOU they can ran it FOR THEMSELVES.
Then, instead of asking you for more wages, they
will ask you for the business.
Better still, they may TAKE IT WITHOUT
THE ASKING.
"I propose to run my own business in my own
way."
Such a man should go to the desert — and run it.
The Free American Working-
man and His Sacred Right
to Work*
ME. FREE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN,
you hear a great deal from time to time
about your "sacred right to work." The
talk generally comes from the learned editors of
our great papers and from eminent judges of our
Supreme Courts. You hear most of this talk about
your precious "right to work" when you are on
strike and refuse to work.
Mr. Free American Workingman, did you ever
stop to think for half a minute even about your
"right to work."
Let us be personal and speak plainly.
The writer of this is a printer, a typesetter.
He is one of those fellows who is supposed to be a
"free American workingman," and like you to be
in possession of that precious treasure, the "right
to work."
But though a printer, he does not own a print-
ing office, or a typesetting machine, or a printing
* From a leaflet written for Local New York sev-
eral years ago.
72 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
press, or any of the machinery or tools essential
in the printing industry.
Now, if this man is to work at the printing
trade, he must have the tools of the trade to work
with. You can say that he has the "right to
work" as a printer, and you can call him a "free
American workingman," hut how can he exercise
his "right to work" when he has nothing with
which to work? Where does his "freedom" come in?
His "freedom" consists in this — if he does not
work, he will starve, unless he can break into jail.
And his "right to work" consists in this — he has
a "right to work" IF some one will hire him to
work.
This printer, being a free man in a free coun-
try, is free to work or not, just as he pleases. But
if he pleases not to work, he must live without
eating, or go to jail to get fed.
So you see, Mr. Free American Workingman,
you have no freedom NOT to work. Work you
must have in order to live.
But you are not the owner of the things neces-
sary to work with. You do not own mines, mills,
factories, foundries, railways, land, machinery or
tools — you own none of the things which a man
must have in order to work.
Where, then, is YOUR "right to work"?
Why, bless you, you have a sacred "right to
FKEE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN 73
work" for anybody who will hire you. And the
only people who can and will hire you to work for
them are the people who do own mines, mills, fac-
tories, foundries, railroads, workshops, land, ma-
chinery and tools — the people who own the things
which a man must have to work with.
So, you see, YOU are neither a "free American
workingman/' nor have you the "right to work."
First you have got to work or starve, and sec-
ond you have got to work for another man on his
terms — a negro chattel slave had the same freedom
to work or starve, and the same sacred "right to
work" for another man on the other man's terms,
that you free, sovereign American workingmen are
possessed of.
When you hear learned editors and eminent ju-
rists talking ahout the "free American working-
man" and his sacred "right to work," what do you
suppose they mean?
Do you think they mean that you are free to
work or not? or that you really have a "right to
work" as you will?
Certainly not. By a "free" American working-
man" they mean a man who is free to starve if he
cannot get employment, and by the sacred "right
to work" they mean a man's sacred right to be a
scab and take your job when you go out on strike
for better pay.
74 FIGHT FOE YOUR LIFE!
The only people in "free" America who have a
"right to work" are the fellows who own the mines,
mills, factories, foundries, railroads, workshops,
land, tools and machinery of production — they
have the "right to work," but they don't have to
work because you have to work for them, and do
your own work and theirs also — and for payment
you get enough to enable you to live (or exist)
and bring enough children into the world to take
up your task and do your work for them when you
are dead and gone.
Now, Mr. Free American Workingman, you
have one advantage that the chattel slave never
.had — though he was always sure of a job, which
is something you are never sure of. But you
have in 'your hands a weapon with which you can
free yourself from your slavery. You white and
black wage slaves of the present day have the bal-
lot in your hand, and each one of you can cast a
vote as large and which will count as much as
your master's — and there are many of you and
your masters are -few.* We Socialists want all of
you workingmen to get into a workingman's polit-
ical party, capture the political power, enact such
* Since the leaflet was written many changes in
the laws have deprived both white and black working-
men of the franchise. If the great questions of to-day
are to be settled by the ballot workingmen should
hasten to make use of it.
FREE AMERICAN WORKINGMAN 75
laws as will make the mines, mills, factories, foun-
dries, workshops, land, railways, tools and machin-
ery for the production of wealth your collective
property — and then, when you workingmen are the
owners of the things with which you work, then
you will be "free American workingmen," then
you will indeed have a "right to work," and
NEVER BEFORE.
$1,318-$6,194-$120,000,000,000
LEGRAND POWERS, for years chief statis-
tician of the United States Census Bureau,
is the author of an article on the wealth
of the United States in the "American Journal
of Sociology" (September, 1908), published by
Chicago (Rockefeller) University.
Mr. Powers considers official statements of the
property value of the country, and declares they
are too small, giving facts and figures in detail for
his opinion. The official Federal statement of the
property values of the United States for 1890 was
$65,000,000,000; for 1900 it was $88,000,000,000,
and for 1904 it was $107,104,211,917. It will be
recalled that Senator Burrows in his address as
temporary chairman of the National Republican
Convention at Chicago, in 1908, declared the value
of our national wealth to be $108,000,000,000.
Mr. Powers proves these figures too low, and
states that the national wealth at the present time
(1908) is certainly not less than $117,000,000,000,
and is probably as much as $120,000,000,000.
Taking $120,000,000,000 as the correct figure,
and dividing that sum by the population of the
United States at the present time (according to
$1,318— $6,194— $120,000,000,000 77
the most reliable estimates) and we have $1,318
as the wealth of the country per capita. That is
to say, if it could all be divided evenly and an
equal share given to every inhabitant, there would
be $1,318 for every man, woman and child. There
would be $1,318 for the baby born last night.
According to the census of 1900, the average
size of families in the United States was 4.7 per-
sons in each family. On that basis, if our nation-
al wealth was distributed equally among all the
different families, there would be $6,194 for each
household.
The wealth is here, Mr. Free American Work-
ingman— to the extent of $120,000,000,000. Your
labor produced it. But it isn't yours. The wealth
that your labor produced belongs to your landlord,
it belongs to your employer, it belongs to the bond-
holders and stockholders of the United States — in
short, to the capitalist class.
Your labor, Mr. Free American Workingman,
has given the country in which you work a value
of $120,000,000,000— which belongs not to you
who labor, but to those who do not labor. How
does it come to be theirs? You must find the
answer to that question, Mr. Free American
Workingman. Your liberty and your life depend
78 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
on your being able to answer that question correctly.
Mr. Free American Workingman, the wealth of
this country belongs to the capitalist class through
the power of the government — the political power.
The capitalists maintain their economic power
through their political power. The capitalists get
their political power through your vote, Mr. Free
American Workingman. Take a look about you.
Can't you see that the capitalists will vote for
Republicans and Democrats? Doesn't Edward
Henry Harriman say that he does not care which
is elected? Whether the Republicans or Demo-
crats win, Harriman, the Railroad King, is sat-
isfied. Can't you see, Mr. Free American Work-
ingman, that Standard Oil has subsidized both
parties? Whether the Republicans win or the
Democrats win, John Davidson Rockefeller, the
Oil King, is satisfied. He owns wealth to a value
of more than a billion dollars, and he owns the
Republican and Democratic parties.
When United States Senator Julius Casar Bur-
rows (and other great men in the Republican
party) talks about our national wealth of more
than $108,000,000,000 he does not mean your
wealth, Mr. Free American Workingman, nor
mine. Senator Burrows says our wealth, but he
means his wealth — and Rockefeller's wealth and
the wealth of the capitalist class.
$1,318— $6,194— $120,000,000,000 79
Just as it was your labor that produced all that
$120,000,000,000 of wealth, Mr. Free American
Workingman, so it was your vote that gave it to
Kockefeller, Burrows and the capitalist class.
Just as your vote has given it to them in the past,
so your vote can give it to yourself in the future.
The capitalists get the country's wealth through
their economic power, they keep it through their
political power. You, Mr. Free American Work-
ingman, hy an intelligent use of your vote, can take
the capitalist's political power away from him and
get it for yourself. Then you can use your polit-
ical power to take the capitalist's economic power
from him, and get that power yourself. Then you
will be a free man. Never before. But, Mr.
Free American Workingman, you will never take
the political power from the capitalist by voting
his ticket. If you want the political power for
yourself you must vote your own ticket.
Every vote for a Eepublican and every vote for
a Democrat, Mr. Free American Workingman, is
a vote that your family shall have less than $6,194,
it is a vote that you, and your wife, and your child
shall have less than $1,318 of the $120,000,000,000
produced by your labor.
Every vote for a Eepublican and every vote for
a Democrat, Mr. Free American Workingman, is a
vote that Kockefeller, Eogers, Morgan, Baer, Van
80
Cleave, Comer, Peabody, Gooding, the slave-
drivers, the dividend-lovers, the union-haters, the
rent-lord, the money-lord, and the factory lord, the
capitalists who do no work, shall have more of the
$120,000,000,000 that was produced by your labor.
A vote for the Socialist Party, Mr. Free Amer-
ican Workingman, is a vote for yourself. It is a
vote for better days for your wife and your child.
A vote for the Socialist ticket, Mr. Free American
Workingman, is a vote that you shall have more
of the $120,000,000,000 produced by your labor.
Socialist Convention Speech*
IOMRADES: It is well that Socialists
should hold their convention on Memorial
Day.
Not only every battlefield,, but shops and mills
and mines the world over, have been sanctified
with the blood of the working class. From the
bondage of the Jews in Egypt, kneading their
blood into the clay and making bricks without
straw, and for centuries before that time; from
the days of the 300,000 workingmen slaughtered
with Spartacus; from the 6,000 rebellious work-
ingmen crucified on the Appian Way in Borne;
from the 33,000 workingmen and women and chik
dren shot down like mad dogs in Paris within the
lifetime of many of us here; and recalling in
America our Pullman, our Homestead, our Coeur
d'Alenes, our Brooklyn and our Colorado, it is
indeed fitting that a party of the working class
should observe Memorial Day.
Every year in the railroad industry in the United
States a larger number of men are killed and
wounded than the entire list of killed and wounded
* Address before the New York City Convention,
May 30, 1905.
82 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
on both sides at the battle of Gettysburg, the
most bloody conflict of the Civil War. Every
year in this glorious United States, and in these
piping times of peace, we kill a larger number of
men in our mining and iron and building indus-
tries than went to their death in yesterday's battle
of the sea.* And nearly all of those sunk or
slaughtered thousands were men of the working
class, leaving workingmen's wives to be widows
and workingmen's children orphans.
But our Christian civilization is not content to
make war on men. It drives the women to the
factory and the children to the mill, robbing them
of health and life.
This is Memorial Day, comrades. There is not
a hill on earth that has not beetf some working-
man's Calvary. There is not a clod on this old
ball that has not been wet with a workingman's
blood.
Nor do our masters propose to stop in their
slaughter of our class. They propose to make of
this world an industrial penitentiary, wherein you
and I must work while they hold the keys and keep
the product of our industry. Workingmen, look
at these crimson banners, and remember that "the
bluest blood is putrid, but the people's blood is
* Battle of the Sea of Japan, Russian-Japanese War,
in which the Russian fleet was destroyed or captured.
SOCIALIST CONVENTION SPEECH 83
red." Consecrate yourselves anew to the task of
liberating mankind from this last and worst form
of slavery — the slavery of the working class to the
capitalist class.
You are here to-day to nominate a city ticket,
adopt a city platform, and make plans for the
prosecution of our city campaign. Capitalism is
hell, and New York is its capital city. Nearly
four million people live within its municipal
boundaries — a larger number than the entire thir-
teen colonies which rebelled against Great Britain
and won the War of the Revolution.
Last year our party polled 24,536 votes in this
city. Not a large army, you may say. But large
enough, fighting for the right, fighting in harmony
with economic progress, to fight our Bunker Hill,
which we may lose as the Colonists did, and later
to fight our Saratoga and our Yorktown, which
we shall win as the Colonists did.
From time to time we meet those who declare
they are "going our way," and in proof of their
sincerity they ask us to drop our work for the
Co-operative Commonwealth and join our forces
to theirs that we may get something "right now/'
Most of the people who think this way are entirely
honest, but most of their spokesmen are entirely
dishonest. They are not "going our way" or they
would join our movement. And they profess
84 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
friendship for us only that they may bestow upon
us the kiss of Judas and betray us.
We Social Democrats* desire the working class
to get something "right now" as earnestly as any-
body. We desire the immediate municipalization
of our street railways, gas and electric lights and
many other things, and we know that the quickest
way to get these things is to strike with our bal-
lots at the very heart of the capitalist system — to
strike at the right of private property in the means
of production.
Many of those who declare that they are "going
our way" not only are not going our way, but say
they are for the sole purpose of thwarting the labor
movement in its incidental and ultimate purposes.
They are for reform solely because Socialism
threatens revolution, and if they could sidetrack
the Socialist movement they then would not grant
even a measure of reform.
So-called reformers promise remedial measures
in order to MAINTAIN CAPITALISM. We
Socialists desire such measures that the working
class may gain strength to OVERTHROW CAP-
ITALISM.
In your deliberations here to-day do your best
not to make mistakes, but if errors there must be,
* In 1905 the present Socialist Party in New York
was officially known as the Social Democratic Party.
SOCIALIST CONVENTION SPEECH 85
then make sure that they are on the side of making
our movement more rigidly a working-class move-
ment— then in the long run they will not prove
to be errors.
Our party welcomes honest men from all walks
of life, intellectuals, professionals, men of the
middle class, even capitalists, if they are willing
to cast their lot with us and work for an emanci-
pated humanity. But the first duty, the last duty,
and the only duty of the Social Democratic Party
is to safeguard and to promote the interests of the
working class. No matter who joins our move-
ment from other classes, they are of NO AVAIL,
except as they can enlighten and inspire the work-
ing-class itself. And in so far as we can arouse
the working class to a knowledge of and action in
their own interest ALL THE EEST OF THE
WORLD SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST
THEM.
It is true that the Social Democratic Party
wants votes — but not votes for the votes' sake.
Back of every vote we want a man, with a stal-
wart arm to do, a heart that dares to do, and a
mind that knows what to do.
The Working Class! To awake, instruct and
inspire and organize that class is your whole duty.
Debs
DEBS. Big. Big body. Big brain. Great
heart. Lion heart. Indomitable courage.
Unconquerable love of his fellowman.
Spirit and Voice and Heart of the Working Class.
Spirit of Freedom. Voice of Progress and Revolu-
tion. Heart of Love. An eye that sees. A brain
that comprehends. Intelligent. Educated. Grad-
uated from the common school of the Class Strug-
gle. Given his Bachelor's Degree by President
George M. Pullman and the Federal Army. Given
his Doctor's Degree by Judges Wood and Gross-
cup after post-graduate work in the University of
Woodstock Jail. Ever since enshrined in the
hearts of the Working Class. Debs. Always in
the front rank of the battle. A sword arm that
has never been lowered. Debs and the Working
Class. Bearing their cross and wearing their
crown of thorns. Debs. Face to the light. Often
mistaken for a day. Losing the path in the dark-
ness. Back in the highroad with the first ray of
dawn. Always face to the light. Often licked.
Never defeated. Often knocked down. Never
knocked out. Debs. For the Working Class of
the World. In season and out of season. In jail
DEBS 87
and out of jail. Debs. Heart that beats for the
Working Class. Eyes that see for the Working
Class. Head that plans for the Working Class.
Hands that build for the Working Class. Arms
that fight for the Working Class. That is Debs.
Heart of the Lion Debs.
Our "Impartial" Judiciary*
THERE are beautiful and lovable but child-
like spirits in the labor movement who,
with admirable courage, but almost incon-
ceivable folly, suffer under the belief that William
D. Haywood and George A. Pettibone had fair
trials before a stern but impartial and disin-
terested judge. Such persons should read the re-
marks made by the Hon. Judge Fremont Wood in
passing sentence of death upon Mr. Harry Or-
chard— after reading the words of Judge Wood,
one is tempted to say the Hon. Mr. Harry Or-
chard.
Orchard, having been convicted of murder in
the first degree on his plea of guilty thereto,
Idaho's statutes require that he be sentenced to
death, which Judge Wood did. At the same time
the Court recommended in the strongest terms
that the Idaho State Board of Pardons remit the
death penalty. For its recommendation that
mercy be extended to Orchard the Court gave two
reasons (not to call them excuses).
One was that Orchard should not be executed
by the State of Idaho because his testimony might
be wanted in the courts of Colorado, should that
Milwaukee Social Democratic Herald, April, 1908.
OUR "IMPARTIAL" JUDICIARY 89
State make further efforts to convict members or
officials of the Western Federation of Miners of
the crimes charged against them by the powers
that be in Colorado and in the Mine Owners'
Association.
A further reason given by the Hon. Judge Wood
why the Hon. Harry Orchard should not pay the
statute penalty for the honorable murders to which
the right honorable gentleman, the prisoner at the
bar, had made most honorable confession, was that
his testimony before the juries which tried Hay-
wood and Pettibone was TRUE. In other words,
Judge Wood declares that Moyer, Haywood and
Pettibone are guilty of a series of murders most
foul.
In a State whose every judicial and executive
official was an economic and political enemy, the
prosecution (read persecution, with murderous
purpose), having indicted and charged him with
the most infamous crimes, was unable to find
enough evidence on which to call Charles H.
Moyer to trial.
But Hon. Judge Wood, who would gladly have
presided at such trial (0 impartial Judge!), says
Charles H. Moyer is guilty.
In a State whose every judicial and executive
official was an economic and political enemy, with
thousands upon thousands of dirty dollars at their
90 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
disposal, with scores of dirty detectives proud of
the dirty work they had already done, and anxious
to do more (for more dollars), the prosecution
brought Haywood and Pettibone to trial before
two different juries.
Neither jury was fair.
Neither jury was disinterested.
On each jury were men who declared they were
prejudiced against the defendant.
Yet an unfair and prejudiced jury did not find
Haywood guilty.
An unfair and prejudiced jury did not find Pet-
tibone guilty.
Neither did either of those juries fail to agree
upon a verdict.
Out of twenty-four men on those juries, not one
was willing to hold out and insist on his belief in
the guilt of the defendant, even to the extent of
causing a disagreement of the jury.
Twelve men on Haywood's jury declared him
"Not Guilty."
Twelve men on Pettibone's jury declared him
"Not Guilty."
Now comes Hon. Judge Wood, who presided at
the trial of each of these men ; Hon. Judge Wood,
who heard the jury in each of these cases declare
the defendant "Not Guilty" ; that same Mr. Fre-
mont Wood who as Judge is supposed to be and is
OUR "IMPARTIAL" JUDICIARY 91
under oath to be impartial and disinterested — that
Hon. Judge Wood, asking mercy for the self-con-
fessed murderer of nearly a score of men, declares
to the world that Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone
are guilty of all the crimes Orchard charged
against them.
The juries that tried Haywood and Pettibone
did not require the prosecution to prove their
guilt. They were tried by prejudiced juries —
juries that required them to prove their innocence.
They did prove their innocence. Those juries de-
clared they were "Not Guilty."
Mindless of the evidence, regardless of the ver-
dicts of acquittal, reckless of his judicial position,
Hon. Judge Wood, pleading in behalf of Hon.
Harry Orchard, declares that Moyer, Haywood
and Pettibone, who have been acquitted, are guilty
of a long procession of foul and deadly crimes.
Learned Judge.
Impartial Judge.
Upright Judge.
Roosevelt, chief executive of the nation, practi-
cally pronounced these men guilty before trial!
Hon. Wood, presiding magistrate at their trial,
declares them guilty AFTER ACQUITTAL!
Governor McDonald of Colorado and Governor
Gooding of Idaho, the chief magistrates of two
States, and eight out of nine Justices of the Su-
92 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
preme Court of the United States, declared that
stealing men and taking them from the State of
their residence without an opportunity to appeal
to the courts was legal and due process of law.
Workingmen of America, what think you of the
courts of your masters ? What of your chances of
justice when you find yourselves involved in them ?
How would you like to be tried before a judge
who, on the word of a murderer and a monster,
declared men guilty after a jury had declared they
were not guilty?
When an owner and master charged a slave with
an offense, the slave had already been found guilty,
because his master was his judge.
So, American workingmen, when capitalists
charge you with crime, you have already been
judged and found guilty without trial because
you workingmen are compelled to plead in the
capitalists' court — your employer's court, your
master's court.
In those rare cases where, notwithstanding a
class-prejudiced judge, the workingman can wrest
a verdict of acquittal from a jury of his enemies,
thereby saving his neck from the hangman's noose,
the capitalists' judge on the bench will proceed to
gibbet his character and declare him "Guilty," de-
spite a verdict of "Not Guilty."
As to Hon. Judge Wood's desire to save Hon.
OUR "IMPARTIAL" JUDICIARY 93
Harry Orchard from the gallows, no Socialist will
complain. We do not believe in capital punish-
ment, and the life even of an Orchard is sacred.
But because we would not execute a murderer it
does not follow that we would not restrain him
from the commission of further murders. In this
case, however, there is good reason to believe that
one of the strongest motives for saving Orchard
from paying the death penalty for his murderous
crimes is that he may commit still further mur-
ders— using the courts of so-called justice for his
purpose, bearing false witness therein against in-
nocent men, to the end that those innocent men
may swing from a scaffold for crimes which they
did not commit, but which were planned and exe-
cuted by Orchard and his defenders.
Workingmen of America, you have to destroy
capitalism or capitalism will destroy .you.
Since the above was published, Steve Adams, an-
other member of the Western Federation of Miners,
was again tried and acquitted. Also, there have Deen
numerous court decisions handed down against organ-
ized labor. It is pitiful to see workingmen looking
for justice in the courts of their employers, it is true
that sometimes (at long intervals) a court renders a
decision seemingly in the interest of the workingman.
But careful study will generally show either that the
decision is on a law that is unimportant or that it
will not be enforced.
His Dignified Nobs*
FEEE workman, tread softly. Look solemn.
Wear a reverent aspect. Think inwardly,
and outwardly appear subservient, abject.
We approach the holy of holies. We are at the
threshold of a court of justice!
Great men, who get paid for it, will tell you
that this is the bulwark and the citadel of Your
liberties. Whatever else is wrong in this land of
the free, the courts are pure, unimpeachable — so
They say, the great ones of the earth. Some
things in this country may not be exactly right
(it is too hard and harsh to say that they are
wrong); but there is one thing in which All can
have, must have, and do have, confidence — Our
judiciary. Let no sacrilegious hand touch the
bench.
There is the Suprtme Court. That is the Su-
preme Justice— not the Supreme Being — but the
Supreme Justice of this Supreme Court.
Look well at him. Note his dignity. Also his
* First Printed in New York Worker, Sept, 8, 1901.
HIS DIGNIFIED NOBS 95
dyspepsia. See how great he is; how wonderful
it is that such a man is not a thousand feet high.
How can so much greatness be contained in so
sm*,ll a compass? Again, note his dignity, and
hii gown. Let a feeling of awe come over you.
Compared with him, think what a mere nothing
you are in this world. Again and again, note his
dignity, and never forget that his dignified nobs
has a nose — a little purple, mayhap, but a real
hose, nevertheless. Wonderful being.
What a great man is he.
Some farmer had to plow the land, sow the
teed, harvest the wheat; some miller grind the
wheat into flour; some baker make the flour into
bread; some boy deliver the bread at the house;
some maid servant put the bread on the table —
and then the judge will eat; with dignity. Some
miner will dig the coal; engineers, brakemen, con-
ductors will transport the coal, a man servant will
put the coal in the stove and make a fire — and
the judge will be warmed, with dignity. The
rag-picker will send his rags to the paper mill,
where they will be made into paper; the printer
will set the type; the pressman will take the type
from the printer, the paper from the papermaker,
the press from the machinist and print words on
the blank paper, which binders will make into a
book — and the judge will sit by His fire in His
96 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
upholstered chair, reading His book, taking His
toast and tea and drinking His wine, all with due
dignity.
And you people who made the puppet bow
down.
Shall creators worship their creation ?
Note the wisdom of his nibs. You people who
made him have taken pains enough with him;
you have not spared expense. On inspection of
the job, or rather the job-lot, what do you think
of it?
Don't you see that in this day of shams the
judge is the worst sham of the lot? Do you
imagine he is there to do justice? Not so. He
is there, now as aforetime, to Pretend to do jus-
tice, but in reality to give you workingmen all the
worst of it. All his learning is used, not to en-
lighten the cause or parties to a controversy, but
to make you workingmen think you are getting a
"fair show." You get nothing of the kind. You
get learned phrases from his nibs, and the capi-
talist gets the decision.
Do you imagine you workingmen are not com-
petent to sit on the bench? When you go into
court what do you most desire — a throw-down
ornamented with the choicest literary finish, or a
decision that you win? You want a decision, of
course, and when you elect men whose interests
HIS DIGNIFIED NOBS 97
are your interests, you will get a decision in your
favor — not before. Obey the laws and the de-
cisions of the judges, of course ; but as to respect-
ing them — phew, they stink!
Your Uncle is Dead*
AFTER an existence (it could not be called
a "life") of ninety years, after having
"made" ninety million dollars, Russell
Sage is dead. Dead and buried in a steel coffin
and in a steel vault, equipped with electric burglar
alarms and other devices to safeguard his withered
body from the attempts of those who might have
designs upon it. Of course, no one wants his
body for its own sake. But there are those who
would like to steal it and use it as a means to
extort from his widow a ransom for its return.
Sage on his own account has passed the point
of arousing acute human interest. Not so the
ninety million dollars he has left behind. They
are very interesting to the widow and to all those
who for any reason "have hopes."
The old man left to charity — nothing. It is
said that the widow will give to charity. Twenty-
six nieces and nephews are to get $25,000 each.
This is to be denied them if they make any effort
to "break the will."
There are those who harshly criticize the old
*Rrst published in New York Worker, August
4, 1906.
YOUE UNCLE IS DEAD 99
man because he made no bequests to schools, col-
leges, hospitals, or other regular objects of ortho-
dox charity. The criticism is undeserved. Pro-
vided he work no injury to another, the question
is not what a man DOES with, his money.
The real question is, HOW DID HE GET IT ?
How did Kussell Sage get his ninety millions?
That is the question to be asked after his death,
and it is the question that should have been
asked, and answered, while he was alive.
When a boy, Sage worked in a grocery store for
his board and $12 a month. It is clearly to be
seen that he never got ninety millions in that
way. Later he had his wages raised, and received
the sum of $4 a week and board. But even his
long "life" of ninety years was not long enough
to get ninety millions in that way, even for a man
as "industrious" and "thrifty" as Eussell Sage.
Where and how did he get it? He became a
horse trader, but sharp as he was, Sage never got
ninety millions trading horses. He went to Con-
gress, but that was many years ago, before the
days of the immense corporations of the present,
and while he had a wonderful eye for the main
chance, Sage never could have got ninety millions
in Congress — though in our present day there be
those (Senator Bailey, for instance) who may
crowd the ninety-million-dollar mark if they can
100 FIGHT FOE YOUR LIFE !
remain in Congress till they are as old as Sage at
his death.
Where and how did he get it?
Mr. Workingman, Mr. Sage "got" his ninety
millions hy robbing you. A man may become
the possessor of wealth in one of three ways — it
may be given him, he may steal it, or he may
labor and produce it. Away back in those days of
$12 a month Sage labored and produced wealth.
That was these many years agone. He only began
to get wealth of consequence when he left the
grocery store and took to the robbers' highway
of high finance.
He "invested" his means. He shaved notes.
He sold money. He became the owner of rail-
ways— and robbed the men whose labor produced
and operated them. When he shaved notes and
sold money "on the Street" he robbed a robber
who had already robbed a wealth producer — a
worker.
When he became the OWNER of street cars
and railways he became the MASTER of the men
who were FORCED to work on those roads. We
say FORCED to work on those roads.
FORCED to work for Russell Sage as long as
he lived — and he lived a long time. And now
that he is dead there is to be no change. They
will still be FORCED to work on the same old
YOUE UNCLE IS DEAD 101
roads. It is of no consequence whether the widow
becomes the owner, or the twenty-six nephews and
nieces become the owners. No difference will it
make if his railways are given to charity and the
best possible of benevolent societies becomes the
owner. Still those men whose labor constructed
and operates them will be FOKCED to work there,
and while they work there they will be robbed.
Why don't those workers quit ?
If they quit they'll starve — that's why.
Why do they submit to work under conditions
where they are robbed?
Because there are thousands of other men who
are starving because they have no chance to work
and be robbed — that's why.
When an old chattel slave owner died his will
sometimes freed his slaves. No will of the owner
of wage slaves can do that. When he dies his
property goes to another — and that other by
owning that property becomes the master of its
slaves. The serf sticks to the soil, the wage-slave
sticks to the job. Who owns the means of pro-
duction owns the workers who use them.
What can be done? One thing, and only one
thing. Take the railways and all other means for
the production of wealth and make them the col-
lective property of all the people. That would be
bad for the Kussell Sages. To be sure. But it
102 FIGHT FOB YOUR LIFE!
would be good for the thousands of wage slaves
whose robbery enriched him, and out of whose
poverty was coined his ninety million dollars.
I. Where Are We?*
SEE where we are to-day.
When darkness comes to-night, you strike
a match ; and in striking that match you pay
tribute in the form of profit to Morgan and Uould
and Rockefeller and the Match Trust.
The next thing you do is to wind up your little
alarm clock, so that you will be sure to get up
bright and early to-morrow morning and not be
late to work and get docked; and when you wind
up that alarm clock you pay tribute in the form
of profit to Morgan and the Ansonia or Ingersoll
Clock Trust.
Well, morning comes. Your wife, if you have
the luxury of such companionship, gets up a half
hour earlier than you to prepare breakfast.
If she lights a coal fire, every moment that it
burns you pay tribute in the form of profit to
Morgan and Baer and the Coal Trust. Should
she light an oil or gas fire, every moment that it
burns you pay tribute in the form of profit to
Morgan and Rockefeller and the Oil or Gas
Trust.
* From lecture, "Socialism the Hope of the World,"
1903.
104 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
Next the wife will place a little tin pot on the
stove, and you will pay tribute to Morgan and
the Tin Plate Trust.
She places a little coffee in the little pot, and
you pay tribute in the form of profit to Morgan
and Arbuckle and the Coffee Trust ; or, if she puts
tea in the pot, you pay tribute in the form of
profit to Sir Tommy Lipton and the Tea Trust.
And before drinking that trust tea or trust
coffee made in the little trust pot, you put a lit-
tle sugar in, and for that sweetening you pay
tribute in the form of profit to Morgan and Have-
meyer and the Sugar Trust.
Well, likely as not, that drink of trust tea or
coffee will make you sick. If so, you send for a
trust physician. He comes, gives you a prescrip-
tion (for a consideration), you send it to the
drug store to be filled, and when you pay for that
prescription yoi1 pay tribute in the form of profit
to Morgan and Park, Davis & Co., or to Morgan
and the Potter Drug & Chemical Trust.
Then it is easily possible that that dose of
Trust medicine may kill you. If it does, your
body will probably be placed in a coffin made by
some casket company which Mr. Morgan owns.
But it does not stop there. When your relatives,
if they have money enough, go to buy you a grave
they will no doubt discover that Mr. Morgan is
WHEEE AEE WE? 105
interested in more than one cemetery, and you
who have lived all your life working for Morgan
will be placed in Morgan's coffin and buried in
Morgan's cemetery.
Nor does it stop even there. After you are
dead and buried, let us hope that your enfran-
chised spirit will go up and look for admission
through the pearly gates; but if so, I very much
fear that old St. Peter will meet you there, reach
forth his hand, and ask you for a letter of recom-
mendation from J. Pierpont Morgan before you
can enter Heaven.
And even this may not be the worst. Possibly
you may have been a very wicked man, and failed
to do penance for your sins, and instead of going
up above you may go down below, in which case
I feel confident you will find that Hell is all Mor-
gan's— and I'm not sorry for it.
I can, however, with safety venture the predic-
tion that before Morgan is in Hell for ninety
days he will organize a Trust down there, and
freeze the Devil off his own fire.
See where we are to-day.
This illustration is not extreme.
Mr. Morgan is a director or trustee in scores
of different corporations and he holds stocks in
hundreds of others, while as a bondholder and
banker he has an interest (often a controlling one)
106 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE!
in yet other scores and hundreds. I want you to
see by this illustration that neither you nor your
wife can spend a nickel, a dime, or a dollar with-
out paying tribute in the form of profit to this
trust, that trust and the other trust, and while
these corporations may be separate legal entities,
they are all owned or controlled by practically the
same little group of men, with a master captain of
industry and finance working his will with each.
This, however, is but one side, and the bright-
est side, of the picture.
Not only must you spend your wages with Mor-
gan, but if you work on a railway you must work
for Morgan and Vanderbilt and Gould; if you
work at coal mining, you must work for Morgan
and Baer; if you work in the oil or gas industry,
you must work for Morgan and Rockefeller; if
you work in the iron or steel industry, you work
for Morgan and Carnegie; if you work in cop-
per or the precious metals, you work for Morgan
and Rockefeller and Clark and Heinze.
In my illustration to-day I have pointed out
how you are exploited by monopoly in spending
your money.
You have only been robbed of what you had.
You can scarcely believe me when I tell you
that this robbery that you see so plainly is of lit-
tle real importance.
WHERE ARE WE? 107
The GREAT robbing of the working class is
accomplished by taking from them what they
haven't got.
It, no doubt, seems strange to you, Mr. Work-
ingman, to be told that c, penniless, propertyless,
naked man can be robbed, and that the robbers can
get rich off the spoils of him. But it is true. It
can be done. It is done.
What's more, it's the payingest kind of robbery
that ever was.
And the safest — so far.
How's the game worked?
To know that you must read the next story,
"How to Rob a Man Who Is Broke."
II. How to Rob a Man Who
Is Broke
HOW to rob a man who is broke.
How to coin wealth out of penury.
How to get riches out of paupers.
These things are not impossible, nor even diffi-
cult. They are not even rare. They are every-
day occurrences. They are habit, custom. They
are almost the universal rule. So common they
do not excite comment in themselves. It is the
correct statement of them that is unusual.
Ordinarily they appear in the form of "busi-
ness," "finance," "industry/' "commerce," and the
like, and are regarded as quite the thing, and
quite the right thing as a matter of course.
How to rob a man who is broke.
Captain Kidd, Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin and
Jesse James were able men and truly great rob-
bers. But that trick was beyond their powers.
Their notion of robbery was, first of all, to find
a man who had the coin. With all their craft and
courage, they never were equal to the task of get-
ting wealth from a man who had no wealth.
That is the "business" of the modern Captains
of Industry. And so rich are their rewards that
HOW TO EOB A MAN 109
the old knights of the road, chevaliers de 1'in-
dustrie, safe-crackers., counterfeiters and pirates of
the past would ache in their graves could they but
dream of the capitalist's swag.
How to rob a man who is broke.
A man who is broke in time becomes hungry,
and must eat or perish. He possibly has five
courses open to him — he can beg, borrow, steal,
work or starve.
If he is caught begging, he is thrown into jail ;
besides, he won't get much, anyway; regardless of
Supreme Courts, and the Mendicants' Merger,
there are beggars in plenty, and plenty of compe-
tition between them.
If the man who is broke and hungry is caught
stealing, he is thrown into jail; besides, stealing
isn't what it used to be; Eockefeller will soon
have most everything worth stealing. Over in a
New Jersey town three men worked hard all night
cracking a safe and got — twelve cents. Needless
to remark that Mr. Eockefeller was not one of the
three men. Mr. Eockefeller does not work nights.
Besides, he knows that sooner or later he'll get
the twelve cents, anyway.
A man who is broke and hungry can borrow all
he wants — on good security.
A man who is broke and hungry can starve —
but he must not be caught at it in New York
110 FIGHT FOE YOUR LIFE !
State. Suicide may or may not be a sin, but the
statutes of the Empire State make it a crime pun-
ishable by imprisonment.
How to rob a man who is broke.
There is just one door of hope that may or
may not be open to the man who is broke —
work.
There is nothing bad about work. It's the very
thing, not only for the man who is broke, but for
every man who would eat. "In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat bread/' And if you eat bread
and do not work, then you eat it in the sweat of
some other man's face. Work, by all means, for
the penniless man.
But to work, a man must have land to stand on.
He must have unfinished or raw material to work
upon. He must have tools, means of production,
to work with. Our man who is broke has none
of these things — if he had he would not be broke.
Without these things he cannot live except in the
asylum or the jail.
How to rob a man who is broke.
To save himself from death, asylum or jail, the
man who is broke must have work. To work he
must have means of production.
Who OWNS the means of production?
The capitalist. The captain of industry.
Who USES the means of production ?
HOW TO ROB A MAN 111
Workingmen.
So at last our man who is broke stands, hat in
hand, face to face with the man who owns the
means of production. The fear of the prison, the
asylum and starvation have driven that penniless
man along the path which led to the employment
office of that owner of the means of production
with a force as irresistible as that which drives the
earth onward in its orbit. To be at all, he must
be there. To continue to be, he must gain access
to the means of production.
How to rob a man who is broke.
There stand face to face what legal fiction calls
two free men. One free man the OWNER of the
means of production, with money in his purse and
money in the bank, with a comfortable and luxuri-
ous home, and in no hurry. The other free man
homeless, penniless, hungry, his only chance of
life dependent on his USE of the other's means of
production. These two men do not dicker, and
argue and haggle. The man who is broke does not
propose to buy or rent means of production. The
FREE contract between these FREE men takes
the form of one man hiring the other to work for
him — by the day, week or month.
Suppose that our man who is broke if allowed
to use the means of production can create new
value equal to $10 in a day's work, how much will
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
his wages be if the OWNER of the means of pro-
duction employs him ?
Suppose that our man who is broke can create
$20 of new value by a day's work, how much will
his wages be ?
Suppose he creates $40 by his day's work, how
much will his wages be?
You might not think it, but his wages will be
about the same whether his labor produces wealth
to the value of $10 a day, $20 a day, or $40 a day.
What will his wages be?
Given a man who is broke, given a FREE
laborer, who must have work or perish, what will
he work for? What must he work for?
He will work for a wage sufficient to sustain life.
That is all the FREE Captain of Industry will
offer, and that the FREE laborer must take or
perish.
Every day that he storks for wages he must pro-
duce wealth of a value GREATER than his wages
— otherwise he is discharged.
The only purpose of the OWNER of the means
of production is to have workmen USE his means
of production, have their labor create a value
GREATER than their wages, and himself pocket
the DIFFERENCE between the value of the
wealth their labor creates and the portion of that
value returned to them in the form of wages.
HOW TO EOB A MAN 113
That DIFFEKENCE the Captain of Industry
calls PEOFIT.
To the man who knows that Labor of brain
and brawn produces all wealth, it is easily to be
seen that what a politician or a confidence man
calls "graft," what a gambler calls "velvet," what
a thief calls "swag," that is what a capitalist calls
"PROFIT." It is simply something for nothing.
Wealth without equivalent. That is all Jesse
James got, that is all Cassie Chadwick wanted,
that is all the Captain of Industry is after.
That PROFIT for the capitalists of the United
States amounts to fully 100 per cent, on the
amount they pay in wages, probably much more.
In other words, for every dollar in value that the
workman creates for the Captain of Industry, Mr.
Captain gets 50 cents in profit and Mr. FREE
Workman gets 50 cents.
How to rob a man who is broke.
Simply OWN" as your private property the
means of production he must USE or perish.
Not only can you rob him, but you can do BO
with SAFETY.
You need not even go out and look for him.
Sit in your office and he will come to you as
cattle to the salt lick, and beg you to rob him.
And you shall wax mighty, and great, and be
honored among men, and be very stiff-necked and
114 FIGHT FOE YOUR LIFE !
hold your head very high, for a time — just about
the time you are able to do that gracefully, per-
haps some kind friends will come your way and
stretch your neck a little, and raise your head just
one little notch higher, just a little notch, but just
enough.
But no. All that is of the past. Nothing like
that ever to be again.
Nothing ever to be again except this continued
story of robbing the man who is broke — just that
to-day, and to-morrow, and forever and ever.
Nothing ever to be in all time except robbing him
and his wife and children, and his children's chil-
dren and their children — unless —
Unless that man and his brothers learn that Labor
of brain and brawn produces ALL wealth, and also
learn that when those who USE the means of pro-
duction OWN the means of production the product
of Labor will be theirs.
How shall the WORKERS become OWNERS
of the means of production ?
The Grand Army
IN 1892 for the first time the Socialists of the
United States entered national politics.
They nominated Simon Wing for President
and Charles H. Matchett for Vice-President, and
their ticket received 21,512 votes. Sixteen years
later, in 1908, Eugene V. Debs and Ben Han-
ford, Socialist candidates for President and Vice-
President, received 420,464 votes. IN" -SIXTEEN
YEARS THE SOCIALIST VOTE IN THE
UNITED STATES HAS BEEN INCREASED
NINETEENFOLD.
More than four hundred and twenty thousand
men voted the Socialist ticket in 1908. We all
expected there would he more. In the heat of
the battle we forgot how great was the cause for
which the battle was fought. In looking for a
million votes we forgot how much it takes to
make a Socialist voter. We thought a million
Socialists meant a million Socialist voters.
But there is a Grand Army of 420,464 Socialist
voters in the United States.
Four hundred and twenty thousand voters who
are unafraid of Big Stick Roosevelt. Who are
unawed by Big Injunction Bill Taft. Who are
116 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
unswayed by Big Wind Billy Bryan. Who are
undeceived by Big Bunco Billy Hearst. Who
are unmoved by Big Bluffs or Big Humbugs.
Truly, a Grand Army, if this world ever saw one.
More than four hundred and twenty thousand
voters in the United States who cannot be fooled
by Big Booze, Big Booze Fighters, or Big Water
Wagons. More than four hundred and twenty
thousand voters who cannot be enslaved by the
Big Superstitions of the Big Stiffs under the
graveyard's sod, or the more dead Big Stuffs who
officer our great universities. Four hundred and
twenty thousand voters who cannot be humbugged
by the Big Lies of the Big Dailies. Who can-
not be bribed by Big Boodle, nor be bought by
Big Business. Who cannot be cowed by the Big
Bullies of the army, nor the Big Bludgeons of
the police.
Four hundred and twenty thousand men who
stand erect and beard the Big Beast Capitalism
in his own domain. Truly, a Grand Army, if
this world has ever seen one.
FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOU-
SAND SOCIALIST VOTERS. And that is less
than half the story of the Grand Army. For more
than six hundred thousand others would have
voted the Socialist ticket had not capitalist laws
deprived them of the ballot. Few of the two
THE GRAND AEMY 117
million men employed in the building trades and
by the railroads are allowed to vote. The rail-
way men cannot leave their work to go to the
polls on election day. The men of the building
and several other trades are always on the move
— "following the job." They are unable to ac-
quire a "voting residence." Then, millions of
black workingmen are disfranchised and millions
of their white brothers along with them through-
out the South. Still other millions of the work-
ers are shut off from the exercise of all electoral
rights by poll tax and other property qualifica-
tions. When I say the number of men in the
United States who desired to vote the Socialist
ticket, but were prevented by unfair election laws,
is two hundred thousand greater than the number
who did vote the Socialist ticket, I am well with-
in the mark. That means that the Grand Army
of Socialist men in this country numbers 420,464
voters, to which must be added more than 600,000
others who were legally robbed of the ballot. So
the real Grand Army numbers a million men at
this moment — not a man less than ONE MIL-
LION. Truly, a Grand Army, if this world is
ever to see one.
To this Grand Army of a million Socialists, half
of whom voted the Socialist ticket and half of
whom would have voted the Socialist ticket had
118 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
they been allowed to vote at all, must be added
not less than one million men who to-day are
Socialists in every way but one. They have a
fair understanding of Socialism, they believe in
it and they agree with it. But they have not yet
learned Socialist party tactics — they expect to "get
something now/' or live in the hope of getting
"half a loaf." This million of men who to-day are
Socialists, but do not vote the Socialist ticket, con-
stitute the first reserve of the Grand Army. Every
day sees more and more of them enlightened, and
as their hopes of better things from the old parties
are doomed to disappointment, they will of neces-
sity see the correctness of the Socialist party
tactics and vote the Socialist ticket.
Some of these Socialists who are not Socialist
voters can get their education only in the painful
school of experience. Their lessons may come in
the form of a strike or lock-out, or injunction.
Some will learn in the school of hard times. The
red flag of the sheriff's auctioneer will teach some
— sad to say. Or it may be that the Big Stick,
the militia or the police are to be their teachers.
Others will learn from hearing a Socialist speech
or reading a Socialist leaflet or book. But in any
event their ultimate destination is the Socialist
party.
To sum up, the present apparent strength of
THE GRAND ARMY 119
the Socialist movement in the United States may
be stated as follows:
Socialist voters 420,464
Socialists, but disfranchised 600,000
Socialists, but do not vote the Social-
ist ticket 1,000,000
Socialist women. . ?
Total 2,020,464
This is a very conservative statement of the
Socialist strength. Unquestionably it is greater,
rather than less. It is difficult to make an esti-
mate of the strength of Socialism among women.
But it is considerable, and it is growing rapidly.
Notwithstanding this army of Socialists and
Socialist voters, we did not elect a single Con-
gressman. But we will — and that soon. Nor
have we elected Socialists to the Legislature in
any State except Wisconsin, nor to the Alder-
manic chambers of any city of size except Mil-
waukee. But we will — and that soon. The
growth of the Socialist Party is certain, and
small gains will see Socialists in Congress, So-
cialists in the Legislatures of many States, and
in the city halls of many municipalities. Not only
will the near future see Socialists in our legisla-
tive bodies, but they will shortly be found in
120 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
executive and judicial positions as well — judges,
mayors of cities and governors of states.
To-day two million men in the United States
are Socialists. They constitute the Grand Army.
It is not an army of murder, rapine and destruc-
tion. It is a Grand Army of peace and progress,
of enlightenment and brotherhood. It is an army
that grows with every hour of the day. It is an
army that has never known defeat and never will.
It is an army that with the certainty of the rising
and setting of the sun shall march with resistless
force from one victory to another till every man,
woman and child on earth shall be free.
Truly, a Grand Army, if this world ever is to
see one.
Do you belong to that Grand Army, reader?
If not, why not?
No man has ever been drafted into this army.
But volunteers are always wanted.
Better enlist, reader.
Fight for Your Life !
YOU Wage-Workers.
You who must be Wage-Workers.
You who cannot live except as Wage-
Workers.
Have you gotten anything from reading the fore-
going pages? Have you learned Why you are
Wage-Workers ? And Why you must continue to
be Wage- Workers ?
To live you must have Food, Clothing, Shelter.
You Wage- Workers differ from the Wage- Payers
chiefly in this — you have no property. You Wage-
Workers have just enough of the necessaries of life
to last from hour to hour, from day to day — from
pay day to pay day.
You Wage- Workers can only get Food, Clothing
and Shelter by paying money for them. And you
can only get money by getting Wages. In order
to get Wages you must get a job.
So, you see, it stands this way with you : —
Job means Wages;
Wages means Money;
Money means Food, Clothing, and Shelter;
122 FIGHT FOR YOUK LIFE !
Food, Clothing., and Shelter mean Life.
So, you see, your
JOB IS YOUR LIFE.
Not always do you have a job. Then you have
unfit food, unsanitary shelter, insufficient clothing
— or none. Sometimes when you have a job it is
at such low wages that you are unable to supply
yourself and family with proper Food, Clothing
and Shelter. Of course, you know some Wage-
Workers who get good wages — sufficient to supply
themselves with everything needful. But, if you
will look around carefully, you will find that for
every Wage- Worker who gets what you call good
wages there are many who get poor wages, and
some who are getting no wages — the pitiful starv-
ing army of the Unemployed.
Pe it good or bad, a job of some kind you must
have, for Your Job Is Your Life.
How do you get that job, my fellow Wage-
Worker?
YoU get it from the Capitalists.
You get it from the men who own the means of
production.
You get it from the men who own the mines,
mills, railways, stores, factories, lands, buildings,
tools, machinery and workshops.
Your Job Is Your Life, my fellow Wage-
Worker, and Your Job Is Owned by the Capitalist.
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE! 123
That means that Your Life Is Owned by the
Capitalist.
The man who owns your means of life owns you.
You Wage- Workers cannot live without a job.
The Capitalist owns your job. Your Job Is Your
Life, and in owning your job the Capitalist Owns
You, fellow Wage- Workers.
Wage- Workers !
Would you Fight for Your Life?
Would you ?
Fight the Capitalists to make Yourselves Owners
of Your Jobs.
Fight the Capitalists to make Yourselves Owners
of the Means of Life.
Fight the Capitalists to make Yourselves Own-
ers of the Means Necessary to Supply Yourselves
and Families with Food, Clothing and Shelter.
Wage- Workers !
You must fight the Capitalist Class and lick
them.
Your life depends on the outcome of the battle.
Fight for Your Life!
When I say you Wage-Workers must fight the
Capitalist I do not mean that you are to gouge
his eye out. Or that you are to knock his block
off. Nor do I mean that you are to organize a
dynamite club. Nor shoulder a musket. Nor join
the militia.
124 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
No.
All those are Capitalist methods of battle.
I want you Wage- Workers to fight the Capitalist
by more intelligent — and more powerful — methods.
The Capitalist has his power over you, the Capi-
talist owns you, the Capitalist owns your life be-
cause he owns the tilings necessary to your life.
The Capitalist owns the things necessary to your
life, Wage-Workers, because the laws of property
allow him to do so.
In the United States, you Wage- Workers with
the ballot can change the laws.
You Wage- Workers can so change the laws of
the United States that a Capitalist can no more
have private property in a street railway than he
can in a street.
You Wage- Workers can so change the laws of
the United States that a Capitalist can no more
have private property in land than he can have
private property in air.
You Wage- Workers can so change the laws of
the United States that a Capitalist can no more
have private property in a mill, mine, store or fac-
tory than he can have private property in a public
school or the post office or the fire department.-
Fight for Your Life!
Wage- Workers !
You are not to take mine, mill, railway and fao-
FIGHT FOE YOUE LIFE ! 125
tory from the Capitalist as his private property
and make them your private property. You are
to take them from the Capitalist and make them
the common property of all the people — that in-
cludes you, and that includes the Capitalist. But
neither you nor the Capitalist will be private own-
ers of those things.
Fight for Your Life !
Wage- Workers ! You must make this fight, and
you must win this fight, or you will live and die a
slave. Not only your freedom, but your very life,
depend on the outcome of this battle.
Fight for Your Life!
How?
What is the most effective method by which you
can make this Fight for Your Life ?
Wage- Workers ! Join the Socialist Party. Eead
Socialist books and papers to inform yourself.
Then instruct your fellow Wage- Workers, and get
them to read Socialist books and papers and to
join the Socialist Party. It is the only way.
Fight for Your Life!
Not only join the Socialist Party. Join the
trade or labor union of your craft. If you already
belong to a union get all your fellow workers to
join your union; help in the fight for better pay
and shorter hours. The Socialist Party carries on
the fight to abolish the wage system, to overthrow
126 FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE !
the slave system, and make the workers the owners
of the things with which they work.
Join the Socialist Party, and work for a world
of free men and free women among free men and
free women.
Fight for Your Life!
Slow work, think you ?
In 1892 the Socialists of the United States nom-
inated a Presidential ticket and entered the field
of national politics for the first time. Their can-
didate received 20,512 votes. Sixteen years later,
in 1908, the Socialist Party candidate for Presi-
dent received 420,464 voes.
Slow work? What would you call fast work?
Fight for Your Life!
Wage- Workers, join this great movement for the
emancipation of you and I and every human being
on the face of this earth.
Join now. Share the burdens of the battle and
share the glory of the victory.
Fight for Your Life!
FIGHT FOR YOUE LIFE !
' , Header, if this little book has helped you
to see the light, and if you think it might
lie of service in helping your fellows to help them-
selves, see that they have a copy. There are
others, and will be more. Do something in this
world besides getting something to eat and drink.
An animal gets that. Have a Cause. Make sac-
rifices for the Cause you think greatest and best.
And be your Sacrifices never so great, the Cause
will do more for you than all that you can ever
do for it.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
Due Two Weeks fTom Date of
JAN 0 5
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