Comments Elsewhere

“It shall never be forgotten that on the 11th of November, 1887, four men were hanged in Chicago because by spoken and written word they voiced their conviction that the wealth of this country is owned by a handful of non-producers and that the liberty of the republic is a mere sham. Their crime consisted in saying to the poor, You are being robbed and exploited, and telling the people that the republic is a refuge for a thousand big and small despots. They wrote and spoke the truth. But wherever the truth is spoken, the masters have ever been afraid that it would lead to Anarchy. That was the reason why they demanded the blood of our comrades. Had the Chicago martyrs conformed to patriotic convention, had they joined in hurrahing for our wonderful institutions, had they lied and exploited, they would still be alive and respected as model citizens. They might even be found worthy to be honored by President Wilson as Peace Commissioners to the Colorado mine regions, the Tsardom of the Rockefellers. “Hail to them that they did not join the chorus. Hail to us that in the dead of Waldheim we have forerunners who set us the example how rebels should live, struggle and die. Revolutionists are mortal, but immortal are liberty and revolution. These did not perish on the 11th of November on the gallows of Chicago. They march on, through this and other lands, towards their goal. “. . . Our Dead of Waldheim, we greet you as the torchbearers of indomitable revolutionary life force.” – M.B., “Black Friday of 1887,” in Mother Earth, Vol. IX. No. 9 (November 1914). 298-302. http://fair-use.org/mother-earth/1914/11/black-friday-of-1887