It is the laboring millions that produce, with their brains, sweat and muscle, all the wealth that society enjoys. Yet we life in a strange civilization in which all those who produce that wealth continually life on the verge of want and poverty, while those who toil not, neither do they spin, revel in elegance and luxury past language to describe. This wealth is extracted from those who produce it by the most heartless methods, the results of which is indelibly stamped on our civilization by a whole calendar of crimes of every conceivable kind.
A class of people have come into existence who not only recognize the on indisputable fact that “Labor creates all wealth” but also go farther by stating another fact just as indisputable, “That all wealth belongs to those who produce it.” These two simple yet axiomatic truths, once recognized by society at large, are so revolutionary that it would create a new foundation upon which only can the highest ideals of humanity ever be realized.
The people, calling the attention of their fellow mortals to these self evident truths are called socialists.
The whole network of our present civilization is so arranged as to cover up or obscure these truths. To this end, multitudes of politicians, lawyers, preachers, professors, and newspapers are employed directly or indirectly to obscure the real truth and substitute a lot of hocus pocus philosophy, theology, pretense, cunning, and sophistry to keep humanity from learning the natural and wholesome truth.
Nature has a way of balancing her books that has nothing to do with man made laws, nor pries made theology. In the last analysis her dictum is supreme. When things reach extremes, the immutable laws of the universe start the pendulum going the other way; in our social affairs, as well as in the material realm. And the material is always found to do the work. Nature always has abundant material to do her work whether in the cosmos or among humanity.
The socialists are working in line with natural law, in consequence of which we hold the keys of the future.
The capitalists realizing that the socialists are right, and that they have the mental light which is capable of showing the rotten and putrefying condition of capitalistic society, seek by and every means at their command to keep the socialists from spreading the truth about things so that the capitalist class can continue to disgorge and rob earths toiling millions out of their natural heritage.
Instead of using the shotgun themselves to carry on the robbery, a collection of individuals known as police squads, pinkerton thugs, militias, armies and navies.
The only system that requires such an array of murderers is a system founded upon robbery of the most brazen and high-handed nature.
The thunders of thew hierarchy and judiciary were hurled at Galileo in his day; but the world was round, and went around just the same.
The free-booters of our present civilization, with their lackeys and parasites, may hurl anathemas at the socialists try to cut off free speech to keep their mouths closed; give arbitrary authority to political pets to censor the truth from going through the post office; use the policeman’s club to knock out the best brains of the nation; use pinkerton thugs to murder the best manhood, but all such contemptible methods as concentrated and conscienceless capitalism alone can use, will be found to be of no avail. This rotten decaying system cannot be bolstered up. Nature has decreed a new heaven and a new earth, and a reign of social justice wherein mankind shall enjoy an equivalent for the full fruits of their labor.
I have drawn the above prelude to show the motives which are actuating political intrigue from Washington to Ishpeming. And to show in local affairs the reasons why scurrilous and lying articles appear in such papers as the Mining Journal; why such people as Rutledge, Kaminen, Nieme, Skytta, Salstrom, et al. Use temperance and religion as a blanket or an excuse, while at the bottom they are but puppets and checkers in the hands of politicians, who in turn are but the representatives of our most workshipful steel trust.
These shrewd and cunning tools are used directly or indirectly to sophisticate, divide, and humbug the people out of their American freedom. These are the real anarchists, who have the brazen effrontery; lack of conscience; and overplus of gall to carry on such a program while talking patriotism, Stars, and Stripes, etc.
Before I went into public office I knew from observation on the outside that things were far from what they ought to be. I did not anticipate that they were nearly as bad as they really are.
By close scrutiny and untiring attention to detail, I have discovered the means by which these base scoundrels conspire together to fleece the public out of their rights. I have been so close upon the heels of these shysters that I have been in a position to divine their inner secrets and motives. Because of my knowledge of their tactics and constant exposure of their methods I have become an undesirable citizen, being constantly hounded by these hirelings on any and every pretext they could possible trump up. Their papers have thundered to the rankest falsehood, their politicians, even to the pulpit, have maligned and slandered without any foundation for such, except that I constantly refused to be controlled by them, or let them deceive the public if I could prevent it.
The inner circle of politicians, commonly called the machine, know full well that their program is not safe when such men as Roberts can’t speak in public, or write through the public press; so they try by every means to paint me before the public in the blackest hues; hoping thereby to raise such a wall of prejudice in the minds of the public as will be calculated to destroy any influence I may haven in enlightening the masses about the underhand methods by which they deceive the public, In this matter they are not altogether unsuccessful, as with their combined circulation and constant bickering, the public only hearing chiefly one side of the matter, and led to believe that side which is constantly prated in their ears. However I have been before this community since my early boyhood days with a clean record that stand me in good stead; and successful exposed the rottenness that exists in high places.
Saturday night June 6th was a meeting held in Kosky’s Hall which was said to be a peoples meeting. I attended this meeting because I knew there was a movement on foot by the inside circle to disrupt the Finnish Socialists. One object of socialism is to unite the working class of all nations, and so wherever the interest of the working class are involved the socialist can always be found.
There was a goodly gathering of about 400 people at the hall. I stood at the extreme rear of the hall, on chairs with some others, and very closely watched the proceedings of the meeting for about two hours.
It did not take very long for a close observer to see the real purpose of the meeting, The leaders, who are tools of the local machine to work the Finns into line, were the only ones who were allowed to do any talking. Many others tried to get the floor, but of no avail. In order to settle the dispute out the floor, the chairman finally consented to take down names in their order, and afterwards disregarded it, and went right along giving the privileges to the same special few who had occupied it all the time previously, and who were the cause of the dispute.
They made the pretense of talking about a picnic, but in a shorty time the picnic was lost sight of and all you could hear was socialism, anarchism, red flag, etc. The socialists were being betrayed by these hireling scoundrels, but the socialists were not allowed to have a work to say in their own defense. That is the argument of cowards and cut-throats, they know we speak the truth, so their only hope is in silencing us, and branding us with a log of bad names that belong to themselves.
On act of the meeting was sufficient to thoroughly convince me of the real purpose for which it was called; a vote was called for, with hands up, on the red flag and the American flag. I readily saw that that was a subtly laid scheme of the pinkertonians to pick out the socialists and thereby carry out the threat mentioned in the Mining Journal editorial of the last week.
A Finn shift boss from section 16 mine was one of the chief speakers of the evening, he occupied the floor five or six times, sometimes at considerable length. A great deal of the balance of the talking was done by the chairman himself; and strange to say that was the very man, who did his best to prevent me from speaking at a meeting to which the Finnish people had invited me.
After watching the procedure for some length of time, at last I grew weary and started for home. In the hallway I met a young Finn that I knew well and who spoke good English, so I asked hi about the nature of the meeting. He informed me that it was supposed to be a people’s meeting, but that he could not get top nor bottom of it. Of course I could readily see why he was so puzzled about the affair, the leaders had purposely done this to fool the people and to have some excuse to talk and work against the socialists. So what the meeting was called for, and what it turned out to be, did not jibe. It was rank hypocrisy.
I asked the young man that I met in hallway if it was an open meeting in which anyone had a right to talk, and he informed that it was; so I went back in the hall again, and waited for an opportunity to speak. There being quite a number of the younger Finnish people present who understood English, and who could in turn translate to the rest, I knew if I could obtain the floor for just a few minutes, I could expose the designs of those scheming pinkertons.
I advanced to the front to where there were some men standing and politely asked the chairman if this was a people’s meeting, or exclusively for Finns. The answer I got was, sit down; sit down. To which I replied I would if he could answer my question: at the same time stating that if it was a people’s meeting as I had heard it was, I would like to have an opportunity to speak for a few minutes, but, if it was an exclusively Finnish meeting I would gladly retire. Instead of letting the chairman answer the question, J. Parka Niemi, jumped to his feet from the audience, in an incendiary manner, and began a tirade of abuse against me. His insulting remarks and inflammatory manner brought the whole audience to their feel and some of Niemi’s type began to shout, “put him out” while some of the rest ran for an officer. I explained to officer Collins that there was no cause for alarm on my part as I had simply asked for an opportunity to speak in case that this was a people’s meeting, and that I had no intent to disturb the meeting if it was for Finns only. The man who was really the cause of the disturbance was J. Parka Niemi, who is a reporter here for a daily Finnish newspaper. This is the same man who was driven out of Ironwood because of the continual disturbances he made there. He is the man who, for months, has been circulating all kinds of lies about me through the columns of his paper/ The whole purpose of which is for political reasons; printing that stuff in a foreign language, in a mean and underhand way. That rot and lies had been circulating through their paper for some time before I found it out. I was finally informed about by a Finnish gentleman who has known be well for years, and told me it was sham that such lies were allowed to be circulated. That was about the time of the election so it is very easy to divine the purpose. It is bad enough to face an English press that is hired by the powers that be, and who have neither conscience not scruples about what they print as long as it has the political effect upon the minds of the people. But how to reach such puppets as Niemi and Salstrom who use their respective foreign, Swedish and Finnish press to libel respectable people for political purposes and stretch their purse strings, is really difficult to tell.
Such disturbance as there was at the meeting came entirely from the pinkertonian side of it. And was caused chiefly by the very same man who the Mining Journal so nicely and considerately said they had interviewed. They was the man who furnished and colored the information to suit their purposes. They are all parts of the Press Bureau that have sold themselves out body and soul to the steel trust.
At the meeting whole the socialists were flayed unmercifully, they were prevented from saying anything in their own defense. They flayed the socialists much on the same order as a bug brute might flog a helpless individual tied to a post; the moral plane would be about the same.
When I have sent articles to the Mining Journal that wee not particularly injurious to their game they would print them but then I sent in something that exposed the inner plottings they were refused. But when a slimy sleuth like Niemi comes along with a bunch of fabrications to blacken the eyes of Ex-Mayor Roberts, the columns are thrown wide open to him and their reportorial and editorial staff to help him.
Niemi has sworn vengeance on all socialists, and with the representatives of the steel trust behind him, he feels [big].
He knows that Roberts is a socialist with plenty of sand and conviction and a hard worker for the part, so it is readily seen why Niemi runs to the columns of the Mining Journal and with their assistance pours out the vials of their loving kindness upon him.
We thank them all however that in their efforts to falsify and malign, they have given us an opportunity to tell the truth, and expose to the public the real anarchists, those who are a festering sore in the body politic. Those who prostitute such brains and powers as they have, to sell their fellowmen into slavery, that is equally as galling to the intelligence of our present wage slaves as chattel slavery was to the black slaves of the south. In a comparatively short time however the trust regime will not have need for such an array of contemptible parasites as the dirty work will have been done, then they will be dumped out on the scrap pile with the rest of the useless machinery. The world is marching on to better things, and in the new civilization that is just slightly over the way, if we have a criminal class, they will be composed of just such as as we have enumerated above, but then when there will be no more need for such men, we will give them every opportunity to reform and go to work with the rest of humanity at an honorable occupation, And since the incentives to crime will have been removed by changing the basis of the system, no doubt we will be able to appeal very easily to their better instincts, and help them forget the sins that is in them instead of the very worst, as is the rule of our present civilization.
Capitalism with its own inherent weakness and rotten foundations is doomed, in, what, in history, may be termed the near future. No amount of pinkerton props, prostituted journalism, preaching parasites, or self made judiciary can save the tottering structure.
It is nature’s decree and not man’s, so get ready brother for the new era. Instead of setting yourself, in your blindness and stupidity against the forces of nature, study, read, and learn to cooperate with nature and your fellows, to make the birth as painless as possible. It is only the ignorant that try to stamp out socialism, whether they come out of our colleges or not. A great many ignoramuses are yearly tuned out of college. It is the studious and thinking man that understands the course of natural law.
The socialists are students of sociology, political economy and natural law, as a consequence we understand the futility of war, competition and reaction. We look upon the other fellow in his frenzy as one beating the air because of his ignorance. Every once in a whole these wind chasers jump on our toes and then your hear from us. Otherwise we are peacefully occupied in doing our best, by organization and education, to get the minds of the people ready for the inevitable change, and a better civilization.
In conclusion let me quote the works of Wagner, “Be men, speak the speech of honor.” An hour of plain dealing does more for the salvation of the world than years of duplicity.