“Either of these would be a prey to the long lapse of time.

“You may choose as a monument, a mound that shall endure as long as the world rolls through space; you may convert those piles of brick and iron on the further side of the river into a mass of ruins; you may set the indignant torch to this fine line of palaces.

“Whatever you do you may be sure that your example will be the signal for your fellow workmen throughout the land.”

“Burn down the breakers!” cries a thousand voices.

“Those breakers as they stand to-day are fit only to be destroyed,” continues Trueman.

“They have consumed a pound of human flesh for every ton of coal that fed them.  They have afforded money to a few Plutocrats, with which to satisfy the rapacious desires of greed; they have been the source of revenue that made these palaces possible.  Those breakers have given you in return for your long days of toil, only enough to keep life in your bodies; they have bound you to this spot with fetters stronger than those of steel.  If you should flee from this bondage you would find starvation awaiting you on the roads.”

These sentences have an electrical effect upon the audience.  The passive temperaments of the men and women are being quickened.

“Should you destroy the breakers and furnaces, and these homes of your oppressors, your own losses would outweigh those of the millionaires.

“Yet your acts would be justifiable.

“Do not move till I have delivered the message I bear.

“I come to you with tidings that will make the blood in your veins flow faster in a delirium of joy.

“I come to tell you that your fellow workmen in every state in this Republic are to-day emancipated, even as you yourselves have been.  The sword has been wrested from the hands of tyrants, and has been placed in the hands of the people.

“The centuries that have come and gone since Christianity was first preached have seen the sword turned upon the humble, the meek, the worthy.  Now it is to be turned upon the craven few who have fattened at the expense of the many.

“At the very hour when Melz sent Gorman Purdy to his doom, avenging angels, disguised as men, were abroad in our land weeding out the seed of iniquity.

“In San Diego, California, Senator Warwick was killed by the hand of a man who, when he had rid the earth of the most avaricious man who ever worked a mine, completed the chapter by taking his own life.

“Henceforth men will not slave in the mines of California or elsewhere for the sole benefit of misers.  The miner will enjoy the fruits of his labor.  He will make significant the words ’The laborer is worthy of his hire.’

“In St. Louis at the same hour, the owner of the grain elevators, in which is stored the crops of the great plains, there to be kept until the needs of the people shall place an exorbitant price upon every bushel, was smothered to death in the hold of one of his own ships.  With him died the martyr who had succeeded in bringing a just retribution upon the head of an insatiate oppressor.