“Another of the proposals emanating from the hireling counsels of the Trusts, is that the methods of the Trusts be placed under the searchlight of publicity.  A pretty programme, indeed, were it not for the fact that the very men who propose this method of dealing with monopolies would be engaged by the Magnates to defend them from exposure.

“To invoke the aid of the courts is to be brought face to face with the servants of the Trusts.  Where is the Attorney-General who can successfully prosecute a Trust?  The only one who was ever sincere in his attempt met an insurmountable barrier in the courts before which he arraigned the guilty.

“And the votes of the people, do they avail?

“The executives and legislators whom they elect are false to their pledges.

“The great sin of this country is the worship of gold.  Human life is held as secondary to the dollar.

“Who then shall deliver the people from the bondage that has come upon them?

“Unguided, they are as a flock of sheep without a shepherd.  False prophets, mercenary leaders, are an abomination.  They have been and are to this day, the clogs in the wheels of progress.

“The work of rejuvenation must be done by an intrepid few.  It cannot be entrusted to visionary men, to fanatics, to men who detest government of any form or to men who are willing to suffer present ills rather than face temporary discomfiture.

“To carry on a crusade one must surrender self.

“If our plan did not embrace more than the annihilation of forty of the Transgressors it would not be raised to a higher plane than wholesale homicide.

“But we are to follow the course which the Plutocrats have traversed.  They have destroyed individual liberty; they have entrenched themselves in our halls of legislature by bribery; our executives are their puppets; our courts are their final buttress.  To reclaim the rights of the people we must reach the powers in control; the actual men who engineer the scheme of public loot.  These men have sacrificed human lives to attain their ascendency.  We must demand, we must enforce an atonement.

“Because we are to deal with the chief transgressors, who represent a small number, our deed will be regarded in the light of murder.

“Were the magnates in the field as an open foe our assault upon them would be hailed as an act of heroism.  Shall we be deterred by consideration of a difference in mere words?

“I propose to vindicate these so-called murders, which we are to commit.  The atonement will be frightful.  Will it be more so than the conditions which necessitate it?

“Are the lives of forty soulless men to be compared with those of thousands who are yearly sacrificed to sordid commercialism?

“Are we to extend our commerce at the price of a life for every dollar of foreign trade?

“Men prospered in this country before the reign of the Trust Magnates; men grew rich through ordinate profits, and the prosperity of the country was the prosperity of all.  To-day men seek to enrich themselves by preying on the necessities of their fellowmen.