PARSONS REFUSES EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY.
“The lovers of justice and fair play are assiduously engaged in an effort to thwart the consummation of judicial murder by a commutation of sentence to prison. I speak for myself alone when I say that for this I thank them and appreciate their efforts. But I am an innocent man. I have violated no law; I have committed no offense against any one’s rights. I am simply the victim of the malice of those whose anger has been aroused by the growth, strength and independence of the labor organizations of America. I am a sacrifice to those who say: ‘These men may be innocent. No matter. They are anarchists. We must hang them anyway.’
“My counsel informs me that every effort will be made to take this case before the highest tribunal in the land, and that there is strong hope of a hearing there. But I am also reliably informed that from three to five years will elapse before the Supreme Court of the United States can hear and adjudge the case.
“Since surrendering myself to the authorities, I have been locked up in close confinement twenty-one hours out of every twenty-four for six days, and from Saturday afternoon till Monday morning (thirty-eight hours) each week in a noisome cell, without a ray of sunlight or a breath of pure air. To be compelled to bear this for five or even three years would be to suffer a lingering death, and it is only a matter of serious consideration with me whether I ought to accept the verdict as it stands rather than die by inches under such conditions. I am prepared to die. I am ready, if needs be, to lay down my life for my rights and the rights of my fellow men. But I object to being killed on false and unproved accusations. Therefore I cannot countenance or accept the efforts of those who would endeavor to procure a commutation of my sentence to an imprisonment in the penitentiary. Neither do I approve of any further appeals to the courts of law. I believe them to be all alike—agency of the privileged classes to perpetuate their power, to oppress and plunder the toiling masses. As between capital and its legal rights, and labor and its legal rights, the courts of law must side with the capitalistic class. To appeal to them is in vain. It is the appeal of the wage slave to his capitalistic master for liberty. The answer is curses, blows, imprisonment, and death.
“If I had never been an anarchist before, my experience with courts and the laws of the governing class would make an anarchist of me now. What is anarchy? It is a state of society without any central or governing power. Upon this subject the court, in its affirmation of the death sentence, defines the object of the International Working Peoples’ Association as follows:
“‘It is designed to bring about a social revolution. Social revolution means the destruction of the right of private ownership of property, or of the right of the individual to own property. It means of the bringing about of a state of society in which all property should be held in common.’