The deaths of the leading financiers and manufacturers throughout the country have made a panic inevitable. If to this is added rioting, the country will be plunged into a state of veritable anarchy. Why should not Wilkes-Barre be the centre of this national movement for a peaceable solution of the question of the rights of labor? One clear note of confidence sounded amid the general babel may serve as the signal for rational action.
Reasoning thus, he determines to make a grand effort to convert the crowd to moderation.
As he passed through the larger cities on his way to the town he heard that the people of Wilkes-Barre were up in arms. The militia have been ordered out and will arrive at any moment. The Coal and Iron Police are crossing the mountain and will show no mercy to the miners. If they find the people engaged in mischief, the story of past massacres will be repeated.
"Come with me," says Trueman to his lieutenants. They move quickly up the steps to the piazza of the magnate's palace.
Here Trueman turns to the crowd.
The cheering and shouting has been kept up during the two or three minutes that he has been resting. The people have again massed themselves about the grounds surrounding the house.
"Speech! speech!" they cry.
Trueman raises his hands before his face and lowers them in a sign for silence. The buzz of the thousands is instantly hushed. In a clear full voice that increases in volume as he proceeds, he begins his never-to-be-forgotten oration.
"Women and men of Wilkes-Barre:
"That you are; testified in claiming the body of the man who sacrificed his life that you might live as freemen in this land of equal rights none can deny; that you should be moved to seek revenge upon the body of the man who has of all men been the most intolerant, tyrannical and merciless to you and the hundreds whom death has claimed, during the past twenty years, is nothing more than human.