"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.