"My fellow-countrymen, this is indeed a great day.
"The full story cannot be told you at a single meeting.
"Know that you are once again free men, not in name only, but in reality; that your children will never suffer the degradation through which you have passed.
"The story of your deliverance you will soon know in its entirety.
To-night I can only give you a summary."
"Tell us all! Tell us everything!" thunder the astonished masses. They forget Metz and Purdy in the presence of this greater news.
"I have only just learned the true facts of this remarkable movement. The representatives of the people who met in Chicago six months ago to formulate plans for the protection of labor, found that little could be accomplished against the combined wealth of the Trusts.
"A permanent committee of forty was elected to carry out the purposes of the convention. For several weeks the committee occupied itself in routine work. Its sub-committees reported that they could make no headway.
"Then at one of the meetings a committeeman named Nevins proposed that inasmuch as the committee had to deal with a wily and unscrupulous foe, it constitute itself into a secret body.
"At the first secret meeting he submitted the plan which was carried into effect to-day.
"It required that every one of the forty men should pledge himself to rid the world of one of its chief tyrants. He proved to the satisfaction of the men that by so doing they would be securing the blessings of liberty and happiness to mankind.