"Fraud will no longer seek for public office; avarice will no longer scheme to gain possession of the world's wealth for the satisfaction of inordinate desires; inhumanity will no longer vaunt itself in our mills, our mines, our fields, for to-day the edict has been sent to the world that death awaits those who shall again seek to enslave labor. There will be forty martyrs ready for another sacrifice. Who will dare to be their foe?
"Choose your leaders with care; see that they are sincere in their determination to work your will.
"When this is done the hovels you now live in will be supplanted by decent homes; the poor food you now eat will be kept for your swine; your children will grow up to manhood and womanhood without having had their minds and bodies stunted by premature toil.
"A Republic of universal happiness and comfort will be yours.
"Such a Republic will be a monument to endure for all time to the memory of Carl Metz and his thirty-nine co-workers, to the honor of yourselves and to the security to future generations of the liberty that this Republic will afford all men.
"Pick up the body of Metz, and I shall help you bury it. I leave the body of Purdy for whomsoever may be inclined to care for it.
"Men of Wilkes-Barre, again I tell you, to-day you have been delivered from serfdom. Act as men, not as brutes.
"Choose some one to be your leader and let him direct you until to each of you is given the opportunity to vote for the laws that you may desire.
"With blare of trumpet and with tap of drum
Barbaric nations pay to Mars his due,
When victory crowns their arms. To him they sue
For privilege to war, though Mercy's thumb
Bids them as victors, rather to be mum,
And show a noble spirit to the foe;
To vaunt not at their fellow-creature's woe:
O'er victory only doth the savage thrum!
They conquer twice who from excess abstain;
The gentle nation that is forced to war,
In triumph seeks to hide, and put afar
All vestiges of carnage, and restore
Peace in the land, that men may turn again
To worthy toil, as they were wont before.
"Labour is your heritage; return to it."