"What I want of you is a pledge that you will stand by me to put out of existence the deadly foes of this country. I want you to swear that you will not flinch when the moment comes for you to fight, even to the death.
"Are any of you unwilling to swear that you would fight the foes of our country to the bitter end?"
No one speaks. The excited condition of the speaker impresses the men strangely. They do not know just how to take him.
"I shall at the next meeting name forty men, each of whom has been an enemy of the United States; each of whom has seen the growth of his private fortune built upon the ruin of homes; each of whom has opposed every measure for the alleviation of the condition of the masses of the people.
"Many of them are known to you as offenders of national notoriety. You have mentioned them in your recital of grievances.
"You all know of the bloody history of the Czar of the Lakes, Anthony Marcus. The graves of the murdered sailors and longshoremen are a sufficient indictment against him.
"Need I tell you of the horrors that have been daily perpetrated by the ruthless oil magnate, Savage, in my own State of Pennsylvania?
"Is the right to check competition by the use of the torch to be conceded to him? Is murder for the sake of commercial advantage to be sanctioned as our national policy?
"The ancients were never so free or so powerful as when their citizens exercised the right to proscribe unworthy citizens.
"Let us constitute this meeting into a forum and issue our list of the proscribed. When the list is read I shall be glad to substitute others for the names I have selected.