"In this hour of need the duty of the Peoples Party is clear and plain.

"Quick as the lightning's flash will bear the message, must go forth that the Peoples Party recognize the gravity of the situation, and by common impulse aligns itself to the side of the toiler in the shop and mine, and on the railroads; their battle is our battle, because it is a struggle for liberty and the right to exist—a peaceable contest on the part of toil against the combined armies of greed and force.

"The farmer knows the means best calculated to help his brother in this conflict. The railroads intend to run their trains under military guard and expect American citizen to patronize public means of traffic, operated under military despotism. The Peoples Party of Cook county, in common with organized labor demand immediate arbitration, and urges immediate action on the part of our national committee to the end that all organizations in sympathy with labor be united in common cause against a common enemy.

Signed:
T. O'Brien, Chairman,
H. Hawley, Sec'y.
H. S. Taylor,
Henry Vincent,
John Bagley,
D. M. Fielwiler,
John Schwartz,
C. G. Dixon,
J. P. Grimes,
Committee."

CHAPTER XIII.

AN OFFER OF SETTLEMENT.

Senator Pfeffer, of Kansas, arraigned congress for its defence of monopolies, and its stand against the people. Senator Kyle, of Dakota, also charged congress with being in collusion with the railroads, but Senator Davis, of Minnesota, on the other hand, denounced Debs and the strikers. He said the strike grew from a strike to a boycott, from boycott to riot, from riot to insurrection, that the acts, if committed on the high seas, would be piracy and punishable by death. He spoke of the injustice being done the farmers of the United States, and how they were effected by the strike in Chicago. He urged that it was time some action should be taken to put down the rising tide of anarchy. He held that a nuisance should be abated and that Debs was a nuisance.

Senator Gordon, of Georgia, and Senator Daniels, of Virginia, followed in the same kind of demagoguery as Davis.