Mr. Debs,—after being introduced by the chairman of the meeting, Mr. Adams,—was given three cheers with such a vim that the building fairly shook. He then advanced to the platform and said: "I see you have changed your quarters since I saw you before, and I am glad to say we have changed ours also.
"When Judge Wood delivered his ruling yesterday he declared it to be illegal for men to combine and strike.
"If that is the law, labor organizations had better disband at once. If we have no right to strike, no right to combine, no right to exercise the functions which are delegated to us, then we might as well give up and acknowledge that we are slaves.
"If that is the law we have no right to resist or defend ourselves against the injustice of employers.
"No matter how much has been said about the stars and stripes and the freedom of the workingman, if that is the final tribunal, corporate capital has the right to suck the life blood from the toiler who must make no sign. But I am not prepared to believe that this is in harmony with the constitution. If this is the constitution, then our liberty is gone. Mr. Erwin sounded the slogan yesterday when he declared that there is a higher power than the courts, a power greater than the aggregated combinations of capital and railroads. That is the inherent rights of workingmen to strike at the polls.
"What we want then is to rid ourselves of the old party shackles.
"We want to change the constitution so that even federal judges will be elected by the people. Then no judge will render a decision defying all law and justice. It is wonderful how sensitive the machinery of justice is to any complaint directed against the workingman.
"But how is it when corporations combine? Is it of record that any officials of any one of them has ever been in prison for violating the law?
"It is a notorious fact that the Santa Fe has robbed the people of $7,000,000 in the face of the interstate commerce law. Why not bring these colossal scoundrels to justice too? They say we must obey the law. I say we are law-abiding, and I defy any man to show a single instance where the heads of the labor organization have advocated violence. If the authorities want the law respected let them enforce it against the rich and poor alike.
"In July, 1892, when the switchmen struck, the soldiers were called out to suppress them. Deputy marshalls set fire to a lot of box cars in Buffalo, N. Y., and this furnished the railroads an excuse to call on the government for soldiers. The railroads are still violating the eight hour law for which the men struck. They arrested the switchmen while the corporations are still allowed to trample the law under foot.