Michael Schwab spoke in German. He said that the gap between the rich and the poor was growing wider and wider. The poor were being ground to the earth, and that was why Socialism had arisen. The wealthy had intelligence because they possessed the money wherewith to educate their children, while the poor man's children had to rely on the public schools for their education, where they had time to learn little else than to read and write. The theorists might suggest a remedy, but the poor man had to labor too long hours to have the requisite time left in which he might educate himself. He alluded to the tyranny of Russia, that endeavored to crush out revolt against its oppression by hanging all it could and consigning those whom it could not hang to Siberia, and still the nihilists continued to grow. He lauden Reinsdorff, who was recently executed in Germany. He spoke of him as a martyr to their cause. He was murdered by the authorities, but his death was avenged by the killing of Rumpff, of Frankfort, who had been so instrumental in attempts at crushing out Socialism. It was no wonder that Socialism should prosper when people learned how cruel capital was. When a man had grown gray and decrepit in the service

of a manufacturing capitalist, he was driven out to starve, with his family. Murder was forced on many through misery and want produced by the tyranny of capital. So far as freedom in this country was concerned, here in Illinois it was unknown. Both political parties were corrupt and rotten; so from them the workingmen could expect nothing. What was needed here was a bloody revolution, which would right their wrongs.

August Spies spoke in German. He advised the workingmen to revolt at once. He had been accused of having given this advice before. That was true and he was proud of it. The wage slavery could only be abolished through powder and ball. That which had been stolen from them could only be restored to the workingmen by force, and now was the time to bring about the reform. He denied that any reform could be secured through the medium of the ballot. If the ballot had been of benefit to the workingmen, neither Napoleon or Bismarck would ever have tolerated the right of suffrage to the masses. The ballot was a game of cards, in which a cold deck was rung in on the innocent voter by the capitalistic class. He was simply a deluded dupe of the murderer and robber. The ballot was a humbug and a fraud, so far as accomplishing reforms for the workingmen was concerned. The ballot was so used as to perpetuate capitalistic tyranny and

robbery. He alluded to the tyranny of capital as shown in the Hocking Valley and at South Bend, where he charged that men were robbed and compelled to starve en masse, and when they demurred were shot down like dogs. There was nothing worse in history than the wrongs perpetrated on labor in the Hocking Valley. The political parties would give them nothing. Their officer seekers and office holders were all rotten and corrupt. They should no longer believe in their bosses, and bring about the reform by force. They should inform themselves and bring about the emancipation of the wage-slaves.

August Spies offered the following resolution, which was adopted:

Whereas, our comrades in Germany have slain one of the dirtiest dogs of his Majesty Lehmann, the greatest disgrace of the present time -- namely, the spy Rumpff,

Resolved, that we rejoice over and applaud this noble and heroic act.