Bequest of
SAMUEL SIG1LMAN

Ettor and Giovannitti

Before the Jury

AT

Salem, Massachusetts

NOVEMBER 23, 1912




Price, 25 Cents



Published by

THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD,

307, 164 W. Washington St.,

CHJCAGO, ILL.


FEBRUARY 14, 1941



Industrial Unions
vs.
Trustified Trusts

is the line-up henceforth
in the CLASS WAR

Wage Workers* Organizations!

Are you prepared for the fray?

We are prepared to aid you in pub- lishing the aim, method and object of Industrial Unionism in your town — in your organization.
Speakers in Italian, German, Polish, Hungarian and other languages. Dates and terms upon application.

For full information write :

Industrial Union Agitation Bureau OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD
307, 164 West Washington St., CHICAGO, ILL.


Introduction

The trial of Ettor, Giovannitti and Caruso came to a close on November 26th, 1912, at Salem, Mass. This trial will go down in his- tory as one of the longest and most bitterly contested trials in the History of the Labor World. The acquittal of the three defend- ants marked another milestone in the prog- ress towards working-class emancipation.
Ettor and Giovannitti were arrested at Lawrence, Mass., in January, 1912, during the great Textile Strike. They were charged with being " accessories before the fact" to murder. It was held that they had inflamed the minds of the workers with inflammatory speeches to the point, that they, the workers, had rioted and killed Anna LoPizzi, a young Italian striker. Caruso was charged with being one of the principals. The real princi- pal, the State named as Scutio, was charged with having actually fired the shot that killed the girl. Scutio has never been apprehended and it is generally claimed among the strikers that no such person ever existed.
To make the charge of " accessory before the fact" one that can be legally prosecuted, it is necessary to have a principal, so Ca- ruso was hounded by detectives, discharged from four different jobs in the mills of Lawrence to make him a "fugitive from justice," and was finally arrested two months after Ettor and Giovanitti, and charged with being a principal.
In this memorable case, three weeks were consumed in securing a jury. Over five hun- dred veniremen were challenged or escaped duty for one cause or another, chiefly for be- ing opposed to the death penalty. The ac- tual trial, beginning with taking of evidence, lasted over five weeks. The prosecution re- lied almost wholly on the testimony of pri- vate detectives, city police, state police, mi- litiamen and the paid tools and thugs of the capitalist class.

Against this array of capitalist tools, were the workers who had nothing to gain by telling falsehoods ; who were proud of their fighting union and more so of the fact, that in the face of this legalized band of paid tools, they had wrenched from the American Woolen Co., a fifteen per cent raise of wages throughout the Textile Industry of the New England States, amounting to over fifteen million dollars a year. Not only were the defendants on trial for their lives, but the I. W. W. was on trial. Ettor and Giovannitti had been arrested charged with an offense that was unbailable, to keep them from leading the workers to victory. The I. W. W. was to be smashed if possible, because it opposed the present capitalist regime. The Preamble and Con- stitution of the I. W. W. were brought into evidence as well as many books, pamphlets and the official papers of the organization. The District Attorney appealed to every prejudice that a New England juryman might have, patriotism, religion and home. He stated that the defendants would even rob the workers of their little homes. It was only after a bitter speech by the Dis- trict Attorney teeming with falsehoods and appeals to prejudice, that the defendants, Ettor and Giovannitti, insisted (against the advice of their own counsel) on addressing the jury. Needless to say the addresses of Ettor and Giovannitti served to take the sting out of the day and a half speech of the District Attorney, and placed them above their blood-thirsty enemies, mentally and morally. The National Headquarters of the I. W. W., in order to serve a growing demand for the speeches in full, takes this opportunity of placing them before the Workers of the World, with the hope that the words of the defendants may inspire others to higher thoughts and nobler deeds and thus hasten the day when human happiness will be placed above the dollar or a yard of cloth, when the workers shall enjoy the full prod- uct of their toil. NOTE: The jury, after deliberating five hours, brought in a verdict of "NOT GUILTY" for the three defendants. JOSEPH J. ETTOR. The name of Joseph J. Ettor is now heard throughout the land. It is on the lips of workingmen and women in the remotest parts of the country. It is indissolubly con- nected with the great Lawrence strike, and the industrial revolt in New England which began there. It is a name that is destined to become famous in conjunction with the attempt of reactionary capitalism to kill revolutionary unionism by means of the in- famous legal doctrine of " accessory before the fact to murder" — a doctrine from which even despotic Russia is free. Despite the widespread use and the his- toric connection of his name, despite the fame which posterity is likely to bestow upon him, little, very little is known of Jo- seph J. Ettor, the man. The question is ac- cordingly often asked: Who is Joseph J. Ettor? What is his personality like, any- how? How did he become so well known? These questions are well put. Any innocent labor leader whom it is desired to put to death in the interests of capitalism and ac- cording to its most oppressive legal perver- sions, is a man of merit and worthy of inti- mate working class acquaintance. Joseph J. Ettor is a native of the United States. His parents are Italian. He is slightly over 26 years of age, and unmarried. Though short and stocky, he walks with the quick, nimble step of a woman. His hair is black and flowing. His eyes are dark brown, his cheeks fat and rosy. His whole manner is open, candid and boyish. His attire, at best, with his big soft hat worn jauntily on one side and his big flowing Windsor tie and natty blue suit is suggestive of the prosper- ous bourgeoise or the artistic Bohemian — though Ettor is neither of these, being sound and substantial in all respects. A CHILD OP THE WEST. Ettor has lived most of his life in the west. In addition to the audacious, quick-witted, enthusiastic temperament inherited from his Latin ancestors, the west has given him practical fortitude, and an indomitable spirit. There is nothing absolutely volatile and effervescent about Ettor. His is a light and gay spirit united with many sturdy 8 qualities, both of head and heart. He is an energetic, bright, courageous young man of ideals. Ettor 's birthplace is Brooklyn, N. T. Few things but churches, graveyards and bed- chambers are known of Brooklyn. But it has within its confines, some of the biggest industrial trusts and plants in the country, and now it can claim the honor of having been the city in which this modern labor leader first opened his eyes. Ettor was not allowed to enjoy the sight long. His parents left funereal and somnolent Brooklyn short- ly after he was born. They migrated west- ward. His father, a laborer, was in Chicago during the great eight-hour strikes of 1886. He was in Haymarket square on the night of the bomb throwing. He was struck in the back with a brick during one of the many melees attending this epoch-making period in the history of the American labor move- ment. The youngster, Joe, as he is fondly called by those nearest to him, often heard his father recount the foregoing incidents. "The old man," as Joe affectionately refers to him, "was proud to be a striker in those 9 stirring times. ' ' It was from his father that Joseph J. Ettor first imbibed revolutionary spirit. AN EMERGENCY MAN. We next hear of Ettor on the Pacific Coast. Miss Jane A. Roulston writes cf him: "When I first knew Ettor in San Francisco, he was hardly more than a child, a big fat boy. The Industrial Work- ers of the World brought us together. My first impressions of him are as to his capa- bility for quick action, practical expedient action, without premeditation. I remember his writing a resolution in a few minutes, which would have taken the rest of us sev- eral hours of thought, and his resolution was just right, though perhaps not perfectly grammatical. "In many cases he showed great presence of mind in sudden crises. He is essentially an emergency man. "After the earthquake of 1906, the I. W. W. men lived together in a tent; Joe was made organizer. Although other labor was well paid, the debris workers who were 10 many, worked for a mere pittance. Ettor organized them. He DISAPPEARED. We had some trouble finding him, as the prisons were shaken down and the authori- ties were using makeshifts of all kinds. At last we found him in one of them. He had been secretly arrested with one companion on the ridiculous charges of threatening some boss's life, and prevented from com- municating with his organization. We got him out. The case never came up ; there was no case, in fact. " During the early days of the earthquake season, I mean while the city was in a state of fear and excitement, though the quake was over, we used to hold large street meetings, several men tried to make trouble by starting little personal fights. Joe ' spotted' them at once and gave warning; but at last they did get up a little row and one of THEM fell through a large expensive glass window of an adjoining store. Joe at once jumped on the box, called the crowd around him, called off OUR men and so explained the trouble in such clear terse language (calling also for witnesses from outsiders) 11 , that the affair was never referred to and the glass was replaced early the next morning (Sunday, too). It was not replaced by the owners of the store, either." This youthful beginning of an eventful career is typical. Ettor has repeatedly been arrested for his resourcefulness and courage in the interest of the working class. EXPERIENCED ORGANIZER. While in Frisco, Ettor was employed as an iron worker in the shipyard of the city. He left the Golden Gate City some four years ago to travel up and down the Pacific Coast as an organizer of the I. W. W. In this capacity, Ettor visited mining, lumber and railroad construction camps and be- came acquainted at first hand with the rig- orous capitalist exploitation and oppression prevailing in them. He is familiar, from practical experience, with the company po- lice, company stores, blacklist, stockades and other methods used by the big corporations to keep their wage workers in slavery. He has been forced more than once to leave on threat of being killed and often at the point 12 of a gun. Many tales does he tell of meet- ings of miners held in secret, frustrated by spotters, of how, when employed in a mine or a lumber camp, he was often discovered and discharged unceremoniously. Ettor doesn't know the class struggle because he talks it ; he talks it because he knows it. Ettor was active in the big strike in Schwab's steel works at South Bethlehem, Pa. In company with Joseph Schmidt he called big mass meetings, inaugurated mass picketing, introduced tactics that defeated the state constabulary, the Cossacks, so- called, in their attempts to ride down and break up the ranks of the strikers, thereby turning what looked as a disastrous defeat into the promises of a victory. The A. F. of L. stepping in and organizing the industry according to crafts, Ettor and Schmidt with- drew and the strike ended in failure. The big strike at Westmoreland, Pa., was also one of the many scenes of Ettor 's ac- tivity. Here two mounted Cossacks, smart- ing under his condemnation of the brutality of the state constabulary, rode toward him in a menacing manner, when Ettor warned 13 them to keep their places. Said he to them, "I am speaking here within my constitu- tional rights. I know my rights and possess the determination and the backing of my organization to maintain them. I defy you to interfere with me." The Cossacks were cowed; they kept their hands off of Ettor. Ettor has also labored in the anthracite* regions and is well known in Scranton and vicinity. He is a danger to the coal trust when at liberty. This is an additional rea- son why he was imprisoned. Some of Ettor 's methods were employed in the Brooklyn shoe workers' strike, where he next became known. The mass meeting and the mass action were here invoked with good results. Ettor would urge all hands out on the picketing line, and like a true leader, he goes where he urges his followers to go. He was foremost on the picketing line, encouraging the men, indicating to them how best to conserve their interests, with a camera under his arm taking snap- shots of incidents, showing the lineup be- tween masters and men. At the mass meet- ings he utilized the various phases of the 14 strike to drive home their economic signifi- cance. He showed, for instance, that indus- trial development had created the leather trust, the shoe machinery trust and the Shoe Manufacturers' Association, all united by financial ties into one big organization in opposition to the interests of the shoe work- ers ; that the shoe workers must organize on similar lines; that they could no longer di- vide into crafts, but must organize as their industry is organized. To the cutter, fin- isher, turn-worker, etc., must be united the engineer, fireman and teamster employed by the firm or corporation. Ettor on one occa- sion taking up the various national, religious and other devices by which the workers are divided by the bosses, said in part : "In the shop there is no flag. "In the shop there is no religion. "In the shop there is no party. "In the shop there is no nation. "In the shop there is only work and work- ers. "In the shop the workers must get to- gether on the basis of their work and attack their exploiters. 15 "In capitalism, all over the world, there are only two nations, the workers and the capitalists. Your place is with the workers and in the Industrial Workers of the World." On another occasion he said: "You can- not make shoes without shoemakers. Your shoe factories may be ever so well built and stocked. Your machinery may be of the very latest kind. You may have the best brains in the world directing your plant. Still you cannot make shoes. To make shoes requires shoe workers. It is the shoe- makers who make your plant productive; who give value to your stock and who make your executive ability profitable. The shoe workers are the shoe industry, and to thein should the whole industry belong. We want not only more wages, but industrial control." These are samples of Ettor 's "incendiary speeches." DOGGED BY PINKERTONS. Ettor is an object of Pinkertonian perse- cution. They dog his steps day and night, yet Ettor is not bitten by the Pinkerton 16 maggot. He does not see a Pinkerton in everybody who disagrees with him or acts in a manner detrimental to the interests of the working class. This is well reflected in an incident that occurred in the Brooklyn shoe workers ' strike. A Jewish fitter was accused of having betrayed his fellow employes to the boss, and on his appearance at one of the meetings, there were cries of " Throw him out of the window. He 's a Pinkerton. ' ' Et- tor refused to allow such a thing to occur. He said, "Boys, let's hear what the lad has to sav for himself. Give him a show to be heard. And if he makes good, we'll forget what he has done." Accordingly the man was heard, and though his confession was damaging and he expressed contrition, he was permitted to attend the meetings and take his place in the ranks. Though often dogmatic, even a boss, as the circumstances may require, Ettor is none the less a tolerant and broadminded leader of men. Ettor 's next appearance in the class strug- gle was at Lawrence. Lawrence is too recent to need much re-telling. Even the capitalist press admit that Ettor was a factor for the 17 preservation of peace on his appearance on the scene. The Brooklyn " Tablet," a Cath- olic paper, says of Ettor, describing his ac- tivities at the time referred to: "He had a personality that was winning in its way. He spoke English and Italian fluently. He soon had all the active spirits in the strike believ- ing in him, absolutely and ready to do his slightest bidding." Such is the man who helped to defeat the woolen trust and to in- augurate an industrial revolt in New Eng- land, resulting in wage increase amounting, according to various estimates, from five to fifteen million dollars annually, not to men- tion the improved conditions also introduced. 18 JOSEPH J. ETTOR ADDRESS OF THE DEFENDANT ETTOR TO THE JURY. Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen of the Jury: I realize full well that there has been a good deal of talk and that the suggestion in your mind is, as the District Attorney has intimated, and with which I will agree, that my defense has been able to procure the best minds as far as law is concerned that this county can offer. For my part, I have not been tried on my acts. I have been tried here because of my social ideals. Gentlemen, I make no threats. But history does, and history re- cords things, with little variation here and there, but nothing can efface the fact that because of my political and social views I am brought here to the bar. I am impelled to speak because of that fact, and nothing else. My attorneys have done well in pre- senting to you the case as far as the evi- dence is concerned on a matter of law. I want to reply to the Distirct Attorney and say that if his conception of wealth is what he has explained this morning, then 20 all the political economists, all the thinkers, all the men and women who have racked their brains to study the social question, have absolutely no effect. They have cre- ated no impression. Think of it ! Social wealth is that which is left over! My social views are that the working class produces everything that there is. In order to produce wealth, ma- chinery nowadays and the implements of production are not used by one individual. They are used by a class. They are not owned by that class but they are owned by a class that is unable to operate them, but has workers to operate them on a wage basis. Mr. Attwill has been somewhat worried that when we do away with the wage sys- tem people won't be able to get along be- cause they might have clamshells. I want to state frankly to you twelve gentlemen, my views have been brought into this case, and the arguments and the evidence have been all along because of the relation to my views. The District Attorney has argued that you were to draw certain inference 21 from what I said, not because I said it, but because I held certain views. In other words, because I hold the views that all wealth is the product of labor and therefore should belong to labor, it follows, according to his argument, that I am in fa- vor of destroying property. I stated on the stand that I believe all property is social property. I haven't in mind, gentlemen of the jury, a tooth brush or pipes or anything of that kind. I have in mind machines. I have in mind railroads. I have in mind the things that are necessary to the world and what the world of labor produces and uses should belong to the world of labor. I stated on the stand that if the working class with a policy of violence destroys any of those machines or any of that property, when it comes into possession of its own it will have that much less. The District Attorney would have you be- lieve that I had no right to come here to Massachusetts. He will not infer that I was a foreigner. He knows different. But my comrade, Giovannitti here is a foreigner, 22 and you didn't want him to come from Italy and give us any lessons. And this boy here, who neither reads nor writes, is sup- posed to be from Italy — one of the inflam- mable — one of the material that I applied the match to and the magazine went off. He has appealed to you about Massachu- setts and her history and her traditions, and he has told you in his opening that he was born in New England and that throughout he has become imbued with the New Eng- land ideals. May I not refresh his mind concerning New England, and particularly Massachusetts, in relation to the foreigners ? Away back in the days of the Revolutionary War two foreigners came to this country among many others — Pulaski and Koscius- ko, two Polocks. And those two foreigners, among the many that came to Massachusetts, offered their lives and gave freely of their blood. We have heard here from the District Attorney and from the various testimony offered here by policemen: "Who was in the crowd?" "Foreigners." "How could you tell they were foreigners?" Well, they 23 sized them up. In two minutes they counted six and seven hundred, and a thousand, and two thousand. The District Attorney here has argued that probably there is a desire on the part of somebody to take down the Stars and Stripes and place on the municipal build- ings and everywhere the flag of anarchy and Socialism. The New England bard, Long- fellow, sang and pleaded that the two for- eigners who gave their blood and who of- fered their energy and who offered their life to the freedom of this country should have the flag that floated over Bunker Hill wrapped around their bodies. The District Attorney believed, or rather, is dubious that I do not know the traditions of Massachusetts or of this country. He has intimated that whether I do or not is of little or no consequence. But in my exer^ cise of a constitutional right to speak freely I didn't speak to chosen people. I didn't speak probably to the District Attorney or I didn't speak probably to people to whom he would have me speak. But in the exercise 24 of my constitutional right I spoke to for- eigners. Now, as I understand my rights, as far as free speech is concerned, I have the right to speak freely and to air my views. I have a right to cry out in the night, as I did in Lawrence, and point out that human beings were outraged; that human life had been reduced down to the point where it was an impossibility for it to work any longer and expect to live. I didn't understand when I read the con- stitution — I never understood when I went to school — in all of my experience I never yet have understood, and it is a novelty to me to understand from the District Attor- ney that I somehow become guilty of a crime — and what? I become guilty of mur- dering my sister because I spoke to strikers who were not born in this country. That is one of the counts. Now, gentlemen, I am accused of murder, and it is said that I become guilty of that murder by a series of circumstances — by my action, says the District Attorney, by my speeches and by insinuations and innuen- 25 does ; that when I smiled that was a sugges- tion for somebody to go out and get a shot- gun or do some work of that nature. I want to leave this matter to you. 1 came to the city of Lawrence, as I told you on the stand. I knew the conditions of the laboring people of Lawrence, and I knew the condi- tion of the laboring people of this Common- wealth. And I say it is not a question of the Commonwealth in this matter. The shame and the blotch does not fall upon the Com- monwealth. It is not a matter of the Com- monwealth's defending itself at all. It is simply a question that the capitalists of Mas- sachusetts have taken human beings and re- duced them to so many appendages of ma- chines. I came here knowing the conditions of those men and women. It is true I had no relative. It is true I had no property here. But I had interests here that are dearer to me than all blood relations, than all prop- erty. I had brothers and sisters here who called for me to come and give what aid I was able to give, and I came. 26 As I told you on the stand, I came with a definite purpose. I came with a determina- tion that I would give all that I could, that I would offer all of my energy and that I would offer all of my enthusiasm and that I would give all of my love, that I would sing to those workers that they may be able to obtain more bread. And I told them in that meeting that I knew what the situation was and that I knew from past experience how they had been outraged, and I knew further in the past troubles between labor and capital how each side behaved. I said then that what- ever blood is spilled in this strike it will be on the heads of the mill owners. It will be they who have provoked this strike, be- cause they refused to live up to the spirit of the law — because thev schemed and con- nived and conspired in order that the law may have the very opposite effect from the intention of those who advocated, agitated, and went forward in the hearing and in the Legislature that it might pass. What is the result? That the strike was to be discredited, and dynamite is planted 27 in the city of Lawrence — planted not by strikers. I was the one man — and I do not say this in a boasting spirit — that exposed the entire plan. I knew what it meant, and subsequent events proved beyond a doubt that as far as the strikers were concerned it was merely a plan to provoke the citizens, of that city, as the citizens elsewhere, to a spirit of opposition against the strikers. We next have the evidence gone through here, more or less. Sometimes they differ on the date one way or the other, but the facts stand there as so many rocks, and all the words of the District Attorney cannot shove them away or have any effect upon them. A parade is organized. The District At- torney says that you have a right to infer that we did not have a lawful object, that it was not a lawful parade. But all the evi- dence here is that it was a lawful parade, and that we had the best objects in the world. But street cars were smashed, and the District Attorney says that they were smashed all about one time and it covered an area of about a mile and a half. There 28 is no evidence here of any such contention. The street cars were smashed and I made the statement on that morning that my in- formation was that the street cars had been smashed and it was a plant in the same way that the dynamite hoax was a plant ; that it was a put-up job in order to discredit the strikers, in order that the strikers might have public feeling arrayed against them. I don't know whether the honorable justice will allow me to make this statement. The Court : You may continue. Defendant Ettor : I also made the state- ment after the shooting of the woman that I was satisfied that that was a job and that in time we would prove it. And I say, gen- tlemen, as I proved to every man in the city of Lawrence, as I proved to every man in Massachusetts, that the mill interests planted dynamite in order to discredit the strikers. They planted dynamite that was dangerous to life. They didn't hesitate. So I would have proved that the street cars were smashed by the thugs and agents provocateurs of the mill owners. And I would have proved that my sister, Anna Lo 29 Pizzi, the sister of Caruso and the sister of Giovannitti and the sister of every striker in the city of Lawrence, was murdered by the agents of the mill owners. It has been stated here that we had riots. Gentlemen, I am also accused of making speeches. The District Attorney said that he didn't want to worry you about too many witnesses. Yet he did not hesitate to bring thirty witnesses here, starters, conductors and motormen, or those in relation to the street cars. But how many newspaper men did he bring? He brought three or four. He brought one here who was a personal enemy of mine. He brought another who was under my suspicion. My speech had, so to speak, made a shoe that fitted his feet, and he came to me and said, "Mr. Ettor, in connection with the dynamite do you sus- picion me and my paper?" They brought him here. They brought Toye here, who admits that he cannot remember what I said before a certain sentence nor afterwards, but he does remember that sentence. Why didn't they bring every newspaper man that was on station in the city of 30 Lawrence? Mr. Peters has stated the rea- son: They had to be relegated to the rear. They might make statements here that would not prove the contention of the Dis- trict Attorney and the rest of the gentlemen who have been here at his back. I did make speeches, but, gentlemen, I am responsible fully for what I said and not partially for what I said. And for every speech, if they were presented to you in full, I would raise my hand — only as a figure of speech, because the District Attorney may say that I didn't raise my hand, as it were — but I will give you my word that I will take my pledge that if the District Attor- ney had offered here my complete speeches I would have said, "Yes, sir, I did make those speeches." But the District Attorney — he could have furnished my speeches. Gentlemen, there were plenty of detectives in the city of Law- rence. There were plenty of them around with pencil and paper to take down my speeches. But here is the District Attor- ney, who wants to know, Did I say such and such a sentence, or to that effect. I said be- 31 fore, and I repeat it, I am willing to stand fully responsible for every word I said in full, but not for parts. No man who speaks in public, no man who makes speeches, can be held responsible for parts of his speeches. If you were to adopt that policy, gentlemen, there is not a politi- cian, there is not a public man today that would be out of jail, because if you take their speeches apart every one of you can find something or another that you don't like or that you think would mean harm or had done harm or something of that nature. I call your attention again to the state- ment that I was the one who incited people there. The Mayor of the city of Lawrence, a law-abiding citizen, made a public state- ment that "We will either break this strike or break the strikers' heads." Is it possible that only the strikers understand inciting speeches? Isn't that an inciting speech? Is it not reasonable for me to argue that the po- lice who went on the corner of Garden and Union Street on that night went with the thought expressed by Mayor Scanlon, "Break this strike or break the strikers' 32 heads ' ' ? These police went there with a full knowledge in their minds that they were safe, that they were armed with the author- ity of the law, they could do those things and they did not stop at any little niceties. But, just as they expressed themselves or as Mr. Spranger expressed it, they knocked a head wherever it bobbed up. I have only one or two more statements. The Bencordo boys followed me along, ac- cording to their own admission. They were looking for something. What do they find % What do they find? They found "wild ani- mals'' on my comrade, Giovannitti. They followed me in the parade. They followed me everywhere. They were looking for an- archists. They were looking for bad men. They were looking for gunmen. They were looking for everything and anything that they thought was against the law. Think of it! Young Bencordo and the elder Bencordo, the saviours of the tradi- tions of Massachusetts, the upholders of law, the upholders of order! They were the Agents of the mill owners in the city of Law- rence to provoke trouble. And I say, gen- 33 tlemen, is it not reasonable for me to argue that, if the mill owners of the city of Law- rence, when a law for the benefit of the workers was passed, conspired that its ef- fect might not be for the benefit of the work- ers and afterward had dynamite planted in the city of Lawrence to discredit the strik- ers, and hired detectives to work and move among the strikers, that these detectives cer- tainly could not hope to keep their job or to keep on the pay-roll of the mill owners or make reports unless there was trouble? I ask you, is it not reasonable that they should make all the trouble possible in or- der to stay on the pay-roll and make the nec- essary impression on the mill owners that there was a necessity for them to be on the job? And if they did hire these men and these men did move among the strikers, is it not reasonable to argue, gentlemen, that these men would not hesitate for a moment to break car windows and create riots? Do you believe for a moment that it is unreasonable to argue that, if they did these things, if they brought workers from Po- land and if they brought workers from Italy 34 and then put them in the mills and exploited them and then violated the spirit of the law, and when the workers went out on strike planted dynamite in their homes and then sent around agents provocateurs in their ranks, these mill owners would not hesitate at all or would not have any scruples if their agents provoked a riot and then shot into the crowd in order to lay the blame upon the shoulders that under the conditions it would reasonably fall ? In a riot when a strike is on, as far as the public is concerned, the blame naturally falls, it inevitably falls on the shoulders of the strikers. And in Lawrence it has been only one of the cases where we have been able to prove that, althought at first it fell on the shoulders of the strikers, it was really the work of the mill owners. Gentlemen, since my views in my organi- zation have been brought into this argu- ment, I want to state this : that my organi- zation has made it a practice to allow men in the past to express their views as they understood them. Now, what are my social views ? I have stated some of them. I do 35 believe — I may be wrong, but, gentlemen, only history can pass judgment upon them. All wealth is the product of labor, and all wealth being the product of labor belongs to labor and to no one else. I know the District Attorney is weary and worried about what is going to happen to the little home or to the little savings of the working man who has saved and scraped around and managed somehow or another to put aside a few dollars. He knows full well that my social ideas have little or no relation to the working man who worked in the shoe shop or to the working man who worked on a building, or to the operative in a mill who was able to put a hundred dollars aside and then fifty dollars aside, and so on, and get a shanty in some place. He knows that my social ideas are bigger than the proposition to take away the home of the operative who has saved fifty cents here and a dollar there and seventy-five cents somewhere else. He knows that my social views have no re- lation to the little property owner, but my social views have a relation so far as society
is concerned. A railroad is operated by the

36



workers. It is made possible only because
there are people living in this country, and
according to that argument we insist that
the railroad should belong to the people of
this country and not to the railroad owners,
who are mere coupon clippers.

And that principle applies to the textile
industry, to the shoe industry and to every
industry. It does not apply to the tooth
brush or to the pipe nor to the little shanty
the working man is able to erect by scraping
and gouging somehow or other.

I want to state further, gentlemen, that
whatever my social views are, as I stated
before, they are what they are. They can-
not be tried in this courtroom. With all re-
spect to you, gentlemen, and with all respect
to everyone here, they cannot be tried in
this courtroom. It has been tried before.
Away back thousands of years the trick was
tried that man's views could be brought into
a courtroom or brought before the king or
brought before somebody in authority and
that judgment could be passed. And in those
days they said, "The only way we can settle
these new ideas is, first, send them to the

37



cross;" then, "Send them to the gallows,"
then to the guillotine, and to the rope.

And I want to know, does Mr. Attwill be-
lieve for a moment that, beginning with
Spartacus, whose men were crucified for
miles along the Appian Way, and following
with Christ, who was adjudged an enemy of
the Roman social order, and put on the cross
— does he believe for a moment that the cross
or the gallows or the guillotine, the hang-
man's noose, ever settled an idea? It never
did.

If the idea can live it lives, because his-
tory adjudges it right. And what has been
considered an idea constituting a social
crime in one age, has in the next age be-
come the very religion of humanity. The
social criminals of one age Tiave become the
saints of the next.

The District Attorney talks to you about
Massachusetts. Sixty years ago, gentlemen
— seventy years ago — the respectable mob —
not the mob in the mills, but the respectable
mob, the well-dressed mob — dragged the
propagandists and the agents of a new so-
cial order and a new idea through the streets

38



of Boston, and the members of that same
respectable mob now — now that the ideas of
Wendell Phillips have been materialized
into something, now that the ideas of Garri-
son and the rest have been proven of value,
the offspring of that social mob rises up and
says, "The traditions of Massachusetts. "

Gentlemen, the traditions of Massachu-
setts have been made by those who made it
and not those who speak of it. John Brown
was hanged and the cry went up, "A social
criminal" — not even that dignity to him —
just a criminal. Within two years the
youngest and the noblest, the strongest that
this nation could offer, were marching
through the fields of this country singing:

" John Brown's body lies mouldering in the
grave,
But his soul goes marching on."

My ideas are what they are, gentlemen.
They might be indicted and you might be-
lieve, as the District Attorney has suggested,
that you can pass judgment and that you
can choke them; but you can't. Ideas can't
be choked.



39



I want to leave this matter to you with a
few words. I came to the city of Lawrence
feeling that I could be of some aid, that I
could offer all the aid that was possible in
me to secure more bread for twenty-five or
thirty thousand textile workers. I did what
I could. I did what I could, that is all.

If I didn't do any more it was because I
couldn't do any more. I did the best I could.
If you believe and you adopt the suggestion
of Mr. Attwill I should not have come to
Massachusetts, not because, as he intimated
with regard to my comrade, Giovannitti, I
am a foreigner, but because I came from
New York.

If for a moment, gentlemen, you believe
that I am responsible for the death of Anna
Lo Pizzi, you only can conjure it by the in-
sinuations that have been offered here by
Mr. Attwill. But I want to say this : Since
I was a boy and I could lift my voice for
the cause that I thought right, I did. I not
only dared to raise my voice, but I knew full
well as I went along that raising my voice
for my class meant the baring of my breast
against the shafts of the opposition of the

40



monopolists and the capitalists of this coun-
try.

And as I have gone along I have raised my
voice on behalf of men, women and child-
ren who work in the mines, who work in the
mills and who work in the factories of this
country; who daily offer their labor and
their blood and even their lives in order to
make possible the prosperity of this coun-
try.

I have carried the flag along. I have given
cheer and hope and sang the workers on to
be brave and go forward as men and women
by demanding their rights. It may be pos-
sible, gentlemen, that because of the various
outside things that have been introduced
here, my social views, and so forth, you gen-
tlemen believe that I am guilty of murder.
If you do, of course I will pay the penalty.
Don't worry about that.

I say to you, gentlemen, if you believe that
I had any interest, that I had any desire,
that I had any motive or knowledge in this
death, then I offer no apology, I ask for no
mercy, I offer no extenuations to you gentle-
men. I talk to you as one man talks to

41



twelve others. If you believe that, then I
hope that you won't come back here and say
in words that will mean, "Mr. Ettor may be
responsible, but Mr. Ettor has done so many
things that are of worth and are noble and
therefore we won't let him go, but we will
shut him up so that it will be impossible for
him to advance his social views any more."

Gentlemen, I know not what the instruc-
tions of this Court will be on that point, but
whatever your feelings may be I plead with
you — I have told you my views; they are
the same as my comrade, Giovannitti, the
same in general. We may disagree on a word
here and there, but both of us, we state plain-
ly, will give all that there is in us that this
present society may be changed, that the
present rule of wage labor on one side, pro-
ducing all things and receiving only a part,
and idle capitalists on the other, producing
nothing and receiving most, may be abol-
ished.

We say that in the past we have given the
best that was in us that the workers may
rally to their own standard and that they
may organize and through their solidarity,

42



through their united efforts, they may from
time to time, step to step, get close together
and' finally emancipate themselves through
their own efforts that the mills and work-
shops of America may become the property
of the workers of America and that the
wealth produced in those workshops may be
for the benefit of the workers of America.

Those have been our views. If we are
set at liberty those will still be our views
and those will be our actions. If you believe
that we should not go out with those views,
then, gentlemen, I ask you only one favor,
and that is this — that you will place the re-
sponsibility full on us and say to the world
that Joseph J. Ettor and Arturo Giovan-
nitti, because of their social ideas, became
murderers and murdered one of their own
sister strikers, and you will by your verdict
say plainly that we should die for it.

As I stated before, I have carried the flag.
I carry it here today, gentlemen ; the flag of
liberty is here. I am willing to carry it just
as long as it is necessary. But if you believe
and if the District Attorney has been able
to insinuate and argue you into the frame

43



of mind that I killed Anna Lo Pizzi or
that I wanted anybody to kill Anna Lo Piz-
zi, or that I turned a finger that Anna Lo
Pizzi or any other human being should be
killed, then I will stand up with head erect,
gentlemen, no apology to offer, no excuse
to ask, I will accept your verdict and expect
that you will say, " You have done what you
did and now we have spoken."

I expect that if I have carried the flag
along, if I have raised my voice, if I have
bared my breast against the opposition, that
I have done it long enough, and I want to
plead with you that if I am guilty I want to
pay the full price — full price; no half-way
measure; the full price.

If twelve men in Essex County, chosen
among the prominent citizens, among
the ones who are available and can be en-
rolled on the list as jurors — if twelve men
believe that I am guilty of murder and Com-
rade Giovannitti is guilty of murder, speak-
ing for myself, I say to you that I would
stand erect — and my comrade here just
whispered to me, "Say it for both" — we will
stand here and accept whatever your verdict

may be.

44



I hope that whatever your views are you
will decide clean cut one way or the other.
If I am guilty — I tell you I am not a senti-
mentalist on those points; I believe in the
death chair. Very well; if I am guilty I
and my comrade Giovannitti will go there,
with heads erect and the same song that we
have lisped to our fellow workers in the field
we will sing with cheer and gladness on our
lips, and the flag that we have carried along
and are carrying along if we have to drop it
in the ditch we will drop it.

Gentlemen, I make no threat, but on the
moment that we drop the flag because we
have been loyal to our calls, hundreds of
thousands of wage workers will pick up the
flag of labor and carry it forward and cheer
it on and sing its song until the flag of the
working class shall wave freely and un-
furled to the wind over the workshops of
the world where free men and women will
work and enjoy fully and without trammel
the full products of their labor.

Gentlemen, those are my views, those are
my feelings. If it is the last words I shall
ever speak in life, I believe that I have been

45



true. Only history can decide as to whether
they are right or wrong. I consider that I
could not go out and stand with head erect
and have people say to me, " Joe, Mr. Attwill
attacked the principle that you hold dear
and you did not defend it."

If these are the last words that I shall ever
speak and I shall go — if you say death —
with the happy thought that on the eve of
it I did willingly announce to the world that
my life is dedicated to my ideals and that
the ideals that I have expressed to you on
the stand do not mean danger to human life
or the world's happiness. I shall go out,
whichever way it comes — whether it is a
case of death or a case of liberty — I shall
go forward with that one thought in my
mind and one satisfaction in my heart, that
at the last moment I did pronounce to the
world my views, and that I did announce
that my idea is to work for the principles
that I hold dear, and if I am allowed to
work for them I will, and you gentlemen
will be thankful.

If not — no idea was ever choked, it can't
be choked, and this idea will not be choked.

46



On the day that I go to my death there will
be more men and women who will know and
ask questions. Millions of men and women
will know and they will have a right to ar-
gue that my social ideals had as much the
effect of determining your verdict as the
facts, and more so in this case.

Gentlemen, as I stated before, I neither
offer apology nor excuse. I ask for no fa-
vors. I ask for nothing but justice in this
matter. That is all, nothing else. I ask for
justice. And I believe that in asking I am
not asking anything against what the Dis-
trict Attorney has called the ideals and the
traditions of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts refused to give the apostles
of abolition to the rule and to the lust of
the cotton kings of the South. It refused to
allow their blood to act as so much balm to
the cuts and to the wounds of the cotton
planters of the South. And I ask you now.
are twelve men in this county in Massachu-
setts going to offer blood now in order thai
the wounds, in order that the cuts and the
smarts that the mill owners of Lawrence
suffered because of the strike may be as-
suaged in balm?

47



Gentlemen, it is up to you, and as I stated
before, I have no fear of the result. I ask
for no favor. I ask only for justice, and
that is all my comrade Giovannitti asks, and
that is all my comrade Caruso asks.

I thank you.

The Court : Do the other defendants wish
to address the jury?



48



AKTURO GIOVANNITTI.

Interlocked in the great Lawrence strike
with the name of Joseph J. Ettor is that of
Arturo Giovannitti. Ettor was the chief
leader at the memorable and victorious tex-
tile struggle; Giovannitti the orator. To
him fell the task of arousing enthusiasm,
aiding and cementing the ranks and driving
home the lessons and tactics of the hour
among the Italians who were a prominent
factor in the strike. And well adapted was
Giovannitti for the task. Tall, robust, with
a powerful voice, intense, earnest, incisive
of speech, and a leonine manner, he made a
forceful, rousing impression on his hearers.
Nor was the knowledge derived from work-
ing class experience lacking; for Giovan-
nitti 's career in America has been typical of
the proletarian struggle for existence under
advanced capitalism, such as prevails here.

Giovannitti was a miner, bookkeeper and
teacher before he became the editor of II
Proletario, and the Italian orator of the
Lawrence strike. In the bowels of the earth,
he wielded a pick in the coal mines of Can-
ada ; and he has slept and starved as an un-

49



employed worker in winter, on the benches
of the parks of the city of New York. Gio-
vannitti has traveled far, physically and
mentally, only to learn those facts about
capitalism that bring conviction and elo-
quence to the men in the movement destined
to bring about its overthrow — the movement
towards socialism, towards industrial de-
mocracy, and for the workers as against the
shirkers.

Arturo Giovannitti is an American by ex-
perience, but an Italian by birth. Compo-
basso, a city of 40,000 inhabitants in the
province of Abruzzi, Italy, is now better
known for his having been born there. Gio-
vannitti has put it on the map. He is now
28 years of age. His family are liberals and
socially well connected in the city of his
birth. His father and elder brother are

physicians ; his younger brother a lawyer.

Together with his mother, they are very
much interested in his case. His father de-
sired to come to this country to aid, in his
son^s defense, but filial regard caused Gio-
vannitti to dissuade him from doing so, as he

50



wished to spare his aged parent the travel
and pain attending such an event.

Giovannitti was educated in the univer-
sity of his native city, and left there when
16 years of age to seek his fortune in this
land of golden promises and brutal realities.

It was his profound sociological tendency
that caused Giovannitti to drift to America
12 years ago. After knocking about at va-
rious jobs, he obtained employment in a coal
mine in Canada nine years ago. It was in

the Dominion that he got his first taste of
modern industrialism on an advanced scale.

Giovannitti, two years afterwards, secured
a clerical position in Springfield, Mass.
There he became a socialist. He was also
very much interested in the protestant re-
ligion and preparing to enter the ministry,
he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in a
seminary.

Shortly after, Giovannitti came to New
York. Here he joined the Italian Socialist
Federation. He was a member of the La
Lotta Club r (The " Struggle" Club). Dur-
ing the discussion between La Lotta Club
and Circolo Socilista di Bassa Citta (Down-

51



town Socialist Club), Giovannitti became a
convert to syndicalism and revolutionary ac-
tion. While a member in La Lotta, he was
engaged by the uptown branch of the Y. M.
C. A., West 58th St., to deliver a religious
talk. This led to a misunderstanding. He
was regarded with distrust, though he was
at this time without a home, without employ-
ment and was compelled to sleep in the parks
in winter. Giovannitti did not live by sell-
ing his ideas. He is a man of conviction and
willing to suffer for them. This incident in
his own life was the cause of a poem by him
entitled "The Blind Man," which has been
very much admired.

It was at this time that Giovannitti be-
came a bookkeeper in the city. Such was
his interest in all matters of progress and
science that his room on West 28th St. be-
came the nightly meeting place of men of
various nationalities interested in literary,
artistic, political , economic and other ques-
tions. These nightly discussions broadened
the intellectual horizon of Giovannitti.

Like many another I. W. W. speaker and
organizer, Giovannitti is a polyglot. The I.

52



W. W. is a polyglot organization, that is, an
organization in which all languages are rep-
resented. Giovannitti speaks English, Ital-
ian, French and Latin fluently, and has
taught them all, the latter especially.

Three years ago Giovannitti became the
editor of II Proletario. He made it an organ
of industrial unionism, and under his direc-
tion, it became a power among the Italian
working class, and a means of bringing him
into greater demand as a speaker and agi-
tator. Among the Italians Giovannitti is re-
garded as a proletarian thinker, writer, poet
and orator of no mean ability.

Giovannitti is not only highly regarded
among the Italians in this country, but also
in Italy. The May number of the Alma-
nacco de L 'Internationale" (The Almanac
of the International), published at Parma,
Italy, contains one of his poems in Italian
entitled "II Boccale. " The poem is prefaced
by a note commendatory of Giovannitti 's
poetical powers and his devotion to the work-
ing class, especially at Lawrence.


====================================================================================
53




ARTURO GIOVANNITTI



ADDRESS OF THE DEFENDANT
GIOVANNITTI TO THE JURY.

Me. Foreman and Gentlemen of the

Jury:

It is the first time in my life that I speak
publicly in your wonderful language, and
it is the most solemn moment in my life. I
know not if I will go to the end of my re-
marks. The District Attorney and the other
gentlemen here who are used to measure all
human emotions with the yardstick may not
understand the tumult that is going on in
my soul in this moment.

But my friends and my comrades before
me, these gentlemen here who have been with
me for the last seven or eight months, know
exactly. If my words will fail before I
reach the end of this short statement to you,
it will be because of the superabundance of
sentiments that are flooding my heart.

I speak to you not because I want to re-
view this evidence at all. I feel that I have
had, as the learned District Attorney said,
one of the most prominent if not the most
prominent attorney in this state to plead for
my liberty and for my life. I shall not enter

into the evidence that has been offered here,
as I feel that you, gentlemen of the jury,
have by this time a firm and set conviction.
By this time you ought to know, you ought
to have realized whether I said or whether I
did not say those words that have been put
into my mouth by those two detectives.

You ought to know whether it is possible,
not for a man like me but for any living hu-
man being to say those atrocious, those flagi-
tious words that have been attributed to
me. I say only this in regard to the evidence
that has been introduced in this case, that
if there is or ever has been murder in the
heart of any man that is in this courtroom
today, gentlemen of the jury, that man is
not sitting in this cage. We had come to
Lawrence, as my noble comrade — I call him
a noble comrade — Mr. Ettor — said, because
we were prompted by something higher and
loftier than what the District Attornev or
any other man in this presence here may
understand and realize.

Were I not afraid that I was being some-
what sacrilegious, I would say that to go
and investigate into the motives that
prompted and actuated us to go into Law-
rence would be the same as to Inquire, why
did the Saviour, come on earth, or why, as
my friend said, was Lloyd Garrison in this
very Commonwealth, in the city of Boston,
dragged through the streets with a rope
around his neck? Why did all the other
great men and masters of thought — why did
they go to preach this new gospel of frater-
nity and brotherhood? It were well — it is
well — to inquire into the acts of men.

It is just that truth should be ascertained.
It is right that the criminal should be
brought before the bar of justice, but one
side alone of our story has been told here.
As Mr. Peters said, one-half has never been
told. They have brought you a pamphlet
of the Industrial Workers of the World and
the District Attorney has not dared to in-
troduce more evidence against the Socialist
movement, because he knew that here was
a man that was capable of contending with
him and answering him more than he had
been capable of realizing at the beginning.

There has been brought only one side of
this great industrial question, only the
method and only the tactics. But what about,
I say, the ethical part of this question ?
What about the human and humane part
of our ideas? What about the grand con-
dition of tomorrow as we see it, and as we
foretell it now to the workers at large, here
in this same cage where the felon has sat, in
this same cage where the drunkard, where
the prostitute, where the hired assassin has
been?

What about the ethical side of that ? What
about the better and nobler humanity where
there shall be no more slaves, where no man
will ever be obliged to go on strike in order
to obtain fifty cents a week more, where chil-
dren will not have to starve any more, where
women no more will have to go and pros-
titute themselves — let me say, even if there
are women in this courtroom here, because
the truth must out at the end — where at last
there will not be anv more slaves, anv more
masters, but just one great family of friends
and brothers.

It may be, gentlemen of the jury, that you
do not believe in that. It may be that we
are dreamers. It may be that we are fanatics,
Mr. District Attorney. We are fa-
natics. But yet so was Socrates a fanatic,
who instead of acknowledging the philoso-
phy of the aristocrats of Athens, preferred
to drink the poison. And so was Jesus Christ
a fanatic, who instead of acknowledging that
Pilate, or that Tiberius was emperor of
Rome, and instead of acknowledging his
submission to all the rulers of the time and
all the priestcraft of the time, preferred the
cross between two thieves.

And so were all the philosophers and all
the dreamers and all the scholars of the
Middle Ages, who preferred to be burned
alive by one of these very same churches
concerning which you reproach me now of
having said that no one of our membership
should belong to them. Yes, gentlemen of
the jury, you are judges. You must deal with
facts. You must not deal with ideas.

Had not this last appeal to patriotism
been injected in this case, had not the Dis-
trict Attorney appealed to you, knowing
well your sentiments, in the name of all the
feelings that are deep-rooted and sweet to
the heart of man, in order to blind you to
the real issues in this case, I would not have
spoken. I am very humble. I am very low
in my own appreciation of myself. I have
been in the background during this trial.

I have never talked to any American audi-
ence ; I, the man from southern Italy, have
not told them how they should run their
business. I am not here now to tell you what
the future of this country should be. I know
this, though, that I come f rorn a land which
has been under the rod of oppression for
thousands of years, oppressed by the autoc-
racy of old, oppressed during the Middle
Ages by all the nations of Europe, by all
the vandals that often passed through it.
And now Italy is oppressed, I may say, even
by the present authority, as I am not a be-
liever in kingship and monarchy. And I,
gentlemen of the jury, since I was a little
boy, have learned upon the knees of my
mother and father to reverence with tears
in my eyes the name of a republic. When
I came to this country it was because I
thought that really I was coming to a better
and a freer land than my own. It was not
exactly hunger that drove me out of my
house. My father had enough money saved
and he had enough energy saved to go and
give an education to my brothers. He could
have done the same with me and I could now
be a professional man down there.

But I thought I could visit the world and
I desired coming here for that purpose. I
have no grudge against this country. I have
no grudge against the American flag. I have
no grudge against your patriotism. But I
want to say that your kind — or rather, I
want to say something about the kind of pa-
triotism that is instilled into vour heads.
I shall not pander, gentlemen of the jury, to
your prejudice. I shall be straightforward
and sincere as my friend has been, and even
more so.

I ask the District Attorney, who speaks
about the New England tradition, what he
means by that — if he means the New Eng-
land traditions of this same town where they
used to burn the witches at the stake, or if
he means the New England traditions of
those men who refused to be any longer un-
der the iron heel of the British aristocracy
and dumped the tea into Boston itarbor and
fired the first musket that was announcing
to the world for the first time that a new era
had been established — that from then on no
more kingcraft, no more monarchy, no more
kingship would be allowed, but a new peo-
ple, a new theory, a new principle, a new
brotherhood would arise out of the ruin and
the wreckage of the past.

You answer that, and if you believe that
human progress is a thing that cannot be
stopped and cannot be checked, if you be-
lieve that this gentleman here, for whom I
have the highest respect and the highest ad-
miration, for he has surely presented his
case wonderfully and if I were allowed I
would be glad even to shake hands with him
— do not, gentlemen of the jury, believe that
Mr. Attwill, standing in front of you with
upraised hands, will check this mighty flow
of this wonderful working class of the world
— its myriads and myriads of men and wom-
en, the flower of the land, who are rushing
forward towards this destined goal of ours.

He is not the one who is going to strangle
this new Hercules of the world of industrial
workers, or rather, the Industrial Workers
of the World, in its cradle. It is not your
verdict that will stem, it is not your verdict
that will put a dam before this mighty on-
rush of waves that go forward. It is not the
little insignificant, cheap life of Arturo Gio-
vannitti offered in holocaust to warm the
hearts of the millionaire manufacturers of
this town that is going to stop Socialism
from being the next dominator of the earth.
No. No.

If there was any violence in Lawrence it
was not Joe Ettor's fault. It was not my
fault. If you must go back to the origin
of all the trouble, gentlemen of the jury,
you will find that the origin and reason was
the wage system. It was the infamous rule
of domination of one man by another man.
It was the same reason that forty years ago
impelled your great martyred President,
Abraham Lincoln, by an illegal act, to issue
the Proclamation of Emancipation — a thing
which was beyond his powers as the Consti-
tution of the United States expressed before
that time.

I say it is the same principle now, the
principle that made a man at that time a
chattel slave, a soulless human being, a thing
that could be bought and bartered and sold,
and which now, having changed the term,
makes the same man — but a white man — the
slave of the machine.

They say you are free in this great and
wonderful country. I say that politically
you are, and my best compliments and con-
gratulations for it. ' But I say you cannot
be half free and half slave, and economi-
cally all the working class in the United
States are as much slaves now as the negroes
were forty and fifty years ago ; because the
man that owns the tool wherewith another
man works, the man that owns the house
where this man lives, the man that owns the
factory where this man wants to go to work
— that man owns and controls the bread
that that man eats and therefore owns and
controls his mind, his body, his heart and
his soul.

Gentlemen, it may be that this argument
is out of place. I am not a lawyer. I told
you I was not going to discuss the evidence.
It may be that the honorable Court would
object to my speech, or rather my few re-
marks, on the ground that it is not referring
to the evidence as given in here. But I say
and I repeat, that we have been working in
something that is dearer to us than our lives
and our liberty. We have been working in
what are our ideas, our ideals, our aspira-
tions, our hopes — you may say our religion,
gentlemen of the jury. You may understand
why the American missionary, fired by the
power of his religion, goes into darkest Af-
rica amongst the cannibals. Mr. Attwill will
tell you that that man goes there because
he gets $60 a month; $100 a month. Mr.
Attwill, with his commercial mind, will say
that that man simply goes there on account
of his salary or because he wants to collect
money 'from the poor savages down there,
so that the Catholic church in America or
the Methodist church in America might have
five cents a month for dues or ten cents a
month for dues or twenty cents a month for
dues. But I say that there is something
greater and deeper than that, gentlemen,
and you know and you realize it yourselves.
But I say that I came here for another pur-
pose than the one that he has intimated to
you as being the real one. I came here be-
cause I cannot suppress it. He says we can-
not claim divine Providence. Well, I do not
claim divine Providence. Neither do I think
that the District Attorney can claim divine
Providence when at the end of his speech
he was actually afraid of telling you that
you should convict us, that you should send
us to the electric chair, that it was well and
good that our voices shoulcl be strangled,
that our hearts should cease to beat for the
simple fact that a certain unknown person
shot Anna Lo Pizzi, a striker in Lawrence.

He has not dared to say it in Lawrence ;
even he has not dared to tell you that we
ought to be convicted. But I say, whether
you want it or not, we are now the heralds
of a new civilization. We have come here
to proclaim a new truth. We are the apos-
tles of a new evangel, of a new gospel, which
is now at this very same moment being pro-
claimed and heralded from one side of the
earth to the other.

Comrades of our same faith, while I am
speaking in this case, are addressing a dif-
ferent crowd, a different forum, a different




audience in other parts of the world, in every
known tongue, in every civilized language,
in every dialect, in Russia as in Italy,- in
England as in France, in China as in South
Africa — everywhere this message of Social-
ism, this message of brotherhood, this mes-
sage of love, is being proclaimed in this
same manner, gentlemen of the jury, and
it is in the name of that that I want to speak
and for nothing else.

After having heard w<hat my comrade said
and what I have said, do you believe for one
single moment that we ever preached vio-
lence, that a man like me as I stand with my
naked heart before you — and you know
there is no lie in me at this moment, there
is no deception in me at this moment — could
kill a human being?

You know that I know not what I say,
because it is only the onrush of what flows to
my lips that I say. Gentlemen of the jury,
you know that I am not a trained man in
speaking to you, because it is the first time
I speak in your language. Gentlemen, if you
think that there has ever been a spark of
malice in my heart, that I ever said others
should break heads and prowl around and
look for blood, if you believe that I ever
could have said such a thing, not only on the
29th of January, but since the first day I be-
gan to realize that I was living and con-
scious of my intellectual and moral powers,
then send me to the chair, because it is right
and it is just. Then send my comrade to
the chair because it is right and it is just.

But I want to plead for another man.
Whatever you do, for heaven's sake take the
case of this man at heart (pointing at the de-
fendant, Caruso). This man has been with
me two months in this cage here, and I know
every thought of his mind. Whatever you
do to us, we are the responsible ones. Joe
Ettor was the leader of that strike. I was
aiding and abetting him in that strike. We
alone are responsible.

If Anna Lo Pizzi has been killed and you
think Anna Lo Pizzi has been killed through
our influence, consider that we alone are
responsible for it. Say that it is good that
we ought to be convicted, regardless of who
killed her, if we uttered those words. But
consider this poor man and his wife, his
child; this man who does not know just now
in this moment why he is here — who keeps
on asking me, "Why didn't they tell the
truth? What have I done? Why am I
here?" It may be I am appealing to your
heart, not to your intelligence, but I am will-
ing to take all the responsibility.

Gentlemen of the jury, I have finished.
After this comes your verdict. I do not ask
you to acquit us. It is not in my power to
do so after my attorney has so nobly and
ably pleaded for me. I say, though, that
there are two ways open. If we are respon-
sible, we are responsible in full. If what the
District Attorney has said about us is true,
then we ought to pay the extreme penalty,
for if it is true it was a premeditated crime.
If what he said is true, it means that we
went to Lawrence specifically for that pur-
pose and that for years and years we had
been studying and maturing our thoughts
along that line; then we expect from you
a verdict of guilty.

But we do not expect you to soothe your
conscience and at the same time to give a
helping hand to the other side — simply to go
and reason and say, "Well, something has
happened there and somebody is responsi-
ble ; let us balance the scales and do half and
half." No, gentlemen. We are young. I
am twenty-nine years old — not quite, yet ; I
will be so two months from now. I have a
woman that loves me and that I love. I have
a mother and father that are waiting for me.
I have an ideal that is dearer to me than can
be expressed or understood. And life has
so many allurements and it is so nice and so
bright and so wonderful that I feel the pas-
sion of living in my heart and I do want to
live.

I don't want to pose to you as a hero. I
don't want to pose as a martyr. No, life is
dearer to me than it is probably to a good
many others. But I say this, that there is
something dearer and nobler and holier and
grander, something I could never come to
terms with, and that is my conscience and
that is my loyalty to my class and to my
comrades who have come here in this room,
and to the working class of the world, who
have contributed with a splendid hand
penny by penny to my defense and who have
all over the world seen that no injustice and
no wrong was done to me.

Therefore, I say, weigh both sides and
then judge. And if it be, gentlemen of the
jury, that your judgment shall be such that
this gate will be opened and we shall pass
out of it and go back into the sunlit world,
then let me assure you what you are doing.
Let me tell you that the first strike that
breaks again in this Commonwealth or any
other place in America where the work and
the help and the intelligence of Joseph J.
Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti will be needed
and necessary, there we shall go again re-
gardless of any fear and of any threat.

We shall return again to our humble ef-
forts, obscure, humble, unknown, misunder-
stood — soldiers of this mighty army of the
working class of the world, which out of the
shadows and the darkness of the past is
striving towards the destined goal which is
the emancipation of human kind, which is
the establishment of love and brotherhood
and justice for every man and every woman
in this earth.
On the other hand, if your verdict shall
be the contrary, if it be that we who are so
worthless as to deserve neither the infamy
nor the glory of the gallows — if it be that
these hearts of ours must be stilled on the
same death chair and by the same current
of fire that has destroyed the life of the wife
murderer and the parricide, then I say, gen-
tlemen of the jury, that tomorrow we shall
pass into a greater judgment, that tomorrow
we shall go from your presence into a pres-
ence where history shall give its last word to
us.

Whichever way you judge, gentlemen of
the jury, I thank you.

The Interpreter: May it please the
Court — Gentlemen of the Jury : Caruso says
there is nothing else to say.




=========================================================
72

THE WALKER

By Arturo Giovannitti

Written in His Cell in Essex County Jail, Lawrence,

Mass.

I hear footsteps over my head all night.

They come and they go. Again they come and again
they go all night.

They come one eternity in four paces and they go one
eternity in four paces, and between the coming and
the going there is Silence and the Night and the
Infinite.

For infinite are the nine feet of a prison cell, and end-
less is the march of him who walks between the
yellow brick wall and the red iron gate, thinking
things that cannot be chained and cannot be locked,
but that wander far away in the sunlit world, in
their wild pilgrimage after destined goals.

Throughout the restless night I hear the footsteps over
my head.

Who walks ? I do not know. It is the phantom of the
jail, the sleepless brain, a man, the man, THE
WALKER.

One — two — three — four : four paces and the wall.

One — two — three — four : four paces and the iron gate.

He has measured the space ; he has measured it accu-
rately, scrupulously, minutely, so many feet, so
many inches, so many fractions of an inch for each
of the four paces.

73



One — two — three — four. Each step sounds heavy and
hollow over my head, and the echo of each step
sounds hollow within my head as I count them in
suspense and in fear that once, perhaps, in the end-
less walk, there may be five steps instead of four
between the yellow brick wall and the red iron gate.

But he has measured the space so accurately, so scrupu-
lously, so minutely, that nothing breaks the grave
rhythm of the slow, fantastic march.

When all are asleep (and who knows but I when they
all sleep?) three things are still awake in the night:
the Walker, my heart, and the old clock which has
the soul of a fiend, for never, since a coarse hand
with red hair on its fingers swung the first time the
pendulum in the jail, has the old clock tick-tocked
a full hour of joy.

Yet the old clock which marks everything and records
everything and to everything sounds the death
knell, the wise old clock that knows everything,
does not know the number of the footsteps of the
Walker nor the throbs of my heart.

For neither for the Walker nor for my heart is there
a second, a minute, an hour, or anything that is
in the old clock ; there is nothing but the night, the
sleepless night, and footsteps that go, and foot-
steps that come, and the wild, tumultous beatings
that trail after them forever.



74



All the sounds of the living beings and inanimate
things, and all the voices and all the noises of the
night, I have heard in my wistful vigil.

I have heard the moans of him who bewails a thing
that is dead and the sighs of him who tries to
smother a thing that will not die ;

I have heard the stifled sobs of the one who prays with
his head under the coarse blanket and the whis-
perings of the one who prays with his forehead on
the hard cold stone of the floor;

I have heard him who laughs the shrill, sinister laugh
of folly at the horror rampant on the yellow wall
and at the red eyes of the nightmare glaring through
the iron bars ;

I have heard in the sudden icy silence him who coughs
a dry, ringing, metallic cough and wished madly
that his throat would not rattle so and that he
would not spit on the floor, for no sound was
more atrocious than that of his sputum upon the
floor;

I have heard him who swears fearsome oaths which
I listen to in reverence and in awe, for they are
holier than the virgin 's prayer ;

And I have heard, most terrible of all, the silence of
two hundred brains all possessed by one single, re-
lentless, unforgiving, desperate thought.

75



All this have I heard in the watchful night,

And the murmur of the wind beyond the walls,

And the tolls of a distant bell,

And the remotest echoes of the accursed city,

And the terrible beatings, wild beatings, mad beatings
of the one Heart which is nearest to my heart.

All this I have heard in the still night;

But nothing is louder, harder, drearier, mightier, more
awful, than the footsteps I hear over my head all
night.

Yet fearsome and terrible are all the footsteps of men
upon the earth, for they either descend or climb.

They descend from little mounds and high peaks and
lofty altitudes, through wide roads and narrow
paths, down noble marble stairs and creaky stairs
of wood, and some go down to the street, and
some go down to the cellar, and some down to the
pits of shame and infamy, and still some to the glory
of an unfathomable abyss where there is nothing
but the staring, white, stony eyeballs of Destiny.

And again other footsteps climb. They climb to life
and to love, to fame, to power, to vanity, to truth,
to glory, and to the gallows; to everything but
Freedom and the Ideal.

And they all climb the same roads and the same stairs
others go down; for never, since man began to
think how to overcome and overpass man, have other
roads and other stairs been found.



76



They descend and they climb, the fearful footsteps
of men, and some drag, some speed, some trot,
some run ; the footsteps are quiet, slow, noisy, brisk,
quick, feverish, mad, and most awful in their ca-
dence to hear for the one who stands still.

But of all the footsteps of men that either descend
or climb, no footsteps are as fearsome and terrible
as those that go straight on the dead level of a
prison floor from a yellow stone wall to a red iron

gate.

* * #

All through the night he walks and he thinks. Is it
more frightful because he walks and his footsteps
sound hollow over my head, or because he thinks
and does not speak?

But does he think? Why should he think? Do I
think? I only hear the footsteps and count them.
Four steps and the wall. Four steps and the gate.
But beyond? Beyond? "Where does he go beyond?

He does not go beyond. His thought breaks there
on the iron gate. Perhaps it breaks like a wave of
rage, perhaps like a sudden flow of hope, but it
always returns to beat the wall like a billow of
helplessness and despair.

He walks to and fro within the narrowness of this
ever storming and furious thought. Only one
thought, constant, fixed, immovable, sinister, with-
out power and without voice.

77



A thought of madness, frenzy, agony, and despair,
a hell-brewed thought, for it is a natural thought.
All things natural are things impossible so long as
there are jails in the world — bread, work, happi-
ness, peace, love.

But he does not think of this. As he walks he thinks
of the most superhuman, the most unattainable,
the most impossible things in the world.

He thinks of a small brass key that turns half around
and throws open the iron gate.



That is all that the Walker thinks, as he walks through-
out the night.

And that is what two hundred minds drowned in the
darkness and the silence of the night think and
that is what I think.

Wonderful is the holy wisdom of the jail that makes
all think the same thought. Marvelous is the provi-
dence of the law that equalizes all even in mind and
sentiment. Fallen is the last barrier of privilege,
the aristocracy of the intellect. The democracy of
reason has levelled all the two hundred minds to the
common surface of the same thought.

I, who have never killed, think like the murderer ;

I, who have never stolen, reason like the thief ;

78



I think, reason, wish, hope, doubt, wait like the hired
assassin, the embezzler, the forger, the counterfeiter,
the incestuous, the raper, the prostitute, the pimp,
the drunkard, — I — I who used to think of love and
life and the flowers and song and beauty and the
ideal.

A little key, a little key as little as my finger, a little
key of shiny brass.

All my ideas, my thoughts, my dreams, are congealed
in a little key of shiny brass.

All my brains, all my soul, all the suddenly surging
latent powers of my life are in the pocket of a white-
haired man dressed in blue.

He is powerful, great, formidable, the man with the
white hair, for he has in his pocket the mighty talis-
man which makes one man cry and the one man
pray, and one laugh, and one walk, and all keep
awake and think the same maddening thought.

Greater than all men is the man with the white hair
and the little brass key, for no man in the world
* could compel two hundred men to think the same
thought. Surely when the light breaks I shall write
an ode, nay, a hymn, unto him, and shall hail him
greater than Mohammed and Arbues and Torque-
mada and Mesner, and all the other masters of
other men's thought. I shall call him Almighty, for
he holds everything of all and of me in a little
brass key in his pocket.

79



Everything of me lie holds but the branding iron of
contempt and the clamor of hatred for the most
monstrous cabala that can make the apostle and
the murderer, the poet and the procurer, think of
the same key, the same gate and the same exit on
the different sunlit highways of life.



My brother, do not walk any more.

It is wrong to walk on a grave. It is a sacrilege to
walk four steps from the headstone to the foot and
four steps from the foot to the headstone.

If you stop walking, my brother, this will be no longer
a grave; for you will give me back my mind that
is chained to your feet, and the right to think my
own thoughts.

I implore you, my brother, for I am weary of the long
vigil, weary of counting your steps and heavy with
sleep.

Stop, rest, sleep, my brother, for the dawn is well nigh
and it is not the key alone that can throw open
the door.



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