[Liberty, September 24, 1887.]

Unlike some of my friends, I have never entertained any hope that the supreme court of Illinois would overturn the verdict against the condemned Socialists of Chicago; and so, terrible as the recent news from that city is, I was not disappointed at it. But my heart grows heavier as the resources of defense diminish and the day approaches on which the brutal State proposes to execute upon these rash but noble men a base and far more rash revenge. To avert this act of madness and the unspeakable terrors to which it very possibly will lead, there remain but two cards yet to play in that game of statutory justice in which there is a percentage of chances in favor of the State that, if possessed by the backer of the games at Monte Carlo, would ruin him by driving all his victims to suicide. One of these cards is appeal to the supreme court of the United States; the other is appeal to the governor of Illinois. Now, as experience teaches us that the ascending scale of judicial supremacy generally registers a corresponding increase of stupidity and cold-bloodedness, there seems little reason to expect more fairness from Washington than Ottawa; and unless Governor Oglesby is far less a tool of capital than the average Republican governor seeking political advancement, appeal to that quarter will be equally useless. Still no stone should be left unturned. Let ample funds flow in, in order that all that can be done may be done, regardless of cost; and though capital’s faintest whisper should sound louder in official ears than labor’s mighty voice, let that voice give all its power to protest loud and long. Only so shall we have no error to regret.(152 ¶ 1)

Above all, we must not fail to learn the lesson of these troublous days. In all that Liberty has had to say about this sorry business from the first, the effort has been to make plain the folly of supposing the State to be at all concerned about justice. More than ever am I convinced of this after reading the long opinion of the Illinois judges. Their very able summary of the testimony offered at the trial confirms me in the opinion that under the law as it stands there was a sufficiency of evidence to convict the prisoners of murder. For it takes but precious little. For aught that I can see, the State’s attorney has it in his power to hang thousands upon thousands of innocent citizens of Chicago as easily as he will hang the seven victims now under sentence. It is the infernal conspiracy law itself which is responsible for this iniquity; and this law, which passes almost without question, shows how inevitably the State becomes an instrument of tyranny. This monster cannot be reformed; it must be killed. But how? Not by dynamite; that will not harm it. How, then? By light? It thrives in the darkness of its victims’ ignorance; it and they must be flooded with the light of liberty. If the seven must die, such must be the lesson of their death.(152 ¶ 2)