, 1886-04-07
RINGING ADDRESS
From the Joint Executive
Board of Assemblies,
Nos. lO1, SO and II, Knights
of Labor
To the Workingmen of the
World.

ST.. LOUIS, April 6.-The joint execu-
tive board of assemblies Nos. l0l, 90
and IL. Knights Of Labor, this afternoon
issued the following address.
ITO the Work1n0nien Of the World: =
FRIENDS AND BRoTHEss:-Hear us, for
we plead for our rights-Men of equity
look upon us, for we struggle against
giants of the wrong. Mad with frenzy of
pride and self adulation. begotten as it is
of success of outrage aud infamy, there
stands before us a giant Of aggregated
and incorporated wealth, every dollar of
which is built upon blood, injustice and
outrage. That giant Of corporate wealth
has centralized its power in, and is i'm
personated by, and eager fiend who rloats
as he grinds the life out of his fellow
men and grimaces and dances as they
writhe upon his instruments of torture.
o, 70 workingmen of America, who
love your liberty and your native land;
We great creators Of wealth, who stand as
the foundation of all national good, look
upon your brothers to-day. Gould, the
giant fend; Gould. the money monarch,
is dancing, as he claims, over the grave of
our order-over the ruin of u homes
and the blight of our lives. Before him
the world has smiled in beauty, but in his
wake is the graveyard of hope, cyclones,
the path Of devastation and death. Our
strong arms have grown weary in building
the tower of strength, aud yet he bids us
build on or die. Our young lives have
grown gray TO soon beneath the strain Of
unrequited constant toll. Our loved ones
at home are hollow checked and pale with
long and weary waiting for better days to
come. Nay, more than this, g%raveyards
are hiding his victims from our longing
eyes.
Brother workmen, this monster fend
has compelled some of us to toll in the
cold and rain for five and fifty cents a day.
Others have been compelled to yield their
time to him for seventeen and thirty-slx
weary hours for a p%ittance OF nine hours
pay. Others who have dared to assert
their manhood and repel against his
tyranny are black listed and boycotted all
over the land. He has made solemn
compacts with the highest authority in
our order and then basely refused to full
fill his pledge. He lives under and en-
JOYS all the benefits Of a republican form
of government, and yet advocates and
perpetuates the most debasing form OF
white slavery. He robs the rich
and poor, the high and low,
with a ruthless hand, and then
appeals to corrupt and purchased courts
to help him take our little homes away.
He breaks our limbs and mains our
bodies, and then demands that we shall
release him from every claim for damages
OF be black listed forever. He goes to our
grocers and persuades them not to give us
credit, because we refuse to be ground in
his human mill. He turns upon us a
horde Of lawless thugs, who shoot among
our wives and children with deadly in
tent, and then he bowls for government
help when he gets his pay in coin alike.
Fellow workmen, Gould mi be over
thrown. HIS giant power must be broken
or You and | must be slaves forever.
Knights Of Labor alone have dared be
David to this Goliah. The battle is not
for to-day; the battle is not for to-mor-
row-but for trooping generations in COM
ing ages of the world, for our children
and our children's children. 1t is the
great question of the age. Shall we in
coming ages be a nation Of free men or a
nation of slaves7 The question must be
decided now. The chains are already
forged that are to bind us. Shall we wait
until they are riveted upon our imbs2
Nay, God forbid
"Workmen of the world, marshal
Yourselves to the battle field. Workmen
of every chine, on to the fray Gould and
his monopolies must go down, or your
children must be slaves. Think of the
little olive plants around your hearth
stones that will be blighted by his curse.
Think Of the little home he is seeking to
rob you of. Think of the wife from whose
eyes he has wruug floods of tears and
from whose heart he has tortured drops
of blood Who can look calmly
upon his peridy, his outrage and
his crime2 for he has sought