Page:Max Eastman's Address to the Jury in the Second Masses Trial (1918).pdf/14

 overthrow and ruin civilization and establish a condition of anarchy in Russia, then we are not in sympathy with Russia. Now, I ask you to remember that, when Mr. Barnes is calling us by the name of "Bolsheviki" without explaining what our interpretation of that name is.

The charge of conspiracy to overthrow this Government and to obstruct its military enterprises and to break down the foundations of democratic civilization is not proven. The only thing that is proven against us is that we agree in believing in the .philosophy of socialism. We are socialists. Mr. Barnes has given you an account of what he thinks socialism is, and I am going to tell you in some detail what socialism is.

HE Socialists believe in liberty and democracy. They believe in all the liberty and democracy that is possible in an organized, busy community like ours. And they believe in liberty and democracy exactly in the same way that Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, and all the rest of the true revolutionary fathers whose hearts are in the Declaration of Independence, believed in liberty and democracy. Only it is their opinion that real democracy does not consist merely in letting the people elect the officials who shall govern them, and they believe that true liberty is not guaranteed to a citizen merely by the possession of the right to vote. They think that democracy will begin when the people rule in industry as well as in politics. And they believe that true liberty involves the right to work and to possess all that you produce by doing your work. I think it is pretty obvious, if you just look along the street, that only those people are really free who possess an adequate source of income—only they are free from anxiety and worry, and