Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/315

 I speak to you not because I want to review this evidence at all. 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 human being to say those atrocious, those flagitious 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 Mr. Ettor said, because we were prompted by something higher and loftier than what the District Attorney or any other man in this presence here may understand and realize. Were I not afraid that I was being somewhat sacrilegious, I would say that to go and investigate into the motives that prompted and actuated us to go into Lawrence would be the same as to inquire, why did the Saviour come on earth, or why 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 fraternity and brotherhood? 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. There has been brought only one side of this great industrial question, the method and the tactics. But what about, I