l-will and the hatred of the
usurers, the money-changers, the profiteers, the high priests, the
lawyers, the judges, the merchants, the bankers--in a word, the ruling
class. They said of him just what the ruling class says of the Socialist
today. 'He is preaching dangerous doctrine. He is inciting the common
rabble. He is a menace to peace and order.' And they had him arraigned,
tried, convicted, condemned, and they had his quivering body spiked to
the gates of Jerusalem.

"This has been the tragic history of the race. In the ancient world
Socrates sought to teach some new truths to the people, and they made
him drink the fatal hemlock. It has been true all along the track of the
ages. The men and women who have been in advance, who have had new
ideas, new ideals, who have had the courage to attack the established
order of things, have all had to pay the same penalty.

"A century and a half ago, when the American colonists were still
foreign subjects, and when there were a few men who had faith in the
common people and believed that they could rule themselves without a
king, in that day to speak against the kings was treason. If you read
Bancroft or any other standard historian, you will find that a great
majority of the colonists believed in the king and actually believed
that he had a divine right to rule over them. They had been taught to
believe that to say a word against the king, to question his so-called
divine right, was sinful. There were ministers who opened their bibles
to prove that it was the patriotic duty of the people to loyally serve
and support the king. But there were a few men in that day who said, 'We
don't need a king. We can govern ourselves.' And they began an agitation
that has been immortalized in history.

"Washington, Adams, Paine--these were the rebels of their day. At first
they were opposed by the people and denounced by the press. You can
remember that it was Franklin who said to his compeers, 'We have now to
hang together or we'll hang separately bye and bye.' And if the
Revolution had failed, the revolutionary fathers would have been
executed as felons. But it did not fail. Revolutions have a habit of
succeeding, when the time comes for them. The revolutionary forefathers
were opposed to the form of government in their day. They were
denounced, they were condemned. But they had the moral courage to stand
erect and defy all the storms of detraction; and that is why they are in
history