n intrepid few. It cannot be
entrusted to visionary men, to fanatics, to men who detest government of
any form or to men who are willing to suffer present ills rather than
face temporary discomfiture.

"To carry on a crusade one must surrender self.

"If our plan did not embrace more than the annihilation of forty of the
Transgressors it would not be raised to a higher plane than wholesale
homicide.

"But we are to follow the course which the Plutocrats have traversed.
They have destroyed individual liberty; they have entrenched themselves
in our halls of legislature by bribery; our executives are their
puppets; our courts are their final buttress. To reclaim the rights of
the people we must reach the powers in control; the actual men who
engineer the scheme of public loot. These men have sacrificed human
lives to attain their ascendency. We must demand, we must enforce an
atonement.

"Because we are to deal with the chief transgressors, who represent a
small number, our deed will be regarded in the light of murder.

"Were the magnates in the field as an open foe our assault upon them
would be hailed as an act of heroism. Shall we be deterred by
consideration of a difference in mere words?

"I propose to vindicate these so-called murders, which we are to commit.
The atonement will be frightful. Will it be more so than the conditions
which necessitate it?

"Are the lives of forty soulless men to be compared with those of
thousands who are yearly sacrificed to sordid commercialism?

"Are we to extend our commerce at the price of a life for every dollar
of foreign trade?

"Men prospered in this country before the reign of the Trust Magnates;
men grew rich through ordinate profits, and the prosperity of the
country was the prosperity of all. To-day men seek to enrich themselves
by preying on the necessities of their fellowmen.

"Can the cry of tyrants and sycophants drown the wail of the innocent
children and women who have been chained to the wildcat car of Modern
Commercialism?

"In compiling the list of Transgressors, I have selected no man merely
because he is possessed of great wealth. There are many millionaires who
have earned their fortunes by honest endeavor and in strict conformity
with the laws of the land. I have discriminated against those who have
prostituted the laws of God and man; not a man whom I shall declare
proscribed but he is known to all men as stained with the blood of
innocents.

"