ost glorious of all American revolutionary traditions. The lives
of Parsons, Fischer, Engel, Spies and Lingg, and Sacco and Vanzetti, must
be made more than ever the inspiration of the proletarian youth. We must
indeed realize in life the noble last words of Spies, spoken as he stood
on the gallows with the hangman's noose around his neck:

_"There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than
the voices you are strangling today."_

Labor's Martyrs

By Vito Marcantonio
President, International Labor Defense

_"These are my ideas. They constitute a part of myself. I cannot divest
myself of them, nor would I if I could. And if you think that one can
crush out these ideas that are gaining ground more and more every day;
if you think you can crush them out by sending us to the gallows; if you
would once more have people suffer the penalty of death because they
have dared to tell the truth--and I defy you to show that we have told a
lie--if death is the penalty for proclaiming the truth, then I will
proudly and defiantly pay the costly price."_--(August Spies, just
before he was sentenced to death on October 9, 1886.)

The man who spoke these words had no illusions. He knew that the court he
was facing was a hostile court, an enemy court, a court determined to
stamp out all that he stood for and believed in. He knew, also, that the
truth of which he spoke was much bigger than the little man who sat in a
black gown waiting for him to finish so that he could pronounce the brutal
words that would mean his death on the gallows. He knew that the movement
he represented was bigger than the forces which were trying to crush it
and that it would survive.

Survive it did--to become one of the most powerful factors on the American
scene today, one of the most vital factors in the extension and
preservation of democracy and the rights for which he laid down his life.

And why should we venerate the memory of this man and the other victims of
the Haymarket tragedy? Not simply because they were brave men. Not simply
because they had the courage of their convictions and did not weaken in
the face of death. But because their fight is still going on today,
strengthened by their magnificent pioneer work, because of the foundation
they helped lay for the American labor movement of the present day.

Back in 1886, that movement was still almost in its infancy. Noble
attempts to build it had