English

A Word to Tramps

"A Word to Tramps" by Lucy E. Parsons First published in The Alarm (Chicago), vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 4, 1884), pg. 1. Reprinted in Richard T. Ely, The Labor Movement in America. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1886; pp. 364-366. Content published in USA prior to 1923, public domain. Article by Lucy E. Parsons, wife of future Haymarket Affair victim Albert Parsons and herself a committed anarchist, from the front page of the premiere issue of The Alarm. Parsons addresses herself to the 30,000 unemployed of Chicago and implores them to ascertain the reason for their hunger, ragged clothing and distress. "Can you not see that it is the industrial system and not the 'boss' which must be changed?" Parsons asks. The rich with their palatial dwellings are the cause of this despoilment, Parsons notes, people who have "never yet deigned to notice any petition from their slaves that they were not compelled to read by the red glare bursting from the cannonsâ mouths, or that was not handed to them upon the point of the sword." No organization is needed to deliver a message to these "robbers," Parson indicates. She urges her readers to "avail yourselves of those little methods of warfare which

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