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November 11, 1911 Speech - Roberto F. Magon

 Comrades:

    Apostles of pacifism; believers of the political action of the proletariat, as the best means to achieve economic emancipation, turn your eyes to Chicago, where four black ditches, in the ground, keep the remains of four martyrs, whose silence is eloquent testimony that  Justice will groan in chains as long as the weapon in the hand of each worker does not shine, and this formidable feeling does not boil in the robust breasts: Rebellion!

    The four graves where Spies, Engel, Fisher and Parsons sleep proclaim this truth: "reason must arm itself"; and this other "violence against violence."

    Do not cross your arms: do not ask. Asking is the crime of the humble: that is why he is killed! If you have to be killed for asking, it is better to take!

    Listen to what those four tombs tell you: “Here we keep the remains of the best of yours. Here, in our dark entrails, sleep four generous men who dreamed of conquering the well-being of humanity by virtue of this single fact: to sit idly by in the general strike ”.

    Crossing your arms in the peaceful strike is as much as holding out your neck for the executioner to unleash the blow of his ax. Freedom is not conquered on your knees, but on your feet, returning blow for blow, inferring injury for injury, death for death, humiliation for humiliation, punishment for punishment. Let the blood flow in a torrent, since she is the price of his freedom.

    What step forward, what progress, what human advance in the political and social relations of men has succeeded without the cry of rage of the oppressed, without the cry of anger of the oppressors, without the generous shedding of blood, without the fire reducing things and institutions to ashes, without the catastrophe that under its rubble buries chains, scepters and altars?

    What is it about? Or is it a matter of destroying, of annihilating a system that is in open conflict with Nature? Well, the system cannot be destroyed by crossing our arms. Better than requesting a favor from the enemy, let's squash it! The bourgeoisie must never give. If a movement against her takes on proportions that constitute a threat, however peaceful that movement may be, however calmly and serenely the contest is conducted, when it threatens to reach a point where - even by the mere crossing of arms, they may fall into pockets of the proletarians a few more coins or the working day is reduced in a few minutes - the bourgeoisie, in agreement with the Government, will manufacture a process and the heads of the most worthy of our brothers will fall to the ground to the blows of the axes of the executioners. That is what happened in Chicago on November 11, 1887!

    Mexicans: let's not cross our arms or settle for improvements. All or nothing! Land and Freedom, or death! To be or not to be! The strike is out of fashion: long live the expropriation! Long live the red flag of the libertarians of Mexico!

    By iron and fire must be exterminated what is sustained by iron and fire. Force is the right of the fed up: let force be the right of the hungry! Thus speak the rebels who at this time, in Mexico, tear to pieces the overlapping laws of the crimes of those above, set fire to the files where the papers that protect the theft of the rich sleep, execute the authorities that defend privilege and put The rope on the necks of those who until yesterday were the masters of the poor, and they shout to the people: “You are free; organize the production yourself and be happy, as much as you can ”.

    What is this, crime? No: it's just plain justice! It is justice that, because it is justice, is not written in laws. It is the justice dreamed of by the human species since these three bandits appeared among the peoples: The one who said: "This is mine"; the one who shouted: "Obey me!" and the one who, raising his eyes to heaven, stammered hypocritically: "I am the minister of God ”.

    It is justice, whose very pure feeling makes the heart oppressed with indignation when seeing how in the great houses of those who do nothing there is abundance, and how in the little houses of those who do everything there is misery. That is: the bandits, upstairs, enjoying whatever pleasure can be imagined, while the workers, those who sweat, those who sacrifice themselves under the rays of the sun, in the darkness of the mines, in those prisons called ships and in all the places of exploitation, they live in the hell of misery, listening, instead of laughing, to the sobs of children who are hungry.

    Every honest conscience revolts before so much injustice protected by the law and supported by the Government. Against such an injustice, there is only one remedy: Rebellion! But not the rebellion that aims to remove Pedro to put John in his place, but the saving revolution that goes to the bottom of things, that destroys privileges, that strangles prejudices, that faces what was considered up to now sacred: the principle of authority and the right of individual property, and, with all the force of anger swallowed in silence during centuries and centuries of misery and humiliation, the chains were broken, the prisons opened and the great bell of the freedom of the human species, annihilating once and for all the old system and implanting the new one of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity.

    This is what the Mexicans are doing. The revolution did not die on May 26 with the pact of two bandits. The Revolution continued its march because it was not caused by the ambition of a clown, but by the long-felt need by a people stripped of everything. It is the lion that has awakened and throws to the four winds, as a challenge to injustice, these beautiful words: Land and Freedom! And he takes the land, sets fire to the lairs of his executioners, and on the smoking ruins he nails, with a firm fist, the flag of the free, the glorious red flag.

    Against the law armed to the teeth, the right of the armed proletarian as well; against the rifle, the rifle; against tyranny, the barricade and expropriation. Long live the social revolution!

R. Magon

November 11, 1911

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