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Preface to the book Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis by Albert Parsons PUBLISHER'S NOTE To MY FRIENDS AND THE PUBLIC: With the aid of friends, I am enabled to present for your perusal and consideration, the last efforts of my dear deceased husband, to enlighten the seekers after truth and information upon the great and burning questions of the age: the relations of the wage-earner to the wage-absorber in society. This book, as the reader is doubtless aware, was prepared near the close of an eighteen months' incarceration in a lonely, narrow, prison-cell. If it should at times lack any of the old-time vigor which characterized his former writings, please remember that the author was debarred from all the advantages and elements that go to making up a full and complete life; that from the day on which he voluntarily came forward and gave himself into the hands of the State, (the "Law and Order" people,) he had never breathed a breath of pure, fresh air, never looked upon a growing sprig of grass, never beheld either earth or sky; that nothing met his eye but frowning, bare stone walls relieved only by bolts, bars and chains; that in his 6x8 inner tomb he was confined twenty-one hours, six days in the week, and forty hours on "the Lord's day ' - from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning; and that he was denied the company of friends excepting the few moments when granted the privilege of conversing with them through a close wire netting, and having never touched the hand of even his wife, save twice, through all the long period of his imprisonment. Should there be a tinge of sadness in these last words of a noble and courageous soul, remember they were written beneath the shadow of that coming tragedy, whose gloom fell athwart all true and loving hearts. With these few remarks -- meaning no apology where none is needed -- I present to you these last efforts of one who lived in the world with the one purpose of making it better and happier for his having lived. And now. I speak as one who knows and has the right to speak: No nobler, purer truer, more unselfish man ever lived, than Albert R. Parsons, and when he and his comrades were sacrificed on the altar of class hatred, the people of the nineteenth century committed the hideous crime of strangling their best friends. Fraternally yours, Lucy E. Parsons. |