I am going to tell; better far for the victims of Amalgamated not to know who plundered them and how, than to have them know it only to wreak vengeance on individuals and overlook the "System," which, if allowed to continue, surely will in time, a short time, destroy the nation by precipitating fratricidal war.
The enormous losses, millions upon millions—to my personal knowledge over a hundred millions of dollars—which were made because of Amalgamated; the large number of suicides—to my personal knowledge over thirty—which were directly caused by Amalgamated; the large number of previously reputable citizens who were made prison convicts—to my personal knowledge over twenty—directly because of Amalgamated, were caused by acts of this "System" of which Henry H. Rogers and his immediate associates were the direct administrators; and yet Mr. Rogers and his immediate associates, while these great wrongs were occurring, led social lives which, measured by the most rigid yardstick of mental or moral rectitude, were as near perfect as it is possible for human lives to be. As husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, friends, they were ideal, cleanly of body and of mind, with heads filled with sentiment and hearts filled with sympathies; their personal lives were like their homes and their gardens—revealing only the brightest things of this world, the singing, humming, sweet-smelling things which so strongly speak to us of the other world we are yet to know. As workers in the world's vineyards, they labored six days and rested upon the Sabbath, and gave thanks to Him from whom all blessings flow that He allowed them, His humble creatures, to have their earthly being. And yet these men, to whose eyes I have seen come the tears for others' sufferings, and whose voices I have heard grow husky in recounting the woes of their less fortunate brothers—these men under the spell of the brutal code of modern dollar-making are converted into beasts of prey, and put to shame the denizens of the deep which devour their kind that they may live.