THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM by Gerald Desmond April 8, 1909

THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

By Gerald Desmond

Think of the men and women who in all ages have lived and fought and laid down their lives for freedom. Every time and generation has had its tyrants and oppressors, its rebels, its heroes, its martyrs for the great cause. And just now it seems that we are at the critical point. It seems as if all the sacrifices, the heroism, the struggles, lead up to the present. Upon the socialists fall the heat and burden of today’s battle.

We are the heirs of all rebel humanity. Verily, “the times call for giants.” We need those who will take up and carry to its consummation the work of Lincoln the Emancipator. We need the burning appeals of Payne re-written and brought into line with present conditions. We need such splendid defiance’s of wage slavery as Garrison at the heads of the exponents of chattel slavery. We need our writers, our orators, our poets, and they will come. Great men and women are the products of great epochs in history. This last struggle for freedom will fill the pages of history with great names and great deeds.