ils and
penitentiaries. The working man never did have the keys. Their
business has been to build them and to fill them.

There have been other industrial conspiracies, however, which are the
ones that interest me most, and it is about these and what you can do
about them and what you can't do about them that I wish to talk
tonight.

The real industrial conspiracies are by the other fellow. It is
strange that the people who have no property have been guilty of all
of the industrial conspiracies, and the people who own all the earth
have not been guilty of any industrial conspiracy. It is like our
criminal law. Nearly all the laws are made to protect property; nearly
all the crimes are crimes against property, and yet only the poor go
to jail. That is, all the people in our jail have committed crimes
against property, and yet they have not got a cent. The people
outside have so much property they don't know what to do with it, and
they have committed no crime against property. So with the industrial
conspiracies, those who are not in trade or commerce are the ones who
have been guilty of a conspiracy to restrict trade and commerce, and
those who are in trade and commerce that have all the money have not
been guilty of anything. Their business is prosecuting other people so
they can keep what they have got and get what little there is left.

But there are real industrial conspiracies. They began long ages ago,
and they began by direct action, when the first capitalist took his
club and knocked the brains out of somebody who wanted a part of it
for himself. That is direct action. They got the land by direct
action. They went out and took it. If anybody was there, they drove
them off or killed them, as the case might be. It is only the other
fellow that can't have direct action. They got all their title to the
earth by direct action. Of course, they have swapped it more or less,
since, but the origin is there. They just went out and took possession
of it, and it is theirs. And the strong have always done it; they have
reached out and taken possession of the earth.

A few men today can control all the industry and do control all of the
industry of this country. A dozen men sitting around the table in a
big city can bring famine if they wish; they can paralyze the wheels
of industry from one end of the United States to the other, and the
prosperity of villages, cities and towns, and the wages of its people
depends almost