“The Christian civilization of Chicago ... permits the heart's blood of your children to be quaffed in the wine cups of the labor robbers. . . . Socialism is the 100-cents-on-the-dollar religion. (Cheers) . . . . We have heard enough about a paradise behind the moon. We want something now. [....] We are tired of hearing about the golden streets of the hereafter. What we want is good paved and drained streets in this world. [....] I want my immortality in this world, and if there is any in the next world we can look after that when we get there.”
--
Lucy Parsons, “The Religion of Humanity,”
speech delivered at A. R. Parsons Assembly No. 1
of the Knights of Labor, Waverly Hall, January 23, 1889
SOURCE: Ashbaugh, Carolyn. Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1976) p. 170. For more on this speech and meeting see pp. 169-171.
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