We wish, in fact, to save your sons, as well as the sons of the people, from the horrible death of the battlefield.
If you throw us into prison, and if, by some impossible hazard, you stamp out our propaganda, then beware lest a war breaks out, perhaps at no distant day, and cut down, in the flower of their age, the beings who to you are the most dear. Beware, lest the mother of your son should come to you with accusing mien and cry: "Wretch! There were men who, at the risk of their liberty, tried to show the people a means of stopping governments from waging war, from killing my son; and it was you, wretched one, who threw these men into prison!"
Loud and repeated applause. The president threatens to clear the court.
The jury returns with a verdict of "Guilty, without extenuating circumstances."
Interrogated as to the application of the penalty, all the prisoners show a mocking and undaunted front.
Gustave Herve: I thank the gentlemen of the jury for the piece of work they have just done. I thank them for having illustrated and confirmed in such a striking manner the thesis which I put forward here on patriotism and the class war. You had sworn to judge without hatred and without fear—
The President: "Do not address the jury; address your remarks to the Court."
Herve: Gentlemen of the Court, they had sworn to try us without hatred and without fear. They have judged us with class hatred and with the fear of the press, of their friends, and of the public opinion of their class. They have widened the breach between their class and ours; they have dug deeper the pit into which we shall hurl them!
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
