Discussing his new biography of Clarence Darrow today, author John Farrell quoted one of the famed defense lawyer's thundering speeches:

With the land and possessions of America rapidly passing into the hands of a favored few, with thousands of men and women in idleness and want; with wages constantly tending to a lower level…with the knowledge that the servants of the people elected to correct abuses are bought and sold in legislative halls at the bidding of corporations and individuals; with all these notorious evils sapping the foundations of popular government and destroying personal liberty, some rude awakening must come.

In short, Farrell noted, Darrow described an era not unlike our own.

With reactionaries like Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker leading attacks on working people, Andrew Kersten, a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay history professor, says  famed 19th and 20th century labor lawyer Clarence Darrow would remind us that “labor rights are civil rights” and are “fundamental to the quest for equality, equity and freedom.”