Chapter XX…

Chapter XX

Judge Grinnell’s Opening—Statement of the Case—The Light of the 4th of May—The Dynamite Argument—Spies’ Fatal Prophecy—The Eight-hour Strike—The Growth of the Conspiracy—Spies’ Cowardice at McCormick’s—The “Revenge” Circular—Work of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and the Alarm—The Secret Signal—A Frightful Plan—“Ruhe”—Lingg, the Bomb-maker—The Haymarket Conspiracy—The Meeting—“We are Peaceable”—After the Murder—The Complete Case Presented.

IT was on Thursday, the 15th of July, that the preliminary work was finally ended and the court was ready for a formal statement of the case. This statement was made by State’s Attorney Grinnell, and his arraignment of the defendants was such a clear, convincing and masterful argument—giving, as it did, the whole history of the Anarchist conspiracy, and foreshadowing eloquently and in detail all the proof which was to be got before the jury—that I will print here a verbatim copy of his speech, believing that the reader will find nowhere else so business-like a statement of what these prisoners did and how they did it.

During the delivery of Mr. Grinnell’s remarks the crowded court-room, prisoners and sympathizing Anarchists, wounded policemen, judge, jurors and representatives of the press hung upon his words with a keen interest which has seldom been duplicated in the annals of American jurisprudence.

Mr. Grinnell said:

“GENTLEMEN:—For the first time in the history of our country are people on trial for their lives for endeavoring to make Anarchy the rule, and in that attempt for ruthlessly and awfully destroying life. I hope that while the youngest of us lives this in his memory will be the last and only time in our country when such a trial shall take place. It will or will not take place as this case is determined.

“The State now and at no time hereafter will say aught to arouse your prejudices or your indignation, having confidence in the case that we present; and I hope I shall not at any time during this trial say anything to you which will in any way or manner excite your passions. I want your reason. I want your careful analysis. I want your careful attention. We—my associates and myself—ask the conviction of no man from malice, from prejudice, from anything except the facts and the law. I am here, gentlemen, to maintain the law, not to break it; and, however you may believe that any of these men have broken the law through their notions of Anarchy, try them on the facts. We believe, gentlemen, that we have a case that shall command your respect, and demonstrate to you the truthfulness of all the declarations in it, and, further, that by careful attention and close analysis you can determine who are guilty and the nature of the crime.

“On the 4th of May, 1886, a few short weeks ago, there occurred, at what is called Haymarket Square, the most fearful massacre ever witnessed or heard of in this country. The crime culminated there—you are to find the perpetrators. The charge against the defendants is that they are responsible for that act. The testimony that shall be presented to you will be the testimony which will show their innocence or their guilty complicity in that crime.

“We have been in this city inclined to believe, as we have all through the country, that, however extravagantly men may talk about our laws and our country, however severely they may criticise our Constitution and our institutions; that as we are all in favor of full liberty, of free speech, the great good sense of our people would never permit acts based upon sentiments which meant the overthrow of law. We have believed it for years; we were taught it at our schools in our infancy, we were taught it in our maturer years in school, and all our walks in life thereafter have taught us that our institutions, founded on our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and our universal freedom, were above and beyond all Anarchy. The 4th of May demonstrated that we were wrong, that we had too much confidence, that a certain class of individuals, some of them recently come here, as the testimony will show, believe that here in this country our Constitution is a lie. Insults are offered to the Declaration of Independence, the name of Washington is reviled and traduced, and we are taught by these men, as the testimony will show, that freedom in this country means lawlessness and absolute licence to do as we please, no matter whether it hurts others or not. In the light of the 4th of May we now know that the preachings of Anarchy, the suggestions of these defendants hourly and daily for years, have been sapping our institutions, and that where they have cried murder, bloodshed, Anarchy and dynamite, they have meant what they said, and proposed to do what they threatened.

“We will prove, gentlemen, in this case, that Spies no longer ago than last February said that they were armed in this city for bloodshed and riot. We will prove that he said then that they were ready in the city of Chicago for Anarchy, and when told, by a gentleman to whom he made the declaration, that they ‘would be hung like snakes,’ said—and there was the insult to the Father of our Country—then he said George Washington was no better than a rebel, as if there was any possible comparison between those declarations, between that sentiment of Washington’s and his noble deeds, and the Anarchy of this man. He has said in public meetings—and the details of them I will not now worry you with—he has said in public meetings for the last year and a half, to go back no further—he and Neebe and Schwab and Parsons and Fielden have said in public meetings here in the city of Chicago that the only way to adjust the wrongs of any man was by bloodshed, by dynamite, by the pistol, by the Winchester rifle. They have advised, as will appear in proof here, that dynamite was cheap, and ‘you had better forego some luxuries, buy dynamite, kill capitalists, down with the police, murder them, dispose of the militia, and then demand your rights.’ That is Anarchy.

“On the 11th day of October, 1885, in a prominent public hall upon the West Side, August Spies, the defendant in this case, and his confrères there, introduced a resolution at a public meeting, in which he said that he did not believe that the eight-hour movement would do the laboring man any good. We will prove in this case that he has always been opposed to the eight-hour law. That is not what he wants. He wants Anarchy. These defendants that I mentioned passed a resolution, which we shall offer in evidence here, and it shall be read to you later—to the effect that the laboring men must arm, must prepare themselves with rifles and dynamite. When? By the 1st of May, 1886, because then would come the contest.

“I will prove to you that Parsons—be it said to the shame of our country, because I understand that he was born on our soil—that Parsons, in an infamous paper published by him, called the Alarm, has defined the use of dynamite, told how it should be used, how capitalists could be destroyed by it, how policemen could be absolutely wiped from the face of the earth by one bomb; and further has published a plan in his paper of street-warfare by dynamite against militia and the authorities.

“Gentlemen, leaders of any great cause are either heroes or cowards. The testimony in this case will show that August Spies, Parsons, Schwab and Neebe are the biggest cowards that I have ever seen in the course of my life. They have advised the use of dynamite and have advised the destruction of property for months and years in the city of Chicago, and now pitifully smile at our institutions, as they have through their lives—and, like cowards contemplating crime, they sought to establish an alibi for the 4th of May, of which I will speak directly.

“I will prove to you further that in January last August Spies told a newspaper reporter of integrity, honesty and fidelity that they were going to precipitate the matter on or about the 1st of May; that he told this man how they could dispose of the police, and in that connection he told that reporter that they would arrange it so that their meeting should be at or near the intersection of two streets. Having this as Randolph Street and Desplaines (pointing on map), not calling it any particular name, and that he would have a meeting in which there should be assembled large bodies of laboring men, of which he falsely claims to be the exponent; that they would be located just above the intersection of the streets; that he and his dynamiters would be there; that they would be provided with dynamite bombs at the place of meeting; that they would hold a meeting there; that the police or the militia would walk up towards them; that when they got up there their dynamite-throwers would be situated on different sides of the street near the walks; that when they proceeded up here they would throw the dynamite into their ranks, clean them out and take possession of the town. ‘But,’ said the reporter to him, ‘Mr. Spies, that sounds to me like braggadocio and vaporing nonsense.’ That is, gentlemen, what it has sounded to us for years. Let it sound no longer like that to us. Spies said to him, red in the face and excited: ‘I tell you I am telling the truth, and mark my words, that it will happen on or about the 1st of May, 1886.’ And the reason he was so ready to say so was because he believes our Constitution is a lie, our institutions are not worthy of respect, and he desires to pose as a leader, although in fact a coward.

“That is not all, gentlemen. Mr. Spies at that interview at that time handed that gentlemanly reporter—and I will commend him to you now, whatever may be your notion of newspaper men. Look at that man when he goes upon the stand and judge him by his words and by his appearance. He, Spies, did more than what I have said. At that time he handed to the newspaper reporter a dynamite bomb, empty—almost the exact duplicate of the bomb Lingg made which killed the officers; handed it to this witness and said to him: ‘These are the bombs that our men are making in the city of Chicago, and they are distributed from the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, because the men who make them have not the facilities for distributing them, and we distribute them here.’

“Those are facts that will be proven here.

“I want to suggest to you now, gentlemen, this is a vastly more important case than perhaps any of you have a conception of. Perhaps I have been with it so long, have investigated it so much, come in contact with such fearful and terrible things so often, that my notions may be somewhat exaggerated; but I think not. I think they are worse even than my conception has pictured. The firing upon Fort Sumter was a terrible thing to our country, but it was open warfare. I think it was nothing compared with this insidious, infamous plot to ruin our laws and our country secretly and in this cowardly way; the strength of our institutions may depend upon this case, because there is only one step beyond republicanism—that is Anarchy. See that we never take that step, and let us stand to-day as we have stood for years, firmly planted on the laws of our country.

“After teaching Anarchy, bombs, the manufacture of them and everything of that character for months, and I may say for years, here in town, having put the ball in motion, having done everything toward the end they declared should be accomplished—towards the end they sought—then began the numerous conspiracies. The beginning of the whole matter was among the nest of snakes in the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, and the foundation of the conspiracy, published, notorious and open, was at West Twelfth Street Turner Hall, on the 11th of October last. At that time, on the introduction of that resolution by Spies, it was opposed by one man in the audience, who is a labor agitator, but not an Anarchist—opposed by one man in that audience, and he was denounced; he was told to take a back seat, and in support of the resolution it was there said by Spies—and a man, as I understand, by the name of Belz was chairman—that the time for argument has passed; the only argument by which to meet these things was dynamite and the rifle—by force.

“As is well known, requiring no proof, for a long time before, it was arranged by a universal arrangement or consent among all the laboring classes in town that there should be a universal strike for eight hours, to take place on or about the 1st day of May. On the 1st day of May began those strikes. On the 2nd—on the 3d—the 2nd was Sunday—on the 3d day of May, on Monday, you will remember from your reading, as it will appear in proof here, there was difficulty at McCormick’s factory down on what they called the Black Road. The fact about that meeting was this: A large number of lumber-shovers, or men who work in the lumber-yards, had a meeting appointed to wait on the lumber-dealers, There were a great many of them Bohemians, some Germans, and some of other nationalities—mostly embraced in those two nationalities that I first spoke of, but all nationalities represented there. The chief officers and the chief men in the movement were Bohemians. Some of them will be presented to you by us. The committee that was to wait upon the lumber-dealers was to report there in an open place called the Black Road, or in that locality, to the meeting, what the lumber-dealers proposed. In other words, a peaceful proposition was made by that committee to the lumbermen to accede to eight hours, and a meeting was held there; the committee were to come back from the lumber-dealers and report to that meeting. Spies and a man by the name of Fehling—who ought also to have been in this indictment, and I will say just a word later about that—one other man whose identity we have not fully established—went down there uninvited by any of that committee, or by the chairman of it—went down there and made an inflammatory speech for the purpose of precipitating that riot. That is the truth. It was precipitated. I am rather inclined to think that some other of these men were there. I am not going to state anything to you here, at any time, in this case, that I do not believe I can prove. I know Spies was there, and spoke from the top of a car. He wrote up the speech later on, which I will speak of directly. The president of that organization down there, the laborers, opposed his speaking and informed the people that this man was not one of them, but that he was a Socialist, and they did not want to hear him. He insisted upon speaking, and the friend that was with him has fled the city and does not dare return. That will be in proof. Spies did the unmanly thing that he always does. He exasperated other people to rush on McCormick’s regardless of the president of that committee, who desired quiet and peace and desired it honestly, although he was in favor of eight hours. But Spies is not anxious for eight hours. We will prove that in this case. He does not want eight hours. If the laboring men—if the bosses and employers in the city of Chicago on the 1st day of May had universally acceded to the eight-hour project, Spies was a dead duck; they would have had no further use for him, and he didn’t want it. Therefore he went down there and exasperated the people, and he made a speech. The police didn’t come on the ground until after McCormick’s was attacked, and until after stones and bombs were used, or pistols and lead against McCormick’s factory. What does Spies do, this redoubtable knight? He runs away and gets home just as soon as he can. He takes a car and comes north. I will say nothing more about that meeting for the present. Let us follow Spies. Now, mind you, he saw trouble. He had exasperated this crowd to attack McCormick’s; they did attack McCormick’s, and stones were thrown by the mob at McCormick’s men—some of them—they are called scabs; they didn’t happen to belong to any union. Of course my opinion about that may be different from some of yours; I will not criticise. I believe one man is just as good as another, whether he belongs to a union or not. If he is an honest man and desires to work, I think he ought to be permitted to work. But those fellows didn’t belong to the union. They swam across the river, got away the best they could, saved their lives. But what does Spies do? He rushes away as soon as he can, when he sees the starting of the difficulty; when he has got everybody inflamed into frenzy and madness he quietly gets out to save his august person; he quietly gets out and goes away. That is not all. He lands that afternoon at the corner of Desplaines and Lake, where there was a crowd of other men, laborers meeting there, and pronounces a lie by telling them that ‘twelve or fourteen of your brothers have been killed at McCormick’s, and by the bloodhounds, the police.’ Spies knew as well as anything that he ever knew in his life that he was uttering a falsehood. He knew, if he knew anything, that, so far as his observation was concerned, not a man had been killed—not a single man had been killed—and he inflamed the people there by his suggestion, heated as he was and showing excitement, coming in there at Desplaines and Lake at that meeting, inflaming those people so that they were then ready to go with the torch and the sword and level everything before them.

“That is not all. He left there about four o’clock in the afternoon, perhaps between four and five, and went to this nest of treason and Anarchy, No. 107 Fifth Avenue, and there about five o’clock arrived, heated, excited, and told his men not to stop work, that he wanted to use them. What did he do? He then and there wrote what is called the ‘Revenge’ circular. It is written in English and in German. The English part is tame, more tame than the German—and he knew what he was doing then; there was a plan in that. We have the circular as printed, which will be presented to you. We have in addition to that the type from which it was printed; we have in addition to that the manuscript from which the type was set. The manuscript is in Spies’ handwriting! That ‘Revenge’ circular, gentlemen, perpetrated another lie. It said that ‘six of your brothers have been killed at McCormick’s.’ He decreased it a little. That ‘Revenge’ circular was hurriedly passed out to all the German settlements of the town and everywhere, by every possible means. Neebe distributed them; others distributed them. They were ‘revenge;’ revenge for what? Revenge for the declared murder of the brothers of the laboring men at McCormick’s Monday afternoon—when he had no knowledge that a single man was killed. I have since learned and shall prove that one man did die days or weeks afterwards from wounds he did receive there, and only one.

“I want to suggest another thing to you here. It will appear in proof—because we have had the German part of that circular translated—that the German part of that circular is the most infamous thing that ever was in print. The translation of the German part of that circular is not like the English part. A man picking up the circular who was an English scholar—as I remember, the English part of the circular comes first, and following that is the German part—and any man, even some of these German newspaper men, would pick that up, and the first thing they would read would be the English part, not the German. They would read the English hastily through and they would say, ‘That’s some of Spies’ vaporing nonsense again; nothing very serious about it, but bad—bad taste—bad judgment in inflamed times.’ But the revenge circular as printed in German is altogether a different thing. It is not only treason and Anarchy, but a bid to bloodshed, and a bid to war. Anybody reading the English part of that circular would drop it—even the Germans. And the German newspapers until afterwards did not perceive the dissimilarity between the two, the English and the German. Now, where is this matter read? It is fortunate for the English-speaking people that defendants embrace only two of that class; one of them was born in this country, the other in England. That circular was read among the Germans. That circular was spread throughout the western part and the northern part of the city of Chicago and in other places, at the instance of Spies, who had it circulated himself. ‘Revenge on the bloodhounds, the police.’ For his life, in regard to those who were killed, he could not have known whether anybody was killed or not, because he took care of his royal person so speedily after the difficulty at McCormick’s that he had no chance to know whether anybody was killed, and he took good care to see that he was not hurt. So much for the ‘Revenge’ circular.

“Now, gentlemen, we are getting down to the 4th of May. There is more in it than this. Monday was the 3d day of May; Tuesday was the 4th, the day the bomb was thrown. Everything was ripe with the Anarchists for ruining the town. Bombs were to be thrown in all parts of the city of Chicago. Everything was to be done that could be done to ruin law and order. I wish to say right here, gentlemen, that the proof in this case will develop a strange state of facts in regard to the complicity of others in this matter, and in that particular perhaps there ought to be some apology for myself. The conspiracy was so large, the number of criminals interested in that conspiracy so appalling, that I distrusted my own judgment, and, whereas in my soul I believed that at least thirty men and perhaps more should have been indicted for murder, the developments in the case were of that kind, when the grand jury was in session, that the facts could not all clearly be known. And further, there was that feeling and inspiration in the matter, if you please, that the leaders, the men who have incited these things, the men who have caused this anarchy and bloodshed here, and who seek for more—that they should be picked out and, if possible, punished and blotted out.

“The Arbeiter-Zeitung, the paper itself—we shall attempt to show you in proof here its circulation, or its sworn issue for a year. We will have them translated for you. We will also attempt to show to you from the Alarm, the English organ of the Anarchists—that is what it is called, just think of it—the English organ of the Anarchists, published by the redoubtable and courageous Parsons. We will show you in proof its writings and its sentiments, its invitations to Anarchy, to bloodshed, to the throwing of bombs, and his advice to people how to make bombs.

“If I prove only this that I have stated to you, it seems to me that from every principle of law and evidence, from every principle of justice, the men whose names I have mentioned should be punished.

“But one step more. This was Monday night, remember, that Spies wrote the ‘Revenge’ circular. That was not all he wrote. He himself wrote the account of his speech, wrote the account of the McCormick riot, wrote his notions about it, and that is in his handwriting. We have the manuscript. And in that he said this, gentlemen—that ‘so far as the McCormick matter was concerned it was a failure, and if there only had been one bomb the result might have been different.’ The one bomb at least was supplied by his inflammatory utterances the next night.

“On Monday evening, after Spies had inflamed these people up there—on Monday in the daytime, rather, appeared in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, a newspaper published at 107 Fifth Avenue—it is a four-page paper, it has been constantly and carefully read in the progress of this trial by the gentlemen seated over there in a row—in the Arbeiter-Zeitung appeared on Monday, in a column devoted to editorial notices, a secret word for the meeting of the armed men. That was in German—the letter ‘Y,’ called ypsilon in German—“Ypsilon, come Monday night.” Ypsilon was the secret word agreed on by the armed men to meet in secret session, when they saw printed in this treasonable sheet that secret word. As I am informed and believe from the proof, Balthasar Rau wrote that secret word. The armed men of the Anarchists, to be brief, are those of the Anarchists who are willing to throw bombs and fire pistols behind people’s backs. It is divided into groups. Why, all their literature from Pittsburg to San Francisco, including the pen of Neebe, Spies, Schwab and Parsons—all of them have advised how to make up groups, based upon the Anarchistic notions. On that page appears this secret word. Balthasar Rau is the confidential friend of Spies, works in their office; he is not an editorial writer, he is not a writer at all, unless he occasionally essays to say something in print. I do not know, but I believe that that is his writing, the letter ‘Y’ in German—‘Come Monday night.’ That is all there was of it. What does it mean? Pursuant to that secret word, on Monday night—that is the same night that Spies got back from McCormick’s—on that night the armed men did assemble pursuant to ‘Ypsilon, come Monday night,’ and they knew where to go to. They went to Greif’s Hall. Greif’s Hall is on Lake Street, just east of Clinton.” Mr. Grinnell indicated the points on a map. “This is Zepf’s Hall (indicating); the name will be mentioned to you. Here is Desplaines Street Station, so that you can keep in your mind from this map the idea. Here is Desplaines Street Station; north up here to Lake, Zepf’s Hall; east, Greif’s Hall. They met. Greif’s Hall is a four-story building, as I remember; a family lives in it, there is a saloon, and down in the basement is a place for truck and one thing and another, and also a rough-and-ready place for meetings. The armed men were there; Fischer was there; Lingg was there; Engel was there. The armed men met there with others—other armed men than those that I have mentioned. They pass into Greif’s Hall; they say to Mr. Greif: ‘Have you a hall we can take?’ He said: ‘No, my halls are all occupied;’ one kind of labor association was meeting in one hall, and another in another; but he said, ‘If you want the basement’—and I have a plan and map of the basement—‘if you want the basement, go down stairs and hold your meeting.’ So these men, the numbers of them variously estimated from thirty to sixty, meet in that place. Among them were Fischer, Lingg, Engel and Schnaubelt. Schnaubelt is in this indictment, and not here. He has run away. These men met in this hall underneath the saloon, a dingy and dark basement—the only proper place for conspirators—by the light of a dingy lamp—and they held an organized meeting. The plan of warfare was devised—not for the next night. I will explain that. But for some night. Engel, a man who is gray, has been in this country some years and talks some English—he understands me, and laughs and smiles at every word I utter—Engel was at that meeting that night, and told the plan. I am going to be brief about the recitation of that plan. That was the most fearfully declared plan that I ever heard in my life. It meant destruction to this town absolutely if this programme had been carried out. Engel said: ‘When you see printed in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, under the Letter-box, the word ‘Ruhe,’ that night prepare for war.’ ‘Ruhe’ means ‘rest,’ ‘peace.’ The manuscript for that is in our possession and is in the handwriting of Spies. That word on Tuesday morning appeared in the Arbeiter-Zeitung and in a double lead, with an emphasis under it, before it and behind it. It meant ‘war.’ They understood it; and Engel refers to Fischer in the meeting and he says: ‘Is not this the order of the Northwest group?’ That is another group for conspiracy and treason. Fischer said ‘Yes.’ As I am informed, Fischer undertook to carry the word back to the Arbeiter-Zeitung office and have it inserted. Fischer was the foreman of the Arbeiter-Zeitung office at that time. He carried the word back, I assume. Spies wrote it out, double-leaded it, made it emphatic, and they were ready for war.

“But that was not all. Somebody had to make the bombs. Lingg was there, and he said that he would make the bombs. He was the bomb-maker of the Anarchists, and we have found and traced to him at least twenty-two of these infernal machines, one of which passed from his hands to the man who threw it at the Haymarket Square. I will prove to your absolute satisfaction that Lingg made the bomb that killed the officers, and will show to you that it was his bomb, and his manufacture alone. Lingg lived at No. 442 Sedgwick Street, occupied a room in Seliger’s house. Seliger is in this indictment for murder also. He is not on trial. I am not yet prepared to say whether the State will use him as a witness or not. I will have a suggestion to make on that subject directly.

“Lingg was to make the bombs. Engel devised the plan and deliberately told him over and over so that there would be no mistake. Now, what was the plan? That these conspirators should proceed to Lingg’s house that next night, or before night, and obtain from Lingg the bombs. He had already sixteen halves, or eight whole bombs. But he wanted more, and they were to be filled with dynamite on Tuesday afternoon.

“And what next? Then these people were informed where they could obtain them, and he was to go, as he did, in the evening, or between seven and eight o’clock, to Neff’s Hall, at No. 58 Clybourn Avenue. They went to work. There Seliger helped fill the bombs that afternoon. Lingg was there. Lingg left in the afternoon. He didn’t stay there through it all, but came back again. I do not think that Lingg was at the Haymarket that night; he may have been; I don’t think he was. His part on the programme—part of it had been performed—was to furnish the bombs and do the work elsewhere.

“Now, gentlemen, just look at this plan, and this is the plan that Engel told them should be performed. They were to get these bombs; certain of them were to be at the Haymarket Square, where this meeting was; and in this meeting, mind you, in this conspiracy meeting the programme was that there should be at least twenty-five thousand laboring men present; that they would not hold the meeting down on the square, but that they would get up in the street, because they were out in a great open place there, the police could come down on them and clean them all out; but they must get back where the alleys were, instead of holding the meeting down here where it was advertised. You see there are two blocks here. Instead of holding the meeting on this broad spot here (indicating on the map), they were to hold it up here; and that very thing was discussed down there that night in the conspiracy meeting, as to the feasibility of holding it here where the police could corner them. Then these individuals with the bombs were to distribute themselves in different parts of the city. They were to destroy the station-houses; they were to throw bombs at every patrol wagon that they saw going toward the Haymarket Square with police officers. They expected there would be a row down there at the Haymarket Square, of course. There was going to be one bomb thrown there at least, and perhaps more, and that would call the police down; but the police must be taken care of and must not be permitted to go, and they were to be destroyed, absolutely wiped off from the earth by bombs in other parts of the city. And Lingg went around with bombs in his pocket that night and desired to throw them at a patrol wagon and was only restrained by his friends. And they were to build a fire up toward Wicker Park—some building was to be set on fire for the purpose of attracting the police in that direction and scattering them about. Others were to take other parts of the city and burn them so that they would be destroyed.

“Now, this sounds as if it was a large story. But that is what Spies had been talking for years; that is what Parsons had been talking for years; that is what he came back here so courageously, on the arm of the learned counsel on the other side, to hear again in court.

“That meeting that night was fruitful of great results. A bomb was thrown at the Haymarket, and seven killed and many others injured. It is not necessary for me to go into any more of the details of that conspiracy. It was carried out to the letter.

“Now, there is one other little step in this case, gentlemen, that I wish to bring to your attention. When that ‘Revenge’ circular was circulated, Fischer, immediately thereafter, and at the conspiracy meeting—Fischer is the foreman printer of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and the immediate friend of Spies and all these people—Fischer was to advertise, to see that the proper number of people came to that meeting, and he got up an advertisement, and it was printed. He ordered twenty thousand. That advertisement will be presented to you in the proof. That advertisement called for ‘Revenge’ and ‘A big meeting of the workingmen at the Haymarket Square on Tuesday night.’ Now, you see, the ‘Ruhe’ had appeared. The conspiracy was all complete; everything was arranged; there was only one step more to make—to get the laboring men there—because, thank God, all the laboring men were not in this conspiracy. A very few were in it. It is to their credit, gentlemen; and in my investigation in this case I have more respect for the laboring man than I had before. The laboring man as a class is an honest man, and when he saw the ‘Revenge’ circular and the call ‘to arms’ he stayed away. Fischer had the advertisement printed, and the last sentence is this: ‘Workingmen, come armed.’ But that was a little too much for Spies; that was too close home. After about five thousand of these circulars were printed, Spies orders that sentence stricken out; but the whole twenty thousand were distributed, and with Spies’ knowledge. Spies was preparing the alibi.

“On the evening of Tuesday, at 107 Fifth Avenue, there was a meeting of these conspirators, of these Anarchists, of what is called the American group, that Parsons and Fielden and, I suppose, Spies belong to, and some others. That was held at 107 Fifth Avenue. That is at the Arbeiter-Zeitung office. They were there on Tuesday night. Parsons was on Halsted Street, to be sure, but yet seemed anxious to get away and go down to this other meeting on the South Side. He went down there. The meeting was advertised for a large number of laboring men. The laboring men did not materialize to any large extent. Between Halsted and Desplaines there were hundreds of people walking backwards and forwards, wondering why the meeting did not take place. It was advertised for half past seven; they expected to precipitate the matter at half past seven, because, pursuant to ‘Ruhe’ and the other declarations, and pursuant to Engel and Lingg and Fischer’s arrangement at the conspiracy meeting, they were to begin their work in the other parts of the city about eight o’clock, as they expected the police would precipitate the difficulty—they would precipitate the difficulty by the police coming about eight, or between half past seven and eight. Good speakers were advertised, yet no names given. Spies went over there that night himself, wandered around, seemed careless, walked over here with his friend Schnaubelt, up to the other street—with Schwab, too. Schwab went away finally and went up to Deering. They marched backwards and forwards there, and finally Spies comes back to the corner here and opens the meeting, and says, when he opens it: ‘We will not obstruct that road on Randolph Street, but will go up here.’ So he got where he had always said they would get, just above the intersection of the streets. They got up there on the wagon, and Spies opened the meeting.

“Now, gentlemen, we have got down to the meeting. I have endeavored to give you, in a kind of historical way, how this thing leads up to, without saying specifically, the proof. I have told you that we would prove declarations of these men, time out of number, about dynamite and bombs, and the destruction of property and the destruction of the police. That we will attempt to do. There is no need of my specifying or saying what each individual witness will say.

“Neebe has upheld bloodshed and riot time and again, although from all the inquiries put to you it would seem as if he was known as one of these peaceable, peaceful, quiet labor organizers.

“The laboring men did not come to any large extent. There probably were not two thousand men there at any time, even early in the evening. There were not enough there to get up a riot. They could not get up a riot with such a small number as that, and they were compelled to have somebody speak to keep what they had; they were dissolving—going away. Now, Spies was there. He is the man, I think, that knew of ‘Ruhe;’ I think that he himself will state—I think others will state—that they knew of all the circumstances about the ‘Ruhe,’ and about what they were going to do. I think the proof will show that he knew of the whole conspiracy. He did not stop it. They will undertake to show that he tried to. Now, I want you to watch that carefully. We will have something to say on that subject as the basis of all this. There never was a great criminal in the world, especially if he was a coward, but what, if he undertook to commit a great crime and wanted to conceal himself, he prepared an alibi. Parsons, Fielden, Schwab, Neebe and Spies prepared that alibi. They were going to let these three other men suffer, let the man that threw the bomb suffer; but they, who had been teaching dynamite for years, asking people to throw bombs for years—they, after the bomb had been thrown, were going to say that they were not liable at all.

“Now, at that meeting, Spies got back up here and opened the meeting. There was some significance in the very way he opened it. We will have it all here. Fortunately, one of the newspaper reporters—Mr. English, of the Tribune—stood there with his overcoat on, with his hands in his pocket, not daring to take his paper out, and took a minute of everything that was said—wrote in shorthand, with his hand in his pocket, what they said, as long as he could. Spies opened the meeting up here near the alley. A wagon was standing there upon which they stood and from which they spoke. Spies found that the meeting was going to dissolve; there wasn’t going to be any interference by the police to any extent unless they could keep that crowd there. So he sends Balthasar Rau over to the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, where the American group were. Now, how did he know that they were over there? They went over to the Arbeiter-Zeitung office to get Parsons, Fielden and the rest of them to come over and address the meeting, and they came over, and we will have what they said—where speeches were inflammatory, denunciatory, crying for bloodshed—everything of that character.

“Gentlemen, I have called several of these men cowards. The testimony will show that they are. I am rather inclined to think that Fielden, although he is an Anarchist, is the only man in the whole crowd that stood his ground that night.

“The history of the throwing of that bomb shows that the police did not interfere any too soon. Gentlemen, it is our humble opinion, from looking this case all over, that Inspector Bonfield, although it is sad to think that life is destroyed—I think Inspector Bonfield did the wisest thing that he possibly could have done, to have called the police there that night as he did. If he had not, the next night it would have had to be done, or the next, and whereas seven poor men are dead, there would have been instead hundreds, perhaps thousands. I say again, to the credit of Bonfield and the police, I wish it understood that at that meeting it was the wisest thing that ever happened to this town, although cruel as it may seem in the light of the fact that seven died. Hundreds and perhaps thousands were saved. Anarchy had been taught and cried for months; it had almost come with its demoralization, and the strength and courage of the police saved the town.

“About ten o’clock, from the reports coming to Bonfield, as will appear in proof, the inflammatory utterances of these American citizens, of these people, had decided Bonfield that the meeting must be broken up. He was wise. He passed down there with his force of police, and, gentlemen, not a policeman except the commanding officer in front had a weapon in his hand. They marched down there shoulder to shoulder, covering the whole street, and came to the wagon. Fielden was shouting to the police, talking about the bloodhounds as they advanced, because he was facing them as he spoke. He probably saw them as they turned the corner. They formed here (indicating on the map), in this court back here, and marched into the street at Desplaines, occupying almost the entire width of the street, facing down—what we may call up Desplaines Street, north towards where this meeting was. The meeting was held about the vicinity of that alley. This property here, all through there, is Crane’s factory—R. T. Crane & Co. Here is an alley that runs in through here. Eagle Street is here, and of course here is Lake, and here is Randolph. Fielden was speaking; the police came up to the wagon; Captain Ward stepped up to the crowd and told them that he commanded them, in the name of the people of the State of Illinois, to depart, to leave, to disperse. He made the ordinary statutory declaration. Fielden stepped from the wagon and said: ‘We are peaceable,’ so that it could be heard a long distance around him. At that moment a man, who a moment before had been on the wagon, stepped to the corner of that alley, lighted the bomb and threw it into the police. Fielden stepped from the wagon and began firing. He is the only one, I told you, of the crowd, that has got any of the elements of the hero in him; he was willing to stand his ground. The others fled. Parsons never did a manly thing in his life, and neither did the others. They are not for law; they are against the law. Although Fielden is against the law, he did have the English stubbornness to stand up there and shoot, and he fired from over the wagon until finally he disappeared.

“I have given you in detail a good deal of the proof. I have told you the reason that I did it was, not only for your own edification, but so that these gentlemen could know what we expect to prove. We have nothing to conceal, we have nothing to hide. We expect as fair a statement from them as to their case.

“I have only a word or two more to you, gentlemen. Remember, gentlemen, that this meeting was called for half-past seven. The police did not appear until half-past ten. There are nearly three long hours—about half-past ten, between ten and half-past ten. The bomb-throwers had become discouraged. Those individuals that were situated in different parts of the town had not received the communication, because the conspiracy embraced the fact that spies were to be located there to scatter the word, and then was to continue this destruction. The police came so late, and so many went away, that it was absolutely coming very near to being a fiasco. They had been arranging for it for months. The conspiracy had been clearly declared and established. The only thing they needed was the crowd. The crowd failed to come. The police failed to interfere, and finally, at the last moment, having interfered, most of those that were there had gone. And there was another thing. These men that were interested in the throwing of the bomb were paralyzed, notwithstanding their firing and the shooting, by the attitude of the police who stood up there; and in all my examination of these men, asking each and every one of them as far as I could what they did there that night, I have failed to find a man that ran. They stood up there and fired at these wretches who were pouring into them, from both sides of the street, a volley of shots from pistols. One bomb was fired and thrown, and just the moment that happened, not a policeman with his club—scarcely one—not a policeman with a pistol in his hand, but every one standing there waiting for orders. The bomb was thrown, and the firing began from both sides of the policemen and from the crowd, and them alone. The police never fired a shot until after many of their men had already bit the dust.

“I will attempt to show to you, gentlemen, who threw the bomb, from this locality (indicating on map). I have said to you that the bomb that was thrown was made by Lingg. I will prove that.

“I have one other suggestion to make to you. There never was a conspiracy in the world, either small or great—not a conspiracy ever established in the world, but what there was needed some conspirator to give the first information of its existence and its purposes. I want you to be cautious, gentlemen, about an unjust criticism of any member of that conspiracy who first gave us the ideas about it and its ends. Seliger gave us the information, the first information, which led to the knowledge of this terrible conspiracy, led to the knowledge of the facts relating to it. I said to you, we may not use Seliger; but I say to you this, gentlemen, that not a single conspirator placed upon the witness-stand by the State shall be so placed there without we can do something to corroborate his statements; and even if we do not, I have yet to learn of a man that dare say that that conspiracy did not exist. And so far as that is concerned as a question of law, when a conspirator or a co-conspirator gives his testimony in court, you have a right to reject it if you desire. But, gentlemen, before you reject it the court will simply instruct you in regard to a conspirator’s testimony that his testimony is to be considered like any other witness, and that you have a right to consider his credibility in view of the fact that he is a co-conspirator.

“This indictment is for murder, a serious charge. Under our statute the jury fixes the penalty. If murder, the penalty is not less than fourteen years; it may be for life; it may be the death penalty. For manslaughter, the lower degree under murder, under our statute, which is somewhat different from statutes in other States, the penalty is any number of years’ imprisonment and may be for life. The indictment in this case is for murder. There are a great many counts here, but the chief thing is the count against these men for murder. Now, it is not necessary in a case of this kind, nor in any case of murder, or any other kind, that the individual who commits the exact and particular offense—for instance, the man who threw the bomb—should be in court at all. He need not even be indicted. The question for you to determine is, having ascertained that a murder was committed, not only who did it, but who is responsible for it, who abetted it, assisted it, or encouraged it? There is no question of law in the case.

“We will show to you, I think to your entire satisfaction, that, although perhaps none of these men personally threw that bomb, they each and all abetted, encouraged and advised the throwing of it, and therefore are as guilty as the individual who in fact threw it. They are accessories.

“I have talked to you, gentlemen, longer than I expected to, and chiefly so that you would know something about this case, know something about the facts. I have given you not, perhaps, all the details, but I have given you, as a whole, the facts. I want you to patiently listen to the evidence in this case from both sides, and be careful in your analysis. You have, most of you, been here some time, and you have been admirably patient. Only continue that way, and be patient in the matter, and make up your minds when the testimony is all presented, and not before. It may take some days to get at the proof and to place it all before you, so that you can clearly understand it. A great deal of the proof has to come from the mouths of witnesses whose language will have to be interpreted to you. That will take more time. But the whole case will finally be presented to you substantially, I think, as I have stated it. I will now leave the matter with you.”

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Chapter XXI

The Great Trial Opens—Bonfield’s History of the Massacre—How the Bomb Exploded—Dynamite in the Air—A Thrilling Story—Gottfried Waller’s Testimony—An Anarchist’s “Squeal”—The Murder Conspiracy Made Manifest by Many Witnesses.

ON Friday, July 16, the day following the delivery of the State’s Attorney’s argument, the first witness was called. The defendants appeared flushed with excitement, and the throng in the court-room was eager in expectancy of the State’s evidence. Some of the officers disabled at the Haymarket were among the interested spectators. All were in a flutter of suppressed excitement.

“Felix D. Buschick,” called the State’s Attorney.

The sound re-echoed through the room and floated out through the open windows. Buschick advanced with trepidation and took the witness-stand. Every neck was craned to catch a glimpse of him as he arose. He was a draughtsman, and his testimony had reference simply to maps and plans showing the location of the Haymarket Square, the surrounding streets and alleys, the spot where the bomb was thrown, and the location of the Desplaines Street Station.

Inspector JOHN BONFIELD followed next. He stated that he was Inspector of Police, had been on the force ten years, and had been in command of the men ordered to rendezvous at Desplaines Station on the night of May 4. His testimony then proceeded as follows:

“I got there about six o’clock. There were present Capt. Ward, Lieuts. Bowler, Penzen, Stanton, Hubbard, Beard, Steele and Quinn, each in charge of a company. During that day our attention was called to a circular calling a meeting at the Haymarket that evening. I saw the Mayor that afternoon, then went to Desplaines Street Station and took command of the forces there, all told about one hundred and eighty men. We stayed in the station until between ten and half-past ten. The men then formed on Waldo Place. We marched down north on Desplaines Street. Capt. Ward and myself were at the head, Lieut. Steele with his company on the right, and Lieut. Quinn on the left; the next two companies that formed in division front, double line, were Lieut. Bowler on the right, Stanton on the left; next company in single line was Lieut. Hubbard. Lieuts. Beard and Penzen’s orders were to stop at Randolph Street and face to the right and left. We marched until we came about to the mouth of Crane Brothers’ alley. There was a truck wagon standing a little north of that alley and against the east sidewalk of Desplaines Street, from which they were speaking. There were orders issued in regard to the arms of the men and officers.”

Being asked what those orders were, defendants’ counsel objected, but the objection was overruled. Bonfield continued:

“The orders were, that no man should draw a weapon or fire or strike anybody until he received positive orders from his commanding officer. Each officer was dressed in full uniform, with his coat buttoned up to the throat and his club and belt on, and the club in the holder on the side. Capt. Ward and myself had our weapons in our hand; pistols in pockets. As we approached the truck, there was a person speaking from the truck. Capt. Ward turned slightly to the right and gave the statutory order to disperse: ‘I command you, in the name of the people of the State of Illinois, to immediately and peaceably disperse.’ As he repeated that, he said, ‘I command you and you to assist.’ Almost instantly, Mr. Fielden, who was speaking, turned so as to face the Captain and myself, stepped off from the end of the truck toward the sidewalk and said in a loud tone of voice, ‘We are peaceable.’ Almost instantly after that I heard from behind me a hissing sound, followed, in a second or two, by a terrific explosion. In coming up the street, part of the crowd ran on Desplaines toward Lake, but a great portion fell back to the sidewalks on the right and left, partly lapping back onto our flanks. Almost instantly after the explosion, firing from the front and both sides poured in on us. There were from seventy-five to a hundred pistol shots fired before a shot was fired by any officer. There was an interval of a few seconds between that and the return fire by the police. On hearing the explosion I turned around quickly, saw almost all the men of the second two lines shrink to the ground, and gave the order to close up. The men immediately re-formed. Lieuts. Steele and Quinn with their companies charged down the street; the others formed and took both sides. In a few moments the crowd was scattered in every direction. I gave the order to cease firing and went to pick up our wounded. Mathias J. Degan was almost instantly killed. The wounded, about sixty in number, were carried to the Desplaines Street Station. Seven died from the effects of wounds.”

After identifying circulars calling the Haymarket meeting and demanding revenge, he continued:

“As we approached there were about five or six on the truck. Did not see the direction of the bomb; it came from my rear. I was about ten feet from the wagon. The rear rank of the first company and the second company suffered the most. During the evening or during the continuance of the meeting I received reports as to what was going on, from officers detailed for that purpose.”

On cross-examination, his testimony was as follows:

“I was the highest officer on the ground that night. The whole force was under my special charge and direction. As we marched down, the divisions of police occupied the full width of the street from curb to curb. Around the corner of Desplaines and Randolph there were a few persons scattered, apparently paying no attention to the meeting; the crowd attending the speaking was apparently north of that alley. The speakers’ wagon was not more than five or six feet north of that alley. Fielden, when speaking, was facing to the north and west, was facing us when my attention was especially called to him; there were about one thousand people there; don’t remember whether it was moonlight; there were no street lamps lit; there was a clear sky. As we marched along, the crowd shifted its position; the speaking went right on. My experience is, if the police were marching in parade, the crowd would get to the sidewalk to look on; if to disperse a crowd or mob, the natural thing would be for them to run away. I saw Fielden that night for the first time. As Capt. Ward turned to the wagon to give the order to disperse, I saw the men were still advancing, and I turned to the left, gave the command to halt, and then came up alongside of Capt. Ward. Capt. Ward stood within a few feet of the south end of that truck, which stood lengthwise of the sidewalk, the tongue end north. The front rank of the first division was near up to the north line of the alley, probably not more than ten or fifteen feet from the wagon. Before Capt. Ward had finished his command I was beside him. Capt. Ward spoke as loud as he could speak. Between my calling the halt and the explosion of the bomb, I don’t think it was a minute. As the Captain finished, Fielden stepped from the truck and faced us, and, stepping on the street, he turned to the sidewalk or curb, which is perhaps ten inches above the street, and said: ‘We are peaceable.’ Within two or three seconds the explosion followed. I did not hear anything said by Fielden from the truck. When he stepped on the street I could have reached out and touched him. He did not say: ‘This is a peaceable meeting.’ When I heard the hissing sound Fielden was in the act of getting to the sidewalk.”

GOTTFRIED WALLER, a former associate of the defendants, testified through an interpreter. He stated his occupation, residence, etc., and proceeded as follows:

“On the evening of the 3d of May I was at Greif’s Hall, 54 West Lake Street; got there at eight o’clock; went there pursuant to an advertisement in the Arbeiter-Zeitung: ‘Y—Come Monday night.’ Before that notice there is the word ‘Briefkasten,’ which means letter-box. This notice was a sign for a meeting of the armed section at Greif’s Hall. I had been there once before, pursuant to a similar notice. There was no other reason for my going there. I had seen no printed document before. I spent no time in the saloon at Greif’s place. I attended a meeting there in the basement which extends throughout the length of the building. The ceiling of basement is about seven or eight feet above the floor. I called the meeting to order at half-past eight. There were about seventy or eighty men. I was chairman. I don’t know of any precautions taken about who should come into the meeting. Of the defendants there were present Engel and Fischer—none of the other defendants.”

On a question as to what was said at that meeting after it had been called to order, objections were raised on behalf of six of the defendants other than Engel and Fischer, and overruled. Waller then resumed:

“First there was some talk about the six men who had been killed at McCormick’s. There were circulars there headed ‘Revenge,’ speaking about that; then Mr. Engel stated a resolution of a prior meeting as to what should be done, to the effect that if, on account of the eight-hour strike, there should be an encounter with the police, we should aid the men against them. He stated that the Northwest Side group had resolved that in such case we should gather at certain meeting-places, and the word ‘Ruhe’ published in the Letter-box of the Arbeiter-Zeitung should be the signal for us to meet. The Northwest Side group should then assemble in Wicker Park, armed. A committee should observe the movement in the city, and if a conflict should occur the committee should report, and we should first storm the police stations by throwing a bomb and should shoot down everything that came out, and whatever came in our way we should strike down. The police station on North Avenue was referred to first. Nothing was said about the second station—just as it happened. I then proposed a meeting of workingmen for Tuesday morning on Market Square. Then Fischer said that was a mouse trap; the meeting should be on the Haymarket and in the evening, because there would be more workingmen. Then it was resolved the meeting should be held at 8 P.M. at the Haymarket; it was stated that the purpose of the meeting was to cheer up the workingmen so they should be prepared, in case a conflict would happen. Fischer was commissioned to call the meeting through hand-bills; he went away to order them, but came back after half an hour and said the printing establishment was closed. It was said that we ourselves should not participate in the meeting on the Haymarket; only a committee should be present at the Haymarket and report in case something happened, as stated before. Nothing was said as to what should be done in case the police interfered with the Haymarket meeting. We discussed about why the police stations should be attacked. Several persons said, ‘We have seen how the capitalists and the police oppressed the workingmen, and we should commence to take the rights in our own hands; by attacking the stations we would prevent the police from coming to aid.’ The plan stated by Engel was adopted by us with the understanding that every group ought to act independently, according to the general plan. The persons present were from all the groups, from the West, South and North sides.”

A question being raised as to what was said about attacking the police in case they should attempt to disperse the Haymarket meeting, he replied:

“There was nothing said about the Haymarket. There was no one who expected that the police would get as far as the Haymarket; only, if strikers were attacked, we should strike down the police, however we best could, with bombs or whatever would be at our disposition. The committee which was to be sent to the Haymarket was to be composed of one or two from each group. They should observe the movement, not only on the Haymarket Square, but in the different parts of the city. If a conflict happened in the daytime they should cause the publication of the word ‘Ruhe.’ If at night, they should report to the members personally at their homes. On the 4th of May we did not understand ourselves why the word ‘Ruhe’ was published. It should be inserted in the paper only if a downright revolution had occurred. Fischer first mentioned the word ‘Ruhe.’ I only knew one of the members of the committee, Kraemer. Engel moved that the plan be adopted. The motion was seconded, and I put it to a vote.

“During the discussion was anything said about where dynamite or bombs or arms could be obtained, that you remember of?” “Not on that evening,” answered the witness. “I left the meeting about half-past ten. I went home. I was present at the Haymarket meeting on Tuesday evening for some time. I did not go there on account of the meeting, but because I had to go to Zepf’s Hall, to a meeting of the Furniture Workers’ Union. I saw the word ‘Ruhe’ in the Arbeiter-Zeitung about 6 P.M., on Tuesday, at Thalia Hall, a saloon on Milwaukee Avenue, where the second company of the Lehr und Wehr Verein and the Northwest Side group used to meet. I went to the Haymarket and stayed there about a quarter of an hour, while Mr. Spies spoke. Mr. Spies spoke English; I didn’t understand it, and I went to the meeting of the furniture workers. On my way to the Haymarket I had stopped at Engel’s. There were some people of the Northwest Side group there. Engel was not at home. Breitenfeld was not there. I was at Zepf’s Hall when the bomb exploded. There was some disturbance, and the door was closed. After the door was opened again we went home. I went alone. On my way home I stopped at Engel’s and told him what had happened at the Haymarket. They had assembled in the back part of their dwelling-place around a jovial glass of beer, and I told them that a bomb was thrown at the Haymarket, and that about a hundred people had been killed there, and they had better go home. Engel said yes, they should go home, and nothing else.”

“Mr. Waller,” asked the State, “did you ever have any bombs?”

This was objected to by the defense, but after a full argument the objection was overruled. Waller resumed:

“Formerly, about half a year ago, I had one. It was made out of an eight-inch gas or water pipe. I did not investigate what it was filled with. Got it from Fischer, the defendant, on Thanksgiving day of last year, at Thalia Hall.”

“What did he say to you, if anything, when he gave it to you?”

Another objection was raised, but it was overruled. Waller continued:

“I should use it. There were present members of the Northwest Side group and several men of the Lehr und Wehr Verein when he gave me that bomb.”

Asked as to a public meeting on Thanksgiving day, Waller answered in the affirmative, stating that the meeting was held at Market Square. After explaining that the members of the Lehr und Wehr Verein were known not by names, but by numbers, he said:

“Everybody had to know his own number; my number was 19. The numbers of the different men were not exactly secret, but we did not pay particular attention to it. Of those who were present at the meeting at 54 West Lake Street, on Monday night, I knew Fischer, Engel, Breitenfeld, Reinhold Krueger and another Krueger, Gruenwald, Schrade, Weber, Huber, Lehman, Hermann.”

“What became of the bomb which you had?”

“I gave it to a member of the Lehr und Wehr Verein; he had it exploded in a hollow tree. I had a revolver with me when I went to the Haymarket; had no bomb. Schnaubelt was present at the Lake Street meeting. (Witness identified photograph of Schnaubelt.) Schnaubelt at that meeting said we should inform our members in other places of the revolution so that it should commence in other places also. On Sunday, before that meeting at Lake Street, I was present at a meeting at Bohemian Hall, at No. 63 Emma Street. August Krueger invited me; he is also called the little Krueger, while Reinhold is known as the large Krueger. I got to the meeting at Emma Street at 10 A.M. There were present Engel and Fischer, the defendants, besides Gruenwald, the two Kruegers, Schrade, myself.”

“What was said at the meeting?”

“The same that I stated—Engel’s plan. Engel proposed the plan. Somebody opposed this plan, as there were too few of us, and it would be better if we would place ourselves among the people and fight right in the midst of them. There was some opposition to this suggestion to be in the midst of the crowd, as we could not know who would be our neighbors; there might be a detective right near us, or some one else. Engel’s plan was finally accepted.”

An effort was made to have Waller’s testimony all stricken out, but the motion was overruled. He was subjected to a rigid cross-examination, but he did not waver in any of his statements. He proceeded as follows:

“Before I ceased to be a member of the Lehr und Wehr Verein, I belonged to it for four or five months. I learned that the objects of the Lehr und Wehr Verein are the physical and intellectual advancement of its members. None of the defendants were members of that society about the 4th of May. I had seen a call by the letter ‘Y’ in the Arbeiter-Zeitung once before, one or one and a half months before. On the 3d of May a member of the Lehr und Wehr Verein, by the name of Clermont, called for me. I spoke with Engel before I went to Greif’s Hall, but had no conversation with him about the purpose of the meeting. We did not know for what purpose it was called. When more people arrived, I requested Engel to lay his plan again before the meeting. Engel stated both at the meeting on Sunday and at the Monday night meeting that the plan proposed by him was to be followed only if the police should attack us. Any time when we should be attacked by the police, we should defend ourselves.

“Nothing was said with reference to any action to be taken by us at the Haymarket. We were not to do anything at the Haymarket Square. The plan was, we should not be present there at all. We did not think that the police would come to the Haymarket. For this reason no preparations were made for meeting any police attack there. When I saw the word ‘Ruhe’ in the Arbeiter-Zeitung on Tuesday, May 4, about 6 P.M., I knew the meaning, but I didn’t know why it was in the paper. On the Haymarket, on my way to the meeting of the Furniture Workers’ Union, I met Fischer. We were walking about some time. I don’t think he said anything to me about why I was not at Wicker Park. We once walked over to Desplaines Street Station. The police were mounting five or six patrol wagons, and I made the remark: ‘I suppose they are getting ready to drive out to McCormick’s, so that they might be out there early in the morning.’ Fischer assented to my remark. That was all that was said about the police between us. At that time there were about three hundred and fifty or four hundred people assembled at the Haymarket. The principal purpose of the Haymarket meeting was to protest against the action of the police at the riot at McCormick’s factory. While I was with Fischer at the Haymarket, nothing was said between us about preparations to meet an attack by the police. When I came to Engel’s, at about half-past ten, there were in his house Breitenfeld, the little Krueger, Kraemer, and a few others. Kraemer, I think, lived in the rear of the house.

“I know that I am indicted for conspiracy. I was arrested about two weeks after the 4th of May by two detectives, Stift and Whalen, and taken to East Chicago Avenue Station. I saw there Capt. Schaack, and, in the evening, Mr. Furthmann. I was released about half-past eight of the same day. No warrant was shown to me. I was never arrested since my indictment. I was ordered to come to the station four or five times. At every occasion I had conversations with Furthmann about the statements made here in court. I live now at 130 Sedgwick Street, since one month. Capt. Schaack gave me $6.50 for the rent. Whenever I used my time sitting in the station, I was paid for it. Once we had to sit all day, and we were paid two dollars for that day. I was out on a strike, and Capt. Schaack gave my wife three times three dollars. He gave me, twice before, five dollars each time. I have been at work for the last two weeks for Peterson. When I went there to commence work I was told that I was on the black list, and could not work, and Capt. Schaack helped me to get the job. By the black list I mean that the bosses put all those upon a list who were in any way connected with the strike to obtain eight hours’ work, and they were not to be employed any further.

“I know Spies by sight. I never had any conversation with him. I spoke to Mr. Neebe once a few words, at a meeting of the basket-makers. I have no acquaintance whatever with Schwab, Parsons, Fielden or Lingg. I saw Lingg once make a speech.”

BERNHARD SCHRADE, another confidant of the Anarchists, stated that he had resided in this country nearly five years and had been a member of the Lehr und Wehr Verein. He was present at the meeting in the basement of Greif’s Hall, on the evening of May 3, and found the meeting in order when he got there. His testimony was as follows:

“Waller was presiding. There were about thirty or thirty-five people—Waller, Engel, Fischer, Thielen, the Lehmans, Donafeldt. Lingg was not there. When I entered, the chairman explained what had been spoken about until then. He stated the objects of the meeting; that so many men at the McCormick factory had been shot by the police; that a mass-meeting was to be held at Haymarket Square, and that we should be prepared, in case the police went beyond their bounds—attacked us. Afterwards we talked among ourselves, and the meeting adjourned. I heard nothing about assembling in other parts of the city. That same evening I had been to the carpenters’ meeting, and it was said there that the members of the L. u. W. V. should go around to the meeting on Lake Street. I stayed there from eight until half-past nine. Circulars headed ‘Revenge’ were distributed there by one Balthasar Rau. That carpenters’ meeting was held at Zepf’s Hall. At the meeting at 54 West Lake Street I stayed from half-past nine until about a quarter after ten. On the preceding Sunday I was at a meeting at the Bohemian Hall, on Emma Street. We got there about half-past nine in the forenoon. The big Krueger called for me. There were, besides me, Waller, Krueger, Fischer, Engel and Grueneberg. I don’t know the others.

“Those present belonged to the second company of the L. u. W. V., and the Northwestern group. We talked there about the condition of the workingmen after the 1st of May, and the remark was made that it might not go off so easy after the 1st of May, and if it should not, that they would help themselves and each other. It was said that if we were to get into a conflict with the police, we should mutually assist one another, and the members of the Northwestern group should meet at Wicker Park, in case it should get so far that the police would make an attack, and should defend themselves as much as possible, as well as any one could. Nothing was said about dynamite; the word ‘HERMANN. Nothing was said about telegraph wires. The revolutionary movement was talked about; it was mentioned that the firemen could easily disperse large masses of the people standing upon the street, and in such a case it would be the best thing to cut through their hose, annihilate them. I was at the Haymarket on the night when the bomb was thrown. Went there with a man named Thielen. Got there about half-past eight. I walked up and down on Randolph Street, and at the corner of Desplaines I heard all the speakers. When the bomb was thrown I was at a saloon at 173 West Randolph Street. I had left the meeting because a rain and a shower came up. I know all the defendants. I saw Engel and Fischer, about an hour previous to the meeting, upon the corner of Desplaines and Randolph. After the bomb was thrown I went to my home, 581 Milwaukee Avenue. I met the little Krueger in the saloon. He was there; also the big Krueger. The L. u. W. V. used to meet at Thalia Hall, Milwaukee Avenue. We had our exercise, marched in the hall—drilled. We had Springfield rifles, which we kept at home.

“We had our military drills for pleasure. Most of the members had been soldiers in the old country, and we were drilling here for fun—pleasure. We drilled once a week, at times. The members knew each other, but on the list each one had his number. My number was 32. There were four companies of the L. u. W. V. in this city. I don’t know the number of members.

“I saw ‘Revenge’ circulars at the meeting at 54 West Lake Street. I know Schnaubelt by sight. Don’t remember whether he was at 54 West Lake. (Witness was shown the signal “Y,” in Arbeiter-Zeitung.) I saw this in the paper when I read it at Thalia Hall. It is a sign for the armed section to meet at 54 West Lake Street. The armed section means certain members of certain societies—trades-unions who had bought weapons with which they practiced continually.” (Witness is shown paper containing the word “Ruhe.”) “I never saw that before. Did not hear anything said about ‘Ruhe’ in the meeting at 54 West Lake Street.”

Schrade was shown a book of Most’s and stated that he had seen it sold at meetings of workingmen. On cross-examination he testified:

“I know Spies, Parsons, Fielden, Neebe and Schwab only by sight; never had any business or conversation with any of them. Lingg and I belonged to the same Carpenters’ Union, but we were not on terms of friendship. None of the defendants are members of the L. u. W. V., to my knowledge. I paid attention to all that was done while I was at the 54 West Lake Street meeting. I was at the Sunday meeting from half-past nine until half-past eleven. The discussion was, that if the police made an attack upon workingmen we would help the workingmen to resist it, and if the firemen helped, we would cut the hose. Nothing was said about dynamite or bombs at any of the meetings. Nothing was said about a meeting at any particular night to throw bombs. It was not agreed to throw bombs at the Haymarket meeting. While at the Haymarket I had no bomb; I don’t know dynamite. I knew of no one who was going to take a bomb to that meeting. When I left the Haymarket meeting everything was quiet; I did not anticipate any trouble. I had seen the signal ‘Y’ before. It was understood that the meetings were to be called by that kind of notice. I left the Haymarket meeting only on account of the approach of the storm. There were about two hundred people there when I left.”

EDWARD J. STEELE, Lieutenant of Police at the West Chicago Avenue Station on May 4th, gave some details as to marching to the Haymarket, and stated that he had been in command of a company of twenty-eight men. He further testified:

“Two or three seconds after that—Captain Ward’s command to the meeting to disperse—the shell was thrown in the rear. It exploded on the left of my company. There was then also a smaller report in the rear of me, like a large pistol shot, and at that time the crowd in front of us and on the sidewalks fired into us immediately; by immediately I mean two or three seconds after. The crowd fired before the police did. Mine and Quinn’s were the front companies. My men had their arms in their pockets and their clubs in their belts; their hands by their side. I was six or eight feet from the speakers’ wagon when the command to halt was given. Prior to that I could hear speaking going on in front of us. I heard somebody say, ‘Here come the bloodhounds. You do your duty and we will do ours.’ I could not say who made the remark. The sound came from in front of us as we were marching. Ward spoke in a loud tone of voice to the speakers on the wagon when he commanded them to disperse. There were three or four men on the wagon. I saw Mr. Fielden there. I did not hear him make any response to Ward’s declaration. After the pistol shots from the crowd we returned the fire. Fielden stepped off the wagon, turned to the sidewalk, and I lost sight of him. When we got some few feet north of Randolph Street, the crowd in front of us separated to the right and left. I heard nothing said by the crowd. The bomb lit in the rear of the left of my company, and the right of Lieut. Quinn’s, between that and the next company behind us. When I heard the explosion I was facing north. The word ‘fire’ was not given by anybody, but we began firing when they fired on us. The explosion of the bomb affected about twenty-one of our men in the two companies, and the firing commenced at once.”

On cross-examination, Lieut. Steele stated:

“My experience is that where the police make a descent upon a riotous gathering, a mob, the latter scatter to all sides, so as to get out of the way. But when we pass through a peaceful, quiet body of men, they separate to the sides instead of rushing down the alleys and out the other way. I do not mean to say that the remark about the bloodhounds coming was made by the speaker from the wagon. Mr. Fielden was on the sidewalk when the bomb exploded. Capt. Ward was just a step or two in front of me when he gave the order to disperse. Any loud exclamation made by Mr. Fielden, either in the wagon, or getting out of the wagon, or immediately after he got out, I would have heard. I did not hear him make any.”

MARTIN QUINN, Lieutenant of Police, had a company of twenty-five men on the left of Lieut. Steele, and when they marched to the Haymarket they had their clubs in their belts and their pistols in their pockets. He heard the remark: “Here they come now, the bloodhounds. Do your duty, men, and I’ll do mine.” The man who was speaking at the time they came up was Fielden. Quinn’s testimony then runs as follows:

“Just as he was going down, he said: ‘We are peaceable.’ Some person had hold of his left leg. He reached back, and just as he was going down he fired right where the Inspector was, Capt. Ward and Lieut. Steele. After that I dropped my club, took my pistol and commenced firing in front. The crowd formed a line across the street in our front, and immediately when that bomb was fired, and almost instantaneously with it that shot from the wagon, they commenced firing into our front and from the side, and then from the alley. I fired myself. Fourteen men of my company were injured. I lost sight of Fielden as he got on the sidewalk. I could not distinguish which was first, the explosion of the bomb or the shot fired by Fielden. There was another very loud report immediately after this first explosion. I did not know what it was. The bomb exploded about the same instant that the remark, ‘We are peaceable,’ was made. And at the same time he fired that shot. Ward at that time had not quite finished his expression. The pistol was aimed in a downward direction, towards where Ward, Steele and Bonfield stood. After I was looking to the front, and had discharged my weapon, I looked back and saw the explosion of the bomb—it was just the same as you would take a bunch of firecrackers and throw it around, just shooting up in all directions, in the rear. Some of the men were lying down, some of them lying dead, some crippled around. All along on Desplaines Street the lamps were dark. Where the speaker was there was a torch on the wagon, and also the lamp was lit there. I had emptied my pistol. Then I turned around to look at the result of the explosion. Then I went over in under the wagon, and where the speaker was, and I found a pistol there that was loaded. I picked it up and emptied it myself afterwards. It was a thirty-eight Smith & Wesson. I saw Fielden fire only that one shot. It was not aimed at the man who had hold of his leg. There were Ward, Bonfield and Steele there right in a bunch, close by together, and it should have hit some one of them.”

The cross-examination did not change the testimony; he only added to its force, and with reference to Fielden only modified it so far as to say:

“I would not swear that it was or was not Fielden who fired the pistol, but it was a speaker, that I know, that fired at the instant he finished saying, ‘We are peaceable.’ While standing in the wagon, in the presence of the police force and all the audience, he fired a revolver right where Lieut. Steele was and Capt. Ward, and the right of Lieut. Steele’s company; fired right into them. The torch was still on the wagon at that time, and the street lamp near by was lighted.”

JAMES P. STANTON, Lieutenant of Police, had charge of eighteen men and saw the shell coming through the air. He shouted to his men: “Look out, there is a shell,” and just then it exploded. It fell just four feet from where he stood, and his men were scattered upon the street. All but one or two of his command were wounded. He himself was injured, his body being hit in eleven different places with pieces of the shell, and he was confined to a bed at the hospital for two weeks and a half, after which he was taken home.

“After that I commenced to limp around. I had to suffer from a nervous shock. The holes in my clothing are larger than the holes in my limbs. My company was on the west side of the street, Bowler on the east. When I first saw the shell it was in the air, very near over my head. It came from the east, I think, a little north of the alley. It was about three inches in diameter. The fuse was about two inches long when I saw it. When we advanced I heard speaking from the north. I saw some parties standing on the wagon. Don’t know anything about what transpired after the officers came to a halt. No shot was fired to my knowledge before the explosion of the bomb. Immediately after that shots were fired. I turned myself and drew my revolver and immediately commenced to fire. I cannot swear from whom the firing began first. My men were supposed to be armed; they had their clubs in their belts.”

The cross-examination brought out no new points.

H. F. KRUEGER, a police officer, heard the cry, “Here they are now, the bloodhounds!” from the wagon at the Haymarket, and thought it was Fielden who uttered it. “I saw Fielden,” said he, “pistol in hand, take cover behind the wagon and fire at the police. I returned his fire and was myself immediately shot in the knee-cap. I saw Fielden in the crowd and shot at him again. He staggered, but did not fall, and I lost him. There were no pistol-shots fired before the bomb exploded.” This testimony was in every detail corroborated by John Wessler, another police officer, the next witness, and by Peter Foley, an officer.

LUTHER MOULTON, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, an officer of the Knights of Labor, testified to a conversation which he had had with August Spies when the latter went to Grand Rapids to deliver a lecture, on February 22, 1885. Spies told the witness that the only manner in which the laborers could get a fair division of the product of their labor was by force and arms. He said they had three thousand men organized in Chicago, with superior weapons of warfare. There might be bloodshed, Spies said to him, for that happened frequently in revolutions. If they failed, it would be a punishable crime. If they succeeded, it would be a revolution. George Washington would have been punished had he failed. “I am quite certain,” Moulton said, “that the term ‘explosives’ was used in connection with arms.” On cross-examination Moulton stated that the Grand Rapids police had furnished him the means to come to Chicago. All of Moulton’s material statements were repeated on the stand by Geo. W. Shook, who had been present at the conversation referred to.

JAMES BOWLER, Lieutenant of Police, in command of twenty-seven men, testified that he did not recognize any one firing.

“After the explosion I said to my men: ‘Fire and kill all you can.’ I drew my own revolver; I had it in my breast coat side pocket. In marching, I heard the words: ‘Here come the bloodhounds,’ said by somebody close to the wagon. I fired nine shots myself. I reloaded. While marching, the men had their arms in their pockets. I noticed the lamp at Crane’s alley was out.”

On cross-examination he stated that he heard the remark about bloodhounds, but did not know who uttered it. He continued:

“There was a kind of light on the wagon, a kind of a torch. I saw firing close by the wagon after the explosion, but not from in the wagon. I saw no one either in the wagon or getting out of the wagon do any firing. I saw Mr. Fielden coming off of the wagon very plainly.”

Several officers testified to the scene about the wagon, and Thomas Greif, the occupant of the premises 54 West Lake Street, described the basement where the “Ypsilon” meeting was held. Following him was proffered more direct evidence that Fielden had fired the shot, and then JAMES BONFIELD took the stand, and described the search that was made in the Arbeiter-Zeitung office. Said he:

“In Mr. Spies’ office I found a small piece of fuse, a fulminating cap, and a large double-action revolver; about five inches of fuse. I found the revolver under a wash-stand in the office; that dirk file was along with them (indicating), with a paper doubled over them loosely. The fuse is an ordinary fuse; the fulminate is in the end of the cap. The fuse is inserted that way (indicating), and the cap is pinched, and that is inserted in dynamite and the hole closed. I never saw the cap used for anything except dynamite and nitro-glycerine. I have used it in mines for that purpose. The power of the cap itself don’t amount to anything. I found that ‘Revenge’ circular, as it is called, in Spies’ office, where I arrested him. This box (indicating) contains a great many empty shells, evidently for the Winchester improved rifle; there are also some empty and some loaded sporting cartridges. The pistol is a 44-caliber, I think. On the 5th, after the arrest of Spies, that night I took down some reporters. I had a conversation with Spies that night, and I think with Fielden. The reporter carried on the major part of the conversation. Mr. Spies stated there had been a meeting of the Central Labor Union that evening previous to the Haymarket meeting. He mentioned a man by the name of Brown, and a man by the name of Ducey that attended that meeting, and when they adjourned there they went down to the Haymarket. He spoke of the gathering of the crowd, how it threatened to rain, how they went on the side street, and about Fielden speaking at the time the police came. He said he was on the wagon at that time, and a young Turner was there who had told him the police were coming, told him to come down, took him by the hand and helped him down. He afterwards gave his name as Legner; he claimed the police had opened fire on them. He said when he got off the wagon he went in the east alley and came out on Randolph Street. He approved of the method, but thought it was a little premature; that the time had hardly arrived to start the revolution or warfare. After that I took the reporters around to Fielden.

“Fielden said he was there when the police came up; he got wounded in this alley. Then he got a car, and, I think, went around to the corner of Twelfth and Halsted, or Van Buren and Halsted, and then he got another car and went down to the Arbeiter-Zeitung office to see if any of his friends had got back there; that from there he went over to the Haymarket again to see if any more of his comrades were hurt. I know Fischer. I was at his house. He was arrested at the same time, or a few minutes after Spies and Schwab were arrested. His house is 170 or 176 North Wood Street. I went there with Mr. Furthmann and, I think, Officer Doane. It was about nine or ten o’clock. I made a search of the house. In a closet, under the porch at the front door, I found a piece of gas-pipe about three and a half feet long. There was no gas connection in the house. The gas-pipe was an inch or an inch and a quarter in diameter. I laid it down again. I searched around and went back again, and couldn’t find it in a day after. I remember a conversation with Fischer afterwards, in the office. He was asked to explain how he came by a fulminating cap which was found in his pocket at the time of the arrest. He said he got it from a Socialist who used to visit Spies’ office about four months previous. He claimed he didn’t know what it was, and had carried it in his pocket for four months. After some conversation he acknowledged that he knew what it was, and had read an account of it and the use of it in Herr Most’s ‘Science of War.’ That conversation was at a detective’s office. The fulminating cap looked to be perfectly new, and the fulminate was fresh and bright in the inside. There was no fuse attached to it. He told of being at the Haymarket meeting until a few minutes before the explosion of the bomb, and he went from there to Zepf’s Hall, and was there at the time of the explosion. He acknowledged that he had gotten up the circular headed ‘Attention, Workingmen,’ and that it was printed at Wehrer & Klein’s. I think their own office was closed, and he went over to Wehrer & Klein’s and got it printed over there; I think 2,500 copies—25,000 or 2,500.”

On cross-examination witness testified as follows:

“I am in the detective branch of the police force. I arrested Spies and Schwab in the neighborhood of nine o’clock. I found Spies in the front office. He was to the left of the door as I entered. My recollection is, he was talking to somebody. Schwab was over to the right, and was sitting down. That was on the second floor. I think I went up two flights of stairs. There were three or four men in the office besides those two. There was no resistance by either of the gentlemen. Had no warrant for their arrest. I don’t know of any complaint having been made against them before any magistrate. While I was talking to Spies and Schwab Spies’ brother came in. I placed him under arrest too. I took them with me. I took them to police headquarters. We went on foot. It was in the back part of the room that I found that revolver. The main part of the room in which I arrested them was perhaps twelve feet deep, and then there was a wing that ran back further. The box I mentioned was on the floor, and against the south wall. One could see it readily on entering the room. I found that box on my third visit. I don’t remember having seen it on my first visit. That third visit was some time in the afternoon, perhaps two or three o’clock. On my second visit I went over to the printer, to pick out the type similar to the one in the ‘Revenge’ circular. I went to the composing room. The printer’s name is John Conway. That was near twelve o’clock. On my fourth visit I took away a lot of red flags and such stuff as that. When I made the arrest of Spies and Schwab that morning Mrs. Schwab was present. I should think, by the looks of things, they were transacting business, or ready for it. When I was in the composing-room there were several men there. I found the red flags principally in what they termed the library in that building. It was, I think, in the rear part, on the second floor. Twenty or twenty-one compositors of the Arbeiter-Zeitung were arrested during that day. I was not present at the time. I found that copy of the ‘Revenge’ circular on one of the desks in the front room. I was there when the form and the type of the circular were found. We had no search warrant at the time any of them were taken. I do not know to whom that revolver belongs. I took Spies and Schwab into the front room of the Central Station. Lieutenant Shea sent out for the key. In the meantime we searched Spies and took the personal effects away from him. I took Mr. Spies’ keys out of his pocket—everything I found, little slips of paper and the like. I literally went through him. I had no warrant for anything of that kind. I took those reporters to see Spies down to the cell-house in the basement of the Central Station. The cell-house is very near the center of the building, and fronts on the inside court between the county and city building. I went down with the reporters about eight or nine o’clock. Spies, Schwab and Fielden were in separate cells. Spies said the action taken at the Haymarket was premature. It was done by a hot-head that could not wait long enough. I cannot use the words. That is the sentiment, and perhaps the words. Fielden said the police came up there to disperse them, and they had no business to. He claimed that they had a right to talk and say what they pleased, under the Constitution, and they should not be interfered with. I don’t think it was ever questioned whether the meeting was a peaceable and quiet meeting. I don’t think that he ever claimed that it was either quiet or disorderly. The fulminating cap which I found in that box did not look fresh and bright. It looked as though it might have lain there a good while. When Chief Ebersold came into the office at Central Station he was quite excited, and talked to Spies and Schwab in German and made motions, and I got between them, and I told him this was not the time or place to act that way. I took the liberty to quiet him down a little. He used a word which I understood to compare a man to a dog or something lower.”

The incendiary speeches that were made by some of the defendants at the riot at McCormick’s were testified to by different newspaper men, and the scenes at the riot described by officers and others, the whole showing very distinctly the direct connection of Spies with the outrage, and the manner in which he incited the mob to violence.

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Chapter XXII

“We are Peaceable”—Capt. Ward’s Memories of the Massacre—A Nest of Anarchists—Scenes in the Court—Seliger’s Revelations—Lingg, the Bomb-maker—How he cast his Shells—A Dynamite Romance—Inside History of the Conspiracy—The Shadow of the Gallows—Mrs. Seliger and the Anarchists—Tightening the Coils—An Explosive Arsenal—The Schnaubelt Blunder—Harry Wilkinson and Spies—A Threat in Toothpicks—The Bomb Factory—The Board of Trade Demonstration.

DURING the progress of the trial the court-room was thronged daily. The prisoners sat radiantly throughout the whole proceedings as if supremely certain of acquittal, and they manifested great pride in the boutonnieres which were handed in every morning by admiring friends. As the testimony of the State’s witnesses proceeded, the defense raised innumerable objections to the admission of parts particularly criminative, and at times hours were consumed in arguments on the points involved. The objections were almost invariably overruled, and exceptions taken. Having finished the evidence then at hand with reference to the McCormick riot, the State resumed the Haymarket massacre.

WILLIAM WARD, Captain of Police at the Desplaines Street Station, a member of the force since 1870, a resident of Chicago for thirty-six years and a veteran of the Rebellion, was subjected to a long and interesting examination. He first stated the facts with reference to marching to the Haymarket and his order to the meeting to disperse, corroborating the testimony of Inspector Bonfield in every particular, and then concluded as follows:

“As the speaker was getting from the wagon he said, ‘We are peaceable.’ That was this gentleman (indicating Fielden). I heard some utterances of the speaker before I addressed him, but could not understand them—quite a noise there. Our men had their clubs in their belts, pistols in their pockets. A few seconds after Fielden said, ‘We are peaceable,’ I heard the explosion in my rear. I turned to look and see, and pistol-firing began from the front and both sides of the street by the crowd. I did not recognize anybody firing. Then the police began firing, and we charged into the alley, Crane’s alley, and north on Desplaines Street. Seven policemen died from the effects of wounds; one was brought dead into the station—Mathias J. Degan. There were in all killed and wounded sixty-six or sixty-seven—about twenty-one or twenty-two out of Desplaines Street Station; forty-two in all out of my precinct. It was only several seconds from the time that Fielden said, ‘We are peaceable,’ and the time the police charged down the alley and up Desplaines Street.”

The cross-examination resulted as follows:

“I had a detail there that night from the Central Police Station under command of Lieut. Hubbard. At the time I gave the command to disperse I was right close to the rear part of the wagon, close to the outside wheel, southwest of the wheel. I could almost touch it; could have touched it with my club. Some of the men carried their pistols in the breast pocket of the coat, some the hip pocket. At the time I gave the command, Inspector Bonfield stood at my left; Lieut. Steele was in the rear of me, might have been a little to the right. There were four to six persons on the wagon. Fielden was standing on the south end of the truck, facing southwest, facing me, when I commenced to speak, until I was through. Then he got off the truck, on the southeast end of it, on the corner toward the sidewalk. All I could understand of what Mr. Fielden said was: ‘We are peaceable.’ I did not see Fielden after that. There was no pistol-firing of any kind by anybody before the explosion of the bomb. I was several feet in advance of the front rank of the police in marching down, sometimes eight or ten feet in advance; sometimes not so far. The only utterance from any source that I can recall that was heard by me, before the bomb exploded, was that of Fielden, ‘We are peaceable,’ that he spoke to me, or looking right at me when he spoke. It was a little louder than ordinary, than if he was addressing me. I think the accent was on the last word, ‘We are peaceable.’ I don’t remember whether I related this utterance of Fielden on the occasion of the Coroner’s inquest when I testified there. I think Steele’s line was about on a line with the center of the alley. Quinn’s line had swung a little further forward. A block and a half south of there, there were eight or ten electric lights on the front of the Lyceum Theater, and they lit up the street considerably. I don’t remember whether there was a torch-light or any other light on the truck.”

MICHAEL HAHN, a tailor working on Halsted Street, stated that he was at the Haymarket and received an injury in his back, one in his thigh, and one in the leg:

“I went to the hospital that same night. Dr. Newman removed something from my person that night; that is what he said; he showed it to me. It was some kind of a nut. (Witness is handed an ordinary iron-threaded nut.) I guess that was about the size. I left the hospital two weeks after. I think that is the same nut.”

REUBEN SLAYTON, a policeman on the force fourteen years, testified that he arrested Fischer:

“I searched him and found that gun (producing and exhibiting a revolver). It is a 44-caliber; was loaded when I found it; self-acting, I found this file ground sharp on three edges (producing it), and that belt and sheath (producing same). The belt and sheath were buckled on him; the file in the sheath, revolver stuck into the slit in the belt, and he had ten cartridges in his pocket. He also had this fulminating cap in his pocket. It was brighter when I found it. He said he carried that revolver because he carried money, and going home nights to protect himself. I took him to the Central Station. He said he had worked at the Arbeiter-Zeitung as a compositor for two years. When I arrested him he was coming down the stairs. I was going up into the building. I felt this revolver and took him back up, and searched him and took these things from him. The belt was under his coat. You could not see the pistol and this stuff. I also arrested Fielden at his house the same day, May 5th, in the morning, at No. 110 West Polk Street. When I locked him up at the Central Station, he took the bandage off his knee and put it on. I asked him where he got it dressed. He told me when he got shot he came down the alley and took a car and went to, I think he said, Twelfth and Canal Streets—had his knee dressed there that night.”

On cross-examination, Officer Slayton stated that he met with no resistance from Fischer or Fielden and that he found no munitions of war at the latter’s house. He had no warrant, he said, for their arrest.

THEODORE FRICKE, business superintendent of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, once its book-keeper, testified to Spies’ handwriting on the manuscript containing the word “Ruhe,” and identified several other documents as in Spies’ handwriting. He continued:

“The Arbeiter-Zeitung is the property of a corporation. Fischer was a stockholder, so was I, so is Spies and Schwab. I was employed by this corporation. Parsons is not a stockholder. Neebe belongs to this corporation. I have known Neebe about two years; I saw him at picnics and in our office. There was a library in the building belonging to the International Working People’s Association—a Socialistic association composed of groups, known by names. I belonged to the group ‘Karl Marx,’ which met at No. 63 Emma Street. Before that I belonged to the Northwest Side group, which met at Thalia Hall, No. 633 Milwaukee Avenue. Hirschberger was the librarian. I know Fischer; he belonged to the Northwest Side group. Engel belonged to the same. Spies formerly belonged to the Northwest Side group, later to the American group. Parsons belonged to the American group. Schwab, I guess, to the North Side group, I don’t know for sure. I don’t know about Lingg. I guess Neebe belonged to the North Side group. These groups, except the Northwest Side group, had a central committee, which met at No. 107 Fifth Avenue. The Northwest Side group was not represented. They had strong Anarchistic principles. Fielden, I guess, belonged to the American group. This book here (Johann Most’s book) I saw at the library in the Arbeiter-Zeitung building. I have seen that book sold at picnics by Hirschberger, at Socialistic picnics and mass-meetings. At some of those meetings Spies, Parsons and Fielden were present; sometimes Neebe, sometimes Schwab, maybe Fischer.”

Counsel for defendants objected to this line of inquiry, because, as they said, it is not shown that any of the defendants knew or participated in the selling, or that they had anything to do with, or that they saw the selling. This led to some words between court and counsel:

The Court—“If men are teaching the public how to commit murder, it is admissible to prove it if it can be proved by items.”

Mr. Black—“Well, does your Honor know what this teaches?”

The Court—“I do not know what the contents of the book are. I asked what the book was and I was told that it was Herr Most’s ‘Science of Revolutionary Warfare,’ and taught the preparing of deadly weapons and missiles, and that was accepted by the other side.”

Mr. Black—“Does that justify your Honor in the construction that it teaches how to commit murder, or of stating that in the presence of the jury?”

The Court—“.... I inquired what sort of book it was, and it was stated by the other side what sort of book it was, and you said nothing about it, so that in ruling upon the question whether it may be shown where it was to be found, where it had been seen, I must take the character of the book into consideration in determining whether it is admissible; whether it is of that character or not we will see when it is translated, I suppose. I suppose the book is not in the English language.”

“Where were the picnics at which you have seen this book sold?” asked the State’s Attorney.

“I saw this book sold at a picnic at Ogden’s Grove, on Willow Street, on the North Side, in July of last year. There were present Spies, Neebe, Parsons and Fielden. Also at a picnic at Sheffield, Indiana, last September, where were present Spies, Neebe, Parsons and, I guess, Fischer.”

Fricke then identified copies of the Alarm, Parsons’ paper, the Arbeiter-Zeitung, the Fackel, the Sunday edition of that paper, and the Vorbote, its weekly edition, of various dates from May 1st to May 5th.

On cross-examination, he testified that he had never seen any of the defendants sell Most’s books anywhere, not even at the Sheffield, Indiana, picnic, where there were 2,000 people, and that all communications to the Arbeiter-Zeitung went through the hands of the editor, Spies.

EDMUND FURTHMANN testified as follows:

“I am assistant in the State’s Attorney’s office. I was in the Arbeiter-Zeitung office between eleven and twelve o’clock on the 5th of May. All the matter shown to Mr. Fricke was obtained by me in the typesetting-room of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and has been in my possession since then. The typesetting-room was full of desks and cases of type, and there were several tables covered with stone, and at every case there was a hook containing a lot of manuscript, which I took away. I found the doors locked. I found some twenty or twenty-five of the ‘Revenge’ circulars there.”

On cross-examination he said:

“A locksmith opened the door. We had no search warrant. We also carried away two mail-bags from there. We placed all this manuscript into them. Mr. Grinnell, the State’s Attorney, Officer Haas, Lieut. Kipley and myself were in the party.”

EUGENE SEEGER translated a paragraph in the Arbeiter-Zeitung of March 15 and testified that it read as follows:

“‘Revolutionary Warfare has arrived, and is to be had through the librarian, 107 Fifth Avenue, at the price of 10 cents.’

“This appears among what I would call, as a newspaper man, editorial notices in the local column. These translations here (holding typewriter copy, purporting to be the translation of certain articles), are correct translations. There is an editorial here in the Arbeiter-Zeitung of May 4 headed ‘Editorial.’ ‘Blood has flowed’ is the first phrase of it. There is another article on the fourth page of May 3, headed ‘A Hot Conflict.’ In the local column of May 4 a report headed, ‘Lead and Powder is a Cure for Dissatisfied Workingmen.’ All these articles were also translated by Professor Olson, of the Chicago University. We compared notes and found the translations correct.”

Assistant State’s Attorney Furthmann then read the translation of Most’s volume.

WILLIAM SELIGER testified:

“I am a carpenter. Have lived in Chicago three years and a half. Before that I lived at Charlottenburg, Germany. I was born at Eilau, near Reichenbach, in Silesia. On May 4th last I lived at 442 Sedgwick Street, in the rear of the lot. I occupied the second floor. Louis Lingg, the defendant, boarded with me. On Monday, May 3, I worked for Mr. Meyer. Quit work at half-past 4 P.M. In the evening of that day I was at Zepf’s Hall, at a meeting of the Carpenters’ Union. I was recording secretary of the union. I stayed there until half-past eleven. I was not at the meeting at 54 West Lake Street that night. I heard somebody call upon us, that all that knew should come to 54 West Lake Street. This here (holding paper), ‘Y—Komme Montag Abend,’ means that all the armed men should come to the meeting at 54 West Lake Street. The armed men were divers ones—all the Socialistic organizations. There were several organizations in existence which were drilled in the use of arms. After I left Zepf’s Hall I took a glass of beer in the saloon and then went to 71 West Lake Street and took another glass of beer. Then I went home with several other parties. I saw a copy of the ‘Revenge’ circular at Zepf’s Hall. Balthasar Rau brought it to the meeting about nine o’clock.

“On Tuesday I did not work at my trade. I got up at half-past seven, and after I got up Lingg came. I had previously told him that I wanted those things removed from my dwelling. He told me to work diligently at these bombs, and they would be taken away that day. I took some coffee, and after a time I worked at some shells, at some loaded shells. I drilled holes through which the bolt went. A shell like this (indicating shell introduced in evidence). I worked on the shells half an hour. Lingg went to the West Side to a meeting. Got back probably after one o’clock. He said: ‘I didn’t do much. I ought to have worked more diligently.’ I said I hadn’t any pleasure at the work.”

“What did Lingg reply?”

“Lingg said, ‘Well, we will have to work very diligently this afternoon.’ During the afternoon I did different work at the shells. In the morning I had a conversation about the bolts. He told me he had not enough of them. He gave me one and told me to go to Clybourn Avenue and get some that he had already spoken to the man about. I got about fifty. I worked at the bombs during the whole of the afternoon at different times. Hubner, Muntzenberg, Heuman, were helping. I worked in the front room, also in Lingg’s room and the rear room. Lingg first worked at gas or water pipes, such as these (indicating). There were probably thirty or forty or fifty bombs made that afternoon. The round bombs had been cast once before by Lingg, in the rear room, on my stove, probably six weeks previous to the 4th of May. The first bomb I ever saw was in Lingg’s room. That was still before that. At that time he told me he was going to make bombs. I saw dynamite for the first time in Lingg’s room, about five or six weeks previous to the 4th of May. Lingg said every workingman should get some dynamite; that there should be considerable agitation; that every workingman would learn to handle these things. During that Tuesday afternoon Lingg said those bombs were going to be good fodder for the capitalists and the police, when they came to protect the capitalists. Nothing was said about when they wanted the bombs completed or ready. I only told him that I wanted those things out of my room. There was only a remark that they were to be used that evening, but nothing positive as to time. I left the house at half-past eight that evening. Hubner was at the house probably from four to six o’clock. I did not see what he did. He worked in the front room with Lingg. I was in Lingg’s room. Muntzenberg was there as long as Hubner. Thielen was there half an hour—quite that. I did not see what he was doing.

“The Lehmans were at the house for a little while. I did not see what they were doing. They were in the front room. Heuman also worked at the bombs. I left the house in the evening with Lingg. We had a little trunk with bombs in. The trunk was probably two feet long, one foot high and one foot wide. It was covered with coarse linen. There were round and pipe bombs in it. They were loaded with dynamite and caps fixed to them. I don’t know how many there were. The trunk might have weighed from thirty to fifty pounds. We pulled a stick, which Lingg had broken, through the handle. That is the way we carried the trunk, which was taken to Neff’s Hall, 58 Clybourn Avenue. On the way to Neff’s Hall, Muntzenberg met us. He took the package into the building through the saloon on the side into the hallway that led to the rear. After the bombs were put down into that passageway, there were different ones there, three or four, who took bombs out for themselves. I took two pipe bombs myself; carried them in my pocket. We went away from Neff’s Hall and left the package in that passage. The back of Neff’s Hall is known under the name of the Communisten-Bude. Different Socialistic and Anarchistic organizations met there. The North Side group met there. I heard that the Saxon Bund met there. I don’t know any others that met there. When I left Neff’s Hall, Thielen and Gustav Lehman were with me. Later two large men of the L. u. W. V. came to us. I believe they all had bombs. We went on Clybourn Avenue north towards Lincoln Avenue, to the Larrabee Street Station, where we halted. Lingg and myself halted there. I don’t know what had become of the others. Some went ahead of us. Lingg and I had a conversation, that there should be made a disturbance everywhere on the North Side to keep the police from going over to the West Side. In front of the Larrabee Street Station Lingg said it might be a beautiful thing if we would walk over and throw one or two bombs into the station. There were two policemen sitting in front of the station, and Lingg said if the others came out these two couldn’t do much. We would shoot these two down. Then we went further north to Lincoln Avenue and Larrabee Street, where we took a glass of beer. Webster Avenue Station is near there. After we left the saloon we went a few blocks north, then turned about and came back to North Avenue and Larrabee Street. While we stood there a patrol wagon passed. We were standing south of North Avenue and Larrabee Street. Lingg said that he was going to throw a bomb—that was the best opportunity to throw the bomb—and I said it would not have any purpose. Then he became quite wild, excited; said I should give him a light. I was smoking a cigar, and I jumped into a front opening before a store and lighted a match, as if I intended to light a cigar, so I could not give him a light. When I had lighted my cigar the patrol wagon was just passing. Lingg said he was going to go after the wagon to see what had happened, saying that something had certainly happened on the West Side—some trouble. The patrol wagon was completely manned, going south on Larrabee Street. We were four or five houses distant from the station. Then I went into a boarding-house between Mohawk and Larrabee Streets and lighted a cigar; then we went towards home. First Lingg wanted to wait until the patrol wagon would come back, but I importuned him to go home with me. We got home probably shortly before eleven; I cannot tell exactly. On the way home Lingg asked me whether I had seen a notice that a meeting of the armed men should be held on the West Side. I said I had seen nothing. Lingg wanted to go out. I took the Arbeiter-Zeitung; tore it into two parts. He took one, and I one. Thereupon he said, ‘Here it is,’ and called my attention to the word ‘Ruhe.’ This here is the same that I saw in my house. I did not know the meaning of the word ‘Ruhe’ until the time I saw it. Lingg said there was to have been a meeting on the West Side that night, and he was going to go at once to it. ‘Ruhe’ meant that everything was to go topsy-turvy; that there was to be trouble. He said that a meeting had been held at which it was determined that the word ‘Ruhe’ should go into the paper, when all armed men should appear at 54 West Lake Street; that there should be trouble. After that talk we went away. Lingg wanted to go to the West Side, and I talked with him to go with me to 58 Clybourn Avenue. Lingg and I went there. There were several persons present at Neff’s Hall. I did not speak with Lingg at Neff’s Hall. A certain Hermann said to him, in an energetic tone of voice, ‘You are the fault of it all.’ I did not hear what Lingg said to that. They spoke in a subdued tone. Somebody said a bomb had fallen, which had killed many and wounded many. I did not hear what Lingg said to that. On the way home Lingg said that he was even now scolded, chided for the work he had done. He got home shortly after twelve. We laid the bombs off on our way on Sigel Street, between Sedgwick and Hurlbut, under an elevated sidewalk. I laid two pipe bombs there. I saw Lingg put some bombs there. I don’t know what kind. The next morning I got up about six o’clock. I don’t know when Lingg got up. On Wednesday evening, when Lingg got home, we spoke about the Haymarket meeting. He said if the workingmen only had had the advantage of it they would have gained the victory. Then we went together to a meeting on Fifth Avenue, at Seamen’s Hall.

‘On Friday, I believe, before that Tuesday, the 4th of May, Lingg brought some dynamite to the house in a wooden box about three feet in length, about sixteen to eighteen inches in height, and about the same width. Inside this box there was another box. The dynamite with which we filled the bombs on Tuesday was in that large wooden box. We handled the dynamite with our hands and with a flat piece of wood which Lingg had made for more convenience. This here (indicating) is the pan to cast those shells in. (Same offered in evidence.) Lingg used to cast shells in them. Lingg once told me he had made eighty to one hundred bombs in all. The bolts which I got on that Tuesday were something like this (referring to bolt about two and one-half inches long).

“I am a member of the North Side group of the International Workingmen’s Association. During the last year I was financial secretary. My number was, at last, 72. Two years ago the members began to be given numbers. I heard Engel make a speech to the North Side group last winter at Neff’s Hall. He said that every one could manufacture those bombs for themselves; that these pipes could be found everywhere without cost; that they were to be closed up with wooden plugs fore and aft, and that in one of the plugs was to be drilled a hole for the fuse and cap. He said they were the best means against the police and capitalists. I never heard him make any other speech.

“I saw two bombs at the Arbeiter-Zeitung last year at the time of the car-drivers’ strike. Rau showed them to some one. I don’t know precisely who were present. Spies was there. It was in the evening. There was one round bomb and one long one—not very long. I was at the Arbeiter-Zeitung as a delegate from the North Side group to the meeting of the general committee of all the groups of Chicago.

“I know Schwab and Neebe. They were members of the North Side group of the Internationale. I know Fischer. He is a member of some group, but I don’t know positively. Lingg belonged to the North Side group. Engel belonged to a group, I cannot tell to which one. The North Side group met every Monday evening. There were speeches made, or a review of what had happened during the week. On Sundays some members exercised with rifles. I don’t know how many members had rifles. Every one took his own rifle home with him. I had a rifle. I kept it at my dwelling. This book here (Herr Most’s book) I saw at public meetings of the North Side group. Hubner had charge of them latterly. The North Side group bought them and sold them. Hubner was the librarian. This here (indicating photograph) is Rudolph Schnaubelt.”

On cross-examination he gave the following testimony:

“I was arrested after the 4th of May. I was kept at the Chicago Avenue Station. The first time fully a week. Then I was on the West Side three weeks and one day; then I went back to the station of my own accord and stayed there voluntarily. Was locked up there ever since. When first arrested I made a statement, but not of all that I have testified to-day. I made a full statement of all that I testified to here, at the Chicago Avenue Station. Capt. Schaack, Mr. Furthmann and some detectives were present. That was after I had been in prison seven days. The day after and the second day after. I have made statements in writing, signed by me, three times. In the first statement I had not said much. I have done no work, earned no money, during the time I have been in jail. I received money from Capt. Schaack; once a dollar and a half, at another time five dollars. While I was at liberty I read in the paper that I was indicted for the murder of Degan. I did not know before this case was begun that I was not to be tried. I did not know whether I was going to be tried for the murder of Degan along with Mr. Spies and the other defendants. When the trial was commenced I did not inquire of any of the officers why I was not brought out for trial. I did not know I was to be used as a witness instead of being a defendant at this trial. Capt. Schaack did not tell me anything about my trial. If I would come in and tell the story which was in the written statement that I have signed—he only told me that it would be the best if I would tell the truth, and asked me whether I would tell the truth before the court, and I said yes.”

Seliger was then given a breathing-spell, and Mr. Buschick was recalled. Buschick testified with regard to a map of the rear building of No. 442 Sedgwick Street, and was excused.

Seliger, continuing on cross-examination, said:

“Lingg, I think, is twenty-one or twenty-two years old. He is not a man of family. He has boarded with me since Christmas last. My house where I lived on May 4th is about three-quarters of a mile distant from the Haymarket. When Lingg and I, on Tuesday night at eleven o’clock, after we had seen the word ‘Ruhe’ in the paper, spoke about going over to the West Side, we meant Zepf’s Hall, or Greif’s Hall, or Florus’ Hall. One of those halls was certainly meant, for there is no other place. It was not understood or agreed between me and any other men who had the bombs that night at Clybourn Avenue, that any one of us was to go to the Haymarket meeting. I know that Capt. Schaack paid my wife money at different times since my arrest. I don’t know how much. I think $20 or $25. Lingg had made the same remark about bombs being the best food for capitalists and police before that Tuesday afternoon. When he brought the first bomb into the house he said they were to be applied on occasions of strikes, and where there were meetings of workingmen and were disturbed by the police. On that Tuesday afternoon we agreed to go to Clybourn Avenue that night, before the bombs were done. It was said that the bombs were to be taken to Clybourn Avenue that evening. I don’t believe it was agreed that the bombs were to be taken anywhere else than Clybourn Avenue. When they were taken to Clybourn Avenue, I don’t know whether they were to remain there, or were to be taken to further places. There was no agreement as to where the bombs should be taken after they got to Clybourn Avenue. I did not hear anything about an agreement that any of the bombs manufactured on the afternoon of May 4th were to be taken by anybody to the Haymarket; we were not making bombs to take to the Haymarket and destroy the police. They were to be taken to Clybourn Avenue for use on that evening. I can not say that one single bomb was made for use at the Haymarket meeting. They were made everywhere to be used against capitalists and the police. I cannot say who had the bomb at the Haymarket on the night of May 4th. I don’t know anybody who was expected to be at the Haymarket. I became acquainted with Lingg in August of last year. I saw Engel once last year in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and again at the meeting of the North Side group. I did not see whether the bombs which I saw last summer at the Arbeiter-Zeitung building were loaded. The room where I saw them was the library-room that belonged to the International Workingmen’s Association. The bombs were below the counter. I never saw any bombs in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, neither in the editorial room nor the printing-room, nor in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. The office is the front room. This library-room is in the rear. I saw those bombs in the rear room. I don’t know precisely whether that library-room is a part of the office, or whether it is rented as a library-room. I believe that it belonged to the Arbeiter-Zeitung. Those drills on Sunday, of which I spoke, were in the daytime. We kept our guns at home, in broad daylight, and in the presence of our neighbors, or any one who might be on the streets, walked to the hall on Sunday and drilled. We had a shooting society. We went to the Sharpshooters’ Park or to the prairie to exercise. We used to meet and march publicly on the streets with our guns exposed. We didn’t try to keep it away from the police force that we had arms and drilled and marched. I knew that I was indicted for conspiracy and for murder. I did not employ the services of any lawyer. The only lawyers that I talked with were Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Furthmann.”

On re-direct examination witness stated:

“During the time I was at liberty I went to the West Side to the house of Mr. Gloom, on Twenty-second Street. I stayed with him two weeks and one day. He is not a Socialist. I went there from fear of revenge by the Socialists.”

MRS. BERTHA SELIGER testified as follows:

“I have lived in this country two years. Am the wife of William Seliger. We lived at 442 Sedgwick Street from the 12th of October to the 19th of May. I have known Louis Lingg since two weeks before Christmas. He came to us to board with us. He boarded with us until May. He took his meals with us and slept in the house. We occupied the middle floor of that house. His room was next to the front room, and there was a door opening into a clothes closet. Shortly before May 1st I saw some bombs as Lingg was about to hide them—about half a dozen lying on the bed. They were round bombs and long ones. After Lingg had left the house I did not see any more of them; they were all gone. On the Tuesday on which the bomb was thrown at the Haymarket there were several men at our house. About six or eight. Perhaps more. Those I knew were Hubner, Heuman, Thielen, Lingg and my husband. I think they were there until past seven o’clock. They were going and coming during most of the afternoon. They were in the front room and in Lingg’s room, working at bombs. I saw Heuman working and filling at them. What the others were doing I don’t know. I was in the kitchen, and when supper was ready I went into the bed-room. I was so mad I could have thrown them all out. I frequently saw Lingg make bombs. I always saw him cast. I did not pay any particular attention. I simply saw him melt lead on the cooking-stove in my house—twice with Heuman, once with my husband and Thielen, and frequently he worked by himself. He said to us: ‘Don’t act so foolishly. You might do something too.’ On Monday, the day before the bomb was thrown, Lingg was away. In the morning some young fellows had come and had their names entered on the list of the union, and then he was writing pretty much all day.

“On Wednesday, the day after the bomb was thrown, Lingg was at home in the forenoon. That was the day on which he wanted to hide those bombs in the clothes closet, and Lehman was with him. I heard some knocking, and I went in, and I said to him: ‘Mr. Lingg, what are you doing there? I will not suffer that,’—and he was tearing everything loose below, and he sent that man Lehman after wall-paper, and he wanted to cover up everything afterwards—nail up everything afterwards. He had the wall-paper already there, and he said to me: ‘I suppose you are crazy. You ought to have said before you wouldn’t suffer that, that I would have looked for a place where I am allowed to do that.’ He was tearing up things all around about in the closet, and he had loosened the baseboards and taken out the mortar. He said if he needed something he couldn’t first go to the West Side to get it. On the Friday following, on the 7th of May, he left my house. Lingg had a trunk which he kept in his bed-room. This instrument (referring to ladle identified by William Seliger) Lingg was always casting with.”

On cross-examination Mrs. Seliger stated:

“I have been locked up on account of this bomb business—on account of Lingg—by Capt. Schaack. The first time I was there from Saturday to Tuesday. Of course it was Lingg’s fault that I got locked up. I talked with Capt. Schaack about this matter several times. I was locked up twice. Capt. Schaack paid my rent. I made no memoranda of the money I received from Capt. Schaack. He gave me money at different times, from the time I made my statement down to the present time. He paid my rent and gave me so much money with which to live. When I said to Lingg that I wouldn’t allow that wall-paper to be put into the closet, and ‘what would the landlord say when he comes,’ Lingg said, ‘Well, then, I will say to him that I will not dirty my clothes.’ Those boards were about a foot high from the floor. The closet did not reach up as far as the ceiling. He intended to put those things in the wall. There was nothing in at that time. I stopped him at that juncture. I don’t like Mr. Lingg very well, because he always had wrong things in his head. I blame him for me and my husband having been locked up. My husband and myself talked this thing over together. I said to my husband, ‘I will tell the truth, and you tell it also.’ Capt. Schaack told us we had better tell it. I am forty years old.

“I was locked up in the Larrabee Street Station, and my husband was in the Chicago Avenue Station. I never occupied the same cell with my husband while under arrest. I only heard after I came out again that my husband was arrested in another station. While I was arrested I didn’t see my husband. No one came to see me. I told that story, and then they turned me out. When arrested the second time they kept me from Monday until Friday. I made the same statement as at first and signed it, and then they turned me out again. The second time I was arrested they brought a statement, which they said my husband had made, and asked me to sign it, and I put my name below that of my husband’s, and then they turned me out. My husband was a Socialist before he got acquainted with Lingg.”

MARSHALL H. WILLIAMSON, reporter for the Daily News, witnessed the procession of the Socialists in 1885 at the time of the opening of the Board of Trade building, and was also present at No. 107 Fifth Avenue, from which place they started, and where they finally separated. He heard Parsons and Fielden speak from the windows of the Arbeiter-Zeitung office. Said the witness:

“Parsons spoke of the police interfering with them in marching on the Board of Trade that night. He called the police bloodhounds and called on the mob to follow him in an assault on Marshall Field’s dry goods house and various clothing-houses, and take from there what he called the necessities of life. They spoke from the second floor. There were about 1,000 people in front of the building. Fielden in his speech also called upon the mob to follow them, and he agreed to lead them to rob these places or go into them and take from them what they needed in the way of clothing and dry goods. They both said that the new Board of Trade was built out of money of which they had been robbed; that all the men who transacted business there were robbers and thieves, and that they ought to be killed. Nothing was said in the speeches as to the means or mode of killing. Later I went up-stairs. I saw Fielden and Parsons and some others whose names I didn’t know. I didn’t know Spies at that time, but remember of seeing him there. I asked Parsons why they didn’t march upon the Board of Trade and blow it up. He said because the police had interfered, and they had not expected that and were not prepared for them. I told him I had seen revolvers exhibited by some in the procession. He told me when they met the police they would be prepared with bombs and dynamite. Mr. Fielden was standing at his elbow at the time. He said the next time the police attempted to interfere with them, they would be prepared for them. That would be in the course of a year or so. Spies was in the room. It was the front room of the Arbeiter-Zeitung office. Spies was not standing immediately with the party. I was shown what they told me was a dynamite cartridge. The package was about six or seven inches long, and an inch and a half or two inches in diameter. It was wrapped in a piece of paper. The paper was broken. After I had conversed with Mr. Parsons a while, he took out of the broken place a small portion of the contents. It was of a slightly reddish color, and he again said it was dynamite, and that was what they would use when they went against the police; he also said he had enough of that where he could put his hands on it to blow up the business center of the city. I was shown a coil of fuse about fifteen or twenty feet; also a fulminating cap by which they said dynamite bombs were exploded. The cap was exploded in the room while I was there. It made quite a noise and filled the room with smoke. It was copper and about an inch long and perhaps one-eighth of an inch in diameter—about the size of a No. 22 cartridge cap. Mr. Parsons called for these articles. They were in a drawer in a desk, and Mr. Spies handed them to him to be shown to me. Parsons told me they were preparing for a fight for their rights; that they believed they were being robbed every day by capitalists and the thieving Board of Trade men. He said it must stop. He told me that they had bombs, dynamite and plenty of rifles and revolvers, and he said their manner of warfare would be to throw their bombs from the tops of houses and stores, and in that way they could annihilate any force of militia or police brought against them without any harm to themselves. After this conversation I went down-stairs, where I met Detectives Trehorn and Sullivan. I was acquainted with them. I took them up-stairs and renewed the conversation with Mr. Parsons, and left him talking with the police officers. The conversation I had had with Mr. Parsons was in effect repeated with the police officers in my presence. The officers were in citizens’ clothes. The red flags in that procession were carried by some women. I was at 54 West Lake Street, in some of the halls there, on several occasions, within a year before the opening of the Board of Trade. That is where I got acquainted with Parsons and Fielden. I heard them speak there. That was during the winter months of 1884 and 1885. Mr. Fielden, on one occasion, wanted them to follow him to those clothing stores and grocery stores and some other places and get what they needed to support their families. He told them to purchase dynamite. He said that five cents’ worth of dynamite carried around in the vest pocket would do more good than all the revolvers and pistols in the world. Mr. Parsons also told them they were being robbed, and offered to lead them to the grocery stores and other places to get what they wanted. That is all I remember of those speeches. I heard them some eight or ten times. There were never over between ten and twenty-five people present.”

On cross-examination witness stated:

“The first of these meetings I attended was about two years ago. I wrote reports of those meetings, which I think were published in the Daily News in each instance the day following, in the morning edition. The circulation of the Daily News, about a year and a half and two years ago, was, I think, 121,000 per day, as claimed by the paper.

“When I went to the meetings at 54 West Lake Street I had no trouble to get in. The meetings were held in the front rooms on the top floor. There were no guards at the door. I simply went in and sat down and took my notes publicly. Fielden and Parsons learned very soon that I was a reporter on the Daily News. Those speeches of Parsons and Fielden which I related were made at the first meeting I attended. When Fielden suggested the five cents’ worth of dynamite carried in the vest pocket, he gave no instructions whatever on the subject of how to carry or use it. The proposal to go out to Marshall Field’s and some clothing store was a proposal for immediate action. He did not start, however. After he got through with his talk and proposal, he sat down until the meeting was over. The meeting quietly dispersed and went home. I did not see that army of less than twenty-five men start for Field’s that night, or upon any subsequent occasion. I heard that same proposal at every single meeting I attended at 54 West Lake Street and 700 and something West Indiana Street, and various other places. I do not think there was ever over twenty-five present at their meetings in halls. I have seen larger numbers of people at open-air meetings. Sometimes the attendance did not exceed about ten men. The same proposition was made when there were only ten persons present.

“In that procession on the night of the opening of the Board of Trade I marched at the head. After Mr. Parsons had finished his speech from the window of the Arbeiter-Zeitung office that night, in which he proposed to lead the multitude against those stores, he quietly went back into the room, and I entered into a conversation with him. Mr. Fielden, after he had got through proposing, joined in the conversation with Mr. Parsons and myself. He didn’t go down to the street and lead anybody anywhere, either. The proposals that night, both by Fielden and Parsons, were proposals for immediate action, but they simply proposed to, and then gracefully retired from the window. There were about twenty people in the room. Among them, I think, was Mr. Spies. There were two reporters besides myself there. I think both Fielden and Parsons knew me as a reporter at the time. I presume they knew I was connected with the Daily News. Parsons never manifested any reluctance in detailing to me what he did; but in one conversation he refused to reveal the remainder of their plans. I saw some three or four revolvers in that procession. I don’t know who had them. There were not to exceed five hundred people in the procession. I saw two revolvers in the right-hand side coat pocket, and two more in the hip pocket, carried by four persons. I have informed various police officers of what I have seen and heard regarding these people. I had frequent conversations with police officers of Chicago. I think there were about four women in that procession carrying banners. There were about half a dozen women in the room while they spoke from the windows. I think some women spoke from the same windows to the same mob. I think the meetings which I attended were regularly advertised in the Daily News.”

On re-direct examination, Williamson was asked by the State’s Attorney: “You were about to say something about some interview that you had with Parsons in regard to the plans, also in regard to leaders and privates in their army. Will you please state what that was?”

“Parsons told me there were some 3,000 armed Socialists in the city of Chicago, well armed with rifles and revolvers, and would have dynamite and bombs when they got ready to use them; that they were meeting and drilling at various halls in the city. He refused to give me a list of those halls. He refused to tell me where they bought rifles. He said the society was divided into groups, and that they knew each other by twos and threes. He showed me an article in the Alarm, I think, about street warfare. In that connection I think he told me it was their intention to occupy the Market Place and the Washington Street tunnel, and in that position they could successfully encounter any force that could be brought against them.”

On re-cross-examination witness related:

“There was nobody present when I had that conversation with Mr. Parsons. I think it was after New Year’s day of 1885, in the winter. I did not ask him how they managed to drill if they only knew each other by twos and threes. He said that in that organization of 3,000 no man knew more than two or three others.”

JOHN SHEA, Lieutenant of Police, and at the head of the detective force, testified about the search of the Arbeiter-Zeitung office and proceeded:

“I know a man that is called Rudolph Schnaubelt. He was in the station a couple of days after the arrest of those other gentlemen. This here (indicating photograph) I recognize as Schnaubelt’s picture. When I saw him he had a mustache. I had a conversation with Mr. Spies at police headquarters, in my office, after he was arrested. We had a conversation about that manuscript referred to by me. I asked Spies if he was at the meeting at the Haymarket. He said he was; that he opened the meeting; that Schwab was there, but that he understood he went to Deering. He said Parsons was there, and Fielden; that both spoke there—Fielden at the time the police came. He said he spoke at a meeting on May 3, near McCormick’s factory, and some of the parties there in the rear had commenced to halloa, and said, ‘Let’s go to McCormick’s,’ and they had started, and most of the crowd had started with them. Spies said he had heard later what had happened at McCormick’s; that he had got on a street car and come down town. I asked him if he knew anything about that circular that was circulated on the street. I don’t remember that I had present with me the circular which I referred to during that conversation. He said he did not know anything about the circular, but heard that it had been circulated. I asked him if he wrote this manuscript (indicating manuscript previously produced). Mr. Grinnell was sitting in the office at the time. Spies said, ‘I refuse to answer.’ Then Mr. Spies said he was the editor there. I said, ‘Now, would not anything of that kind be likely to go through your hands before it would go to print?’ He said, ‘I refuse to answer.’

“I had a conversation with Fischer the next day. He said that on the night of May 4 he and several others, Schwab, Fielden, were at a meeting in the Arbeiter-Zeitung office; that Rau brought word to the meeting that there was a large crowd at the Haymarket, that Spies was there and very few speakers; and they immediately started to the Haymarket. He said he didn’t hear Spies, but heard Fielden and Parsons. That pistol and dagger he had had to protect himself. He had not had it with him that night. It was in the Arbeiter-Zeitung office. On Wednesday morning he had put it on because he didn’t intend to stay. He was going away. That fulminating cap he had got from a man in front of the Arbeiter-Zeitung office some three months before that. He had never paid any attention to it. He had made the sharpened dagger himself for his own protection.

“In the conversation with Spies, my recollection is that he said he got on the wagon, and said something to Parsons or Fielden about its going to rain, and left the wagon. I don’t recollect where he said he went to. Fischer said he was at Zepf’s Hall at the time of the explosion.”

FRED. L. BUCK was called to testify with reference to some experiments he had made with dynamite which he had received from the detectives’ office. He had gone to the lake front with Officer McKeough and another officer and a newspaper reporter and there made several tests, all of which demonstrated the immense force of the dynamite.

Lieut. GEORGE W. HUBBARD, now Superintendent of the force, had charge of the company that composed the third division at the Haymarket. Being a large company, it was divided into two, he himself commanding one wing and Sergt. (now Capt.) Fitzpatrick, who was drill master, being in command of the other.

“I was about four feet behind Stanton’s and Bowler’s companies. My company was about six feet behind me. I could hear the sound of the voices at the wagon, but couldn’t hear exactly what was said. I saw the bomb when it was about six feet from the ground—a little tail of fire quivering as it fell not more than six feet in front of me. The bomb immediately exploded, and as far as I could see the entire division in front of me disappeared, except the two ends; but a great many of them got up again in a kind of disorder, and then I flanked the left of the division. There was no firing before the explosion of that bomb. The firing began almost immediately on both sides of the street and north of me. I, being on the left, rushed my division of the company right around toward the sidewalk, and commenced answering the charge from that quarter, and Fitzpatrick went the other way, to the east, and he commenced shooting right into the crowd on the sidewalk, faced them right and left. In our company we had our regular revolvers in our pockets, and we had a larger revolver in the sockets attached to our belts, on the outside. The club in the socket and the revolver in the socket were both hanging to the left side of each officer. Pistols and clubs were all in the pockets until the explosion of the bomb.”

S. J. WERNEKE, police officer, who was hit with a bullet in the head at the Haymarket, testified that he heard Engel at 703 Milwaukee Avenue in February, 1886, “advise every man in the audience to join them, and urged the people to save up three or four dollars to buy a revolver that was good enough to shoot these policemen down. I was at the Haymarket in Lieut. Steele’s company. Got hit with a bullet in the head.”

JOHN J. RYAN next took the witness-stand. He testified:

“I am a retired officer of the United States navy. Live at 274 North Clark Street. Lived in Chicago for three years. Have seen the defendants Spies, Neebe, Parsons, Fielden and Schwab on the occasion of their Sunday afternoon meetings during the summer of last year and the year previous. I heard some of them speak there, namely, Spies, Parsons and Fielden, in the English language. I can only designate particularly two meetings, one previous to the picnic they had last year, and one on the Sunday directly after it. That was in July of last year, I think. I cannot say that I saw Mr. Spies at either of those meetings. Mr. Parsons I remember at one of them.”

“State what he said,” put in the State’s Attorney.

“He was speaking in a general way,” said the witness, “about trouble with the workingmen and the people, what he called the proletariat class, and spoke about their enemies, the police and the constituted authorities; that the authorities would use the police and militia and they would have to use force against them. He advised them to purchase rifles. If they had not money enough for that, then to buy pistols, and if they couldn’t buy pistols they could buy sufficient dynamite for twenty-five cents to blow up a building the size of the Pullman building?”

“What, if anything, did you hear Fielden say at that meeting?”

“The speeches were very nearly alike; they spoke about dynamite and fire-arms to be used against the police, and any one who opposed them in their designs; they wanted things their way and to regulate society. The speeches were alike Sunday after Sunday. I heard Spies speak on the lake front before and after the meetings I mention; he represented, as he said, the oppressed class, the workingmen, as opposed to the capitalists and property-owners; the latter were the enemy of the workingmen; if they couldn’t get their rights in a peaceable manner they must get them in a forcible way. I heard that talk about ten or fifteen times; the meetings were held there every Sunday until late in the fall. After the picnic, Mr. Parsons, I think—I won’t be sure of that—spoke about the young German experimenting with dynamite at this picnic; that this young German had a small quantity of dynamite in a tomato-can; it was thrown into a pond or lake, and he spoke of the force this amount of dynamite exerted, and what could be done with it in destroying buildings and property in the city.”

On cross-examination Mr. Ryan stated:

“Those lake front meetings were held publicly in plain view to everybody in every instance. The largest number of persons I ever saw attend one of these meetings was not more than 150. The meetings that I attended usually lasted two or three hours. I heard two or three other persons speak on the lake front at those meetings—Mr. Henry, Mrs. Parsons, Mrs. Holmes, and, one Sunday, a young Englishman whose name I did not hear; also an Irishman whose name I never heard. The meetings were held about half past two. The speeches were made in a loud, clear tone, sometimes very loud when they would get excited. A policeman who evidently had charge of the park was usually around there. It was a general propagation of ideas and doctrines, down there on the lake front. Once I heard Mr. Parsons say that now was the time to do it. I heard the opinion expressed there that the workingmen would have to secure their rights by force, and therefore should be prepared for it.”

HARRY WILKINSON, a reporter for the Daily News, testified as follows:

“On Thanksgiving Day, last year, I heard Mr. Parsons speak on the Market Square. He advised the workingmen who were present (there were several hundred there), to stand together, and to use force in procuring their rights. He told them that they were slaves; that out of a certain sum of money the per cent. they got was too small; it ought to be more evenly divided with the man who employed them. I don’t recollect that he said at that time anything as to the means or manner of force to be used, or against whom.

“Last January I had several conversations with Mr. Spies, probably half a dozen. I first saw Mr. Spies a few days after the 1st of January of this year in regard to the matter published in this paper (indicating copy of Chicago Daily News of January 13, 1886). I wrote up the result of my talk with Mr. Spies for that paper; it was not all published. I inquired of Spies about an explosive which had been placed on Judge Lambert Tree’s steps, and one that was placed in the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad offices, and he emphatically denied that those machines were either made or placed by Socialists or Anarchists, and proved it by showing me that they were entirely different in character to those used by the Socialists. He showed me this bomb (indicating), which he described as the Czar; I took it with me. He spoke of the wonderful destructive power of the Czar bomb; said it was the same kind that had been used by Nihilists in destroying the Czar. I told him that I thought it was a pretty tall story, and he became somewhat excited and produced this, and said that there were others, larger than that, run by mechanical power—clock-work bombs—and he gave me that in a small room adjoining the counting-room office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. He denied that those things were made at the Arbeiter-Zeitung office; he said they were made by other persons and that there were several thousand of them in Chicago distributed, and that at some times they were distributed through the Arbeiter-Zeitung office; that those who could make bombs made more than they could use, and those that could make them gave them to those that could not; that that one was one of the samples. I asked Mr. Spies if I could take that (the bomb) and show it to Mr. Stone, and I took it over there and didn’t bring it back. On another occasion, Mr. Spies and Mr. Gruenhut and myself went to dinner together, and he told us there about the organization of their people in a rather boastful manner; how they had gone out on excursions on nice summer mornings, some miles out of the city, and practiced throwing these bombs; the manner of exploding them; that they had demonstrated that bombs made of compound metal were much better than the other kind, and that a fuse bomb with a detonating cap inside was by far the best; and how at one attempt made in his presence one of their machines had been exploded in the midst of a little grove, and that it had entirely demolished the scenery; blown down four or five trees.

He further described to me some very tall and very strong men, who could throw a large-size bomb weighing five pounds, fifty paces; and stated how, in case of a conflict with the police or militia, when the latter would come marching up a street, they would be received by the throwers formed in the shape of the letter V in the mouth of the street just crossing the intersection, illustrating this by taking some little toothpicks out of a vase on the table, laying them down and making a street intersection. He stated the militia would probably not stay to see a second or a third bomb go off. If the conflict should occur at any of the principal street intersections in the city, some of those organized men would be on the tops of houses ready to throw bombs overboard among the advancing troops or police. All these matters had been investigated; the men were all thoroughly trained and organized. The means of access to the house-tops of street intersections was a matter of common information among their adherents. He said they had no leaders; one was instructed as well as another, and when the great day came each one would know his duty and do it. I tried to find out when this would probably occur, and he did not fix the date precisely or approximately at that time. At another of those interviews he said it would probably occur in the first conflict between the police and the strikers; that if there would be a universal strike for this eight-hour system there would probably be a conflict of some sort brought about in some way between the First and Second Regiment of the Illinois National Guards and the police, and the dynamite upon the other hand. In trying to get at the probable number of them, I understood him that there were probably eight or ten thousand.

“He spoke of other larger bombs, as large as a cigar-box, to be exploded by electricity, which would be placed under a street in case they decided to barricade any section of the city, that they had experimented with. That certain members of the organization had in their possession a complete detail, maps and plans of the underground system of the city. That these machines would either destroy everybody that was above them when they went off, or so tear up the street as to make it impassable. He told me that the ordinary dynamite of commerce was about a 60 or 66 per cent. dynamite; that they made a finer quality by importing infusorial earth and mixing it themselves; that was about a 90 per cent. quality. He showed me no dynamite. I don’t think he gave me any information about Herr Most’s ‘Science of Revolutionary Warfare.’ I understood that the object of all this was the bettering of the workingmen’s condition by the demolition of their oppressors. He vaguely spoke of a list of prominent citizens who might suddenly be blown up one at a time or all at once. I frequently said that I didn’t believe much in the story he told me. He simply uttered the renewed declarations.

“I had this conversation with Spies in the Arbeiter-Zeitung at his own desk, on the left-hand side as you entered the door in the editorial room. Mr. Schwab was there once or twice when I was in. I was not acquainted with him personally. The conversations which I have chiefly detailed here took place in the Chicago Oyster House and in a little room detached from the counting-room down-stairs where he kept those specimen bombs. He got this bomb from one of those little pigeonholes in that room.

“He particularly mentioned the Market Square, and that it would take a very few men to fortify that street against all the police and militia in Chicago, and that they would have the tunnel at their back for a convenient place of retreat for those who were not engaged in throwing the shells, or for women and children whom they might care to take there. They were to receive the police or militia with their line formed in the shape of a letter V, the open end of the letter V facing toward the street intersection. Then there were to be others to reinforce them, as it were, on the tops of houses, at those corners. The plan here in this copy of the Daily News of January 14th, I drew from one that he made right on the table cloth as we sat at dinner together, except that he did not put in these little squares, but explained to me where these would be, and laid toothpicks to make these lines. Those dotted lines and the other dotted lines are to represent the dynamiters on tops of houses.”

On cross-examination Mr. Wilkinson testified:

“I got leave of Mr. Spies to carry the bomb off and show it to Mr. Stone. I am now twenty-six years old. Have been in the newspaper business about four years. I came to Chicago in September of last year. I was assigned to this work with Mr. Spies by Mr. Stone personally. I advised Mr. Spies of that fact. The circulation of the Daily News, according to its official statistics, was about 165,000. After that conversation in the presence of Joe Gruenhut, I had also an interview with Gruenhut. Mr. Gruenhut said that the conflict to which our conversation referred at the table would occur probably on the 1st of May, or within a few days thereafter, and that it might extend all over the country. He spoke of the conflict between the workingmen who were to strike for eight hours and their natural enemies, the police and militia. I don’t remember that anything was said about the capitalists. The Haymarket was not mentioned.

“I did not take any notes while the conversation with Mr. Spies was going on. I wrote them up the first opportunity I afterwards had. Spies said, as near as I could calculate, that they had about 9,000 bombs. As to those tall men who could throw a five-pound bomb fifty paces, my recollection is that it was a company referred to, without number. There were four or five only of that company, as I understood, who could throw a five-pound bomb—that is a large-sized shell—and fifty yards is a long distance to throw a shell. He described the character of the organizations; that if there were three the first would know the second and the second the third, but not the third the first; that it was Nihilistic in its character, and that they were known by other means than names. I don’t think I asked Spies about how many men were interested in this project that were drilling and getting ready. I don’t recollect his saying anything about that, but I concluded that there were as many men as there were bombs, or more. There was some delay of about three or four days in the publication of my article after it was prepared.

“I did not believe all Spies said. I believed about half of it. The article written by me is wound up by the suggestion that when dressed to cold facts it was like a scarecrow flapping in the corn-field. I did not write that. That was edited by some one who told me he didn’t believe as much of the matter as I did. I remember a communication from Mr. Spies in the Daily News, after this article. I think I helped ‘fix it up,’ put a head-line on it. The original was then used as copy. I never saw it afterwards. Joe Gruenhut is a Socialist.”

GUSTAV LEHMAN gave his testimony as follows:

“I am a carpenter. On May 4th I lived at 41 Freeman Street. I lived there six months. Have been in this country and in this city four years. I was born in Prussia. I attended a meeting at 54 West Lake Street on the evening of May 3d. Got there a quarter of nine. I went there from my home by myself. I was about to go to a carpenters’ meeting at Zepf’s Hall, but I met several persons who were going to 54 West Lake Street. I saw a copy of the Arbeiter-Zeitung containing the notice ‘Y—Komme Montag Abend.’ It meant that the armed ones should attend the meeting at 54 West Lake Street. When I got there the meeting was in session. Somebody made a motion to post somebody at the door, and then I went out to the sidewalk, by the door, that no one who was going to the water-closet could remain there and listen. I was stationed on the sidewalk, where the steps were leading down, maybe a good half hour. I went into the meeting twice. I heard that large man, with the blonde mustache, say he was going to have hand-bills printed and distributed. There were present at the meeting Seliger, Thielen, myself, my brother, Fischer, Breitenfeld and the Hermanns. That is about all I remember. I don’t know how Engel looks.

“I cannot tell whether Lingg was in the basement, but he went home with me. We had a little quarrel. Lingg came up to us from behind, on the sidewalk, and said to us, ‘You are all oxen, fools.’ I asked him what had taken place at the meeting, where we were just coming from. Lingg told me that if I wanted to know something I should come to 58 Clybourn Avenue the next evening. There were present Seliger, my brother, and one other man. The next day I worked on Sedgwick Street. After I quit work, at three o’clock, I met a gentleman, Schneideke, and we went to Lingg’s. Got there about five o’clock. I saw there Lingg, Seliger, and a blacksmith, whose name I don’t know, and Hubner. I stayed there about ten minutes. They did some work in the bed-room. I couldn’t understand what they were doing. I did not work at anything. Lingg and Huebner had a cloth tied around their faces. I had gone there because my countryman wanted to buy a revolver. After I left I went home with my countryman. At about seven o’clock I went back to Lingg’s, and stayed there perhaps ten minutes. They were still busy in the bed-room. Hubner was cutting a fuse, or a coil of fuse, into pieces. I saw something like that fuse (indicating a coil of fuse) and caps. I didn’t do anything there. They were making these fuse and caps in the front room. That afternoon Lingg gave me a small hand satchel, with a tin box in it, and three round bombs, and two coils of fuse and some caps. This here (indicating) is the box which he gave me. It was said that dynamite was in it. It was nearly full. This box of caps (indicating) I found afterwards in the satchel. Lingg said to me he wanted me to keep these things so that no one could find them. I took them home with me, to the wood-shed; got up at three o’clock that night and carried them away to the prairie, about Clybourn Avenue, behind Ogden’s Grove.

“After supper on that Tuesday evening I was about to go to Uhlich’s Hall, but there was no carpenters’ meeting there. Then I was about to go home, but we went to 58 Clybourn Avenue, Neff’s Hall, because of what Lingg had told us Monday night. Schneideke was with me. We stayed at Neff’s Hall about ten minutes. We got there about half past nine. I did not see anybody there whom I knew but the barkeeper. After leaving Neff’s Hall we went up Clybourn Avenue to Larrabee Street. We had no special place in view. I got home about eleven o’clock. We met Seliger and Lingg standing together on the sidewalk on Larrabee Street, near Clybourn Avenue. We stood there with them, but one—I don’t know whether it was Seliger or Lingg—remarked: ‘We four should not keep together.’ Then we went towards North Avenue, along Larrabee Street. Near North Avenue we met Thielen. I afterwards went to the prairie with a detective, about May 19th or 20th, to find the things that Lingg had given me. The bombs and the dynamite, the fuse and the caps were still there.”

“Have you ever been a member of any Socialistic organization?”

“I have been a member of the North Side Group of the International Workingmen’s Association. I belonged to the group about three months prior to the 4th of May. The group met at 58 Clybourn Avenue, regularly, every Monday evening. We talked together there, advised together, and reviewed what had happened among the workingmen during the week. We had hunting-guns and shot-guns with which we drilled. I kept my gun at my house.”

“Did you ever attend a dance at Florus’ Hall?”

“Yes, about March of this year. It was a ball of the Carpenters’ Union. Lingg was present there. There was about ten or ten and a half dollars’ profit on the beer. The money, according to a resolution passed at the next meeting of the Carpenters’ Union, at 71 West Lake Street, was handed over to Lingg, with the instruction to buy dynamite with it, and experiment with it to find out how it was used. I heard Engel make a speech at 58 Clybourn Avenue, about January or February of this year, before the assembled workingmen of the North Side. He said those who could not buy revolvers should buy dynamite. It was cheap and easily handled. A gas-pipe was to be taken and a wooden plug put into the ends, and it was to be filled with dynamite. Then the other end is also closed up with a wooden plug, and old nails are tied around the pipe by means of wire. Then a hole is bored into one end of it, and a fuse with a cap is put into that hole. I was chairman at that meeting. Engel said some gas-pipe was to be found on the West Side, near the river, near the bridge.”

On cross-examination Lehman stated:

“The meeting at which Engel spoke was a public, open-door meeting. A notice under the signal ‘Y,’ which was understood to be the call for a meeting at 54 West Lake Street, I have seen once before. I belonged to the armed section for about three or four months. The meetings of the armed section at 54 West Lake Street were irregular, governed by such a notice in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I did not see Lingg at 54 West Lake Street that Monday night. I don’t know that he was there. As we went home he came up to us from behind on the sidewalk. Whether he was there or not I cannot say. When I went to Clybourn Avenue Tuesday night, Lingg was not there. Seliger went down in the basement at the meeting at 54 Lake Street Monday night. He was there for some time, but I cannot tell how long. I am sure about that. We went there together from where the carpenters’ meeting was to have taken place. I, my brother, he and several others went down together. I am as sure of Seliger’s having been down there in the basement that night as of any fact that I have testified to.”

JEREMIAH SULLIVAN, a detective, testified:

“I was on the Market Square on the night of the inauguration of the Board of Trade with Officer Trehorn. When we got down there, there was quite a large crowd. One or two people were talking in German and trying to hold the crowd until the speakers came. Mr. Schwab came there first, and Parsons and Fielden came, and I believe this man (indicating Lingg). Parsons spoke about the Board of Trade, and showed some figures how the poor man was robbed. Then he denounced the police as bloodhounds, the militia as servants of the capitalists, robbing the laboring classes, and invited them all in a body to go there and partake of some of those twenty-dollar dishes that they had up at the Board of Trade building. They were to get there by force. Mr. Fielden spoke after him. He denounced the police and militia as bloodhounds. At that time there was a company of militia on Market Square for the purpose of drilling. Mr. Schwab was there at the time, and called the attention of the crowd to the militia, and they all started off toward the militia. Schwab spoke in German. Officer Trehorn and I went over there and asked the militia to disperse, and they marched up Water Street. Then I came back and listened to Mr. Fielden, who urged the crowd to force themselves in a body and partake of those dishes. Then they all marched in a body, some carrying red flags. I saw in the procession Schwab, Parsons, Fielden, and I am not positive as to that young fellow (Lingg). There was no United States flag in the procession. There was a platoon of police at every crossing. The procession stopped at 107 Fifth Avenue. Parsons went in and spoke from the window. He denounced the policemen as bloodhounds, and the militia also, and stated how they stopped them from going in there and partaking of the food; that a good many of his audience did not have clothes and could not afford to pay twenty cents for a meal, let alone twenty dollars, and wanted them to go and follow him, and he would make a raid on those different places, mentioning Marshall Field’s and one or two other places. After him Fielden spoke, and wanted them all to go down with him in a body and he would lead them. I met Williamson, the reporter, just as he was coming down-stairs, that evening. We went up-stairs with him. I shook hands with Mr. Fielden and spoke to him. They did not know me as a policeman. Fielden, Parsons and Schwab were there. Spies was at the desk. Parsons asked Spies for this dynamite. He brought it over, and Parsons told how it could be used; that if it was thrown into a line of police or militia it would take the whole platoon. He also exhibited a coil of fuse. I said: ‘You can get that in any quarry. They use that in blasting powder.’ He said: ‘It comes in good to load these with—to touch these off with,’ referring to dynamite shells. I saw some caps there about the size of a 22-caliber cartridge. The substance which he showed was dynamite. It looked like red sand. It was shaped about a foot long, and about an inch and a half in diameter. I asked one of them why they didn’t go into the Board of Trade building. They said that they were not prepared that night; that there were too many of the bloodhounds before them on the street, but the next time they would turn out they would meet them with their own weapons and worse.”

MORITZ NEFF testified:

“I live at 58 Clybourn Avenue, known as Thüringer Hall, also as Neff’s Hall, since seven years. I keep a saloon there. Back of the saloon is a hall. The North Side group used to meet there. I know all the defendants. On the night when the bomb was thrown I was at my saloon. Louis Lingg came in, in company with Seliger and another man whom I had not seen before. This stranger carried the satchel. It was a common bag, probably about a foot and a half long and six inches wide. He put it on the counter, after that on the floor. Lingg and Seliger were standing by, and Lingg asked me if some one had asked for him. That stranger, whose name I afterwards found out to be Muntzenberg, carried the satchel on his shoulder; that was ten or fifteen minutes after eight. I told Lingg that nobody had inquired for him. Then Muntzenberg picked up the bag and went out the side door, in the rear of the room, followed by Lingg and Seliger. I have not seen the bag since. There was a large meeting of painters, probably two hundred, in the hall that evening. For this reason I opened this door in the rear of the saloon, so that people going to that meeting would not be compelled to go through the saloon. I saw Lingg and Seliger again that night about eleven o’clock. Nobody had inquired in the meantime for Lingg. I saw Hubner there before Lingg came. I saw Thielen on the sidewalk in front of the saloon, but not inside. The two Lehmans were there after Lingg had left. They were out on the sidewalk, not inside. The first time Lingg stayed about five or ten minutes. He went out through the saloon. I did not see Seliger and Muntzenberg go out through the saloon. Before Lingg and Seliger came back, at about eleven o’clock, several individuals had come into the saloon, among them the Hermanns, the two Lehmans, the two Hagemans and Hirschberger. Lingg and Seliger dropped in a little later. They were all talking together. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I heard one of them halloa out very loud, ‘That is all your fault.’ I heard them also say that the bomb had been thrown among the police and some of them had been killed. They came from the meeting.

“Engel addressed the North Side group in my hall in February last winter. It was a public agitation meeting of the North Side group, advertised in the Arbeiter-Zeitung.”

“What did Engel say?”

“He wanted money for a new paper, the Anarchist, started by the Northwest Side group and two of the South Side groups. He said the Arbeiter-Zeitung was not outspoken enough in those Anarchistic principles; therefore they started this paper. They distributed some of these papers. Later on he gave a kind of history of revolutions in the old country, stated that the nobility of France were only forced to give up their privileges by brute force; that the slaveholders in the South were compelled by force to liberate their slaves, and the present wage-slavery would be done away with only by force also. And he advised them to arm themselves, and if guns were too dear for them they should use cheaper weapons—dynamite or anything they could get hold of to fight the enemy. To make bombs, anything that was hollow in the shape of gas-pipes would do. That is all I heard him say. I wasn’t present all the time. I bought a copy of the Anarchist that night for five cents. This here (indicating) is one of the copies, dated January 1, 1886. This is one of the copies distributed that night. Engel did not distribute it himself. Two other gentlemen who were there did that.”

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Chapter XXIII

A Pinkerton Operative’s Adventures—How the Leading Anarchists Vouched for a Detective—An Interesting Scene—An Enemy in the Camp—Getting into the Armed Group—No. 16’s Experience—Paul Hull and the Dynamite Bomb—A Safe Corner Where the Bullets were Thick—A Revolver Tattoo—“Shoot the Devils”—A Reformed Internationalist.

THE examination of witnesses continued from day to day before a crowded court-room. At times tilts between the attorneys and long arguments on knotty legal points varied the proceedings. Every coigne of vantage occupied by the State was stubbornly contested by counsel for the defendants. But the prosecution maintained its position and brought out all the material evidence it had accumulated. The theory of the State with reference to conspiracy, murder and “accessory before the fact” was gradually being developed with force and effect. Newspaper reporters proved important witnesses and rendered the State great service.

The greatest interest at this stage of the trial was taken in the testimony of ANDREW C. JOHNSON, a Pinkerton detective, who became a member of the International Workingmen’s Association February 22, 1885, or rather on March 1, 1885, a few days later, for it was on that day that he got his red card of membership, bearing his number, and began his series of reports to the agency.

Among a number of minor particulars, Johnson told how the blowing up of the Board of Trade was proposed on March 29 by Fielden, and indorsed by others. The most interesting part of his story, however, is the description of his admission into the armed group. This took place on August 24, at Greif’s Hall. Said Johnson:

“There were twenty or twenty-three men and two women present. It was Monday night. Among them Parsons, Fielden, besides Walters, Bodendick, Boyd and Larson, Parker, Franklin and Snyder. After having been there a short time, a man armed with a long cavalry sword, dressed in a blue blouse, wearing a slouch hat, came into the room. He ordered all those present to fall in. He then called off certain names, and all those present answered to their names. He then inquired whether there were any new members who wished to join the military company. Those who did should step to the front. Myself and two others did so. We were asked separately to give our names. My name was put down in a book, and I was told my number was 16. Previous to my name being put down the man asked whether any one present could vouch for me as a true man. Parsons and Bodendick vouched for me. The same process was gone through in regard to the other two. The man then inquired of two other men in the room, whether they were members of the American group, and asked to see their cards, and as they were unable to produce their cards he told them to leave the room. Two others were expelled. The doors were closed and the remainder were asked to fall in line. For about half an hour or three-quarters we were put through the regular manual drill, marching, counter-marching, turning, forming fours, wheeling, etc. That man with a sword drilled us. He was evidently a German. After that he stated he would now introduce some of the members of the first company of the German organization. He went out and in a few minutes returned with ten other men dressed like himself, each one armed with a Springfield rifle. He placed them in line in front of us and introduced them as members of the first company of the L. u. W. V., and proceeded to drill them about ten minutes. After that a man whose name I do not know—he was employed by the proprietor of the saloon at 54 West Lake Street—came into the room with two tin boxes, which he placed on a table. The drill instructor asked us to examine them, as they were the latest improved dynamite bomb. They had the appearance of ordinary preserve fruit cans, the top part unscrewed. The inside of the cans was filled with a light brown mixture. There was also a small glass tube inserted in the center of the can. The tube was in connection with a screw, and it was explained that when the can was thrown against any hard substance it would explode. Inside of the glass tube was a liquid. Around the glass tube was a brownish mixture which looked like fine saw-dust. The drill instructor told us we ought to be very careful in the selection of new members of the company, otherwise there was no telling who might get into our midst. After that a man named Walters was chosen as captain, and defendant Parsons for lieutenant. We decided to call ourselves the International Rifles. The drill instructor then suggested that we ought to choose some other hall, as we were not quite safe there, and added, ‘We have a fine place at 636 Milwaukee Avenue. We have a short range in the basement, where we practice shooting regularly.’ Parsons inquired whether we couldn’t rent the same place, and the drill instructor said he didn’t know. Then the time for the next meeting of the armed section was fixed for the following Monday. Parsons and Fielden drilled with us that evening. They were present also with a number of others at the next meeting, on August 31, at 54 West Lake Street. Capt. Walters drilled us for about an hour and a half. Then we had a discussion as to the best way of procuring arms. Some one suggested that each member pay a weekly amount until he had enough to purchase a rifle for each member of the company. Parsons suggested: ‘Look here, boys; why can’t we make a raid some night on the militia armory? There are only two or three men on guard there, and it is easily done.’ This suggestion was favored by some members, but after some more discussion the matter of the raid on the armory was put off until the nights got a little bit longer.”

The witness, whose testimony was very lengthy, refreshed his memory from copies of reports which he had made at the time. On cross-examination he was asked why the reports were countersigned by L. J. Gage. He replied that he did not know why they were so countersigned, but he found that they were. The history he had to tell bore chiefly upon the facts leading up to the riot at the Haymarket.

JOSEPH GRUENHUT, a factory and tenement-house inspector of the Health Department of the city, had known Spies for six years, Parsons about ten years, Fielden and Schwab about two years, more or less.

“I have known Neebe perhaps fifteen or twenty years. I was in the habit of meeting some of them daily, at labor meetings or at the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I am myself interested in labor movements, formerly the Labor Party of the United States. It changed its name into the Socialistic Labor Party. I am a Socialist. I don’t consider myself an Anarchist. I am not a member of any group of the Internationals in the city, nor of the Lehr und Wehr Verein. I was present at interviews between the reporter Wilkinson and Mr. Spies. I introduced Mr. Wilkinson to Mr. Spies at the Arbeiter-Zeitung office in the forenoon, and on the evening of the same day, I believe, I was present at a conversation between them at a restaurant on Madison Street. We took supper there together.”

“State the conversation which took place there between Spies and the reporter.”

“Mr. Wilkinson asked him how many members belonged to the military societies of organized trade and labor unions. Spies said that there were many thousand; that these organizations were open to everybody, and at meetings people were asked to become members, but their names would not be known, because they would be numbered, and they didn’t keep any record of names. Mr. Spies laid some toothpicks on the table so as to show the position of armed men on tops of houses, on street corners, and how they could keep a company of militia or police in check by the use of dynamite bombs. The conversation was carried on in a conversational tone, half joking, etc., and it lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour, while we were taking our supper.”

On cross-examination Mr. Gruenhut stated that he had heard no reference to any attack to be made on the first of May, and in the re-direct examination he said, with reference to Spies’ attitude on the eight-hour movement:

“At the start he said he did not believe they would get it, and then it would not amount to anything anyhow; it was only a palliative measure—not radical enough. As I recollect, I brought him a list of the different organizations in Chicago, and we were trying to pick out those which needed organization, and the packers and a great many others were directly organized by these men for the eight-hour movement. We were in constant consultation about organizing those trades which had not been organized before. I don’t suppose he ever said that he was in favor of the eight-hour movement. I don’t know that he was ever enthusiastically in favor of the eight-hour movement, but he was enthusiastically in favor of the eight-hour movement that we had talked about on Monday. There never had been a general eight-hour mass-meeting. There had been a mass-meeting representing the great assemblies, at the Armory, but not the Central Labor Union. It was a Socialistic organization; was not represented there. In October, 1885, there had been a mass-meeting of the Socialistic organizations in favor of the eight-hour movement at West Twelfth Street Turner Hall. I was not there. At the time I had that conversation with Mr. Spies and the others present about a mass-meeting to be held, we did not know where the meeting was to be held at all. We only considered the advisability of holding a mass-meeting on the question of the eight-hour movement in the open air. There are only three or four places where you can hold such a meeting; either the lake front or Market Square or the Haymarket. At that time I am sure I saw Spies, Rau and Neebe almost every day, but I could not tell whether the meeting was agreed upon on Saturday or Monday, night or day; but there was a general agreement upon having one general mass-meeting in the open air. It was not sure whether the meeting was to be in the forenoon, afternoon or night, but at last we came to the conclusion it ought to be at night. My recollection is that Spies said to Wilkinson, at the time of that conversation, that the military associations were open and free to everybody; that they meet, advertise their meetings, have picnics and advertise them, and meet in halls, even in open ground, at Sheffield, or out on the prairie. That proposed mass-meeting was to be an eight-hour meeting and an indignation meeting over the killing of men at McCormick’s at the same time. Parsons and Spies, during conversations within the twelve months before the bomb was thrown, said that arming meant the use of dynamite bombs by individuals; all men should individually self-help, as against a squad of policeman or company of militia, so that they need not be an army.”

F. H. NEWMAN, a physician, attended some of the officers wounded at the Haymarket, and identified an iron nut extracted from Hahn. He had also examined some ten or twelve officers, and had found some bullets and fragments of a combination of metals much lighter than lead. “The fragments were also much lighter,” he said, “than the bullets, varying very much in size, from perhaps what we would call 22-caliber up to 45-caliber. The bullets also varied in size. This piece of metal I took from the heel of Officer Barber. It made a ragged wound and was buried in the bone; crushed the bone considerably, fractured it in several places. I examined the wounds of one officer who had a large ragged wound in the liver. He died within a few hours. It could have been a wound produced by a bullet, if the bullet was very ragged, spread out considerably, as they do sometimes.”

MAXWELL E. DICKSON, a newspaper reporter, had had several interviews with Parsons. He said:

“The last time I met Mr. Parsons, either the latter part of last year or the commencement of this year, he gave me two or three papers, and one of them contained one or two diagrams, a plan of warfare. Parsons stated that the social revolution would be brought about in the way that paper would describe. In November of last year, some time after that demonstration on the Market Square, I remarked to Parsons, in a sort of joking way, ‘You are not going to blow up anybody, are you?’ He said: ‘I don’t say that we won’t, I don’t know that we won’t, but you will see the revolution brought about, and sooner than you think for.’ I attended a number of meetings at which some of the defendants spoke.

“The Twelfth Street Turner Hall meeting was a meeting called for the purpose of discussing the Socialistic platform. A circular had been issued, in which public men, clergy, employers and others who were interested in the social question were invited to be present to discuss the question of the social movement. The hall was crowded. During the meeting Mr. Parsons made a speech, during which he said that the degradation of labor was brought about by what was known as the rights of private property; he quoted a long line of statistics, showing that an average man with a capital of five thousand dollars was enabled to make four thousand dollars a year, and thus get rich, while his employé, who made the money for him, obtained but $340, and there were upwards of two million heads of families who were in want, or bordering on want, making their living either by theft, robbery or any such occupation as they could get work in; and he said that, while they were the champions of free speech and social order, it would be hard for the man who stood in the way of liberty, fraternity and equality to all. Later on Fielden spoke and said that the majority of men were starving because of over-production, and went on to show that overcoats were being sent to Africa, to the Congo states, which were needed at home, and he could not understand how that was. As a Socialist, he believed in the equal rights of every man to live. The present condition of the laboring man was due to the domination of capital, and they could expect no remedy from legislatures, and there were enough present in the hall to take Chicago from the grasp of the capitalists; that capital must divide with labor; that the time was coming when a contest would arise between capital and labor. He was no alarmist, but the Socialist should be prepared for the victory when it did come. Several other persons spoke after that. Then Spies spoke in German, advising the workingmen to organize in order to obtain their rights, and that they might be prepared for the emergency. Then there were resolutions adopted denouncing the capitalists, the editors and clergymen, and those who had refused to come to hear the truth spoken and discuss the question, whereupon the meeting adjourned.

“At the meeting at Mueller’s Hall Fielden presided and Mr. Griffin spoke first, advocating the use of force to right social wrongs. A young man named Lichtner said he was in favor of Socialistic ideas, but opposed to the use of force. Schwab, in German, said that the gap between the rich and the poor was growing wider; that, although despotism in Russia had endeavored to suppress Nihilism by executing some and sending others to Siberia, Nihilism was still growing. And he praised Reinsdorf, who had then been recently executed in Europe, but stated that his death had been avenged by the killing of Rumpf, the Chief of Police of Frankfort, who had been industrious in endeavoring to crush out Socialism; that murder was forced on many a man through the misery brought on him by capital; that freedom in the United States was a farce, and in Illinois was literally unknown; that both of the political parties were corrupt, and what was needed here was a bloody revolution which would right their wrongs.

“A young man named Gorsuch was against all government, which was made for slaves. The only way the workingmen could get their rights was by the Gatling gun, by absolute brute force. Then Mr. Fielden called upon the capitalists to answer these arguments and to save their property, for when the Socialists decided to appropriate the property of the capitalists it would be too late for the capitalists to save anything.

“Then Spies said in German that the workingmen should revolt at once. He had been accused of giving this advice before, it was true, and he was proud of it. That wage slavery could only be abolished through powder and ball. The ballot was a sort of skin game. He compared it to a deck of cards in which there was a marked deck put in the place of the genuine, and in which the poor man got all of the skin cards, so that, when the dealer laid down the cards, his money was taken from him. Then Spies offered these resolutions, which were adopted:

“‘Whereas, our comrades in Germany have slain one of the dirtiest dogs of his Majesty Lehmann, the greatest disgrace of the present time—namely, the spy Rumpf.

“‘Resolved, That we rejoice over and applaud the noble and heroic act.’

“Then Parsons offered some resolutions favoring the abolition of the present social system, and the formation of a new social coöperative system that would bring about an equality between capital and labor.

“The next meeting I attended was on the Market Square, on Thanksgiving day. Mr. Parsons asked what they had to be thankful for, whether it was for their poverty, their lack of sufficient food and clothing, etc., and argued that the capitalists on the avenue spent more money for wine at one meal than some of them received pay in a month. Fielden said they would be justified in going over to Marshall Field’s and taking out from there that which belonged to them. A series of resolutions were adopted, offered, I believe, by Parsons, denouncing the President for having set apart Thanksgiving day—that it was a fallacy and a fraud; that the workingmen had nothing to be thankful for; that only a few obtained the riches that were produced, while the many had to starve.”

On cross-examination Mr. Dickson said:

“Parsons said to me that when the social revolution came, it would be better for all men; it would place every man on an equality. He pictured me personally as a wage slave, referring to my position as a newspaper reporter, and that all reforms had to be brought about through revolution, and bloodshed could not be avoided. I frequently heard him give expression to such ideas in friendly conversation, in which the social outlook of the country was talked over, and Parsons frequently insisted that any method would be justifiable to accomplish the object which he advocated as the intended result of a social revolution. Parsons once stated to me that if it became necessary they would use dynamite, and it might become necessary. Parsons never expressed any distinct proposal to inaugurate the revolution at any particular time, or by the use of any particular force. He simply spoke of the social revolution as the inevitable future. I am not certain as to whether the paper which Parsons gave me, which contained those diagrams, was a copy of the Alarm or of some other paper. This article here in the Alarm of July 25, 1885 (indicating), under the title, ‘Street Fighting—How to Meet the Enemy,’ is, to the best of my recollection, the article to which my attention was called by Mr. Parsons at the time. I am positive these diagrams here (indicating) are the same as in the article given me by Parsons.

“The position of these parties in meetings that I have attended, since January 18, 1885, when they spoke of the industrial condition, was that they predicted a social revolution, and they also advised the workingmen to bring about that revolution. It was Mr. Fielden on the lake front—I cannot fix the date—who used language of that import, advised the men to go forward and get that which did belong to them by force.”

PAUL C. HULL, a reporter of the Daily News, attended the Haymarket meeting and heard Fielden speak. He testified as follows:

“When the bomb exploded I was on the iron stairway, about four steps from the top landing. After the bomb exploded the firing began from the crowd before the police fired. I saw the bomb in the air. My head was probably within twelve or fifteen feet above the crowd. It was quite dark. Directly opposite me was a pile of boxes on the sidewalk, and an area-way surrounded by an iron railing. My eyes were directed toward the speakers’ wagon. As the words were in his mouth, I saw arching through the air the sparks of the burning fuse. According to my recollection it seemed to come from about fifteen or twenty feet south of Crane’s alley, flying over the third division of police and falling between the second and third. It seemed to throw to the ground the second and third divisions of police. At almost the same instant there was a rattling of shots that came from both sides of the street and not from the police. The meeting was noisy and turbulent. When the speaking began there were about eight hundred to one thousand people in the crowd. At the time the police came it had dwindled away a third from what it was at its largest number. About a quarter of the crowd, that part which clustered about the wagon, were enthusiasts, loudly applauded the speakers and cheered them on by remarks. The outskirts of the crowd seemed to regard the speakers with indifference, often laughed at them and hooted them.

“Spies told his version of the McCormick riot. He had been charged with being responsible for the riot and the death of those men, by Mr. McCormick. He said Mr. McCormick was a liar and was himself responsible for the death of the six men which he claimed were killed at that time; that he had addressed a meeting on the prairie, and when the factory bell rang a body of the meeting which he was addressing detached themselves and went toward the factory, and that there the riot occurred. He then touched upon the dominating question of labor and capital and their relations very briefly, and asked what meant this array of Gatling guns, infantry ready to arms, patrol wagons and policemen, and deduced from that that it was the Government or capitalists preparing to crush them, should they try to right their wrongs. I don’t remember that he said anything in his speech about the means to be employed against that capitalistic force.

“Parsons dealt considerably in labor statistics. He drew the conclusion that the capitalists got eighty-five cents out of the dollar, and the laboring man fifteen cents, and that the eight-hour agitation and the agitation of the social question was a still hunt after the other eighty-five cents. He advised the using of violent means by the workingmen to right their wrongs. Said that law and government was the tool of the wealthy to oppress the poor; that the ballot was no way in which to right their wrongs. That could only be done by physical force.

“I only heard a part of Fielden’s speech. He said Martin Foran had been sent to Congress to represent the Labor Party, and he did not do it satisfactorily. When McCormick’s name was mentioned during the speeches there were exclamations like ‘Hang him,’ or ‘Throw him into the lake.’ Some such a remark would be made when any prominent Chicago capitalist’s name was used. When some one in the crowd cried ‘Let’s hang him now,’ when some man’s name was mentioned, one of the speakers, either Spies or Parsons, said, ‘No, we are not ready yet.’”

On cross-examination Mr. Hull said:

“The firing of the revolvers startled me. I considered my position dangerous and tried to get around the corner. A few moments before the explosion of the bomb a threatening cloud came up, and Mr. Spies said the meeting would adjourn to 54 West Lake Street, I believe. At no time during the meeting was I as near as eight or ten feet from the speaker. I don’t believe I heard Fielden say, in a loud voice, ‘There come the bloodhounds! Now you do your duty and I’ll do mine,’ when the police were coming up. I remember that Mr. Fielden said ‘in conclusion,’ after I got my position on the stairs again, and when the police were forming and marching below. I was confused at the time I wrote my reports. (After examining his report in a copy of Daily News of May 5th, 1886:) I have said nowhere in this report that the crowd fired upon the police. I did say that the police required no orders before firing upon the crowd. I wrote this up about an hour after the occurrence. After describing the explosion of the bomb, I used this language in my report: ‘For an instant after the explosion the crowd seemed paralyzed, but, with the revolver shots cracking like a tattoo on a mighty drum, and the bullets flying in the air, the mob plunged away into the darkness with a yell of rage and fear.’ My recollection is that the bomb struck the ground about on a line with the south line of the alley. The bomb apparently fell north from the point where I first saw it in the air. I judge it came from the south, going west-northwest.”

WHITING ALLEN, another reporter, was present at the Haymarket meeting in company with Mr. Tuttle, another newspaper man, and heard some of the speeches. Said the witness:

“Parsons was speaking when we got there. About the only thing that I could quote from his speech is this: ‘What good are these strikes going to do? Do you think that anything will be accomplished by them? Do you think the workingmen are going to gain their point? No, no; they will not. The result of them will be that you will have to go back to work for less money than you are getting.’ That is his language in effect. At one time he mentioned the name of Jay Gould. There were cries from the crowd, ‘Hang Jay Gould!’ ‘Throw him into the lake!’ and so on. He said, ‘No, no; that would not do any good. If you would hang Jay Gould now, there would be another, and perhaps a hundred, up to-morrow. It don’t do any good to hang one man; you have to kill them all, or get rid of them all.’ Then he went on to say that it was not the individual, but the system; that the government should be destroyed. It was the wrong government, and these people who supported it had to be destroyed. I heard him cry, ‘To arms!’ I cannot tell in what connection. The crowd was extremely turbulent. It seemed to be thoroughly in sympathy with the speakers; was extremely excited, and applauded almost every utterance. I staid there some ten or fifteen minutes. I then left and went to Zepf’s Hall. Later I came back again, when Fielden was speaking. When the bomb was thrown I was in the saloon of Zepf’s Hall, standing about the middle of the room at the time. I did not see any of the defendants there. They were not there to my knowledge. When I was down at the meeting, I pointed out to Mr. Tuttle Mr. Parsons, Fielden, Spies, and a man that I presume was Mr. Schwab, but was not certain. The general outline was that of Mr. Schwab. I could not get a full view of his face. That must have been half past nine.”

CHARLES R. TUTTLE said he did not remember much of what Parsons spoke:

“Parsons made a series of references to existing strikes—one was the Southwestern strike—and to Jay Gould, the head of that system of railways, and the winding up of the peroration in connection with that created a great deal of excitement and many responses from the audience. He then spoke of the strike at McCormick’s, and detailed the suffering of the people who had wives and children, and who were being robbed by one whom I took to be Mr. McCormick, although I cannot say that was the idea; who were being robbed, anyway, by capitalists. And he said it was no wonder that these persons were struggling for their rights, and then said that the police had been called on by the capitalists to suppress the first indications of any movement on the part of the working people to stand up for rights, and he asked what they are going to do. One man—I believe the same one who had spoken when he referred to Gould—stuck up his hand with a revolver in it, and said, ‘We will shoot the devils,’ or some such expression, and I saw two others sticking up their hands, near to him, who made similar expressions, and had what I took to be at the time revolvers.”

EDWARD COSGROVE, a detective connected with the Central Station, was on duty at the Haymarket. He gave the substance of some of the speeches, and, referring to Spies, said:

“Then he talked about the police, the bloodhounds of the law, shooting down six of their brothers, and he said: ‘When you are ready to do something, do it, and don’t tell anybody you are going to.’ A great number of the crowd cheered him loudly. The enthusiastic part of the crowd was close to the wagon. Sometimes there would be some on the outskirts. I did not hear all of Spies’ speech and only part of Parsons’. Parsons talked of statistics—about the price laboring men received. He said they got fifteen cents out of a dollar, and they were still on the hunt for the other eighty-five. He talked of the police and capitalists and Pinkertons. He said he was down in the Hocking Valley region, and they were only getting twenty-four cents a day, and that was less than Chinamen got. And he said his hearers would be worse than Chinamen if they didn’t arm themselves, and they would be held responsible for blood that would flow in the near future. There was a great deal of cheering close to the wagon during his speech. I was in Capt. Ward’s office when the police were called out. I came down the street at the time the police did. When the police came to a halt, I was on the northwest corner of Randolph and Desplaines. I heard no firing of any kind before the explosion of the bomb, but immediately after that. I can’t tell from what source the pistol shots came, whether the police fired first or the other side. I reported at the station from time to time what was going on at the meeting.”

On cross-examination Cosgrove said:

“I was twice at the station reporting. My second report was that Mr. Parsons said they would be held responsible for the blood that would flow in the streets of America in the near future. The police remained at the station after this report. I didn’t hear any part of Fielden’s speech. When I came out before the police quite a number of the crowd had gone away. When I saw Schwab he was about forty feet south of the south sidewalk of Randolph Street, on Desplaines. I saw Schwab about half past eight, or a little later, at the wagon. My impression is that I saw Mr. Schwab near the close of Parsons’ speech, but I am not sure. When I saw him at the wagon it was about the time Mr. Spies came back the second time to speak.”

TIMOTHY MCKEOUGH, a detective, was present when the meeting opened.

“Spies got on the wagon and called out twice: ‘Is Mr. Parsons here?’ He received no answer, and said: ‘Never mind, I will go and find him myself.’ Somebody said: ‘Let us pull the wagon around on Randolph Street and hold the meeting there.’ Mr. Spies said: ‘No, that might stop the street-cars.’ He started away then, and Officer Myers and myself followed him as far as the corner. There was a man with him who, I think, was Schwab, but I am not very sure about that, and in about fifteen minutes he returned, and when I got back he was addressing the meeting, talking about what happened to their brethren the day before at McCormick’s. He had been down to McCormick’s and addressed a meeting, and they wanted to stop him; tried to pull him off the car because he was a Socialist; that while he was talking a portion of the crowd started toward McCormick’s and commenced to throw stones, the most harmless amusement they could have; how wagons loaded with police came down the Black Road and commenced firing into the crowd. Somebody halloaed out: ‘Let us hang him,’ and he said: ‘My friends, when you get ready to do anything, go and do it, and say nothing about it.’ About that time Parsons arrived and Spies introduced him, saying Parsons could talk better English than he, and would probably entertain them better. The crowd in the neighborhood of the wagon appeared very much excited when Spies spoke about the shooting down of workingmen at McCormick’s. Parsons quoted from some book on labor statistics, which he thought his hearers probably had not read, because they didn’t have the money to buy it or leisure to read it, as they had to work too much. He said out of every dollar the laboring man makes for capitalists he only gets fifteen cents, and they are on a still hunt for the other eighty-five. He had been down to the coal mines, and, according to labor statistics, they received 24½ cents for their daily labor on the average during a year. That was just half as much as the Chinaman would get, and he said: ‘If we keep on we will be a great deal worse than Chinamen. I am a tenant and I pay rent to a landlord.’ Somebody asked, ‘What does the landlord do with it?’ Parsons said the landlord pays taxes, the taxes pay the sheriff, the police, the Pinkertonites and the militia, who are ready to shoot them down when they are looking for their rights. He said: ‘I am a Socialist from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and I will express my sentiments if I die before morning.’ The crowd near the wagon loudly cheered him. Later I heard Mr. Parsons say, taking off his hat in one hand: ‘To arms! to arms! to arms!’ Then I went over to Desplaines Street Station and reported to Inspector Bonfield. When I came back Fielden was speaking. He criticised Martin Foran, the Congressman that was elected by the working people. Speaking about the law, he said the law was for the capitalists. ‘Yesterday, when their brothers demanded their rights at McCormick’s, the law came out and shot them down. When Mr. McCormick closed his door against them for demanding their rights, the law did not protect them.’ If they loved their wives, their children, they should take the law, kill it, stab it, throttle it, or it would throttle them. That appeared to make the crowd near the wagon more excited, and I made another report to Inspector Bonfield. I saw Spies, Parsons and Fielden on the wagon. I saw Schwab on the wagon in the early part of the evening, and a man named Schnaubelt.”

HENRY E. O. HEINEMAN, a reporter of the Chicago Tribune, testified:

“I saw the bomb, that is the burning fuse, rise out of the crowd and fall among the police. It rose from very nearly the southeast corner of the alley. I didn’t hear any shots before the bomb exploded. Almost instantly after it shots were heard. I could not say whether the first shots came from the police or the crowd. It seems to me as if I heard some bullets close to myself, whizzing from the north as I was going south.

“Spies started out by saying that the meeting was intended to be a peaceable one—it was not called to raise a disturbance—and then gave his version of the affair at McCormick’s, the day before. The crowd near the speaker’s wagon was in sympathy with the speakers. There was occasionally applause. I heard a few Germans talk with one another. I heard Parsons call out toward the close of his speech, ‘To arms! to arms! to arms!’ Fielden, towards the end of his speech, told the crowd to kill the law, to stab it, to throttle it, or else it would throttle them. I was formerly an Internationalist. I ceased my connection with them about two years ago. At that time the defendant Neebe belonged to the same group I belonged to. It is not in existence now. I met Spies and Schwab occasionally in the groups. I ceased my connection with the Internationale immediately after, and on account of the lectures Herr Most delivered in this city. I saw on the wagon at the Haymarket meeting Spies, Parsons, Fielden, and at one time Rudolph Schnaubelt.”

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