Chapter XXIV…

Chapter XXIV

Reporting under Difficulties—Shorthand in an Overcoat Pocket—An Incriminating Conversation—Spies and Schwab in Danger—Gilmer’s Story—The Man in the Alley—Schnaubelt the Bomb-thrower—Fixing the Guilt—Spies Lit the Fuse—A Searching Cross-Examination—The Anarchists Alarmed—Engel and the Shell Machine—The Find at Lingg’s House—The Author on the Witness-stand—Talks with the Prisoners—Dynamite Experiments—The False Bottom of Lingg’s Trunk—The Material in the Shells—Expert Testimony—Incendiary Banners—The Prosecution Rests—A Fruitless Attempt to have Neebe Discharged.

WHEN the public began to see the character of the evidence against the Anarchists, sentiment crystalized into a feeling that no fair-minded juror could be led astray by specious pleas or sophistical arguments into voting for an acquittal of any one of the defendants. The facts of the conspiracy had been brought out with startling boldness, and with every witness the points against the prisoners were fortified with added effect. One of the strongest witnesses as to the incendiary utterances of the speakers at the Haymarket meeting was G. P. English, then a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, but at present private secretary of Mayor Roche. Another was M. M. Thompson, who testified as to a conversation between Spies and Schwab.

MR. ENGLISH testified as follows:

“I am a reporter for the Tribune, and have been for seventeen years. I am also a shorthand reporter. I got to the Haymarket meeting, on the 4th of May, about half-past seven. I went all around the Haymarket Square from Desplaines to Halsted, saw a few people on the street, but no meeting. Later on I saw some people going north on Desplaines beyond Randolph. I went over there, and in a little while Mr. Spies got up on the wagon and said Mr. Fielden and Mr. Parsons were to make a speech, but they hadn’t come. Spies got down off the wagon and went toward Randolph Street. He was gone perhaps five or ten minutes. As he passed me in coming back, I asked him if Parsons was going to speak. I understood him to say yes. Then he got up on the wagon and said: ‘Gentlemen, please come to order.’ I took shorthand notes of his speech, as much as I could. I had a notebook and a short pencil in my overcoat pocket and made notes in the pocket. My notes are correct. Some of them I can read, some I can’t. I don’t recollect what he or the others said without my notes.

“Before Spies commenced to speak somebody in the crowd suggested that the meeting should go over to the Haymarket, but Spies said no, that the crowd would interfere with the street-cars. Here is what I have of Spies’ speech:

“‘Gentlemen and fellow workmen: Mr. Parsons and Mr. Fielden will be here in a very short time to address you. I will say, however, first, this meeting was called for the purpose of discussing the general situation of the eight-hour strike, and the events which have taken place during the last forty-eight hours. It seems to have been the opinion of the authorities that this meeting has been called for the purpose of raising a little row and disturbance. This, however, was not the intention of the committee that called the meeting. The committee that called the meeting wanted to tell you certain facts of which you are probably aware. The capitalistic press has been misleading—misrepresenting the cause of labor for the last few weeks, so much so’—there is something here unintelligible that I can’t read; some of it went off on the side of my pocket. The next is: ‘Whenever strikes have taken place; whenever people have been driven to violence by the oppression of their’—something unintelligible here—‘Then the police’—a few unintelligible words, then there were cheers—‘But I want to tell you, gentlemen, that these acts of violence are the natural outcome of the degradation and subjection to which working people are subjected. I was addressing a meeting of ten thousand wage slaves yesterday afternoon in the neighborhood of McCormick’s. They did not want me to speak. The most of them were good church-going people. They didn’t want me to speak because I was a Socialist. They wanted to tear me down from the cars, but I spoke to them and told them they must stick together’—some more that is unintelligible—‘and he would have to submit to them if they would stick together.’ The next I have is: ‘They were not Anarchists, but good church-going people—they were good Christians. The patrol wagons came, and blood was shed.’

“Some one in the crowd said, ‘Shame on them.’ The next thing I have is: ‘Throwing stones at the factory; most harmless sport.’ Then Spies said, ‘What did the police do?’ Some one in the crowd said, ‘Murdered them.’ Then he went on: ‘They only came to the meeting there as if attending church.’ ... ‘Such things tell you of the agitation.’ ... ‘Couldn’t help themselves any more.’ ‘It was then when they resorted to violence.’ ... ‘Before you starve.’ ... ‘This fight that is going on now is simply a struggle for the existence of the oppressed classes.’

“My pocket got fuller and fuller of paper; my notes got more unintelligible. The meeting seemed to be orderly. I took another position in the face of the speaker, took out my paper and reported openly during all the rest of the meeting. The balance of my notes I have not got. From what appears in my report in the Tribune, I can give you part of what Spies, Fielden and Parsons said. It is, however, only an abstract of what they said. So far as it goes it is verbatim, except the pronouns and the verbs are changed.

“The balance of Spies’ speech is as follows (reading): ‘It was said that I inspired the attack on McCormick’s. That is a lie. The fight is going on. Now is the chance to strike for the existence of the oppressed classes. The oppressors want us to be content. They will kill us. The thought of liberty which inspired your sires to fight for their freedom ought to animate you to-day. The day is not far distant when we will resort to hanging these men. (Applause and cries of ‘Hang them now.’) McCormick is the man who created the row Monday, and he must be held responsible for the murder of our brothers. (Cries of ‘Hang him.’) Don’t make any threats, they are of no avail. Whenever you get ready to do something, do it, and don’t make any threats beforehand. There are in the city to-day between forty and fifty thousand men locked out because they refuse to obey the supreme will or dictation of a small number of men. The families of twenty-five or thirty thousand men are starving because their husbands and fathers are not men enough to withstand and resist the dictation of a few thieves on a grand scale, to put it out of the power of the few men to say whether they should work or not. You place your lives, your happiness, everything, out of the arbitrary power of a few rascals who have been raised in idleness and luxury upon the fruits of your labor. Will you stand that? (Cries of ‘No.’) The press say we are Bohemians, Poles, Russians, Germans—that there are no Americans among us. That is a lie. Every honest American is with us; those who are not are unworthy of their traditions and their forefathers.’

“Spies spoke fifteen or twenty minutes. What I have given here would not represent more than five or six minutes of actual talking.

“Parsons stated first that the remedy for the wrongs of the workingmen was in Socialism; otherwise they would soon become Chinamen. ‘It is time to raise a note of warning. There is nothing in the eight-hour movement to excite the capitalists. Do you know that the military are under arms, and a Gatling gun is ready to mow you down? Is this Germany, Russia or Spain? (A voice: ‘It looks like it.’) Whenever you make a demand for eight hours’ pay, an increase of pay, the militia and the deputy sheriffs and the Pinkerton men are called out, and you are shot and clubbed and murdered in the streets. I am not here for the purpose of inciting anybody, but to speak out, to tell the facts as they exist, even though it shall cost me my life before morning.’ Then he spoke about the Cincinnati demonstration, and about the rifle guard being needed. Then the report continues: ‘It behooves you, as you love your wives and children, if you don’t want to see them perish with hunger, killed, or cut down like dogs on the street, Americans, in the interest of your liberty and your independence, to arm, to arm yourselves. (Applause and cries of ‘We will do it, we are ready now.’) You are not.’ Then the rest of it is the wind-up. Besides what I have stated above he spoke for a long while about the fact that out of every dollar the workingman got fifteen cents, and the capitalists—the employers—got eighty-five cents. When he said, ‘To arms, to arms,’ he said that in his ordinary way of talking. I did not notice any difference in him when he said that.

“The first that I have written out of Fielden’s speech is: ‘There are premonitions of danger—all know it. The press say the Anarchists will sneak away; we are not going to. If we continue to be robbed it will not be long before we will be murdered. There is no security for the working classes under the present social system. A few individuals control the means of living and hold the workingmen in a vise. Everybody does not know that. Those who know it are tired of it, and know the others will get tired of it, too. They are determined to end it and will end it, and there is no power in the land that will prevent them. Congressman Foran says the laborer can get nothing from legislation. He also said that the laborers can get some relief from their present condition when the rich man knew it was unsafe for him to live in a community where there are dissatisfied workingmen, for they would solve the labor problem. I don’t know whether you are Democrats or Republicans, but whichever you are, you worship at the shrine of heaven. John Brown, Jefferson, Washington, Patrick Henry and Hopkins said to the people, “The law is your enemy.” We are rebels against it. The law is only framed for those that are your enslavers. (A voice: ‘That is true.’) Men in their blind rage attacked McCormick’s factory and were shot down by the law in cold blood, in the city of Chicago, in the protection of property. Those men were going to do some damage to a certain person’s interest who was a large property-owner; therefore the law came to his defense; and when McCormick undertook to do some injury to the interest of those who had no property, the law also came to his defense and not to the workingman’s defense, when he, McCormick, attacked him and his living. (Cries of ‘No.’) There is the difference. The law makes no distinctions. A million men hold all the property in this country. The law has no use for the other fifty-four millions. (A voice: ‘Right enough.’) You have nothing more to do with the law except to lay hands on it and throttle it until it makes its last kick. It turns your brothers out on the wayside, and has degraded them until they have lost the last vestige of humanity, and they are mere things and animals. Keep your eye upon it, throttle it, kill it, stab it, do everything you can to wound it—to impede its progress. Remember, before trusting them to do anything for yourself, prepare to do it yourself. Don’t turn over your business to anybody else. No man deserves anything unless he is man enough to make an effort to lift himself from oppression.’

“Then there was an interruption on account of some storm-clouds. Everybody started to go away. Mr. Parsons suggested that they adjourn over to Zepf’s Hall. Fielden said no, the people were trying to get information, and he would go on. And he went on: ‘Is it not a fact that we have no choice as to our existence, for we can’t dictate what our labor is worth? He that has to obey the will of another is a slave. Can we do anything except by the strong arm of resistance? The Socialists are not going to declare war, but I tell you war has been declared upon us; and I ask you to get hold of anything that will help to resist the onslaught of the enemy and the usurper. The skirmish lines have met. People have been shot. Men, women and children have not been spared by the capitalists and minions of private capital. It has no mercy—so ought you. You are called upon to defend yourselves, your lives, your future. What matters it whether you kill yourselves with work to get a little relief, or die on the battle-field resisting the enemy? What is the difference? Any animal, however loathsome, will resist when stepped upon. Are men less than snails or worms? I have some resistance in me; I know that you have, too. You have been robbed, and you will be starved into a worse condition.’

“That is all I have. At that time some one alongside of me asked if the police were coming. I was facing northeast, looked down the street, and saw a file of police about the middle of Randolph Street. At once I put my paper in my pocket and ran right over to the northwest corner of Randolph and Desplaines. Just when I reached the sidewalk, the front rank of the police got to the southwest corner of Randolph and Desplaines. I stood there until some of the police marched by, and the first thing I knew I heard an explosion; and the next thing there was a volley of fifteen or twenty or thirty shots, and I thought it was about time to leave, so I skinned down Randolph Street. While I was running I heard a great lot of shots, and somebody tumbled right in front of me, but I didn’t stop to see whether he was hurt. I didn’t see who shot first. As to the temper of the crowd, it was just an ordinary meeting.”

On cross-examination Mr. English said:

“It was a peaceable and quiet meeting for an out-door meeting. I didn’t see any turbulence. I was there all the time. I thought the speeches they made that night were a little milder than I had heard them make for years. They were all set speeches, about the same thing. I didn’t hear any of them say or advise that they were going to use force that night. Before I went to the meeting my instructions from the Tribune office were to take only the most incendiary part of the speeches. I think when Mr. Parsons spoke about the Cincinnati meeting he said he had been at Cincinnati and seen the procession. I heard the announcement to the crowd to disperse, distinctly. I did not hear Mr. Fielden say: ‘There come the bloodhounds now; you do your duty and I’ll do mine.’ I heard nothing of that import at all.”

M. M. THOMPSON testified:

“I am at present employed in the dry-goods business of Marshall Field & Co. Prior to the 4th of May last I was running a grocery store at 108 South Desplaines. I was at the Haymarket Square on the evening of May 4th. I walked west on Randolph Street about half past seven o’clock, and somebody handed me a circular headed ‘Revenge,’ and signed ‘Your Brothers.’ About twenty-five minutes to eight I got to the corner of Desplaines and Randolph. I met Mr. Brazleton of the Inter-Ocean. We talked about fifteen minutes. I asked the time. It was ten minutes of eight. Brazleton pointed out to me Mr. Schwab, who came rushing along Desplaines Street in a great hurry. I then went over to the east side of Desplaines Street. I walked up Desplaines Street near the corner of Lake, and came back again to the alley back of Crane Bros’. and stood just back of that alley. Then I saw Spies get up on the wagon and he asked for Parsons. Parsons didn’t respond. He then got down, and Schwab and Spies walked into that alley at Crane Bros’., near which the wagon was situated. The first word I heard between Schwab and Spies was ‘pistols;’ the next word was ‘police.’ I think I heard ‘police’ twice, or ‘pistols’ twice. I then walked just a little nearer the edge of the alley, and just then Spies said: ‘Do you think one is enough, or hadn’t we better go and get more?’ I could hear no answer to that. They then walked out of the alley and south on Desplaines Street, and west on the north side of Randolph to Halsted, and cut across the street and went over to the southwest corner; they were there about three minutes, came out of that crowd again and came back. On the way back, as they neared Union Street, I heard the word ‘police’ again. Just then I went past them, and Schwab said: ‘Now, if they come, we will give it to them.’ Spies replied he thought they were afraid to bother with them. They came on, and before they got up near the wagon they met a third party, and they bunched right together there, south of the alley, and appeared to get right in a huddle; and there was something passed between Spies and the third man—what it was I could not say. This here (indicating picture of Schnaubelt, heretofore identified) is, I think, the third man; I think his beard was a little longer than in this picture; this is the picture of the third man. I saw the third man on the wagon afterwards. Whatever it was that Spies gave him, he stuck it in his pocket on the right-hand side. Spies got up on the wagon, and I think that third man got up right after him. I noticed him afterwards sitting on the wagon, and that he kept his hands in his pockets. I stayed there until Mr. Fielden commenced to speak; then I left.

On cross-examination Thompson said:

“My grocery store was closed by the Sheriff under an execution. I worked for Marshall Field before. I had never seen any of the defendants, to my knowledge, before that night, in my life. When I saw Spies and Schwab go into the alley, there was a crowd there. I was standing right near the alley, or alongside north of it, up against the building. I couldn’t see down the alley unless I turned my face to it. The first time I had ever seen Spies was when he got up on the wagon. Spies got out of the wagon and went into Crane’s alley with Schwab. I was right around the corner of the alley within three feet probably at the farthest, and I moved down to within half a foot. I did not look down the alley, only when they came out of the alley I did look. The conversation between Spies and Schwab was in English. I don’t understand German. I didn’t hear any words between ‘police’ and ‘pistols.’ They were in there probably two or three minutes. When I drew up within a foot of the alley, I heard: ‘Do you think one enough, or had we better go for more?’ Going up Randolph Street, I heard some words spoken in German between them, but not in the conversation at the alley. I cannot say that I knew Mr. Schwab’s voice at that time. I only knew Mr. Spies’ voice from what I heard him ask on the wagon. Spies was the one who used the words ‘pistols’ and ‘police.’ I did not see him when he said it. I could not see him without putting my head around the corner. They went out of my sight when they went into the alley. The whole conversation was done in three minutes, I should judge. The first remark that I heard was about a minute and a half after they went into the alley and went out of sight. When they came out and walked south on Desplaines I followed them within a few feet. It was then about a quarter past eight. They walked west on Randolph Street to Halsted, and I trailed after them all the time, part of the time beside them, part of the time ahead, and past them, but all the time close to them. When they came to Halsted there were a few people there, not much of a crowd. I was still tagging after them with no other object than looking for the meeting, to find where the audience was assembled. I don’t know whether they saw me; there was nothing whatever to prevent their seeing me. When they were going west I couldn’t hear a word of what they did say. The street lamps were lighted. When they got down on Halsted there was a crowd, of about twenty-five people. They were right in the thickest of the crowd, and I stood on the sidewalk, about ten feet from them. I didn’t hear either of them say a word. Then they went back east on Randolph Street. I was about six feet behind them. They said nothing. There was nobody else following them besides me. I couldn’t hear what they said until they came to Union Street. Then I got past them. It was light at the time; they could see me. Near Union Street Schwab said: ‘Now, if they come, we will give it to them,’ and Spies said he did not think they would bother them, because they were afraid. This conversation was carried on in the English language. I was behind them when I heard the first of it, but they kind of slackened, and I got by them. I was making my gait quicker to get by them. Schwab finished his remark when I got about three feet by them. Schwab made his remark in an ordinary tone of street conversation, loud enough for me to hear. I heard no more conversation between Schwab and Spies. I testified before the Coroner’s jury. I testified to this conversation at Union Street. If I didn’t, it was an oversight on my part, or it was because nobody asked me any question, but I say that I did say that before the Coroner’s inquest.

“Coming back, I stopped on the northwest corner of Randolph and Desplaines. I was then about ten or fifteen feet ahead of Spies and Schwab. They came up. I can’t say that they were talking. They went right through the street, moving diagonally to the wagon. I staid at the corner. I did not go after them until they got onto the wagon. That was the last time that I saw Schwab. I saw Spies when he got up to make a speech. Oh, no, that wasn’t the last time that I saw Schwab that night. That was the last time that I saw him until they were out of sight and the third man met them. When they started from the corner northeast across the street, I stood at the corner just to let them cross the street. Then I started after them. They did not get out of my sight. I didn’t catch up with them at all. When I got within eight or ten feet of them they were standing on the sidewalk. They stopped right there, about five feet south of the south line of Crane’s alley. There wasn’t probably more than half a dozen people on the east side of the street. There were a good many people on the West Side. It was then about twenty or twenty-five minutes past eight. When I got up within eight or ten feet of them and they stopped, I stopped too, and looked at them. They were in plain view of me. I don’t think they did see me, though they could see me if they looked up. I think there are some electric lights near there, on the Lyceum building. I was between them and the electric light. When they stopped there, the next thing was that they met that third man. I had never seen that third man before. I have seen this picture of Schnaubelt before; I think Mr. Furthmann showed it to me about a week ago. That third party came from the east. He must have been standing up against the house, and he walked west to the front of the sidewalk. Schnaubelt was not facing me; he had his back to me. They did not go into the alley. One had his back south, one east, and Spies had his back north. I didn’t hear what they were talking about. I was on the sidewalk near the curb-stone, partly south, not directly south of them. Spies stood directly to the north, which would bring his back to me. I don’t know but what he did see me. They stood there about thirty seconds. I didn’t hear a word. Spies handed that third man something, who put it into his pocket, and Spies got up on the wagon and made a speech. I did not see Schwab on the wagon. Spies got right up on the wagon and commenced to speak, but one or two minutes elapsed in the time.”

AUGUST HUEN, a printer in the employ of Wehrer & Klein, set up the German part of the circular headed “Attention, Workingmen!” and testified that the last line read, “Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force.” Mr. Fischer wrote it. On cross-examination, he testified that an hour after the form had been given to the pressman the last line was taken out.

HUGH HUME, a reporter for the Inter-Ocean, testified:

“I saw Mr. Fielden and other defendants in the sweat-box—that is, the cells down-stairs—at the Central Station, about midnight, between the 5th and 6th of May last. I had a conversation with Spies. He said he had been at the Haymarket meeting. He had gone up there to refute the statements of the capitalistic press in regard to what he had said at McCormick’s. Up at McCormick’s he had been talking to a lot of people whom he could not influence—all good Catholics. During his speech on the Haymarket, some people had shown a disposition to hang McCormick. He had told them not to make any threats of that kind. He had said, ‘When you want to do a thing of that kind, don’t talk so much about it, but go out and do it.’ He then said to me that the people had reached a condition where they were willing to do any violence, and he had advocated violence of that kind. It was necessary to bring about the revolution that the Socialists wanted. He said he had advocated the use of dynamite. I asked him if he was in favor of killing police officers with dynamite. He hesitated a little, and then said the police represented the capitalists and were enemies of theirs, and when you have an enemy he has got to be removed. That is the gist of what he said. Spies said he didn’t know anything about the bomb being exploded until afterwards. He had heard a noise that resembled the sound of a cannon, and thought the police were firing over the heads of the people to frighten them. He said he considered all laws as things you could get along without; they were inimical to the best interests of the people and of the social growth. He did not think that dynamite was in his office when he left it, and had an idea that the police put that dynamite there to get a case on him.

“I had a little talk with Mr. Fielden. He was suffering somewhat from his wound. When I asked him how the Haymarket affair accorded with his ideas of Socialism, he said, ‘You are on dangerous ground now. There is an argument, though, that we have, that is to the effect that if you cannot do a thing peaceably, it has got to be done by force.’ Something to that effect; I don’t remember the language. Fielden said, as to the number of Socialists in Chicago, that there were a number of groups here, containing 250 men. Those were recognized Socialists, but they had people from all over the city, from nearly every wholesale house; but those people are afraid to come out yet, only awaiting an opportunity. He spoke about the decision of the Supreme Court prohibiting military companies from marching around with arms. He was inclined to think that the decision was not right.

“I had a short interview with Schwab. All he had to say was that Socialism was right, even with the blood shed at the Haymarket.”

On cross-examination Mr. Hume said that Spies saw him write down answers to the questions and knew that he wanted the interview for publication.

HARRY L. GILMER proved a strong witness and testified as follows:

“I am a painter by trade. Reside at 50 North Ann Street. On the evening of May 4 last, I was at the Haymarket meeting on Desplaines Street. I got there about a quarter to ten o’clock. In going home, when I got to the corner of Randolph and Desplaines Streets, I saw a crowd over there, and went up to where the speaking was going on, on the east side of Desplaines Street. I saw the wagon; did not pay particular attention to the speaking. I stood near the lamp-post on the corner of Crane Bros’. alley, between the lamp-post and the wagon, and up near the east end of the wagon for a few minutes. The gentleman here (pointing to Fielden) was speaking when I came there. I staid around there a few minutes, was looking for a party whom I expected to find there, and stepped back into the alley between Crane Bros’. building and the building immediately south of it. The alley was south of the wagon. I was standing in the alley looking around for a few minutes; noticed parties in conversation, right across the alley, on the south side of the alley. Somebody in front of me on the edge of the sidewalk said, ‘Here comes the police.’ There was a sort of rush to see the police come up. There was a man came from the wagon down to the parties that were standing on the south side of the alley. He lit a match and touched it off, something or another—the fuse commenced to fizzle, and he give a couple of steps forward, and tossed it over into the street. He was standing in this direction (illustrating). The man that lit the match on this side of him, and two or three of them stood together, and he turned around with it in his hand, took two or three steps that way, and tossed it that way, over into the street. I knew the man by sight who threw that fizzing thing into the street. I have seen him several times at meetings at one place and another in the city. I do not know his name. He was a man about five feet ten inches high, somewhat full-chested, and had a light sandy beard, not very long. He was full-faced, his eyes set somewhat back in his head. Judging from his appearance, he would probably weigh 180 pounds. My impression is his hat was dark brown or black; I don’t know whether it was a soft hat, a felt hat or a stiff hat. This here (indicating photograph of Schnaubelt heretofore identified) is the man that threw the bomb out of the alley. There were four or five standing together in the group. This here (pointing to Spies) is the man who came from the wagon toward the group.

“I did not see the police myself, there were so many people between me and them. I don’t recollect any declaration from any of the police officers about this person—nothing distinctly, anyway. That man over there (pointing at defendant Fischer) was one of the parties. After the bomb was thrown these parties immediately left through the alley. I stood there. The firing commenced immediately afterwards, and my attention was attracted by the firing, and I paid more attention to that than anything else.”

On cross-examination Gilmer testified to having resided formerly in Des Moines, Iowa, Fort Dodge, Iowa, Kansas City, Mo., and in various localities in Chicago. He then proceeded as follows:

“I know the Coroner’s jury was investigating the matter. I saw an account of the investigation of the grand jury in the paper. I first told a man by the name of Allen and another party whom I don’t know, and a reporter of the Times, that I saw the match lighted, and saw the man who threw the bomb. I think that it was two or three days after the 4th of May. A number of people were talking the matter over on the west side of the City Hall, on La Salle Street, and I made the remark that I believed if I ever saw the party who threw the bomb I could identify him. They didn’t ask me why I made that remark. I don’t think they asked me any questions, what I knew about the matter. The reporter afterwards told me he had heard the remark. I think that was on the 6th of May. On May 5th, I was working on the corner of Twentieth Street and Wabash Avenue. On the 6th of May I went down to 88 La Salle Street to collect a bill. I went across the street, and there had the conversation with the reporter and the others. That night I had a note left at my room for me to come down to the Central Station. The name of James Bonfield was signed to the note. I went to the Central Station and had a conversation with Mr. Bonfield the next day; I couldn’t tell exactly whether on the 6th or the 7th. I made my statement to Mr. Bonfield. I never appeared before a Coroner’s jury; was never subpoenaed to appear before any Coroner’s jury that examined any of the dead policemen. I was at the Haymarket meeting about fifteen minutes from the time I got there to the explosion of the bomb. I was looking for a person who had told me he was going to the meeting. I kept looking through the crowd to see if I could find him. Fielden was speaking then. I don’t remember anything of his speech, except that he made use of the word McCormick. Before I went down-town I had read in the paper that there had been a riot at McCormick’s the day before, and that the police had shot some men. I was in the neighborhood of where Fielden talked for about fifteen minutes. I don’t remember anything about the connection in which Fielden spoke of McCormick. I was looking for a gentleman by the name of Richard Roe, and didn’t pay any attention to what Fielden said. When I stepped into the alley I think I was on the north side of the alley, about eight feet from the corner of Crane’s building. That group of men was right across the alley on the south side. The lamp was burning on the corner of the alley at that time, and it shone right down. I could see the persons in that party distinctly; could see their countenances; they could see myself. They were also about eight or nine feet from the mouth of the alley. I could hear them talk. They spoke German. I didn’t understand them. Before the man came from the wagon I stepped across the alley and was standing on the north side of the alley, perhaps three or four feet to the east of that group, so that I was standing about twelve or fourteen feet from the mouth of Crane’s alley. I did not say that I saw the wagon from that point. I could just see the hind end of the wagon from where I stood when I went through the alley. I think there was a tail-board. The edges of the box of the wagon were perhaps ten inches high. I don’t know whether there were side-boards on that wagon or not; I could not say positively as to the width of the side-boards on the wagon. They might have been higher than ten inches. I am sure there was a box of some kind on the wagon. My impression is it was a wagon about twelve or thirteen feet long, with low side-boards on. I didn’t see anybody get off of the wagon after I went in the alley. I did not say Mr. Spies got down off the wagon. I said he came from towards the wagon. I saw him standing on the sidewalk before I went in the alley. I did not say I saw Spies in the wagon at all. Mr. Spies is the man that came down in the alley and lighted the bomb, to the best of my recollection. When I saw him standing on the sidewalk he was talking with somebody. I would be inclined to think it was this gentleman here (indicating Schwab). I could not say for sure. I think it was a dark-complexioned man. My impression is it might be him. I have very little doubt but Fischer is the man I saw in the group. I am very nearly as positive that Fischer is the man as I am that the picture is the picture of the man who threw the bomb. I am sure Fischer is the man. I think I saw Mr. Parsons there that night talking to some ladies. I had been down to the Palmer House that evening to see some gentlemen from Des Moines that I understood were in the city. One of them was Judge Cole, another was ex-Gov. Samuel Merrill. I didn’t find either of them there. I went to the meeting, as I thought I would meet Mr. Roe, and we would go home together. That was the only business I had with Mr. Roe. It would have been eight or nine blocks from the Haymarket to where I lived.

“I did not run at the time of the shooting. I did not move at all. I stood right at the mouth of the alley. After it was all over I backed out the alley, took a car and went home. There were no bullets coming in around my locality in the alley. On the street-car on my way home I didn’t talk with anybody about the occurrence. There were quite a number of people in the car talking about the Haymarket occurrence, and there was considerable excitement in the car on account of it. The next morning I went down on the Wabash Avenue car to the corner of Twentieth Street and Wabash Avenue.

“I heard people speak about the Haymarket affair in the restaurant, on Madison Street, where I took my breakfast. I did not say to them anything about my seeing the match lighted and the bomb thrown. I bought the News on the car. I think I was working for Frank Crandle that day; to the best of my recollection, there was only one man working with me on the job. We worked alongside of each other some time. Talked about different things, about our business. I did not say to him that I saw the bomb thrown, nor that I saw the man light the match that lit the bomb. I told him I had been at the Haymarket and spoke of the Haymarket riot, and I think I said there were a number killed or wounded. In the evening I went home on the Wabash Avenue car. People were speaking about the Haymarket meeting in the car. I didn’t tell them I knew anything about it. I think I got home about half past six. I had no conversation with the landlady. After my supper, my impression is I went to Mr. Roe’s house. He was not at home. I stayed there about fifteen minutes talking with Mrs. Roe. Her daughter, about twelve or thirteen years old, was present during the conversation. We talked about the Haymarket meeting. I told her I was there. She said she would not let Mr. Roe go to the meeting. I did not tell her nor anybody on that occasion that I saw the bomb lighted and thrown. Since noon adjournment I had no talk with James Bonfield.”

“Were not you just now walking back and forth in the corridor with him?”

“I did not have no—“

“Didn’t you walk back and forth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were talking to him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When I was at Central Station, I think, both Inspector Bonfield and Lieut. Kipley were present when I made the statement that I could recognize the man, if I ever saw him again, who threw the bomb. Afterwards I told all the details to Mr. Grinnell. I explained matters more to him than to anybody else. I would not be positive that I told Mr. Bonfield I saw the man light the match. I gave a description of the man that I saw throw the bomb. I think the man had a black or blue sack coat on. I think he had black eyes, and somewhat light whiskers. The bomb went in a westerly direction. I have seen Mr. Spies the last year and a half, and knew him by sight, not by name. I heard him speak at public meetings, seen him very frequently, but never knew his name. I heard him once on Market Street, a year ago last spring. I did not inquire who it was that spoke. I knew from hearing him and reading the papers that Spies was one of the speakers. I frequently heard the name of August Spies. At the time I had the conversation with Bonfield I described to him as well as I could the man that struck the match and lighted the fuse. It was either Bonfield or one of the officers in the Central Station. They were all together. I was twice over at police headquarters. This picture here (photograph of Schnaubelt) was shown to me first some time last week, at the State’s Attorney’s office. I was in the city during the time the Coroner’s jury was examining into the cause of the death of different policemen, and at the time the grand jury was examining into this case. The officers knew my name and address. They never called on me to go before the grand jury or the Coroner’s jury.

“The man who threw the bomb was about five feet and eight, ten or nine inches high. I don’t think he was a man over six feet tall. The first time I told Mr. Grinnell of my experience at the Haymarket was when I made my second visit to the Central Station, on Sunday after the Haymarket meeting. I think at that time I only told Mr. Grinnell that I could identify the person that threw the bomb, if I saw him. I think I told him at that time that I saw one man strike a match and light the fuse, and another man throw the bomb. Mr. Fischer was brought in while we had the conversation at the Central Station. I looked at him. I said nothing about his being the man that struck the match. I knew him by sight. I identified him as being one of the men who composed the group in the alley.

“I received some money two or three times when I have been over here from Mr. James Bonfield—ten or fifteen cents, sometimes a quarter. At the conversation at Central Station I was not told that I was wanted as a witness before the grand jury. I saw the picture of Rudolph Schnaubelt about six weeks ago, when Mr. Grinnell sent for me. I did not tell any person at any time, except the officers that I mentioned, that I saw the act of lighting the bomb accomplished. Neither Mr. Grinnell nor Bonfield, nor any other officer, told me to keep silent in regard to the matter.

“I am six feet three in height. I could pretty near see right over the head of the fellow who threw the bomb. When I gave a description of the man who came from the wagon and lighted the match that lit the fuse they did not bring out Mr. Spies for me to look at. Spies had kind of dark clothes on that night. His hat was black or brown. My impression is it was a limber-rimmed hat. I first told Mr. Grinnell one day last week that this is the man that struck the match, when I saw him sitting here in court. I think Mr. Fischer had on a blue sack-coat that night. I think he had a black necktie. If Schnaubelt had any necktie that night it was a very light one. Spies had a turn-down collar that night and not any necktie. I think the upper buttons of Mr. Schnaubelt’s coat were buttoned. I think Spies had one or two buttons of his coat buttoned up when he came from the wagon into the alley.”

MARTIN QUINN was recalled and testified to finding, at Engel’s house, a machine for making bombs.

“Engel said it had been left there by some man about four or five months previous to that time. Mrs. Engel gave a description of the man who left the machine down at the basement door, as a man with long black whiskers and pretty tall. Mr. Engel said he thought he knew the man, and he thought the machine was made for the purpose of making bombs. There had been a meeting at Turner Hall, where this man had made a speech about the manufacture of bombs, and the next thing was, this machine was brought over, and Engel had said to him he wouldn’t allow him to make any bombs in his basement; so the man went away. Engel didn’t know where he was.”

JOHN BONFIELD was recalled and testified to being at the Central Station when Officer Quinn brought Engel and the machine there. Bonfield, being asked by State’s Attorney Grinnell to explain the purpose of the apparatus, said:

“This is a blast furnace in miniature—a home-made one. This upright part could be lined with fire-clay. This shoulder, some two and a half inches from the bottom, could be filled in around with clay, leaving the holes open. This, in a blasting furnace, would be known as a tweer. It is filled up to a considerable height with clay to protect it from the hot fire inside, and the pressure of air is applied through those pipes, one or both of them, as may be necessary. When the fire is extinguished or removed, the debris or slag that comes from the metal, and the ashes and cinders from the material used for fuel, can be taken out through the trap at the bottom. The spout is for the purpose of passing out the melted metal. It is stopped with a plug of clay, and when the plug is removed the metal is poured through that tube.”

LOUIS MAHLENDORF testified as follows:

“I am a tinner by trade, at 292 Milwaukee Avenue, since two years. I know the defendant Engel since about eight years. I made this machine (referring to blasting-machine) for Engel over a year ago. I cut off the iron and formed it up. Another gentleman, a kind of heavy-set man with long beard, was with him when he ordered it. Mr. Engel waited for it. He took it away with him.”

HERMANN SCHUETTLER, a detective connected with the East Chicago Avenue Station, gave the facts with reference to his arrest of Lingg, and his search of the room on Sedgwick Street, with Officers Stift, Loewenstein and Whalen:

“We searched a trunk and found a round lead bomb in a stocking. The trunk was in the southeast room. In another stocking I found a large navy revolver. Both revolver and bomb were loaded. I turned them over to Capt. Schaack. We found a ladle and some tools, a cold chisel and other articles. This here (indicating) is the trunk I found in the room. The letters ‘L. L.’ were on it at the time. I recollect a round porcelain-lined blue cup made out of china that I found, and I believe a file. In the closet underneath the baseboard we found a lot of torn-off plaster. The lathing was sawed so you could get your hand between the floor and the bottom of the laths underneath. I saw those lead pipes (indicating) lying between the house Lingg lived in and the next house to it, in a small gangway. On the way to the Chicago Avenue Station I asked Lingg why he wanted to kill me. He said: ‘Personally, I have nothing against you, but if I had killed you and your partner I would have been satisfied. I would have killed myself if I had got away with you and your partner.”

On cross-examination witness stated that he had had no search warrant for going through Lingg’s trunk.

JACOB LOEWENSTEIN, another detective connected with the same station, testified to assisting Schuettler in arresting Lingg and that after they had vanquished him Lingg said several times: “Shoot me right here, before I will go with you. Kill me!” Witness further stated:

“I was with Officers Whalen, Stift, Schuettler, Cushman and McCormick, at Lingg’s room, on May 7, between ten and eleven o’clock. Nobody was in the house. The door was locked. Finally we pushed in the door and went in. In a little bed-room in the southeast corner of the house there was a bed and a wash-stand and a trunk, and a little shelf up in the corner with some bottles on it. In the closet there were some shells, and some loaded cartridges, and on the floor some metal and some lead. Those here (indicating box containing shells) are the shells I found in the closet of Lingg’s room. I found those bolts (indicating) in the wash-stand. This metal here (indicating) I found in a dinner-box with some loaded dynamite bombs in the trunk. There were four bombs in this box (indicating), gas-pipe bombs. The two in the bottom were loaded. When I first opened the trunk this cover (indicating) dropped down, and with this Remington rifle (indicating), which was loaded, fell down. I found a lot of papers and books in the top of the trunk. In a gray stocking I found this round dynamite bomb, loaded (indicating). I found two pieces of solder in that dinner-box. I found a blast hammer and one smaller hammer, a couple of iron bits and drills, a two-quart pail, with a little substance looking like saw-dust in the bottom of it, which I found out to be dynamite. I found a little tin quart basin under the bed with a little piece of fuse in it. In the bottom of the trunk I found two or three pieces of fuse. In the closet we tore off the baseboard, which had been freshly nailed down—the nails were projecting out a little bit—and found the plaster was torn out all the way around on the baseboard, and there were holes there.”

JOSEPH B. CASAGRANDE, telephone operator at the East Chicago Avenue Station, but on duty at the Larrabee Street Station on the night of May 4, and John K. Soller, a police officer at the last-named station, testified to a call for a patrol wagon and its leaving at 10:40 o’clock for Desplaines and Randolph Streets with a full load of officers.

JOHN B. MURPHY, a physician and surgeon, was called to the Desplaines Street Station after the Haymarket explosion and remained until three o’clock in the morning. He was a surgeon at the Cook County Hospital, and when he left the station he proceeded direct to that institution. At the station Dr. Murphy said that he first dressed Barrett, who was complaining and crying with severe pain.

“He had a very large wound in his side, large enough to admit two fingers right into his liver, and severely bleeding. I could not reach with my finger the piece of shell that caused the injury. It was a lacerated wound, much larger than could be made by an ordinary pistol bullet. I tampened the liver with gauze to prevent his bleeding to death at the station, and I went on to other officers in that way until I dressed in all between twenty-six and thirty at the station. When we got through with that, at three o’clock, Dr. Lee remained at the station while I went to the hospital to take care of those injured most severely, who were to be sent to the hospital. Officers Muller, Whitney, Keller, Barrett, Flavin and Redden are the principal men that I ordered him to send first to the hospital.”

Dr. Murphy then gave a list of the men and specified the particular character of their wounds.

E. G. EPLER, a physician and surgeon practicing at No. 505 South Canal Street, testified to having dressed a wound of Fielden between eleven and twelve at night on May 4.

“The wound was on the left side of the left knee joint, the bullet having passed in underneath the skin and passed out again five inches from the point of entry. He said he was crawling on the pavement trying to get away from the crowd when he received the injury, and the bullet glanced off from the pavement and struck him in that position.”

MICHAEL HOFFMAN, a detective connected with the Larrabee Street Station, gave evidence as to finding nine round bombs and four long ones.

“These two bombs (indicating) I found at the corner of Clyde and Clybourn Avenue, near Ogden’s Grove, under the sidewalk. They were empty. I found another one there which was loaded, and which I gave to Capt. Schaack. Gustav Lehman, who was a witness in this case, was with me when I found them. I got two coils of fuse, a can of dynamite and a box of caps at the same time. I found these two pieces of gas-pipe (indicating) at 509 North Halsted Street, under the house of John Thielen, who was arrested, with two cigar-boxes full of dynamite and two boxes of cartridges, one rifle, one revolver. The revolver and one box of cartridges were buried under the floor of the coal-shed, and two bombs which were loaded, the dynamite and rifle and other box of cartridges were buried under the house in the ground. The can of dynamite which Lehman pointed out to me, and which I found near Ogden’s Grove, held about a gallon. This can and the box of caps were on the stone of the pavement; the bombs were buried in the ground.”

At this stage of the proceedings I was myself put on the stand. My testimony, as taken by the stenographers, was as follows:

“I am police captain of the Fifth Precinct. My headquarters are at East Chicago Avenue Station. I have charge of two other stations besides. Have been connected with the force for eighteen years. Have been captain one year. I have seen Spies, Schwab, Neebe and Fischer. Had no personal acquaintance with them. The defendants Engel and Lingg were arrested and confined in my station. Lingg was arrested on May 14th; Engel about the 18th. I had my first conversation with Lingg about this case about three o’clock on the afternoon of May 14th. Lingg told me his name, and that he had lived at 442 Sedgwick Street. He had been out of work for about four weeks. I asked him whether he was at the meeting held in the basement of 54 West Lake Street on Monday night, and he said, ‘Yes.’ On Tuesday night, May 4th, he said, he was at home—not all the evening. He and Seliger had been on Larrabee Street, quite a ways north; had had several glasses of beer, and from there he went home. He said he had made some bombs to use them himself. He said he had reason for being down on the police; they had clubbed him out at McCormick’s. He said he was down on capitalists, and found fault with the police for taking the part of the capitalists. If the capitalists turned out the militia and the police force with their Gatling guns, they couldn’t do anything with revolvers, and therefore they had adopted these bombs and dynamite. He said he had learned to make bombs in scientific books of warfare published by Most, of New York. He had got his dynamite on Lake Street, somewhere near Dearborn, and had bought some fuse and caps, and told me what he paid for it. He had not used up all his dynamite. He said he had made bombs of gas-pipe, and also of metal and lead mixed. He found the gas-pipe on the street sometimes. The lead he got about the same way. He said the bombs they found in his place were all he made. We put Mrs. Seliger face to face with him, and she accused him that he had commenced making bombs a few weeks after he came to their house. He looked at the woman, but didn’t say anything. John Thielen, who was arrested at the time, faced him too. Lingg admitted he had given to Thielen the two cigar-boxes full of dynamite and the two bombs which Officer Hoffman brought to me; at the same time Lingg looked right square at Thielen and shook his head for him to keep still. Thielen said to him, ‘Never mind, you might as well tell it. They know it all, anyhow.’

“In Lingg’s trunk I discovered a false bottom, and in there I found two long cartridges of dynamite, and some fuse four inches long, with caps on, and a big coil of fuse. I asked Lingg if that was the dynamite he used in his bombs, and he said yes. The dynamite in the package is lighter in quality than what was found in his bombs, except one that was black. I got three kinds of dynamite. That in the gallon-box that Lehman testified was given to him by Lingg looked like charcoal; the dynamite in the trunk was white, and the dynamite in most of those bombs is dark-colored. Lingg said he had tried a round bomb and a long one in the open air somewhere, and they worked well. He put one right in the crotch of a tree and split it all up. He said he had known Spies for some time. He had been at the Arbeiter-Zeitung office about five times, bringing reports of Socialistic and Anarchistic meetings to the Arbeiter-Zeitung. He stated he had been financial secretary of a branch of the Carpenters’ Union. He had been a Socialist ever since he could think. He told me he had been in this country since last July or August; he had been a Socialist in Europe.”

“Now give the conversation which you had with Engel.”

“Engel said, in the first conversation that I had with him, that on Monday, 3d of May, he was doing some fresco work for a friend by the name of Koch, somewhere out west. He had been for a little while at the 54 West Lake Street meeting that night, but made no speech there.

“Several days afterwards I had another conversation, when his wife and daughter came. Engel complained that his cell was dark and no water running in it, and I told him we would give him another cell if we had it. The cells were crowded right along that night. And his wife said, ‘Do you see now what trouble you got yourself into?’ and Engel answered, ‘Mamma, I can’t help it.’ I asked him why he didn’t stop that nonsense, and he said: ‘I promised my wife so many times that I would stop this business, but I can’t stop it. What is in me has got to come out. I can’t help it that I am so gifted with eloquence. It is a curse. It has been a curse to a good many other men. A good many men have suffered already for the same cause, and I am willing to suffer and will stand it like a man.’ And I think he mentioned Louise Michel as having taken a leading part in the Anarchist business. Engel said on the evening of May 4th he was at home tying on the lounge.

“I have experimented with all dynamite that was brought me; also the bombs. I gave a portion of the lead bomb which Officer Schuettler testified he found in Lingg’s room to Professor Haines. I took the dynamite from that bomb and put the dynamite in a piece of gas-pipe, about five inches long, with ends screwed on. I had a box made two feet square, of inch boards, pretty well nailed together, and we dug a hole three feet deep out at Lake View, in the bushes, put the box into the hole, cut a hole in the top of the box, let the bomb into it, put a fuse and cap to it, and touched it off. This was found as the result of the explosion (indicating fragments). The box was blown all to pieces, and some of the pieces flew up in the trees. Everything in that box was smashed to pieces. This bomb here (indicating) I have made in the same way, and filled it with some black dynamite from that gallon can which was given by Lingg to Lehman, as stated here. This here (indicating fragments of the exploded bomb) was the result of the examination. I put some dynamite also in a beer keg. It smashed the keg all to pieces.

“Now here are the fragments from a lead bomb which Lehman gave to Hoffman and Hoffman to me. We got a piece of boiler-iron a quarter of an inch thick, nineteen inches high, and thirty-four inches wide. Then we had a steel top weighing 140 pounds. On the ground I put two-inch plank. On top of the plank I put four large metal sheets. I put the bomb right in the center, and a big stone weighing about 125 pounds on top, and the inside of the boiler-iron, the tub, I had painted so we could see where the lead would strike. I touched it off myself. It knocked the tub away up in the air, and the stone on top was crushed all to pieces. This is the result of the lead after we picked it up on top of the boards (indicating fragments of the tub). Here is the bolt (indicating) that was on the bomb. The nut we did not find. I counted 195 places where the lead struck the painted boiler-iron. There is a crack clear through the boiler-iron. In six places it is bulged out. Professor Haines has got a piece of this bomb (indicating), and Professor Patton another piece. I gave to the professors pieces of metal from other bombs.

“Lingg in his conversations with me said there would likely be a revolution through this workingmen’s trouble. There was a satchel brought from Neff’s place. The satchel was filled with bombs. Thielen was present. I asked him if he brought the satchel there. He said he saw the satchel there, saw it stand there when he left, and that was the last he saw of it. Lingg said he made the molds to make these bombs himself. He made them of clay, and that they could be used to cast in only about twice. He said he saw the ‘Revenge’ circular on the West Side, I believe at 71 West Lake Street. I asked him when he had had his hair trimmed and his chin beard shaved. He said on or about the 7th of May. He said there had been several persons in his room on the afternoon of May 4th, among them the two Lehmans.

“I experimented with fuse. I cut a fuse four inches long and set it on fire, and you could count just six until it struck the cap within. I experimented with dynamite cartridges. I drilled a hole in one end about an inch and a half deep, shoved a percussion cap in, put a fuse on, and exploded it. I had it stand free up in the air in a stone weighing about twenty or thirty pounds. When it went off it broke the stone all up. I put one right in the center of a lot of shrubs and bushes, and it broke everything up—took around about four feet each way.”

On cross-examination I stated that I had never taken Lingg before any magistrate for examination. There was no complaint entered against him.

FREDERICK DREWS saw some cans underneath the sidewalk at his home, No. 351 North Paulina Street, about three miles from the Haymarket, and testified to having turned them over to me. His residence was about a mile and a half from Wicker Park.

MICHAEL WHALEN, a detective connected with the Chicago Avenue Station, testified to having seen the cans referred to by the preceding witness in the yard at No. 351 North Paulina Street, and that there were four of those cans, one of which they emptied.

DANIEL COUGHLIN, a police officer, testified as to the explosive character of one of the cans found at North Paulina Street, with a fulminating cap and fuse about eight inches long. After igniting the fuse an explosion was caused which shattered the can, throwing the contents, some kind of vitriol, four or five feet around.

CHARLES E. PROUTY, manager of a gun-store at No. 53 State Street, recalled a visit of Mr. and Mrs. Engel at the store the previous fall.

“They made some inquiries in regard to some large revolvers. They found one there that seemed to be satisfactory, and wanted to know at what price they could get a quantity of them, perhaps one or two hundred, and wanted to buy that one and pay for it and present it at some meeting of some society. They took the pistol and paid for it. A week or two after they returned, said the pistol was satisfactory, and wanted to know if I could get them a lot. I said I knew of one lot in the East, and would inquire. I wrote East, and found the lot had been disposed of. They were somewhat disappointed, but said they had found something else for a little less money that would answer the purpose, and with that they left our store. Mrs. Engel comes frequently to our store. She has a little store on the West Side, and buys fishing-tackle and other things in our line. I sold cartridges to them in a small way, as she might want them in her store. When I spoke of guns I meant large revolvers, something about seven-inch barrel—I think 44 or 45-caliber, at $5.50 apiece. When I stated the price was very cheap they replied they didn’t care to make profit on them, it was for a society. I remember seeing Mr. Parsons’ face in the store. Never had any dealings with him.”

WILLIAM J. REYNOLDS, in the employ of D. H. Lamberson & Co., gun business at No. 76 State Street, testified:

“I think about February or March of this year Mr. Parsons came to our store. He said he wanted to buy a quantity of revolvers—I think forty or fifty. He wanted what is called an old remodeled Remington revolver, 44 or 45-caliber. I agreed to write and get a quotation of the revolver. He came in again, and I quoted him a price upon it. He did not purchase any revolvers, and was in once or twice after that. He seemed undecided about it.”

THOMAS MCNAMARA, a police officer, testified:

“I found thirty loaded and one empty gas-pipe bombs under the sidewalk on Bloomingdale Road and Robey Street. The loaded bombs were fixed with caps and fuse. They were in an oil-cloth. The corner where I found them is about four blocks from Wicker Park. Found them on the afternoon of May 23 last. Three coils of fuse in a tin can and two boxes of dynamite caps—probably about two hundred caps—were also in the package.”

Prof. WALTER S. HAINES examined a number of bomb fragments and testified as follows:

“I am professor of chemistry in Rush Medical College in this city. I devote most of my time to practical chemistry. I have examined several pieces of metal at the request of the State’s Attorney. I received from Capt. Schaack, on June 24 this year, a piece of bomb said to have been connected with Lingg. I call it ‘Lingg bomb No. 1.’ I received from Dr. J. B. Murphy, on the same day, a piece of metal said to have been taken from Officer Murphy. I designate it ‘Murphy bomb.’ On July 22 I received a piece of metal said to have been taken from Officer Degan. I designate it ‘Degan bomb.’ The last piece I received from Mr. Furthmann. I subsequently received from Officer Whalen a piece of bomb said to have been connected with Lingg. I designate it ‘Lingg bomb No. 2,’ The next day I received from Capt. Schaack pieces of two other bombs also said to have been connected with Lingg. I designate as ‘Lingg bombs Nos. 3 and 4.’ I received from Mr. Furthmann a portion of a bomb said to have been connected with Mr. Spies, which I designate as ‘Spies bomb.’ These were all subjected to chemical examination. Lingg bombs Nos. 1, 3 and 4 were found to consist chiefly of lead, with a small percentage of tin and traces of antimony, iron and zinc. The amount of tin in these three bombs differs slightly. One of them contained about 1.9 per cent., another about 2.4 per cent., the third about 2½ per cent. of tin. Lingg bomb No. 2 contained more tin, consequently less lead; also a little more antimony and a little more zinc. The amount of tin in this bomb was very nearly seven per cent. The Murphy bomb was composed of a small proportion of tin, chiefly lead and traces of antimony, iron and zinc. The amount of tin was in round numbers 1.6 per cent. The Degan bomb contained in round numbers 1.6 or 1.7 per cent. The remainder was lead, with traces of antimony, iron and zinc. The Spies bomb consisted chiefly of lead with a small quantity of tin, about 1.1 per cent., in round numbers, with traces of antimony, iron and zinc. The different pieces of the same bomb differed slightly in the proportions of the metals present. The Degan bomb contained slightly more tin than what I call the Murphy bomb. There is no commercial substance with which I am acquainted that has such a composition as these bombs. Commercial lead frequently contains traces of other substances, but, as far as I know, never tin. Solder is composed of from a third to a half tin and the remainder lead. Lead must have been the basis for the preparation of the various articles which I examined, and this must have been mixed either with tin or some substance containing tin, as for instance solder.

“Lingg bomb No. 2 had a minute trace of copper. This piece of candlestick (indicating) is composed of tin and lead, with a certain amount of antimony and zinc and a little copper. Professor Patton has been sick for about two weeks. I worked in connection with Professor Delafontaine instead of working with Patton.” (The Spies bomb is the one which the witness Wilkinson identified.)

Prof. MARK DELAFONTAINE testified as follows:

“I am a chemist, teacher of chemistry in the High School in this city. Have been a chemist for over thirty years. I made an examination of the substances described by Prof. Haines, compared results with him, and they agreed as closely as they can. I found the piece of candlestick to be a mixture of antimony, tin, lead, zinc and a trace of copper. I made experiments with old lead pipes upon which there was solder. I took a piece of old lead pipe that had been very much mended, had much solder put on; I melted it, analyzed it, and the amount of tin contained in the mixture was about seven-tenths of one per cent. I don’t know of any one commercial product of which the pieces of bomb that I examined could be composed. I never found a sample of lead containing the least traces of tin.”

MICHAEL WHALEN, recalled, testified that he gave to Prof. Haines two pieces of lead which I had given to him.

EDMUND FURTHMANN, Assistant State’s Attorney, stated that the piece of lead he gave to Prof. Haines he had received from Dr. Bluthardt, and designated the various halls and places spoken of by various witnesses as being all located in Cook County and the State of Illinois.

THEODORE J. BLUTHARDT was then called and gave the following evidence:

“I am County Physician. I made a post-mortem examination upon the body of Mathias J. Degan, on the 5th day of May last, before the Coroner’s inquest, at the Cook County Hospital. I found a deep cut upon his forehead, another cut over the right eye and another deep cut, about two inches in length, on the left side. I found a large wound, apparently a gun-shot wound—a hole in the middle of the left thigh. I found seven explosive marks on his right leg and two on the left leg. The large hole in the middle of the left thigh was the mortal wound caused by an explosive, a piece of lead that had penetrated the skin, destroyed the inside muscles and lacerated the femoral artery, which caused bleeding to death. Besides that he had a wound on the dorsum of the left foot, also caused by a piece of lead, which forced its way through the bones of the ankle joint. I found a piece behind the inside ankle of the left foot. Both pieces I gave to Mr. Furthmann. The external appearance of that wound on that left thigh was that of a rifle ball. It was round and not very ragged; it was clean cut through the skin, but the muscles of the thigh were all contused and torn—formed a kind of pulpy cavity as large as a goose egg on the inside. The missile was lodged in the upper part of the thigh, about four inches above the place where it entered. Mathias J. Degan died of hemorrhage of the femoral artery, caused by this wound that I described.

“I made a post-mortem examination on the body of John Barrett on the 7th of May, at 171 East Chicago Avenue. A missile had passed through the eleventh rib into the upper part of the liver, about three inches deep. There I found a piece of lead and a piece of blue cloth with lining in. The right lung was collapsed. From the opening into the diaphragm the air rushed into the cavity of the chest and compressed the lung. In consequence of the wound in the liver there was a good deal of hemorrhage into the chest as well as into the abdomen. This wound, by this explosive piece of material, was the cause of his death. He had several other wounds.

“On the same day I made a post-mortem examination on the body of George F. Muller, at the Cook County Hospital. This man died, in my opinion, from the effects of a pistol ball which wounded the small intestines and caused inflammation of the bowels.

“On May 8th I made a post-mortem examination on the body of Tim Flavin. He had a small wound in the back four inches to the left of the spine. The missile, which was not a pistol ball, passed into the abdomen below the twelfth rib. I found much blood in both cavities, and the cause of his death was internal hemorrhage.

“On May 10th I made a post-mortem examination on the body of Michael Sheehan. He died from exhaustion caused by a pistol shot wound upon the right side of the abdomen, three inches to the right and four inches above the umbilicus. The ball passed through the mesentary and lower part of the liver into the muscles of the abdomen. There was considerable blood in the abdomen and the liver. The surroundings were very much inflamed.

“On May 17th I made a post-mortem examination on the body of Thomas Redden, at the Cook County Hospital. I found an abrasion over the right eye, a slight lacerated wound upon the lower part of the left hip, a large lacerated wound perforating the right forearm, a compound fracture of the left tibia, a large lacerated wound upon the posterior part of the left leg, a circular wound upon the right leg two inches below the knee joint, extending to the bone, another wound upon the right leg about seven inches above the ankle, a large lacerated wound upon the left side of the back. I found the lungs badly inflamed and the blood valves enlarged above the kidneys, and the liver somewhat inflamed with so-called cloudy swelling. In my opinion he died from the effects of these wounds bringing about blood-poisoning.”

JAMES BONFIELD, being recalled, stated:

“I found a number of banners at the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I found, altogether, about forty banners. I can identify only a few of them as found at the Arbeiter-Zeitung.”

State’s Attorney Grinnell here announced that the prosecution rested its case. Thereupon counsel for the defendants moved that the jury be sent from the court-room while they would present and argue, on behalf of Neebe, a motion that the jury be instructed to find a verdict of not guilty as to Neebe. Judge Gary refused the motion.

A like motion on behalf of the other defendants, except August Spies and Adolph Fischer, was also overruled by the court.

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Chapter XXV

The Programme of the Defense—Mayor Harrison’s Memories—Simonson’s Story—A Graphic Account—A Bird’s-eye View of Dynamite—Ferguson and the Bomb—“As Big as a Base Ball”—The Defense Theory of the Riot—Claiming the Police were the Aggressors—Dr. Taylor and the Bullet-marks—The Attack on Gilmer’s Veracity—Varying Testimony—The Witnesses who Appeared.

MR. MOSES SALOMON opened the case for the Anarchists on Saturday, July 31. He proceeded to state that the defendants had steadily refused to believe that any man on the jury would be willing to convict any of the defendants because of being an Anarchist or a Socialist.

“Mr. Grinnell,” said Mr. Salomon, “failed to state to you that he had a person by whom he could prove who threw the bomb, and he never expected to make this proof until he found that without this proof he was unable to maintain this prosecution against these defendants; and it was as this case neared the prosecution end of it that the State suddenly changed front and produced a professional tramp and a professional liar, as we will show you, to prove that one of these defendants was connected with the throwing of it. They then recognized, as we claimed and now claim, that that is the only way they can maintain their case here.”

Mr. Salomon next directed the attention of the jury to the charge against the defendants and said:

“As I told you a moment ago, they are not charged with Anarchy; they are not charged with Socialism; they are not charged with the fact that Anarchy and Socialism is dangerous or beneficial to the community; but, according to the law under which we are now acting, a charge specific in its nature must be made against them, and that alone must be sustained, and it is the duty of the jury to weigh the evidence as it bears upon that charge; and upon no other point can they pay attention to it. Now, gentlemen, the charge here is shown by this indictment. This is the accusation. This is what the case involves, and upon this the defendants and the prosecution must either stand or fall. This indictment is for the murder of Mathias J. Degan. It is charged that each one of these defendants committed the crime, each defendant individually; and it is charged in a number of different ways. Now, I desire to call your attention to the law governing this indictment and to read it to you; and I am presenting the law to you now, gentlemen, so that you can understand how we view this case and how the evidence is affected by what the law is.”

Mr. Salomon then read the law touching murder and the statute on accessories and explained:

“The law says, no matter whether these defendants advised generally the use of dynamite in the purpose which they claimed to carry out, and sought to carry out, yet if none of these defendants advised the throwing of that bomb at the Haymarket, they cannot be held responsible for the action of others at other times and other places. What does the evidence introduced here tend to show? It may occur to some of you, gentlemen, to ask: ‘What, then, can these defendants preach the use of dynamite? May they be allowed to go on and urge people to overturn the present government and the present condition of society without being held responsible for it and without punishment? Is there no law to which these people can be subjected and punished if they do this thing?’ There is, gentlemen, but it is not and never has been murder, and if they are amenable, as the evidence introduced by the prosecution tends to show, it is under another and a different law, and no attempt on the part of the prosecution to jump the wide chasm which separates these two offenses can be successful unless it is done out of pure hatred, malice, ill-will, or because of prejudice. The law protects every citizen. It punishes every guilty man, and according to the measure of his crime; no more and no less. If a man be guilty of conspiracy, or if he be guilty of treason, he is liable to punishment for that offense, and not for a higher one. This is what the people of the State of Illinois have said, and that is their law. That is what they want enforced, and that is what I stand here for as the advocate of these defendants. I claim for them, and for the entire people of this State, that the law shall be applied as it is found, and as they have directed it to be enforced. Now, what is the statute on conspiracy, of which these defendants may be guilty, if they are guilty of anything?”

He next read the law with reference to conspiracy and proceeded:

“The proof in this case, with the exception of Gilmer’s testimony, showed and shows only that the State has a case within those sections which I have last read to you, and no other, if they have a case against them at all. Now, gentlemen, I have read to you the section of the statute relating to accessories. As I have told you before, it is only the perpetrator and abettor in the perpetration of a crime who, under the decision of almost every supreme court in the United States and England, can be held.”

Mr. Salomon touched on one or two minor points and concluded as follows:

“That view of the law, that they must be proven to be accessories to the crime, is the one point only upon which the prosecution can sustain their case, and is the only one upon which this case must proceed, according to our view. Now, these defendants are not criminals; they are not robbers; they are not burglars; they are not common thieves; they descend to no small criminal act. On the contrary, this evidence shows conclusively that they are men of broad feelings of humanity, that their only desire has been, and their lives have been consecrated to, the betterment of their fellow-men. They have not sought to take the life of any man, of any individual, to maliciously kill or destroy any person, nor have they sought to deprive any man of his property for their own benefit. They have not sought to get McCormick’s property for themselves; they have not sought to get Marshall Field’s property for themselves, and to deprive Marshall Field of it feloniously, but they have endeavored and labored to establish a different social system. It is true they have adopted means, or wanted to adopt means that were not approved of by all mankind. It is true that their methods were dangerous, perhaps; but then they should have been stopped at their inception. We shall expect to prove to you, gentlemen, that these men have stood by the man who has the least friends; that they have endeavored to better the condition of the laboring man. The laboring men have few friends enough. They have no means, without the combination and assistance of their fellow-men, to better their condition, and it was to further that purpose and to raise them above constant labor and constant toil and constant worry and constant fret, and to have their fellow-men act and be as human beings and not as animals, that these defendants have consecrated their lives and energies. If it was in pursuance of that, wrought up, perhaps, through frequent failures and through the constant force exercised against them, that they came to the conclusion that it was necessary to use force against force, we know not, and we do not expect to prove nor to deny that these defendants advocated the use of force, nor do we now intend to apologize for anything they have said, nor to excuse their acts. It is neither the place nor the time for counsel in this case, nor of the gentlemen of the jury, to either excuse the acts of these defendants nor to encourage them. With that we have here nothing to do. Our object is simply to show that these defendants are not guilty of the murder with which they are charged in this indictment. But the issue is forced upon us to say whether it was right or wrong, and whether they had the right to advocate the bettering of their fellow-men. As Mr. Grinnell said, he wanted to hang Socialism and Anarchy; but twelve men nor twelve hundred nor twelve thousand can stamp out Anarchy nor root out Socialism, no more than they can Democracy or Republicanism, that lie within the heart and within the head. Under our forms of government every man has the right to believe and the right to express his thoughts, whether they be inimical to the present institutions or whether they favor them; but if that man, no matter what he advocates or who he be, whether Democrat, Republican, Socialist or Anarchist, kill and destroy human life deliberately and feloniously, that man, whether high or low, is amenable to criminal justice, and must be punished for his crime, and for no other.

“Now, what was the object of these defendants, as they are charged, in being so bloodthirsty? Their purpose was to change society, to bring into force and effect their Socialistic and Anarchistic ideas. Were they right or were they wrong, or have we nothing to do with it? As I told you, they had the right to express their ideas. They had the right. They had the right to gain converts, to make Anarchists and Socialists, but whether Socialism or Anarchy shall ever be established never rested with these defendants, never rested in a can of dynamite or in a dynamite bomb. It rests with the great mass of people, with the people of Chicago, of Illinois, of the United States, of the world. If they, the people, want Anarchy, want Socialism, if they want Democracy or Republicanism, they can and they will inaugurate it. But the people, also, will allow a little toleration of views. Now, these defendants claim that Socialism is a progressive social science, and it will be a part of the proof which you will have to determine. Must the world stand as we found it when we were born, or have we a right to show our fellow-men a better way, a nobler life, a better condition? That is what these defendants claim, if they are forced beyond the issue in this case.... In furtherance of that plan, what have these defendants done? Have they murdered many people? What was their plan when they counseled dynamite? They intended to use dynamite in furtherance of the general revolution; never, never against any individual. We will show you that it was their purpose, as the proof, I think, partly shows already, that when a general revolution or a general strike was inaugurated, when they were attacked, that then, in fact, while carrying out the purposes of that strike or that revolution, that then they should use dynamite, and not until then. If it is unlawful to conspire to carry out that thing, these men must be held for that thing. We shall show you that these men, in carrying out their plan for the bettering of the condition of the workingmen, inaugurated the eight-hour movement. They inaugurated the early-closing movement. They inaugurated every movement that tended to alleviate the condition of the workingman and allow him a greater time to his family, for mutual benefit. That is what these defendants set up for a defense. That is what they claim was their right to do, and that is what they claim they did do, and they did nothing more.

“Now, gentlemen, we don’t say that we desire to go into this proof, because we think it has nothing to do with this case, if our theory is correct; but if we are forced to show why they did these things it is simply to convince you that their objects were not for robbery, not for stealing, not to gain property for themselves, and not to maliciously or willfully destroy any man’s good name or his property interests.

“We expect to show you, further, that these defendants never conspired, nor any one of them, to take the life of any single individual at any time or place; that they never conspired or plotted to take, at this time or at any other time, the life of Mathias Degan or any number of policemen, except in self-defense while carrying out their original purpose. We expect, further, to show you that on the night of the 4th of May these defendants had assembled peaceably, that the purpose of the meeting was peaceable, that its objects were peaceable, that they delivered the same harangue as before, that the crowd listened, and that not a single act transpired there, previous to the coming of the policemen, by which any man in the audience could be held amenable to law. They assembled there, gentlemen, under the provision of our Constitution, to exercise the right of free speech, to discuss the situation of the workingmen, to discuss the eight-hour question. They assembled there to incidentally discuss what they deemed outrages at McCormick’s. No man expected that a bomb would be thrown; no man expected that any one would be injured at that meeting; but while some of these defendants were there and while this meeting was peaceably in progress, the police, with a devilish design, as we expect to prove, came down upon that body with their revolvers in their hands and pockets, ready for immediate use, intending to destroy the life of every man that stood upon that market square. That seems terrible, gentlemen, but that is the information which we have and which we expect to show you. We expect to show you further, gentlemen, that the crowd did not fire, that not a single person fired a single shot at the police officers. We expect to show you that Mr. Fielden did not have on that night, and never had in his life, a revolver; that he did not fire, and that that portion of the testimony here is wrong. We expect to show you further, gentlemen, that the witness Gilmer, who testified to having seen Spies light the match which caused the destruction coming from the bomb, is a professional and constitutional liar; that no man in the city of Chicago who knows him will believe him under oath, and, indeed, I might almost say that it would scarcely need even a witness to show the falsity of his testimony, because it seems to me that it must fall of its own weight. We expect to show you, gentlemen, that Thompson was greatly mistaken; that on that night Schwab never saw or talked with Mr. Spies; that he was at the Haymarket early in the evening, but that he left before the meeting began and before he saw Mr. Spies on that evening at all. We expect to show that Mr. Parsons, so far from thinking anything wrong, and Fischer, were quietly seated at Zepf’s Hall, drinking, perhaps, a glass of beer at the time the bomb exploded, and that it was as great a surprise to them as it was to any of you. We expect to show you that Engel was at home at the time the bomb exploded, and that he knew nothing about it. With the whereabouts of Lingg you are already familiar. It may seem strange why he was manufacturing bombs. The answer to that is, he had a right to have his house full of dynamite. He had a right to have weapons of all descriptions upon his premises, and until he used them, or advised their use, and they were used in pursuance of his advice, he is not liable any more than the man who commits numerous burglaries, the man who commits numerous thefts, who walks the streets, is liable to arrest and punishment only when he commits an act which makes him amenable to law.

“I did not expect to address you concerning Mr. Neebe, and it is unnecessary for me to make much comment on that, but we will show you that Mr. Neebe did not know of this meeting, that he was not present, that he was in no manner connected with it, and there is no proof to show that he was. We will also prove to you, gentlemen, that Mr. Fielden did not go down the alley, as some of the witnesses for the State have testified, but that he went down Desplaines Street to Randolph, and up Randolph, as, indeed, if my memory serves me right, the statements made by Mr. Fielden immediately after the occurrence already sufficiently show.

“Now, gentlemen, in conclusion, as I stated to you a moment ago, we do not intend to defend against Socialism, we do not intend to defend against Anarchism; we expect to be held responsible for that only which we have done, and to be held in the manner pointed out by law. Under the charge upon which these defendants are held under this indictment, we shall prove to you, and I hope to your entire satisfaction, that a case has not been made out against them. Whether they be Socialists or whether they be Anarchists we hope will not influence any one of you, gentlemen. Whatever they may have preached, or whatever they may have said, or whatever may have been their object, if it was not connected with the throwing of the bomb it is your sworn testimony to acquit them. We expect to make all this proof, and we expect such a result.”

On the Monday following, being the 2d of August, the defense began its testimony. The first witness introduced was CARTER H. HARRISON, then Mayor of Chicago. His evidence was as follows:

“I am Mayor of the city of Chicago since over seven years. On the 4th of May last I was present during a part of the Haymarket meeting so-called. On the day before there was a riot at McCormick’s factory, which was represented to me to have grown out of a speech made by Mr. Spies. During the morning of the 4th I received information of the issuance of a circular of a peculiar character and calling for a meeting at the Haymarket that night. I directed the Chief of Police that if anything should be said at that meeting that might call out a recurrence of such proceedings as at McCormick’s factory, the meeting should be dispersed. I believed that it was better for myself to be there and disperse the meeting myself instead of leaving it to any policeman. I went to the meeting for the purpose of dispersing it in case I should feel it necessary for the safety of the city. I arrived there about five minutes before eight. There was a large concourse of people about the Haymarket, but it was so long before any speaking commenced that probably two-thirds of the people there assembled left, as it seemed to me. It was about half-past eight when the speaking commenced and the meeting congregated around Crane’s building, or the alley near it.

“Mr. Spies may have been speaking one or two minutes before I got near enough to hear distinctly what he said. I judge I left the meeting between 10 and 10:05 o’clock that night. I staid to hear Mr. Spies’ speech, and I heard all of Mr. Parsons’ up to the time I left, with the exception of five or ten minutes, during which I went over to the station. When I judged that Mr. Parsons was looking towards the close of his speech I went over to the station, spoke to Capt. Bonfield, and determined to go home, but instead of going immediately I went back to hear a little more; staid there about five minutes longer and then left. Within about twenty minutes from the time that I left the meeting I heard the sound of the explosion of the bomb at my house. While at the meeting I noticed that I was observed when I struck a match to light my cigar and the full blaze showed my face. I thought Mr. Spies had observed me, as the tone of his speech suddenly changed, but that is mere conjecture. Prior to that change in the tone of Mr. Spies’ speech I feared his remarks would force me to disperse the meeting. I was there for that purpose; that is to say, it was my own determination to do it against the will of the police. After that occurrence the general tenor of Spies’ speech was such that I remarked to Capt. Bonfield that it was tame.”

“Did anything transpire in the address of either Spies or Parsons, after the incident of the lighting of your cigar to which you have referred, that led you to conclude to take any action in reference to the dispersing of the meeting?”

The State objected to an answer, and the objection was sustained.

“I did in fact take no action at the meeting about dispersing it. There were occasional replies from the audience, as ‘Shoot him,’ ‘Hang him’ or the like, but I do not think, from the directions in which they came, here and there and around, that there were more than two or three hundred actual sympathizers with the speakers. Several times cries of ‘Hang him’ would come from a boy in the outskirts, and the crowd would laugh. I felt that a majority of the crowd were idle spectators, and the replies nearly as much what might be called ‘guying’ as absolute applause. Some of the replies were evidently bitter; they came from immediately around the stand. The audience numbered from eight hundred to one thousand. The people in attendance, so far as I could see during the half hour before the speaking commenced, were apparently laborers or mechanics, and the majority of them not English-speaking people—mostly Germans. There was no suggestion made by either of the speakers looking toward calling for the immediate use of force or violence toward any person that night; if there had been I should have dispersed them at once. After I came back from the station Parsons was still speaking, but evidently approaching a close. It was becoming cloudy and looked like threatening rain, and I thought the thing was about over. There was not one-fourth of the crowd that had been there during the evening listening to the speakers at that time. In the crowd I heard a great many Germans use expressions of their being dissatisfied with bringing them there and having this speaking. When I went to the station during Parsons’ speech, I stated to Capt. Bonfield that I thought the speeches were about over; that nothing had occurred yet or looked likely to occur to require interference, and that he had better issue orders to his reserves at the other stations to go home. Bonfield replied that he had reached the same conclusion from reports brought to him, but he thought it would be best to retain the men in the station until the meeting broke up, and then referred to a rumor that he had heard that night which he thought would make it necessary for him to keep his men there, which I concurred in. During my attendance of the meeting I saw no weapons at all upon any person.”

On cross-examination Mr. Harrison stated:

“The rumor that I referred to was related to me by Capt. Bonfield immediately after my reaching the station. Bonfield told me he had just received information that the Haymarket meeting, or a part of it, would go over to the Milwaukee and St. Paul freight-houses, then filled with ‘scabs,’ and blow it up. There was also an intimation that this meeting might be held merely to attract the attention of the police to the Haymarket, while the real attack, if any, should be made that night on McCormick’s. Those were the contingencies in regard to which I was listening to those speeches. In listening to the speeches, I concluded it was not an organization to destroy property that night, and went home. My order to Bonfield was that the reserves held at the other stations might be sent home, because I learned that all was quiet in the district where McCormick’s factory is situated. Bonfield replied he had already ordered the reserves in the other stations to go in their regular order.

“Bonfield was there, detailed by the Chief of Police, in control of that meeting, together with Capt. Ward. I don’t remember of hearing Parsons call ‘To arms! To arms! To arms!’ When I speak of a rumor in regard to a possible attack upon McCormick’s, the fact is it was not a rumor that came from others, but rather a fear or apprehension on my own part, and it was suggested first by myself that this might be the aim of this meeting. There was a direct statement by Mr. Bonfield to me that he had heard the rumor about the freight-houses.”

BARTON SIMONSON, a traveling salesman for E. Rothschild & Bros., wholesale clothing, concluded, after taking supper at his mother’s house, No. 50 West Ohio Street, to take in the Haymarket meeting, and he went there and remained throughout the proceedings, until the explosion of the bomb. He testified:

“The speakers were northeast from me, in front of Crane Bros’. building, a few feet north of the alley. I remember the alley particularly. As far as I remember Spies’ speech, he said: ‘Please come to order. This meeting is not called to incite any riot.’ He then said that McCormick had charged him with the murder of the people at the meeting the night before; that Mr. McCormick was a liar. McCormick was himself responsible. Somebody had opposed his speaking at the meeting near McCormick’s because he was a Socialist. The people he spoke to were good Christian, church-going people. While he was speaking, McCormick’s people had come out. Some of the men and boys had started for them, and had had some harmless sport throwing stones into the windows, etc. Then he said that some workingmen were shot at and killed by the police. That is as far as my memory goes.

“Parsons illustrated that the capitalists got the great bulk of the profit out of everything done. I remember in his speech he said: ‘To arms! To arms! To arms!’ but in what connection I cannot remember. Somebody in the crowd said, ‘Shoot’ or ‘Hang Gould,’ and he says, ‘No, a great many will jump up and take his place. What Socialism aims at is not the death of individuals, but of the system.’

“Fielden spoke very loud, and as I had never attended a Socialistic meeting before in my life, I thought they were a little wild. Fielden spoke about a Congressman from Ohio who had been elected by the workingmen and confessed that no legislation could be enacted in favor of the workingmen; consequently he said there was no use trying to do anything by legislation. After he had talked awhile a dark cloud with cold wind came from the north. Many people had left before, but when the cloud came a great many people left. Somebody said, ‘Let’s adjourn,’—to some place, I can’t remember the name of the place. Fielden said he was about through, there was no need of adjourning. He said two or three times, ‘Now, in conclusion,’ or something like that, and I became impatient. Then I heard a commotion and a good deal of noise in the audience, and somebody said, ‘Police.’ I looked south and saw a line of police when it was at about the Randolph Street car-tracks. The police moved along until the front of the column got about up to the speakers’ wagon. I heard somebody near the wagon say something about dispersing. I saw some persons upon the wagon. I could not tell who they were. About the time that somebody was giving that command to disperse, I distinctly heard two words coming from the vicinity of the wagon or from the wagon. I don’t know who uttered them. The words were ‘peaceable meeting.’ That was a few seconds before the explosion of the bomb. As the police marched through the crowd the latter went to the sidewalks on either side, some went north, some few went on Randolph Street east, and some west. I did not hear any such exclamation as ‘Here come the bloodhounds of the police; you do your duty and I’ll do mine,’ from the locality of the wagon or from Mr. Fielden. I heard nothing of that sort that night. At the time the bomb exploded I was still in my position upon the stairs. A reporter talked to me while I was on those stairs. I remember he went down, and just before the police came he ran up past me again. There was no pistol fired by any person upon the wagon before the bomb exploded. No pistol shots anywhere before the explosion of the bomb. Just after the command to disperse had been given, I saw a lighted fuse or something—I didn’t know what it was at the time—come up from a point nearly twenty feet south of the south line of Crane’s alley, from about the center of the sidewalk on the east side of the street, from behind some boxes. I am positive it was not thrown from the alley. I first noticed it about six or seven feet in the air, a little above a man’s head. It went in a northwest course and up about fifteen feet from the ground, and fell about the middle of the street. The explosion followed almost immediately, possibly within two or three seconds. Something of a cloud of smoke followed the explosion. After the bomb exploded there was pistol-shooting. From my position I could distinctly see the flashes of the pistols. My head was about fifteen feet from the ground. There might have been fifty to one hundred and fifty pistol shots. They proceeded from about the center of where the police were. I did not observe either the flashes of pistol shots or hear the report of any shots from the crowd upon the police prior to the firing by the police. I staid in my position from five to twenty seconds. There was shooting going on in every direction, as well up as down. I could see from the flashes of the pistols that the police were shooting up. The police were not only shooting at the crowd, but I noticed several of them shoot just as they happened to throw their arms. I concluded that my position was possibly more dangerous than down in the crowd, and then I ran down to the foot of the stairs, ran west on the sidewalk on Randolph Street a short distance, and then on the road. A crowd was running in the same direction. I had to jump over a man lying down, and I saw another man fall in front of me about one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet west of Desplaines Street. I took hold of his arm and wanted to help him, but the firing was so lively behind me that I just let go and ran. I was to the rear of the crowd running west, the police still behind us. There were no shots from the direction to which I was running.

“I am not and have never been a member of any Socialistic party or association. Walking through the crowd before the meeting, I noticed from their appearance that the meeting was composed principally of ordinary workingmen, mechanics, etc. The audience listened, and once in awhile there would be yells of ‘Shoot him!’ ‘Hang him!’ from the audience. I didn’t find any difference in the bearing of the crowd during Fielden’s speech from what it was during Parsons’ or Spies’. In the course of the conversation which I had with Capt. Bonfield at the station before the meeting that night, I asked him about the trouble in the southwestern part of the city. He says, ‘The trouble there is that these’—whether he used the word Socialists or strikers, I don’t know—‘get their women and children mixed up with them and around them and in front of them, and we can’t get at them. I would like to get three thousand of them in a crowd, without their women and children’—and to the best of my recollection he added, ‘and I will make short work of them.’ I noticed a few women and children at the bottom of the steps where I was. I don’t think there were any in the body of the crowd around the wagon. At the time the police came up there, I did not observe any women or children.”

On cross-examination Mr. Simonson said:

“I have several times visited police stations in the city. I attended a Salvation Army meeting on East Chicago Avenue, and I thought the roughs there interrupted the meeting. I went across to see Capt. Schaack two or three times about it. I was once at the Desplaines Street Station and made complaint against a policeman for abusing an old man, and one evening I brought there a fellow who asked me for something to get him a lodging on the West Side, and I asked the police to take care of him. And another time, when I heard about the way people who had received lodging at the station were treated there, I went to the station to satisfy myself what was the fact about the matter, and Capt. Ward told me a different story.

“I went to the Haymarket meeting out of curiosity to know what kind of meetings they held, believing that the newspapers ordinarily misrepresented such things. I had my impression that the papers had misrepresented the meetings of workingmen, not from anything definite I had, but from having seen reports in papers of occurrences I had seen, and, as a rule, they were one-sided. I went to the meeting to satisfy myself—to prove or disprove my impression. That was one of my reasons for going there. At that conversation with Mr. Bonfield that I testified to, nobody else was present. It was in the main office of Desplaines Street Station. Capt. Ward, I believe, was walking around at the time. There was a good deal of noise in the police station, and we talked quietly. I believe no one else could hear it. I believe it was last fall that I visited the North Side police station in regard to the Salvation Army again. I visited about a half dozen of their meetings. I saw Capt. Schaack at the station. I did not ask him to arrest any people who had disturbed the meeting, nor to arrest the Salvation Army people. I told him that in going to the meeting I heard somebody swear a very vicious oath and curse the Salvation Army people. The police were standing within hearing, and the crowd joined in the laugh. I told him it seemed to me that the police ought not to allow anything of that kind. The windows of the Salvation Army were filled with boards. I told Capt. Schaack that it seemed not right that in front of the police station they should do any such thing. He said he would order the boards taken down, and if they wanted protection they could get it. I went another time to Capt. Schaack when some of the Salvation Army people were confined in the Bridewell. Mayor Harrison had given me a note to Mr. Felton, telling him to let them go, and I went to Capt. Schaack to tell him that.

“My recollection is that Fielden said: ‘The law is your enemy. Kill it, stab it, throttle it, or it will throttle you.’ When the police came, I looked at them and at the crowd. I watched both to some extent. I don’t know how many lines of police there were. When I saw them at the Randolph Street tracks, I saw a straight line of police filling the whole street. There was more than one column, but I don’t know how many. I was at that time contemplating the question of my own safety. I was looking in the direction of the wagon at the time the bomb was thrown. I didn’t see the officer command the meeting to disperse, but heard somebody, in some form, tell the meeting to disperse. The only words I remember to have heard were: ‘Command—meeting—to disperse.’ During the delivery of that, or right after it, I heard somebody say something, of which I caught the two words, ‘Peaceable meeting.’ The first column of police were standing on about a line with the north line of the alley. I don’t know where the other columns were with reference to where the bomb exploded. I only saw the police in a large body march out. It looked to me at the time as if the bomb struck the ground and exploded just a little behind the front line of police. I saw policemen behind the first line of police, but I did not distinguish the columns. I don’t know whether the bomb exploded directly behind the front line, or between the second and the third or third and fourth lines.

“The firing began from the police, right in the center of the street. I did not see a single shot fired from the crowd on either side of the street. I didn’t know what became of the men in the wagon. I don’t think there were any shots fired in the neighborhood of the wagon. I was not looking at the wagon all the time, but was looking over the scene in general. If you got up on a place as high as I was, and it was dark, you could see every flash; the flashes show themselves immediately when they are out of the revolver, on a dark night. The scene impressed itself so upon me that now, looking back, I see it as I did then. Looking at where the bomb exploded, I could not help looking toward the wagon, too. My impression is, the boxes on the opposite side of the street were from two to four feet high. I have been at the Haymarket to look over the ground, several times since the 4th of May, so as to get an idea of the dimensions of the thing. I went there of my own volition; nobody asked me to go there. It was on my way to mother’s house. I am employed by Rothschild Brothers, on commission.”

When this witness returned to the store, the firm by whom he was employed at once discharged him, saying that he was one of the worst Anarchists in the city and they had no use for him.

JOHN FERGUSON, a resident of Chicago for seventeen years, and in the cloak business, passed the Haymarket, and, noticing a crowd there, stopped to listen to the speeches. He was accompanied by an acquaintance. They stood at the Randolph Street crossing and listened about fifteen minutes to Parsons’ speech. Said the witness:

“We could hear all of the speaking plainly, from where we stood, as the speakers were facing Randolph Street. During his speech, when he mentioned Jay Gould’s name, somebody said: ‘Throw him in the lake;’ and a man standing almost in front of me took his pipe from his mouth and halloaed out: ‘Hang him.’ Parsons replied that would do no good; a dozen more Jay Goulds would spring up in his place. ‘Socialism aims not at the life of individuals, but at the system.’ I didn’t hear any other responses from the crowd than those I mentioned. After Parsons concluded, another gentleman got up and began speaking about Congressman Foran. After a few minutes I saw quite a storm cloud come up. Some one interrupted the speaker with the remark: ‘There is a prospect of immediate storm, and those of you who wish to continue the meeting can adjourn to’—some hall, I don’t remember the name of it; but the speaker, resuming, said: ‘I haven’t but two or three words more to say, and then you can go home.’ I walked away from the meeting, across Randolph Street to the southwest corner. There I saw the police rush out from the station in a body. They whirled into the street and came down very rapidly toward us. The gentleman in command of the police was swinging his arm and told them to hurry up. After they had passed us we turned to walk south toward the station, and we heard a slight report, something like breaking boards, or like slapping a brick down on the pavement. We turned, and we had just about faced around, looking at the crowd, when we saw a fire flying out about six or eight feet above the heads of the crowd and falling down pretty near the center of the street. It was all dark for almost a second, perhaps, then there was a deafening roar. Then almost instantly we saw flashes from toward the middle of the street, south of Randolph on Desplaines, and heard reports. That side of the street where the crowd was was dark. At that time there did not appear to be any light there. Then we hurried away. I did not see any flashes from either side of the street. The majority of the crowd had gone away on the appearance of the approaching storm. The crowd was very orderly, as orderly a meeting as I ever saw anywhere in the street.

“It could not have been longer than five minutes from the time that Fielden said, ‘We will be through in a short time,’ that the police marched down the street. I am not a Socialist, nor an Anarchist, nor a Communist; I don’t know anything about what those terms mean.”

LUDWIG ZELLER went to the meeting about a quarter past ten, and took a position at a lamp-post near Crane’s alley. A few minutes thereafter the police came, and when they passed him he heard the command of the Captain, but heard no reply from anybody on the wagon or near the wagon.

“I turned and went south to Randolph Street, and in turning I saw a light go through the air about six, or eight, or ten feet south of the lamp. It went in a northwesterly direction, right into the middle of the street and in the middle of the police; then I heard an explosion and shooting, and I tried to get out, because there were a great many men falling around me, and a few were crying. I turned the corner on Randolph Street east toward Clinton. A great many people were running in the same direction; men were falling before me and on the side of me. I heard shooting immediately upon the explosion of the bomb. The shots came from behind me while I ran. The shots came from the center of the street, from north and northwest of me.

“On Sunday, May 2d, I was present at a meeting of the Central Labor Union as a delegate from the Cigar-makers’ Union, No. 15. The delegates of the Lumber-shovers’ Union at that meeting requested me, as a member of the agitation committee, to send a speaker to a meeting of the Lumber-shovers’ Union to be held on Monday, May 3d, at the Black Road. They wanted a good speaker, who could keep the meeting quiet and orderly. In the afternoon of the same day we had another meeting of the Central Labor Union, at which Mr. Spies was present as a reporter of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and I told him personally to go out to the meeting of the Lumber-shovers’ Union and speak in the name of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union is a body composed of delegates from about twenty-five or thirty different labor unions of the city. The Lumber-shovers’ Union is represented in the Central Labor Union by delegates. There are from fifteen to sixteen thousand laborers represented by those unions. The agitation committee to which I belonged was for the purpose of organizing different branches of trade who had no eight-hour organization at that time. I did not notice any firing back from the crowd at the police, either on Desplaines Street or Randolph Street.”

On cross-examination Mr. Zeller stated:

“Since last December, I don’t belong to any group. Prior to that I was a member of the group ‘Freiheit,’ which used to meet on Sherman Street. I only attended three meetings of that group. We had no numbers. I am not an Anarchist. I am a Socialist.

“I was standing about five or six feet south of that alley. I saw the fuse about eight or ten feet south of me. I didn’t know what it was. I saw behind that fuse something dark, but I couldn’t distinguish what it was. I was only looking where it was going. I cannot say what kind of looking thing it was; it seems to me it was more round, and about as big as a baseball. I cannot say who fired first after the bomb went off. I can’t say exactly whether the police fired—I didn’t see. On the wagon I only recognized Fielden. I was too far away from the wagon, and it was dark. The gas-light was lighted. I didn’t see anybody put it out.”

Carl Richter and F. Liebel gave practically similar stories of the riot. The point which the defense seemed to wish to bring out in their testimony was that the gravamen lay rather with the police than with the Anarchists. They swore that, although standing close to the famous wagon, they had heard nothing about “bloodhounds.”

Along this line, also, was the evidence of Dr. James D. Taylor, who gave a practically identical account of the explosion. This gentleman, however, seemed to be certain that the police had attacked the crowd. He had examined the scene of the riot on the next day and found that the bullet marks on the buildings came chiefly from the direction from which the police had charged. Quite a point was made by the Anarchists upon the fact that a telegraph pole, which was said to have thoroughly borne out Dr. Taylor’s testimony, had disappeared from the Haymarket. It was insinuated that the prosecution had made away with this pole. The fact was that the pole had been very prosaically, and in the common course of business, removed by the telegraph company.

Frank Stenner, Joseph Gutscher and Frank Raab gave their memories of the riot, all agreeing closely with the theory of the defense. Wm. Urban, a compositor on the Arbeiter-Zeitung, after telling the same story, swore that he saw something shining—which he believed were revolvers—in the hands of the police as they came up toward the meeting. The story of the explosion and the murder of the police, from the Anarchists’ point of view, was also detailed by Wm. Gleason, Wm. Sahl, Eberhard Hierzemenzel, Conrad Messer and August Krumm. This last witness, Krumm, also testified that he was lighting his pipe, in company with another man, in Crane’s alley, at the time that the bomb was thrown, which, it will be remembered, Gilmer swore had been fired in this alley by Spies and Schnaubelt—and Krumm declared that there was nobody in that little thoroughfare then save his friend and himself.

This was not the only attack on Gilmer’s veracity. Lucius M. Moses had known Harry Gilmer six or seven years and would not believe him on oath. John O. Brixey stated on the stand that Gilmer’s reputation was bad and that he was not worthy of belief. John Garrick, an ex-deputy sheriff, knew Gilmer and would not believe him on oath. Mrs. B. P. Lee was another who had no confidence in Gilmer’s truth and veracity.

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Chapter XXVI

Malkoff’s Testimony—A Nihilist’s Correspondence—More about the Wagon—Spies’ Brother—A Witness who Contradicts Himself—Printing the Revenge Circular—Lizzie Holmes’ Inflammatory Essay—“Have You a Match About You?”—The Prisoner Fielden Takes the Stand—An Anarchist’s Autobiography—The Red Flag the Symbol of Freedom—The “Peaceable” Meeting—Fielden’s Opinion of the Alarm—“Throttling the Law”—Expecting Arrest—More about Gilmer.

THE evidence so far produced for the defendants showed that their counsel had done everything possible in their efforts to offset the damaging testimony of the State. They proved themselves not only fertile in resources, but ingenious in the selection of witnesses and in the manner of presenting their points before the jury. It was no fault of theirs that they failed to make “the worse appear the better reason.” They labored incessantly for the cause of their clients, and they certainly called the best witnesses that could be found among the Anarchists and their sympathizers.

ROBERT LINDINGER lived with Carl Richter and accompanied him to the Haymarket meeting. He stood at the mouth of the alley and saw at the meeting Spies, Parsons and Fielden. He did not see the gentleman on trial (indicating Schwab); had never seen him before in his life, and he (Schwab) was not on the wagon when Spies was there. He did not hear anybody say, “Here come the bloodhounds,” etc., saw no one in the crowd fire any shots, and saw no pistol in Fielden’s hand. Witness was a cornice-maker, and had been in the country about three years. He was not a Socialist, but read the Arbeiter-Zeitung.

WILLIAM ALBRIGHT, who stood in the alley with Krumm, stated substantially the same facts as given by his companion.

M. D. MALKOFF, a reporter for the Arbeiter-Zeitung, up to the 5th of May, saw Parsons at Zepf’s Hall from five to ten minutes before the explosion of the bomb. Said he:

“He was sitting at the window, north of the entrance door, in company with Mrs. Parsons and Mrs. Holmes. The saloon was pretty crowded at that time. I spoke with Mr. Allen about these parties. I think Mrs. Holmes was standing and Mrs. Parsons was sitting on the window-sill right on the side of Mr. Parsons. I saw them there when I heard the explosion of the bomb.”

On cross-examination Mr. Malkoff said:

“I have been five years in the country; in Chicago about two years and a half. When I first came to the country, I was private teacher of the Russian language in Brooklyn. I taught Paesig, the editor of the Brooklyn Freie Presse. He is not a revolutionist; his paper is not a revolutionary one. Then I went to Little Rock for about half a year, working as a printer for the Arkansas Staats-Zeitung. Then I went to St. Louis for about three months, found no work there, and came to Chicago. I had no letter of introduction to Spies when I came here. I had obtained my position at Little Rock through a letter of introduction from Mr. Spies, whom I knew by some correspondence in regard to a novel which Mr. Paesig and I translated and sold to the Arbeiter-Zeitung. It was not a revolutionary novel. I did not get that letter of introduction from Mr. Spies through Herr Most. I have seen Most, but don’t know him personally. I know Justus Schwab. I did not live with him, but had letters directed to his care. When I came to Chicago I went directly to Spies. For about half a year I was without employment; then, for a year and a half, up to May 4th, I was reporter on the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I roomed with Balthasar Rau for about four months; part of that time was after the Haymarket meeting. I had been at Zepf’s Hall for more than an hour before I heard the bomb explode, part of the time in the saloon, part of the time attending the meeting up-stairs. When I came down again in the saloon it was a good half hour before the bomb exploded. I was there alone, standing near the counter, where I had one glass of beer. When I was talking with Mr. Allen, we stood on the floor between the stove and the bar.

“When the bomb exploded we made a few steps toward the rear. Mr. Allen thought it was a Gatling gun; it sounded like a Gatling gun. A few seconds after that the shooting began, and a good many people came to the hall. A good many had been there before that. When the crowd came, we rushed out the back door.

“I did not belong to any Nihilistic organization in Russia. I was not a Nihilist in Russia. I am not in this country as the agent of the Nihilists, or any other society in Russia. The reporters used to call me a Nihilist because I was a Russian, that is all. This letter here (indicating) is in my handwriting, and has my signature at the bottom. I don’t remember to whom I wrote it. I am now working for the Moscow Gazette, an illustrated paper.”

A translation of the letter heretofore referred to was introduced in evidence, as follows:

DEAR MR. EDITOR:—The articles I send you herewith you may read, put them into proper form, and, if you consider them competent, reprint them in one of your papers. I have also nearly completed a very interesting article treating of the secret revolutionary societies of Russia, in the so-called Dekabrists—that is, of 1820 to 1830. I have also another one in my thoughts, but, being out of work, and having no dwelling-place, it is entirely impossible to give even a few hours daily to writing. You see, I am writing in German, which I can do—i. e., I translate every sentence, word for word, from the Russian. You have in this connection the not easy task to set the corrupted German right. I hope you will pardon me for this. At the time I came over here I did not understand one German word. Thanks to Wassilisson, which I translated with the help of a dictionary, I have learned this little. For your letter I am very thankful to you. I would, of course, follow your accommodating invitation, and would have left New York long ago, but unfortunately it does not depend upon me. I am a proletarian in the fullest sense of the word, and a proletarian is not favored to put his ideas into execution.

Respectfully, MICHAEL MALKOFF.

Care of J. H. Schwab, 50 First Street, New York. Written on the 22d of October, 1883.

WILLIAM A. PATTERSON, a printer, attended the meeting at No. 107 Fifth Avenue, on the evening of May 4, in response to an advertisement in the Daily News, and said it was for the purpose of organizing the working women of Chicago. While there, a telephone message came for a speaker at Deering, and a clerk in the office answered it. That was a little after eight o’clock. They wanted a German speaker, and Schwab’s name was mentioned. After that, witness said, he did not see Schwab. There was also a call for speakers at the Haymarket. Those present at the Fifth Avenue meeting were Parsons, Fielden, Mrs. Parsons, Mrs. Holmes, Schwab, Waldo, Brown, Snyder and some others.

HENRY LINDEMEYER, a mason, testified through an interpreter. He occasionally did calcimining, and, while working at that in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, had occasion to place some things on a shelf in the closet off the editorial room. He missed a brush, and looked for it on a shelf in that closet. He found some papers, which he took down, but he did not find his brush. “I found,” said he, “no bundle, no large package, no dynamite on the shelf. Saw no indication of greasiness there.”

On cross-examination he testified:

“I have known Spies for seven or eight years. I am on the bond of his brother, who is charged with conspiracy growing out of the Haymarket trouble. I have known Schwab three or four years. Saw him at public meetings, at Turner Hall and other halls. I saw Spies nearly every day. He lives in my neighborhood since quite a time. I have been a subscriber to the Arbeiter-Zeitung since it is in existence. The closet was in the southeast part of the room, about four or five feet square, and about eleven or twelve feet high, as high as the room. There was only one shelf in the closet. There was a wash-stand in there, under which I kept some things. I had calcimined that room a few weeks before. On the 2d of May I calcimined the upper floor. On the 5th of May I calcimined the library. I left my things in the closet from the 2d to the forenoon of the 5th of May. When the police came I took them to some other place. The things I left in that closet were my working-clothes and my tools. My hat and my vest I had on the upper part of the shelf, and the rest on the floor. When I examined the shelf, I found nothing but a small package of papers, covering as much space as the size of an open paper, occupying about one-quarter of the shelf. I didn’t feel on the bottom of the shelf to see if there was any grease on it. There was no grease on there; else I wouldn’t have put my clothes there. The shelf was about six feet from the ground.”

EDWARD LEHNERT, testifying through an interpreter, said:

“I know Schnaubelt, and saw him at the Haymarket that night about ten o’clock. I was standing on the west side of Desplaines Street, about thirty paces from Randolph, about twenty paces south of the wagon. I saw Schnaubelt about the time when it grew dark and cloudy. I had a conversation with him at that time, at the place where I stood. The speaking was still going on. It was before the bomb exploded. August Krueger was present. I mean Rudolph Schnaubelt, this man (indicating photograph of Schnaubelt).”

“What was the conversation?”

The State objected.

Mr. Zeisler—“We offer to show by this witness that Schnaubelt stated to Lehnert that he did not understand English; that he had expected a German speaker would be present; that no one was present who spoke German except Spies; that Spies had already made an English speech, and that he did not want to stay any longer, and asked Lehnert if he would go along; that Lehnert thereupon said he did not go in the same direction; and that then Schnaubelt went away with another party. We have been able to trace Schnaubelt only for a short distance on his way home. We offer this conversation with Lehnert for the purpose of explaining Mr. Schnaubelt’s movements after meeting Lehnert.”

The objection was sustained.

WILLIAM SNYDER, indicted for conspiracy in connection with the Haymarket riot, and in jail since the 8th of May, said:

“I am a Socialist, a member of the American group of the Internationale since it was organized. I am acquainted with all the defendants except Lingg. I saw Parsons and Fielden on Tuesday night, May 4 last, at the Arbeiter-Zeitung building on Fifth Avenue. I had gone there pursuant to a notice of a meeting of the American group in the paper. I knew nothing of this meeting of the group before I read the notice in the paper. The meeting was called to order about half-past eight. Before that we had waited for some time for Mr. and Mrs. Parsons. They finally came about half-past eight. I was elected chairman. I asked the purpose for which the meeting was called. The general topic of consideration was to get money from the treasury for the purpose of furthering the organization of the sewing girls of this city through Mrs. Parsons and Mrs. Holmes. The meeting lasted about half an hour; then nearly all of us went over to the Haymarket meeting. I don’t remember seeing Schwab at that meeting. We walked over.” Witness got on the wagon and when the police came, he said, he got down first in front of Fielden. “Fielden did not shoot; he would have killed me if he had shot; I was south of him.” They both started for the alley, and there witness lost sight of Fielden. He heard no reference to bloodhounds and saw no one shooting except the police.

On cross-examination Snyder said:

“I used to make addresses to the working people. Never missed an opportunity to show the injustice which they are laboring under. I have been chairman of the American group; addressed meetings of the group from time to time. I never talked to people on the lake front. I read the Alarm every time it came out.”

“How long have you been a Socialist?”

“Well, I was born one.”

THOMAS BROWN, arrested for conspiracy, belonged to the Internationale for about a year and a half, and after Parsons had spoken at the Haymarket he and Parsons went to Zepf’s saloon. When the bomb exploded, they were sitting there at a table. Fischer was there at the time. On cross-examination Brown said:

“I was born in Ireland; came to this country some thirty-four years ago. The first organization of Socialists I joined was in the city of Chicago, about 1881. I did not know Parsons at that time. I became acquainted with Parsons about two or two and a half years ago. When the bomb exploded, Parsons and I jumped up. I did not go out with Parsons from the rear door. I did not go out until some time after the explosion. I next saw Parsons on the corner of Kinzie and Desplaines Streets, when he was with Mrs. Parsons and Mrs. Holmes. Parsons asked me what I would do in his case. We separated on the corner. I went north, and I think Parsons went east.”

“What was the conversation you had with Parsons?”

“I told him I would leave for a while, under the circumstances. He said: ‘What do you think I had better do?’ I told him: ‘Suit yourself, you are your own boss. You must use your own judgment.’ I then loaned him five dollars. Parsons did not say to me that he could not get away because he had no money. He simply asked me for five dollars, and I lent it to him. I did not state to the State’s Attorney, at the Central Station, in the presence of Mr. Furthmann, James Bonfield, Lieut. Shea and others, that Parsons had said he had no money to get away with; that I advised him to go, and that I would lend him five dollars. I used to buy the Alarm every time it came out, and used to read it. I had stock in the paper.”

HENRY W. SPIES, a cigar manufacturer, brother of the defendant, went to the Haymarket with his brother. When his brother got off the wagon to hunt for Parsons, they went in a northwesterly direction from the wagon, but Schwab was not there.

“Schnaubelt and my brother went together, and I and Legner followed right behind them. After asking, ‘Is Parsons here?’ and descending from the wagon, August did not go in the direction of Crane’s Alley, nor into Crane’s Alley. He went as far as Union Street, and in fact got down on the side of the wagon, pretty near the middle of it. Just at that time the explosion took place. I asked him what it was. He said, ‘They have got a Gatling gun down there,’ and at the same time, as he jumped, somebody jumped behind him with a weapon, right by his back, and I grabbed it, and in warding off the pistol from my brother I was shot. I don’t know who did the shooting. I didn’t see August any more until I went home. I went to Zepf’s Hall, though, and inquired for him. August did not leave the wagon about the time the police came, or at any time, and go into the alley. Legner and myself helped him off the wagon just as the explosion came. The firing came from the street.”

On cross-examination the witness testified:

“On the 6th of May I was arrested at my house by Officers Whalen and Loewenstein. I told them when the bomb exploded I was at Zepf’s Hall, walked out and was shot in the door. I told them I was not at the Haymarket at all, from beginning to end. That was not true when I told it to them. I lied to them. I have told the truth now, when I was under oath. I was afterwards brought down to the Central Station, about the 9th or 10th of May. I was there interrogated by either Mr. Grinnell or Mr. Furthmann, in the presence of Lieuts. Shea and Kipley. I was asked whether I was a Socialist. I don’t believe I said I was not. I asked whether you could tell me what a Socialist was. I said I had been on business at Zepf’s saloon, which is a fact. I told you that I was down there for the purpose of collecting a bill. That was true when I said it. I also told you I was down there and did a large dealing in cigars. I also stated at that time and place that I was not at the Haymarket from the beginning, but was in Zepf’s saloon, and was shot when I came out of the door at Zepf’s. I also said that I did not see my brother that evening until he called at the house and asked me if I had a good physician. I now state that what I then said about that was not the truth. I was not under oath then, and I knew the treatment which my brothers had found.”

AUGUST KRUEGER said:

“I saw there the man represented on this picture (Schnaubelt). When I saw him I was standing with Mr. Lehnert on the west side of Desplaines Street, about thirty to forty feet north of Randolph. I saw that man about ten o’clock; he came from the northeast. I didn’t know at the time what his name was, although I knew him well. Mr. Furthmann since told me his name is Schnaubelt. Schnaubelt stayed there about five minutes. He wanted to go home, and wanted me to go along, and I went with him down on Randolph Street to Clinton. There I left him; he went further east on Randolph Street, and I turned north on Clinton Street. This is the last I saw of Schnaubelt. I walked down Milwaukee Avenue and went to Engel’s house. I reached it about fifteen minutes past ten—I don’t remember exactly. Mr. and Mrs. Engel were there. I stayed there and drank a pint of beer. Later Gottfried Waller came in and said he came from the Haymarket, and that 300 men were shot by the police, and we ought to go down there and do something. Engel said whoever threw that bomb did a foolish thing; it was nonsense, and he didn’t sympathize with such a butchery, and he told Waller he had better go home as quick as possible.”

On cross-examination Krueger said he was known as “Little Krueger.”

“I am an Anarchist. I was arrested for a day at the North Side station. I had a conversation there with Capt. Schaack and Mr. Furthmann. I was shown a picture of Schnaubelt at that time. I was asked whether I had ever seen that man. I don’t know whether I answered, ‘I might have seen him,’ or what I answered. I know I had seen him. There were several other officers present at the conversation; I don’t know their names. I told Mr. Furthmann there that I was not at the Haymarket; I told him I was at Engel’s house. I don’t remember what I stated in regard to the time when I got to Engel’s house. It may be that I told him that I got to Engel’s house at nine o’clock and staid there until eleven, but I don’t remember.”

ALBERT PRUESSER stated that he telephoned three times to the Arbeiter-Zeitung for a speaker for the meeting at Lake View. The committee from the Deering factory wanted Spies. Witness was told that Spies could not come, and he said it would make no difference if they sent some one else. A quarter of an hour later he telephoned again and received a reply that Schwab was on the way. He went to meet Schwab at the Clybourn Avenue car. He met him on the rear platform of the car. That was half past nine o’clock, or twenty minutes to ten. They went to Radtke’s saloon, 888 Clybourn Avenue, remained there ten minutes, and then Schwab went to the prairie and spoke. He spoke about twenty minutes. When he got through they went and had lunch and beer at Schilling’s saloon. Schwab then took a car for the city. It takes forty-five minutes to reach the corner of Clark and Washington Streets, and ten minutes to the Haymarket if there is no interruption. On cross-examination Pruesser stated that he had been a carrier for the Arbeiter-Zeitung for a time.

JOHANN GRUENEBERG testified that he was an intimate friend of Fischer’s. He went to the printing establishment of Wehrer & Klein at Fischer’s request and got some circulars with the line: “Workingmen, arm yourselves and come in full force.” He took them to the compositors’ room in the Arbeiter-Zeitung and then took some down to Spies. Fischer, Spies and witness had some conversation, and then he took an order from Fischer to Wehrer & Klein to leave out that line. On cross-examination Grueneberg stated:

“I came to this country from Germany four years ago. I have lived in Chicago two years. I am a carpenter.”

“Where did the armed section of the Northwest group drill?”

“I don’t know an armed section of the Northwest group. I don’t know of a single time that the Northwest group drilled. I know of a paper called the Anarchist. I distributed it three or four times. I saw Fischer on Monday, May 3, between five and half-past five, at the Arbeiter-Zeitung, in the compositors’ room. I did not see Fischer at any other place on Monday. I saw him on Sunday afternoon at my house, 570 West Superior Street. I did not see him Sunday morning at any place.”

“Were you at home all the morning yourself?”

The defense objected to this question.

The Court—“You have put this witness on the stand for the purpose of showing a thing was taken out, a particular circular. Whether he has told that thing as it occurred depends in some degree upon what his associations, feelings, inclinations, biases are in reference to the whole business.”

Mr. Black—“Whether he has told the truth in regard to that depends upon his bias and inclinations?”

The Court—“Whether it is to be believed—I don’t mean whether he has told the truth.”

“I don’t remember whether I was home on that Sunday morning,” continued the witness. “I was not on Emma Street that Sunday morning. I have known Spies a year and a half; saw him at the Arbeiter-Zeitung and at several Socialistic meetings; once at our group, the other times I don’t remember where. I have known Neebe for a short time by sight. I have known Schwab as long as Spies; saw him at our group. He did not belong to the group. He made a speech once every few months. I know Lingg since the 1st of May. I met him at the Carpenters’ Union, not any other place.”

MRS. LIZZIE MAY HOLMES, assistant editor of the Alarm for about a year, detailed what transpired at the meeting of the American group on Tuesday evening, May 4th, and stated that she, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Parsons and Mr. Brown, went to the Haymarket. Subsequently they went to Zepf’s Hall. She could not say just where Parsons was in the saloon when the explosion occurred. She had not heard of the word “Ruhe” at the meeting Tuesday evening.

On cross-examination she said:

“My name has been Holmes since November 26th last. Before that my name was Swank. All articles in the Alarm under which the initials L. M. S. appear are my articles. I wrote an article under date of April 23d, 1886, headed, ‘It is Coming.’ I meant it in the same way that any prophet means anything, judging from events of past history. I was a member of the American group of the Internationale. That night I went home with Mrs. Parsons and staid there over night. Mr. Parsons did not go home that night. I left him on the corner of Kinzie. I am an Anarchist as I understand Anarchy. I have known Spies about three years, Fielden about four years. The latter was a stockholder in the paper, and I believe complaints were directed to him. I was sometimes absent for a whole week from the Arbeiter-Zeitung building. I wrote my articles at home and at various places. I don’t think I have ever been at the Arbeiter-Zeitung building more than six or eight times. I can’t remember where the Bureau of Information for the Internationale was. I suppose it was in the Arbeiter-Zeitung.

“I never advocated arson, or advised persons to commit arson in my life. I wrote the article entitled ‘Notice to Tramps,’ in the April 24th number of the Alarm, which reads:

“In a beautiful town, not far from Chicago, lives a large class of cultivated, well-informed people. They have Shakespeare, Lowell, Longfellow and Whittier at their tongues’ ends, and are posted in history and grow enthusiastic over the wickedness of the safely abolished institutions of the past. They say eloquent things about old fugitive slave laws, etc., which made it criminal to feed and shelter a starving human being if he were black. Posted at the roadside, in the hotels and stores, is a ‘Notice to Tramps,’ an abominable document which compares well with the old notices to runaway negroes which used to deface similar buildings. It is against the law to feed a tramp. You are liable to a fine if you give a cup of coffee and a piece of bread to a fellow-man who needs it and asks you for it. This is a Christian community, under the flag of the free. Look out, you wretched slaves. If, after toiling through your best years, you are suddenly thrown out of a job along with thousands of others, do not start out to hunt for work, for you will strike plenty of such towns as this. You must not walk from town to town. You must not stay where you are in idleness—you must move on. You must not ride—you have no money, and those tracks and cars you helped to build are not for such as you. You must not ask for anything to eat, or a place to sleep. You must not lie down and die, for then you would shock people’s morals. What are you to do? Great heavens! Jump into the lake? Fly up into the air? Or stay—have you a match about you?”

“I wrote that article deliberately; it speaks for itself. I don’t think it needs any explanation from me.”

SAMUEL FIELDEN was then put on the witness-stand and testified in his own behalf as follows:

“On May 4th last I took a load of stone to Waldheim Cemetery. I had engaged to speak that night at 268 Twelfth Street, and intended to go there. When I got home in the evening I bought a copy of the Daily News and there saw the announcement of a meeting of the American group to be held at 107 Fifth Avenue, that night. I believe it said important business. I was the treasurer of the American group, and as such had all the money it was worth. We should have had our semi-annual election the Sunday previous; besides, I thought that some money would be wanted, as important business was announced, so I determined to go to that meeting instead of to the meeting at which I had engaged to speak. I arrived at 107 Fifth Avenue about ten minutes before eight. I was there when some telephoning was done with reference to the Deering meeting. The witnesses who have detailed that occurrence are substantially correct. After I had entered the room I asked what the meeting was called for, and a gentleman named Patterson, who was not a member of our organization, showed me a hand-bill, which did not call that meeting, but had reference to the organization of the sewing women. I paid, as treasurer, five dollars to those who had laid out the costs of printing those hand-bills, and who might need a little money for car-fare in going around to hire halls, and other incidental expenses. Schwab must have left there about ten or fifteen minutes past eight. During the progress of the meeting a request was received from the Haymarket meeting for speakers, in response to which Parsons and I went over. Mr. Parsons, I believe, brought his two children down-stairs and gave them a drink of water in the saloon; then we walked together through the tunnel, and from about the west end of the tunnel I walked with Mr. Snyder, with whom I had a conversation. Spies spoke about five minutes longer after we had arrived there; then he introduced Mr. Parsons. During Parsons’ speech I was on the wagon. After he concluded I was introduced by Mr. Spies to make a short speech. I did not wish to speak, but Mr. Spies urged me, and I did speak about twenty minutes. I referred to some adverse criticism of the Socialists by an evening paper, which had called the Socialists cowards and other uncomplimentary names, and I told the audience that that was not true; that the Socialists were true to the interests of the laboring classes and would continue to advocate the rights of labor. I then spoke briefly of the condition of labor. I referred to the classes of people who were continually posing as labor reformers for their own benefit, and who had never done anything to benefit the laboring classes, but had at all times approved the cause of labor, in order to get themselves into office. To substantiate this, I cited the case of Martin Foran, who, in a speech in Congress on the arbitration bill that was brought in by the labor committee, had stated that the working classes of this country could get nothing through legislation in Congress, and that only when the rich men of this country understood that it was dangerous to live in a community where there were dissatisfied people would the labor problem be solved. Somebody in the audience cried out, ‘That is not true,’ or ‘That is a lie.’ Then I went over it again, adding words like these: That here was a man who had been on the spot for years, had experience, and knew what could be done there, and this was his testimony. It was not the testimony of a Socialist. Then I went on to state that under such circumstances the only way in which the working people could get any satisfaction from the gradually decreasing opportunities for their living—the only thing they could do with the law would be to throttle it. I used that word in a figurative sense. I said they should throttle it, because it was an expensive article to them and could do them no good. I then stated that men were working all their lifetime, their love for their families influencing them to put forth all their efforts, that their children might have a better opportunity of starting in the world than they had had. And the facts, the statistics of Great Britain and the United States, would prove that every year it was becoming utterly impossible for the younger generation, under the present system, to have as good an opportunity as the former ones had had.

“Mr. Spies asked me, before I commenced, to mention that the Chicago Herald had advised the labor organizations of this city to boycott the red flag. I briefly touched on that, and told them not to boycott the red flag, because it was the symbol of universal freedom and universal liberty.

“I was just closing my remarks about that point, when some one said it was going to rain. There was a dark, heavy cloud which seemed to be rolling over a little to the northwest of me. I looked at it, and some one proposed to adjourn the meeting to Zepf’s Hall. Somebody else said: ‘No, there is a meeting there,’ and I said: ‘Never mind; I will not talk very long; I will close in a few minutes, and then we will all go home.’ Then I advised them to organize as laboring men for their own protection—not to trust to any one else, but to organize among themselves and depend only upon themselves to advance their condition. I do not think I spoke one minute longer when I saw the police. I stopped speaking, and Capt. Ward came up to me and raised his hand—I do not remember whether he had anything in his hand or not—and said: ‘I command this meeting, in the name of the people of the State of Illinois, to peaceably disperse.’ I was standing up, and I said: ‘Why, Captain, this is a peaceable meeting,’ in a very conciliatory tone of voice, and he very angrily and defiantly retorted that he commanded it to disperse, and called, as I understood, upon the police to disperse it. Just as he turned around in that angry mood, I said: ‘All right, we will go,’ and jumped from the wagon, and jumped to the sidewalk. This is my impression, after being in jail now for over three months, and I am telling, as near as I can remember, every incident of it. Then the explosion came. I think I went in a somewhat southeasterly direction from the time that I struck the street. It was only a couple of steps to the sidewalk. I had just, I think, got onto the sidewalk when the explosion came, and, being in a diagonal position on the street, I saw the flash. The people began to rush past me. I was not decided in my own mind what it was, but I heard some one say ‘dynamite,’ and then in my own mind I assented that that was the cause of the explosion, and I rushed and was crowded with the crowd. There were some of them falling down, others calling out in agony, and the police were pouring shots into them. We tried to get behind some protection, but there were so many trying to get there that little protection was afforded. I then made a dash for the northeast corner of Randolph and Desplaines Streets, turned the corner and ran until I got to about Jefferson Street. Seeing there was no pursuit, I dropped into a fast walk. I turned on Clinton, intending at that time to go home.

“Immediately after the explosion of the bomb—I had possibly gone three or four steps—I was struck with a ball. I didn’t feel much pain at the time, in the excitement, but as I dropped into a walk down on Randolph Street I felt the pain, put my finger in the hole of my pants and felt my knee was wet. Then I concluded I had been shot. Walking down Clinton Street and intending to go home, I began to think about those that had been with me. Remembering about Mr. Spies being on the wagon at the time the police came up, I thought surely that some one of these men must have been killed from all of that shooting. I concluded to take a Van Buren Street car and ride down past the Arbeiter-Zeitung building and see if any one was there. I caught the car on the corner of Canal, but found that it was a car that runs directly east to State Street. I left the car on Fifth Avenue and walked down Fifth Avenue to Monroe Street. Of course, I was near the place and could have walked there, but I thought I was so well known in Newspaper Row by the reporters that if I should walk I should be known. So I jumped on the car and stood in front of it. I intended to go up to the Arbeiter-Zeitung building if I saw a light there; but there wasn’t any. I alighted near the corner of Randolph Street. Intending to go up to Parsons’ house, I took an Indiana Street car. When we got to Clinton Street the driver said: ‘Why, there is firing going on up there yet,’ and I saw a couple of flashes up near where I thought the Haymarket was, and I said, ‘If there is, I am not going up there.’ I then walked over on Jefferson Street north to Lake Street, and I saw a terrible crowd of people around there, and thought there might be a good many detectives there. So I turned back again, caught a Canalport Avenue car and rode down to the corner of Canal and Twelfth Streets. There I got my knee dressed by a young doctor who was on the stand here, as it was becoming very painful at that time.

“I feel sure that Mr. Spies was at my side when Capt. Ward was talking. I did not see him after I had spoken to Capt. Ward; I did not see him leave the wagon. I jumped off at the south end of the wagon into the street. While I was speaking I did not pay any attention to the people in the wagon, but I think I noticed four or five there a little previous to the police coming up. Mr. Snyder assisted me in getting on the wagon. He got on before I did. When I got down from the wagon Snyder was on the ground. I think I saw him on the sidewalk there. Of course I don’t remember everything as distinctly now as I did the next day. I had no revolver with me on the night of May 4th. I never had a revolver in my life. I did not fire at any person at the Haymarket meeting. I never fired at any person in my life. I did not, after leaving the wagon, step back between the wheels of the wagon and fire behind the cover of the wagon; I did not stay there. My whole course was from the wagon south, without stopping, except, perhaps, for the smallest perceptible space of time, when I was startled by the explosion.

“I first heard of the word ‘Ruhe’ having been published in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and about any significance of that word, when I had been in the County Jail for some days. I never had seen or heard of the word before, and did not hear of it on May 4th at any time, and, as I understand it is a German word, I would not have known what it meant if I had seen it. I do not read German. There was no understanding or agreement to which I was a party, or of which I had knowledge, that violence should be used at the Haymarket meeting, or that arms or dynamite should be used there. I anticipated no trouble of that character. I did not use, upon the approach of the police, and did not hear from any person that night any such expression as: ‘There come the bloodhounds; you do your duty and I’ll do mine.’

“The first I heard of the Haymarket meeting was after I got to the American group meeting on the night of May 4th. I heard, for the first time, about a meeting held by certain persons on Monday night at 54 Lake Street, after I had been from ten to fourteen days in the County Jail, when I read a paper that the police had got track of some such a meeting. I wish to say, however, that I spoke to the wagon-makers on the upper floor of 54 Lake Street on that Monday night. I was never in the basement of that building, except to the water-closet under the sidewalk. I did not go down-stairs there at all on that Monday night, and did not hear of any meeting being held there until much later, when I read about it, as stated before.

“We drilled not over six times at 54 Lake Street, but nobody ever had arms there. I think it was proposed to call the organization the International Rifles, but I don’t think it was ever decided to call it so, as the organization was never perfected, never became an armed organization. We began to meet in August, and the last meetings must have been very near the end of September, 1885. There was no drilling during the winter and spring of 1885-’86. Once a few men belonging to the L. u. W. V. came in with their guns and shouldered arms, but they did not belong to the American group, and that is the only time that I ever saw any arms at any meeting of our organization.

“The shots that were pouring in thick and fast after the explosion of the bomb came from the street—I should judge from the police. I did not hear the explosion of anything before the explosion of the bomb. As I was rushing down the sidewalk, I heard no explosion of any arms among any of the citizens who had attended the meeting.

“I remember the testimony of the detective Johnson. I did not have the conversation which he testified to as having had with me in the presence of the older Mr. Boyd at Twelfth Street Turner Hall, nor at any other place, nor at any other time. I knew that he was a detective long before that, and I would not be fool enough to advocate anything of that kind, if I was a dynamiter, to him. The American group was open to everybody. It was not even necessary to have ten cents admission fee, but the fee was set at ten cents per month to cover the expense of paying for hall rent and advertising. On May 4th I returned home from my work about half past five. I bought the Evening News on the sidewalk just before I went into the house.

“On May 3d I took several loads of stone from Bodenschatz & Earnshaw’s stone dock, Harrison Street and the river, to different places in the city. I have worked for that firm three or four years. I owned my team and wagon, and they hired those and my services, and paid me by the day. I only worked three-quarters of a day on May 3d. Business was not brisk at that time. I have been a teamster for at least six years. I was arrested at my home at ten o’clock on the morning of May 5th. I was never before arrested in my life. I was taken to the Central Station by four or five detectives in citizens’ clothes, and have been confined ever since.

“I had no examination except that I was brought before the Coroner’s jury on the evening of May 5th. I did not state to Officer James Bonfield or anybody else, after my arrest at the station, or at any other time or place, that I escaped through Crane’s alley on the night of May 4th.”

On cross-examination Fielden said:

“I worked in a cotton-mill in England at eight years of age, and continued to work in the same mill until I came to the United States. I worked my way up until I became a weaver, and when I left the mill I was what is called a binder; that is, binding the warps on the beams. I joined the International Working People’s Association in July, 1884, by joining the American group. I suppose I was an Anarchist soon after, as soon as I began to study it. I suppose that I have been a revolutionist, in the sense of evolutionary revolution, for some years. I don’t know that I have ever been positively of the belief that the existing order of things should be overthrown by force. I have always been of the belief, and am yet, that the existing order of things will have to be overthrown, either peaceably or by force. When I had the books of the American group it had about 175 members—that was last November. I don’t know how many have been added since. There were probably fifteen or twenty ladies among the members. It was called the American group because the English language was used in it. It was not confined to born Americans.

“We tried to found an English-speaking group a year ago last winter, on West Indiana Street. I think we had only two meetings and then abandoned it. I have been making speeches for the last two or three years. They were labor speeches—not always Socialistic and not always Anarchistic; that is, sometimes I have touched on Socialism and Anarchy; sometimes they were delivered from an ordinary trades-union standpoint. I have made a great many speeches on the lake front, some on Market Square, some at West Twelfth Street Turner Hall, some at 106 Randolph Street, some at 54 West Lake. The meetings on the lake front were on Sunday afternoons.”

“Did you make a speech on the night of the opening of the new Board of Trade?”

“I did. I have two dollars’ worth of stock in the Alarm. I was part of the committee to see what should be done about the Alarm when it began to get in deep water, and my name was proposed to be put on the paper as the recipient of communications as to its management.

“There were possibly twelve or fifteen members of the American group present at the meeting at 107 Fifth Avenue on May 4th. There were Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, Mr. and Mrs. Timmons, Mrs. Holmes, Snyder, Brown and some others. I am not positive whether Walters and Ducy were there. I think we staid there until nearly nine o’clock. Balthasar Rau came over from the Haymarket and said Spies was there and a large meeting, and no one else to speak. Some four or five of us went over together. I know that Rau, Parsons, myself and Snyder went about together. Schwab left the Zeitung office before us. I had promised, on Sunday night at Greif’s Hall, a man who had been to my house before, to speak at a labor meeting at either 368 or 378 West Twelfth Street that Tuesday night. Of those that were on the speakers’ wagon, I only remember Parsons, Spies and Snyder. There were some others there who were strangers to me. A boy about sixteen years of age came up on the wagon and rather crowded me to one side, and I told him he might as well stand down. I spoke because Mr. Spies requested me to make a short speech. Mr. Parsons had spoken longer than I thought he would, and I thought it was late enough to close. I don’t now remember whether or not I used this language: ‘There are premonitions of danger. All know it. The press say the Anarchists will sneak away. We are not going to.’ I have no desire to deny that I did use that language. If I used it—and I don’t know whether I did—if I had any idea in my mind at any time which would be expressed in that language, I know for what reasons I would have that idea. I used substantially all that language which Mr. English, the reporter, who was on the stand here, testified as having been used by me in my speech at the Haymarket meeting. I did not say that John Brown, Jefferson, Washington, Patrick Henry and Hopkins said to the people: ‘The law is your enemy.’ If I used the language, ‘We are rebels against it,’—and I possibly did,—I referred to the present social system. I don’t remember that I said: ‘It had no mercy; so ought you.’ There is not much sense in it, and I will not father it. The report of my speech, as given by Mr. English, has been garbled, and it does not give the connection. I don’t accept that as my speech at all. I think I used the language, but you haven’t got the sense of it at all, in quoting it in that way.

“After I left the Haymarket meeting, my first intention was to go home. I cannot tell now why I changed my mind about that. Impressions sometimes come on a person’s mind which he cannot explain why they come there. I rode on the car in passing the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, instead of walking, and I avoided the crowd on Lake Street, in which I thought there would be lots of detectives, because I certainly didn’t wish to be arrested that night. Of course, I thought I would be arrested after the trouble; it was only natural to suppose I would. I did not think there was anything inflammatory or incendiary in my speech. I did not incite anybody to do any overt act to anybody or anything. I spoke generally, from a general standpoint. I meant to say they should resist the present social system, which degraded them and turned them out of employment, and gave them no opportunity to get a living. Somebody threw a bomb. I did not know and do not know now who it was, or anything about it. Still I know, from reading of criminal proceedings, that in cases of that kind they arrest everybody in order to find out who is responsible. I supposed that I, being one of the participants of the meeting, would be arrested—for some time, at least. Knowing my innocence, I made a statement before the Coroner’s jury, expecting that when they examined into the truth of my statement I should be released.”

On re-direct examination Fielden said:

“If I did make the remark about premonitions of danger in my Haymarket speech, I must have meant that there were so many men striking just then for the eight-hour movement that some trouble might possibly originate between the strikers and their employers, as had been the case in former strikes, and, knowing that all men are not very cool, and some men become aggravated—their condition may have a good deal to do with it—they sometimes commit acts which the officers of the law, in their capacity as such, are compelled to interfere with. I was speaking of the general labor question and the issue that was up for settlement during the eight-hour movement. I had no reference to the presence of dynamite at the meeting. I did not say that John Brown, Jefferson, etc., said that the law was their enemy. What I said in regard to them was, that we occupied, in relation to the present social system, which no longer provided security for the masses, just about the position that John Brown, Jefferson, Hopkins, Patrick Henry occupied in relation to the government and dictation of Great Britain over the Colonies; that they repeatedly appealed to Great Britain to peaceably settle the differences in regard to the port duties, the stamp act, etc., but when it could not be peaceably settled, they could not submit to it any longer, and were compelled to do something else; and it was always the element of tyranny which incited strife, and as it was in that case, so it would be in this. As to the use of the expressions about killing, stabbing, throttling the law, I used them just as a Republican orator, in denouncing the Democratic party, might say, ‘We will kill it,’ or ‘We will throttle it,’ or ‘defeat it,’ or as one might speak of a candidate for office—‘We will knife him.’ I used those adjectives, as any speaker would, in rushing along, throw in adjectives without thinking much of what their full import might be. My remarks that night were intended to call upon the people to resist the present social system—not by force, I had no such idea in my mind that night—so that they would be enabled to live; to call their attention to the fact that by the introduction of labor-saving machinery and the subdivision of labor less men were continually needed, more productions produced, and their chance to work decreased, and that by their organizing together they might become partakers in the benefits of civilization, more advantageous and quicker productions.”

Together with the testimony given above, of which, of course, the most important was that of the prisoner Samuel Fielden, were the stories of a number of other witnesses whose names have been here omitted. The reason for this is, that while the statements of these persons were of much importance in the trial of the case, to print them all would stretch this book of mine out to unconscionable length. It will suffice to say that several witnesses testified strongly in support of the Anarchist theory of the episodes which occurred about the famous wagon at the Haymarket. Half a dozen others declared that they would not believe Harry W. Gilmer on oath. This statement of the evidence offered is made necessary by the space at my disposal. I have tried throughout this work to be wholly fair to the defense, and the reader will of course understand that these witnesses corroborated the testimony of others which has been previously given in full in these pages.

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Chapter XXVII

The Close of the Defense—Working on the Jury—The Man who Threw the Bomb—Conflicting Testimony—Michael Schwab on the Stand—An Agitator’s Adventures—Spies in his Own Defense—The Fight at McCormick’s—The Desplaines Street Wagon—Bombs and Beer—The Wilkinson Interview—The Weapon of the Future—Spies the Reporter’s Friend—Bad Treatment by Ebersold—The Hocking Valley Letter—Albert R. Parsons in his Own Behalf—His Memories of the Haymarket—The Evidence in Rebuttal.

THROUGHOUT the trial the defendants maintained an air of careless indifference. Occasionally during the presentation of particularly striking and damaging evidence—notably that of Thompson and Gilmer—they were noticed to wince, but the flush was only momentary. It was apparent that the prisoners expected in some manner to extricate themselves from their perilous position, and the casual observer would have supposed them involved simply in an ordinary trial. Whatever may have been their real feelings, they did not betray them. After they had begun to place evidence on their own behalf before the jury, they even wore a certain air of cheerfulness; and whereas previously a sort of stolidity had marked their demeanor, their general bearing now was that of supreme confidence. They evidently felt confident of having made a favorable impression upon the jury. They possibly calculated upon their having successfully impeached the evidence of Gilmer and having proven to some extent their own disconnection with the Haymarket explosion. Fielden’s plausible explanations also, no doubt, added to their confidence.

Taking the evidence of the State as a complete exposition of the conspiracy, there seemed to be no consolation in that direction; but their hope rested in winning over the jury by raising a reasonable doubt through the preponderance of offsetting testimony on their own side, and by making the jury believe, by the manner of their conduct under the severe fire of the prosecution, that they sincerely felt themselves innocent of all “guilty knowledge.”

They played their part well, and their attitude is not at all surprising when their former bloodthirsty propensities are taken into consideration. In an ordinary murder or conspiracy trial Fielden’s statements might have had some influence in mitigation of extreme punishment, but, overshadowed as it was by overwhelming counter-evidence of complicity in a stupendous crime, the jury subsequently determined that it saw no way of disconnecting him from the other conspirators.

The defendants pretended they had a host of witnesses beyond those that they really required to prove that they had never dreamed there would be a bomb thrown at the Haymarket, but that they only needed to use a few of these witnesses to establish their innocence. Still, they put a very large number on the stand. The testimony of all these pretended to show what a harmless set of men the State had arrested and put on trial for their lives.

The trend of much of the evidence for the defense seemed directed toward proving the police responsible for the massacre, by having opened fire on a “peaceable gathering;” and, through a brother of the defendant Spies, it was attempted to prove that the enmity of the police toward Anarchists was so great that one of them tried to shoot the defendant in the back while at the Haymarket. This brother of Spies—Henry—had been wounded in the abdomen, and he endeavored, on the witness-stand, to show that he had received the injury while suddenly pressing down the revolver that was aimed at his brother. The explanation was too lame to be serviceable.

At this point several witnesses testified to Lingg’s presence at Zepf’s Hall early on the night of May 3d. Others strengthened the Anarchistic theory of an alleged police attack at the Haymarket. Still others impeached the witness Gilmer’s veracity. Inasmuch as I have previously given in full all the evidence which these people merely corroborated, I have not thought it necessary to give here their statements at length.

JOHN BERNETT, a candy-maker, said he saw the man who threw the bomb. The thrower was right in front of him. The bomb “went west and a little bit north.”

“The man who threw it was about my size, maybe a little bit bigger, and I think he had a mustache. I think he had no chin beard, and his clothes were dark.”

“Did you ever see that picture before?” (handing witness photograph of Schnaubelt).

“Yes, sir; Mr. Furthmann showed it to me about two weeks ago.”

“Do you recognize that as being the man who threw the bomb?”

“I guess not.”

“Did you tell Mr. Furthmann so at the time?”

“Yes, sir.”

On cross-examination Bernett said;

“I never could recognize anybody. I told Capt. Schaack and Mr. Grinnell that the man who threw the bomb was in front of me, and I could not tell how he did look. When the police came up first I stood right in the middle of the alley. When the captain of the police ordered them to leave that place, I heard somebody say: ‘Stand; don’t run,’ and there were about three or four men, about the middle of the street, west of the wagon, who halloaed out: ‘No; we won’t do it.’ That was said in English. I heard Fielden say something to the officer who spoke to him, but I could not hear it. The crowd began to rush, and rushed me, and I hurried out as fast as I could. I got shot and fell on the sidewalk. I told Mr. Furthmann that I thought the bomb was fired from about fifteen steps south of the alley—I count my steps about two feet and a half. I don’t think it came right from behind the boxes. From the place the bomb was thrown up to the other corner—the house goes up a little further on the other side—the distance is forty-five feet. The bomb was thrown forty-five feet south of the corner of the alley. I cannot remember how far the boxes were south of the alley that night—there was a lamp-post, and then the boxes came. I remember coming to the Central Station on the 7th of May and talking to Officer Bonfield in the presence of Mr. Grinnell. I don’t know that I said at that time that the bomb was thrown from behind the boxes, but I think I am right now. I don’t think I stated afterwards, some weeks ago, that it was thrown some twenty or twenty-five feet south of the alley. I can’t remember now how many feet I stated the distance was, but I think I have got it right now. On the 7th of May I was brought over here by Officer Bonfield and Officer Haas, so that I could see the defendants. I was asked if I had ever seen them before, and I said I had seen them all before on the lake front and the Haymarket. I told Capt. Schaack that I could not describe the man and would not know him if I saw him, and that the man’s back was toward me.”

MICHAEL SCHWAB was then called in his own behalf, and he made the following statement:

“Up to the 4th of May I lived at 51 Florimond Street. I was co-editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. On the evening of May 4th I left home twenty minutes to eight, went to the Arbeiter-Zeitung and reached there about eight o’clock. I left about ten minutes later. While I was there a telephone message was received asking Mr. Spies to speak at Deering. After that I went over to the Haymarket to see whether I could find Mr. Spies. I didn’t stop long over there. I just went through the crowd, as the men out at Deering had been waiting for an hour already. I went over on Washington Street, turned north down Desplaines Street and went across Randolph Street, and north of Randolph on Desplaines I met my brother-in-law, Rudolph Schnaubelt, and talked to him about the matter; then took a car going in an easterly direction and rode up to the Court-house. At the Court-house I took a Clybourn Avenue car and went to Deering’s factory. Near the car stables I was met by a man and asked whether I was Mr. Schwab. The man testified here on the witness-stand. I think his name is Preusser, as he told me that night. I should judge it takes about ten minutes from the Haymarket to the Court-house and about forty or forty-five minutes from there to Fullerton Avenue. I stepped from the car with that man; went up to the saloon, 888 Clybourn Avenue, to see the committee, but the committee was not there; so we went directly to the prairie, corner of Fullerton and Clybourn Avenues, and there I met some men who told me that they were the committee. I talked with them some minutes, then mounted the stand and made a speech, twenty or twenty-five minutes long, about the eight-hour movement, to the men who had struck that same day and demanded eight hours’ work and ten hours’ pay. I returned home about eleven o’clock at night. I didn’t pay any attention to the time. After the meeting was over I went with Preusser to a saloon, took a glass of beer and had some lunch, and then I took the next car going south. I left the car on Willow Street, which is not far north from North Avenue, and walked home, which is a distance of about twenty minutes’ walk.

“I did not at any time while I was at the Haymarket enter Crane’s alley or any alley with Mr. Spies. I had no conversation with him near the mouth of the alley. I did not walk at any time that night in company with Mr. Spies on the north side of Randolph Street from the corner of Desplaines down past Union Street and return to where the wagon stood. I did not, in company with Mr. Spies, meet Schnaubelt when Spies handed to Schnaubelt any package or anything. I did not see Spies and did not speak to him at all that night at the Haymarket. I did not say anything to Spies or anybody else in the mouth of Crane’s alley about pistols or police, or whether one would be enough. I had no such conversation with anybody at the Haymarket or anywhere. I did not say to Mr. Spies or anybody else at any time before the meeting began or at any other time that if the police came we were ready for them or we would give it to them, or any words to that effect.

“When I left the Haymarket the meeting had not begun; men were standing around on all four corners. I had seen Mr. Spies last that day in the afternoon. I did not see him again until the next day in the morning, when I came to the office.”

On cross-examination Schwab said:

“I was a member of the North Side group of the International Workingmen’s Association from the time it started, some years ago, until up to the 4th of May last. I walked over to the Haymarket from the Arbeiter-Zeitung that night through the Washington Street tunnel with Balthasar Rau. He left me on Desplaines and Randolph; there I lost him. Then I crossed Randolph Street, and about the middle of Randolph Street met Mr. Heineman. I inquired of some persons whom I knew by sight whether they had seen Spies. I staid there not more than five minutes, then took a car and went east. I went alone. I should judge it was about half-past eight when I took the car on Randolph Street and about twenty minutes of nine when I took the Clybourn Avenue car and went north. I was alone on that way. I don’t know what time it was when I got to the saloon at 888 Clybourn Avenue. From there it is about a block or a little more to the prairie where the meeting was held. When I got there I spoke first to some of the members of the committee to find out what they wanted me to speak about. That took about five minutes. After I had spoken to the meeting I went with Preusser to a saloon, corner of Clybourn and Ashland Avenues, not the same saloon I went into the first time. I did not see Balthasar Rau again that night.”

“Are you an Anarchist?”

“That depends upon what you mean by that. There are several divisions of the Anarchists.”

“Are you an Anarchist?”

“Well, I can’t answer that.”

AUGUST VINCENT THEODORE SPIES was next put on the stand to testify in his own behalf. He said:

“May 4th last I was one of the editors of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I occupied that position since 1880. Prior to that I was engaged in this country principally in the furniture business. I am a member of the Socialistic Publishing Society, which is organized under the laws of the State of Illinois, and by which the Arbeiter-Zeitung was published. I was an employé of that society in my position as editor, and as such was subject to their control as to the general policy of the paper.

“At a meeting of the Central Labor Union in the evening of Sunday, May 2, at 54 West Lake Street, which I attended in the capacity of a reporter, I was invited by one or two delegates to address a meeting of the Lumber-shovers’ Union on the afternoon of May 3, on the corner of Twenty-second or Twentieth and Blue Island Avenue. As there were no other speakers, I went out. When I came there was a crowd of 6,000 to 7,000 people assembled on the prairie. When I was invited, which was the first information I received of the meeting, nothing was said to me about any relationship of Mr. McCormick’s employés to that meeting. I did not know that the locality of the meeting was in the immediate neighborhood of McCormick’s. I arrived there, as near as I can judge, a little after three o’clock. Several men were speaking from a car in the Bohemian or Polish language; they were very poor speakers, and small crowds of those assembled detached themselves to the side and talked together. Balthasar Rau introduced me to the chairman of the meeting. I don’t remember his name; he testified here. I asked him if I was to speak there, and he said yes. I waited for about ten minutes while reports came in from the different owners of the lumber-yards as to the demand made by the union, which was eight hours’ work at twenty-two cents per hour. They then elected a committee to wait upon the bosses to find out what concessions they would make, if any. Thereupon I was introduced to address the meeting, and spoke from fifteen to twenty minutes. Having spoken two or three times almost every day for the preceding two or three weeks, I was almost prostrated, and spoke very calmly, and told the people, who in my judgment were not of a very high intellectual grade, to stand together and to enforce their demands at all hazards; otherwise the single bosses would one by one defeat them. While I was speaking I heard somebody in the rear, probably a hundred feet away from me, cry out something in a language which I didn’t understand—perhaps Bohemian or Polish. After the meeting I was told that this man had called upon them to follow him up to McCormick’s. I should judge about two hundred persons, standing a little ways apart from the main body, detached themselves and went away. I didn’t know where they were going until probably five minutes later I heard firing, and about that time I stopped speaking and inquired where the pistol shots came from, and was told that some men had gone up there to stone McCormick’s ‘scabs’ and that the police had fired upon them. I stopped there probably another five or six minutes, during which time I was elected a member of the committee to visit the bosses, when two patrol wagons came up in great haste on the Black Road, so-called, driving towards McCormick’s, followed immediately by about seventy-five policemen on foot, and then other patrol wagons came. I jumped from the car and went up to McCormick’s. They were shooting all the while. I thought it must be quite a battle. In front of McCormick’s factory there are some railroad tracks, on which a number of freight-cars were standing. The people were running away and hiding behind these freight-cars as much as they could, to keep out of the way of the pistol-firing. The fight was going on behind the cars. When I came up there on this prairie, right in front of McCormick’s, I saw a policeman run after and fire at people who were fleeing, running away.

My blood was boiling, and, seeing unarmed men, women and children, who were running away, fired upon, I think in that moment I could have done almost anything. At that moment a young Irishman, who probably knew me or had seen me at the meeting, came running from behind the cars and said: ‘What kind of a—— —— business is this? What h——l of a union is that? What people are these who will let those men be shot down here like dogs? I just come from there; we have carried away two men dead, and there are a number of others lying on the ground who will most likely die. At least twenty or twenty-five must have been shot who ran away or were carried away by friends.’ Of course I could not do anything there. I went back to where the meeting had been, which was about three blocks away. I told some of them what was going on at McCormick’s, but they were unconcerned and went home. I took a car and went down town. The same evening I wrote the report of the meeting which appeared in the Arbeiter-Zeitung of the next day. Immediately after I came to the office I wrote the so-called Revenge circular, except the heading, ‘Revenge.’ At the time I wrote it I believed the statement that six workingmen had been killed that afternoon at McCormick’s. I wrote at first that two had been killed, and after seeing the report in the five o’clock News I changed the two to six, based upon the information contained in the News. I believe 2,500 copies of that circular were printed, but not more than half of them distributed, for I saw quite a lot of them in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung on the morning I was arrested. At the time I wrote it I was still laboring under the excitement of the scene and the hour. I was very indignant.

“On May 4th I was performing my regular duties at the Arbeiter-Zeitung. A little before nine in the forenoon I was invited to address a meeting on the Haymarket that evening. That was the first I heard of it. I had no part in calling the meeting. I put the announcement of the meeting into the Arbeiter-Zeitung at the request of a man who invited me to speak. The Arbeiter-Zeitung is an afternoon daily paper, and appears at 2 P. M. About eleven o’clock a circular calling the Haymarket meeting was handed to me to be inserted in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, containing the line, ‘Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force.’ I said to the man who brought the circular that, if that was the meeting which I had been invited to address, I should certainly not speak there, on account of that line. He stated that the circulars had not been distributed, and I told him if that was the case, and if he would take out that line, it would be all right. Mr. Fischer was called down at that time, and he sent the man back to the printing-office to have the line taken out. I struck out the line myself before I handed it to the compositor to put it in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. The man who brought the circular to me and took it back with the line stricken out was on the stand here—Grueneberg I believe is his name.

“I left home that evening about half-past seven o’clock and walked down with my brother Henry, arriving at the Haymarket about twenty or twenty-five minutes after eight. I had understood from the invitation that I should address the meeting in German; and, knowing that the English speeches would come first, I did not go there in time to reach the opening of the meeting. When I got there, there was no meeting in progress, however; simply crowds were standing around the corners here and there, talking together. I called them together. After having looked around for a speakers’ stand—we generally had very primitive platforms—I saw this wagon on Desplaines Street; and being right near the corner, I thought it was a good place to choose and told the people that the meeting would take place there. There was no light upon the wagon. Early in the meeting I think the sky was bright. I cannot tell whether the lamp at the alley was burning or not; my impression is that it was. I could not say about any other light. I found the wagon just where we used it. It was not an ordinary truck wagon; it was a half truck and half express wagon, the truck with the box on. I don’t know that there were any stakes on it; it was a large, long express wagon. I believe I spoke with my brother Henry as to the advisability of choosing that place. Henry was with me during the entire evening. After the audience got together, somebody suggested to draw the wagon into the Haymarket. I replied that that might interfere with the street traffic, and that the cars would make a good deal of noise. Then I asked if Mr. Parsons was present. I thought he had been invited to address the meeting. I was not on the arrangement committee; but seeing the crowd and seeing that the meeting had been very poorly arranged, I took the initiative. When I asked for Parsons, one of the editors of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, one Schroeder, stepped up and said: ‘Parsons is speaking up on the corner of Halsted and Randolph Streets; I just saw him there.’ I told him to go and call him. He left, but staid quite a while, and I left the wagon myself, and, in the company of my brother Henry, one Legner and Schnaubelt, whom I had just met, went up the street to find Parsons. Schwab was not with me at that time or at any time that evening. Schnaubelt told me I had been wanted at Deering, but as I had not been at hand Schwab had gone out there. After I left the wagon I did not go to the mouth of Crane’s alley. I did not even know at the time that there was an alley there at all. I did not enter the alley with Schwab, had no conversation with him there in which I referred to pistols and police, and in which Schwab asked whether one would be enough, etc., nor anything of that kind. Neither did I have that conversation with anybody else. I left the wagon and moved in a southwesterly direction obliquely across the street to the corner of the Haymarket. From there I went, in company with those I mentioned, up on Randolph Street, beyond Union and pretty near Halsted Street, but, seeing only a few people, probably twenty or twenty-five, standing there scattered, and not seeing Parsons, we returned, walking on the north side of Randolph Street, as we had in going down. I went on the wagon and addressed the meeting. I had no conversation with Schwab, at or about the crossing of Union Street, in which we spoke about being ready for them and that they were afraid to come. I had no such conversation with any one. I don’t remember exactly of what we were speaking, but Schnaubelt and I, as we walked along, were conversing in German. I have known Schnaubelt for about two years. I think he has not been in the country more than two years. He cannot speak English at all. He wore a light gray suit that night. In returning to the wagon I went from the corner of the Haymarket right straight to the wagon, in a northeasterly direction. I did not, on my return, or at any time that evening, walk with Schwab across Desplaines Street to the center of the sidewalk, some fifteen feet south of Crane’s alley, and at that point meet Schnaubelt, and there take anything out of my pocket, or otherwise, and give it to Schnaubelt, or anybody else, at that location.

“I spoke about fifteen or twenty minutes. I began by stating that I heard a large number of patrol wagons had gone to Desplaines Street Station; that great preparations had been made for a possible outbreak; that the militia had been called under arms, and that I would state at the beginning that this meeting had not been called for the purpose of inciting a riot, but simply to discuss the situation of the eight-hour movement and the atrocities of the police on the preceding day. Then I referred to one of the morning papers of the city, in which Mr. McCormick said that I was responsible for the affair near his factory; that I had incited the people to commit violence, etc., and I stated that such misrepresentations were made in order to discredit the men who took an active part in the movement. I stated that such outbreaks as had occurred at McCormick’s, in East St. Louis, in Philadelphia, Cleveland and other places, were not the work of a band of conspirators, of a few Anarchists or Socialists, but the unconscious struggle of a class for emancipation; that such outbreaks might be expected at any minute and were not the arbitrary work of individuals. I then pointed to the fact that the people who committed violence had never been Socialists or Anarchists, but in most instances had been up to that time the most lawful citizens, good Christians, the exemplary so-called honest workmen, who were contrasted by the capitalists with the Anarchists. I stated that the meeting at McCormick’s was composed mostly of humble, church-going good Christians, and not by any means atheists, or materialists, or Anarchists. I then stated that for the past twenty years the wage-workers had asked their employers for a reduction of the hours of labor; that, according to the statement of the secretary of the National Bureau of Labor Statistics, about two millions of physically strong men were out of employment; that the productive capacity had, by the development of machines, so immensely increased that all that any rationally organized society required could be produced in a few hours, and that the mechanical working of men for ten hours a day was simply another method of murdering them. Though every student of social phenomena admitted the fact that society was, under the present condition of overwork, almost retrograding and the masses sinking into degradation, still their demands have been refused. I proceeded to state that the legislators had different interests at stake than those involved in this question, and did not care so much about the welfare of any class of society as for their own interests, and that at last the workingmen had conceived, consciously or unconsciously, the idea to take the matter in their own hands; that it was not a political question, but an economic question; that neither legislatures nor Congress could do anything in the premises, but the workingmen could only achieve a normal day’s work of eight hours or less by their own efforts.

“I believe when I had gone so far somebody told me that Mr. Parsons had arrived. Turning around, I saw Parsons; and as I was fatigued, worn out, I broke off and introduced Parsons. I spoke in English. After introducing Parsons I staid on the wagon. When I stopped and Parsons began, I believe there were pretty nearly 2,000 people there; it was an ordinarily packed crowd. The people who wanted to listen would crowd to the wagon, others would stand on the opposite sidewalk, but I did not see any very packed crowd, exactly. While I spoke, I was facing, I believe, in a southwesterly direction; the bulk of the audience stood around the wagon south and southwesterly toward the Haymarket. Parsons spoke forty-five minutes to an hour. He stopped about ten o’clock. I had been requested by several persons to make a German speech, but Parsons had spoken longer than I expected, it was too late, and I didn’t feel much like speaking; so I asked Mr. Fielden to say a few words in conclusion and then adjourn. I introduced Fielden to the audience and remained on the wagon until the command was given by Capt. Ward to disperse. I did not see the police until they formed in columns on the corner of Desplaines and Randolph Streets. Somebody behind me, I think, said: ‘The police are coming.’ I could not understand that. I did not think even when I saw them that they were marching toward the meeting. The meeting was almost as well as adjourned. There were not over two hundred on the spot. About five minutes previous to that a dark cloud came moving from the north, and it looked so threateningly that most of the people ran away, and some people suggested an adjournment to Zepf’s Hall; more than two-thirds of the attendants left at that time. The police halted three or four feet south of the wagon. Capt. Ward walked up to the wagon. Fielden was standing in front of me, in the rear of the wagon. I was standing in the middle of the wagon. Ward held something in his hand, a cane or a club, and said: ‘In the name of the people of the State of Illinois, I command you to disperse,’ and Fielden said: ‘Why, Captain, this is a peaceable meeting.’ And Ward repeated, I think, that command, and then turned around to his men, and while I didn’t understand what he said to them, I thought he said, ‘Charge upon the crowd,’ or something to that effect. I did not hear him say: ‘I call upon you and you to assist;’ he may have said that and I may have misunderstood him. My brother and one Legner and several others that I did not know stood at the side of the wagon; they reached out their hands and helped me off the wagon. I felt very indignant over the coming of the police, and intended to ask them what right they had to break up the meeting, but I jumped down from the wagon. When I reached the sidewalk I heard a terrible detonation; I thought the city authority had brought a cannon there to scare the people from the street. I did not think they would shoot upon the people, nor did I think in the least, at that time, of a bomb. Then I was pushed along; there was a throng of people rushing up, and I was just carried away with them. I went into Zepf’s Hall. The firing began immediately, simultaneously with the explosion. I did not see any firing from the crowd upon the police. I did not hear, as I stood upon the wagon, either by Fielden or anybody else, any such exclamation as ‘Here come the bloodhounds; men, do your duty and I will do mine.’ Fielden did not draw a revolver and fire from the wagon upon the police or in their direction. I did not, before the explosion of the bomb, leave my position upon the wagon, go into the alley, strike a match and light a bomb in the hands of Rudolph Schnaubelt. I did not see Rudolph Schnaubelt in the mouth of the alley then or at any time that evening with a bomb. I did not at that time or any other time that evening go into the mouth of the alley and join there Fischer and Schnaubelt and strike a match for any purpose. Schnaubelt is about six feet three inches tall, I should judge, of large frame and large body.

“I remember the witness Wilkinson, a reporter of the News. He was up at the office several times, but I only had one conversation with him as far as I remember. He made an interview out of it. He was introduced to me by Joe Gruenhut, who told me that the News wanted to have an article. Wilkinson inquired as to the report of some paper that the Anarchists had placed an infernal machine at the door of the house of Lambert Tree, and I told him that, in my opinion, the Pinkertons were doing such things to force people to engage them and to advertise themselves. He then asked whether I had ever seen or possessed any bombs? I said yes. I had had at the office for probably three years four bombshells. Two of them had been left at the office in my absence, by a man who wanted to find out if it was a good construction. The other two were left with me one day by some man who came, I think, from Cleveland or New York, and was going to New Zealand from here. I used to show those shells to newspaper reporters, and I showed one to Mr. Wilkinson and allowed him to take it along and show it to Mr. Stone. I never asked him for it since. That part of the conversation was at noon, while I was in a hurry. Wilkinson came in the evening again with Joe Gruenhut, and invited me to dine with him. I had just about half an hour to spend. At the table we talked about an infernal machine which had been placed a few days previous into an office of the Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and about another placed in front of Lambert Tree’s house, and I gave the explanation which I have already stated. Talking about the riot drill that had shortly before been held on the lake front, and about the sensational reports published by the papers in regard to the armed organizations of Socialists, I told him that it was an open secret that some three thousand Socialists in the city of Chicago were armed. I told him that the arming of these people, meaning not only Socialists but workingmen in general, began right after the strike of 1877, when the police attacked workingmen at their meetings, killed some and wounded others; that they were of the opinion that if they would enjoy the rights of the Constitution, they should prepare to defend them too, if necessary; that it was a known fact that these men had paraded the streets, as many as 1,500 strong at a time, with their rifles; that there was nothing new in that, and I could not see why they talked so much about it. And I said I thought that they were still arming and I wished that every workingman was well armed.

“Then we spoke generally on modern warfare. Wilkinson was of the opinion that the militia and the police could easily defeat any effort on the part of the populace by force, could easily quell a riot. I differed from him. I told him that the views which the bourgeoise took of their military and police was exactly the same as the nobility took, some centuries ago, as to their own armament, and that gunpowder had come to the relief of the oppressed masses and had done away with the aristocracy very quickly; that the iron armor of the nobility was penetrated by a leaden bullet just as easily as the blouse of the peasant; that dynamite, like gunpowder, had an equalizing, leveling tendency; that the two were children of the same parent; that dynamite would eventually break down the aristocracy of this age and make the principles of democracy a reality. I stated that it had been attempted by such men as General Sheridan and others to play havoc with an organized body of military or police by the use of dynamite, and it would be an easy thing to do it. He asked me if I anticipated any trouble, and I said I did. He asked me if the Anarchists and Socialists were going to make a revolution. Of course I made fun of that; told him that revolutions were not made by individuals or conspirators, but were simply the logic of events resting in the conditions of things. On the subject of street warfare I illustrated with toothpicks the diagram which had appeared in one of the numbers of the Alarm, introduced in evidence here. I said to him that I wasn’t much of a warrior, but had read a good deal on the subject, and I particularly referred to that article in the Alarm. I said that if, for instance, a military body would march up a street, they would have men on the house-tops on both sides of the street protecting and guarding the main body from possible onslaught, possibly by shooting, firing or throwing of bombs. Now, if the revolutionists or civilians, men not belonging to the privileged military bodies, would form an oblique line on each side of the street at a crossing, they could then very successfully combat the on-marching militia and police, by attacking them with fire-arms or dynamite. And I used Market Square for illustration. I said there was a system of canalization in large cities. Now, supposing they expected an attack, they could, by the use of a battery and dynamite, blow up whole regiments very easily. I don’t think that I said what Wilkinson testified to here in regard to the tunnel, but I may have given the talk a little color. I knew he wanted a sensational article for publication in the News, but there was no particular reference to Chicago, or any fighting on our part. The topic of the conversation was that a fight was inevitable, and that it might take place in the near future, and what might and could be done in such an event. It was a general discussion of the possibilities of street warfare under modern science.

“I wrote the word ‘Ruhe’ for insertion in the Arbeiter-Zeitung on May 4th. It happened just the same as with any other announcement that would come in. I received a batch of announcements from a number of labor organizations and societies a little after eleven o’clock, in my editorial room, and went over them. Among them was one which read: ‘Mr. Editor, please insert in the letter-box the word ‘Ruhe,’ in prominent letters.’ This was in German. There is an announcement column of meetings in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, but a single word or something like that would be lost sight of under the announcements. In such cases people generally ask to have that inserted under the head of ‘Letter-box.’ Upon reading that request, I just took a piece of paper and marked on it ‘Briefkasten’ (Letter-box), and the word ‘Ruhe.’ The manuscript which is in evidence is in my handwriting. At the time I wrote that word and sent it up to be put in the paper, I did not know of any import whatever attached to it. My attention was next called to it a little after three o’clock in the afternoon. Balthasar Rau, an advertising agent of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, came and asked me if the word ‘Ruhe’ was in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I had myself forgotten about it, and took a copy of the paper and found it there. He asked me if I knew what it meant, and I said I did not. He said there was a rumor that the armed sections had held a meeting the night before, and had resolved to put in that word as a signal for the armed sections to keep themselves in readiness in case the police should precipitate a riot, to come to the assistance of the attacked. I sent for Fischer, who had invited me to speak at the meeting that evening, and asked him if that word had any reference to that meeting. He said, ‘None whatever;’ that it was merely a signal for the boys—for those who were armed to keep their powder dry, in case they might be called upon to fight within the next days. I told Rau it was a very silly thing, or at least that there was not much rational sense in that, and asked him if he knew how it could be managed that this nonsense would be stopped; how it could be undone. Rau said he knew some persons who had something to say in the armed organizations, and I told him to go and tell them that the word was put in by mistake. Rau went pursuant to that suggestion, and returned to me at five o’clock.

“I was not a member of any armed section. I have not been for six years. I have had in my desk for two years two giant-powder cartridges, a roll of fuse and some detonating caps. Originally I bought them to experiment with them, as I had read a good deal about dynamite and wanted to get acquainted with it, but I never had occasion to go out for that purpose, as I was too much occupied. The reporters used to bother me a good deal, and when they would come to the office for something sensational I would show them these giant cartridges. They are the same that were referred to here by certain witnesses as having been shown on the evening of the Board of Trade demonstration. One of them will yet show a little hole in which I put that evening one of those caps, to explain to the reporter how terrible a thing it was. In fact, if that cartridge, as it is, were exploded in a free place, it would just give a detonation, and the concussion of the air might throw one on the floor, but it could do no harm to anybody. I know absolutely nothing about the package of dynamite which was exhibited here in court, and was claimed to have been found on a shelf in a closet in the Arbeiter-Zeitung building. I never saw it before it was produced here in court. I don’t know anything about a revolver claimed to have been found in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. That was not my revolver, but I always carried a revolver. I had a very good revolver. I was out late at night, and I always considered it a very good thing to be in a position to defend myself. Strangely, I did not have that pistol with me on the night of the Haymarket. It was too heavy for me, and, while I took it along first, I left it with ex-Alderman Stauber on my way. I guess it is there now.

“I was arrested on Wednesday morning after the Haymarket meeting, about half-past eight o’clock, at the Arbeiter-Zeitung editorial room. I had begun writing. I had come to the office a little after seven o’clock, as usual. A man who afterwards told me he was an officer, James Bonfield, asked Mr. Schwab and myself to come over to police headquarters; that Superintendent Ebersold wanted to have a talk with us on the affair of the previous night. I was very busy and asked him if it could not be delayed until after the issue of the paper. He said he would rather have me come along then, and I, unsuspectingly, went along to the station. The Superintendent received us by saying: ‘You dirty Dutch —— ——, you dirty hounds, you rascals, we will choke you; we will kill you.’ And then they jumped upon us, tore us from one end to the other, went through our pockets, took my money and everything I had. I never said anything. They finally concluded to put us in a cell, and then Mr. Ebersold said: ‘Well, boys, let’s be cool.’ I think Mr. James Bonfield interfered during the assault made upon us by Mr. Ebersold, and suggested to him that that was not the proper way nor the proper place. I have been continuously confined from then until now.”

On cross-examination Spies stated:

“There was in fact no editor-in-chief of the Arbeiter-Zeitung; there was a kind of autonomous editorial arrangement, but I was looked to as the editor-in-chief. I mean in the editorial department every one wrote what he pleased, and it was published without my looking at it. I never assumed any responsibility for the editorials. I never was made responsible by the company for the management of the paper. Schwab’s salary was the same as mine; our positions were coördinate. The management of the paper was left with the board of trustees; the editors had very little to say about it. Nobody looked over the editorials before they were inserted. Contributed articles were looked over sometimes by one of the reporters, sometimes by Schwab or Schroeder, or myself. Schroeder was editor for four months. I usually glanced at the paper to keep track of what it contained. Fischer was merely a compositor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung; he had nothing to do with the editorials or management of the paper. I had nothing to do with the Alarm, except for four or five weeks, when I edited it in the absence of Mr. Parsons.”

“Was money ever sent you for the Alarm?”

“There was. I also paid the bills for the printing of the Alarm.”

“Did you ever write contributions for the Alarm?”

“I have occasionally, whenever they were in need of manuscript. Of the bombs I had I received the two iron cast ones first. That was about three years ago. A man who gave his name as Schwape or Schwoep brought them to me. I only saw him once. I think he was a shoemaker, came from Cleveland, and left for New Zealand. He asked me if my name was Spies. I told him yes; and he asked me if I had seen any of the bombs that they were making, or something like that. I don’t know to whom he referred by ‘they.’ He spoke of people in Cleveland with whom he had associated; I didn’t ask him and didn’t know what class of people. I said I hadn’t seen any of them. I don’t remember anything more about the conversation I had with him. I would have twelve or fifteen conversations every day; this one was out of the order of my regular conversations; my recollection is, I got rid of him as soon as he would leave. He left those there; he said he would not take them along. I didn’t ask him if he had any more with him. They were bombs exploding by percussion, heavier on one side than on the other, so that when they were thrown the cap would always come down. I think they were at the Arbeiter-Zeitung on May 4. I never saw the man before or after that. The other two bombs which Wilkinson called ‘Czar bombs,’ a term which I never used to him, were left one day, in my absence, in the office. When I came from dinner I saw them on my desk and was told that a man had brought them there to inquire whether they were bombs of a good construction, and the man never called for them. That was about a year and a half or two years ago. One I gave to Wilkinson; the other one, I suppose, was at the office ever since. I don’t know what became of it and of the two iron bombs. I had not seen them for some time, but I thought they were at the office. I got the dynamite about two years ago from the Ætna Powder Company. I got two of those bars. My intention at first was to experiment with them.”

“What object did you have in experimenting with the dynamite?”

“I had read a great deal about dynamite and thought it would be a good thing to get acquainted with its use, just the same as I would take a revolver and go out and practice with it. I don’t want to say, however, that it was merely for curiosity. I can give no further explanation. I got the caps and the fuse, because I would need them to experiment with. I was never present, to the best of my recollection, when experiments were made with dynamite. Neither bombs nor dynamite were ever distributed through the Arbeiter-Zeitung office. I did not tell Mr. Wilkinson that they were. I never handled any dynamite outside of the two cartridges; never had anything to do with the distribution of dynamite. I know Herr Most; I guess I have known him for three years. This letter here is from Most. I do not know whether I answered that letter. I cannot remember.”

“In whose handwriting is this postal card?”

“It is Most’s handwriting. I suppose I received it—I see my address on it. I do not remember having read that postal or this letter at this date. I don’t remember the contents of that letter. I have undoubtedly received and read it, but don’t recollect anything about it now. I never carried on any correspondence with Most. I don’t remember whether I answered the postal card, and whether I said or wrote to Most anything in regard to the inquiries made of me in this letter. I know positively I did not give him the directions where to ship the material mentioned in the letter. There may have been a letter addressed in my care which I may have sent to Most, but I know absolutely nothing outside of that.

“As to the phrase, ‘The social revolution,’ which occurs in my writings, I mean by it the evolutionary process, or changes from one system to another, which take place in society; I meant a change from a wage system, from the present relations between labor and capital, to some other system. By the abolition of the wage system I mean the doing away with the spoliation of labor, making the worker the owner of his own product.

“I was invited to go to the Haymarket meeting at nine o’clock on Tuesday, by Mr. Fischer. It was about eleven o’clock when I objected to that last line in the circular. I objected to that principally because I thought it was ridiculous to put a phrase in which would prevent people from attending the meeting. Another reason was that there was some excitement at that time, and a call for arms like that might have caused trouble between the police and the attendants of that meeting. I did not anticipate anything of the kind, but I thought it was not a proper thing to put that line in. I wrote the ‘Revenge’ circular, everything except the word ‘Revenge.’ I wrote the words, ‘Workingmen, to arms!’ When I wrote it I thought it was proper; I don’t think so now. I wrote it to arouse the working people, who are stupid and ignorant, to a consciousness of the condition that they were in, not to submit to such brutal treatment as that by which they had been shot down at McCormick’s on the previous day. I wanted them not to attend meetings under such circumstances, unless they could resist. I did not want them to do anything in particular—I did not want to do anything. That I called them to arms is a phrase, probably an extravagance. I did intend that they should arm themselves. I have called upon the workingmen for years and years, and others have done the same thing before me, to arm themselves. They have a right, under the Constitution, to arm themselves, and it would be well for them if they were all armed. I called on them to arm themselves, not for the purpose of resisting the lawfully constituted authorities of the city and county, in case they should meet with opposition from them, but for the purpose of resisting the unlawful attacks of the police or the unconstitutional and unlawful demands of any organization, whether police, militia or any other. I have not urged them in my speeches and editorials to arm themselves in order to bring about a social revolution or in order to overthrow the lawful authority of the country.”

The letter referred to as that of Most, which was in German, and which was dated 1884, was then put in evidence and read, as follows:

“Dear Spies:—Are you sure that the letter from the Hocking Valley was not written by a detective? In a week I will go to Pittsburg, and I have an inclination to go also to the Hocking Valley. For the present I send you some printed matter. There Sch. ‘H.’ also existed but on paper. I told you this some months ago. On the other hand I am in a condition to furnish ‘medicine,’ and the ‘genuine’ article at that. Directions for use are perhaps not needed with these people. Moreover they were recently published in the ‘Fr.’ The appliances I can also send. Now, if you consider the address of Buchtell thoroughly reliable, I will ship twenty or twenty-five pounds. But how? Is there an express line to the place, or is there another way possible? Paulus, the Great, seems to delight in hopping around in the swamps of the N. Y. V. Z. like a blown-up (bloated) frog. His tirades excite general detestation. He has made himself immensely ridiculous. The main thing is only that the fellow cannot smuggle any more rotten elements into the newspaper company than are already in it. In this regard, the caution is important to be on the minute. The organization here is no better nor worse than formerly. Our group has about the strength of the North Side group in Chicago; and then, besides this, we have also the Soc. Rev. § 1, the Austrian League and the Bohemian League, so to say three more groups. Finally, it is easily seen that our influence with the trade organizations is steadily growing. We insert our meetings in the Fr., and cannot notice that they are worse attended than at the time when we got through weekly $1.50 to $2.00 into the mouth of the N. Y. V. Z. Don’t forget to put yourself into communication with Drury in reference to the English organ. He will surely work with you much and well. Such a paper is more necessary as to the truth. This, indeed, is getting more miserable and confused from issue to issue, and in general is whistling from the last hole. Enclosed is a fly-leaf which recently appeared at Emden, and is perhaps adapted for reprint. Greeting to Schwab, Rau and to you. Yours,

“JOHANN MOST.

“P. S.—To Buchtell I will, of course, write for the present only in general terms.

“A. SPIES, No. 107 Fifth Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.”

The postal card referred to was also put in evidence and read, as follows:

“L. S. (Dear Spies:) I had scarcely mailed my letter yesterday when the telegraph brought news from H. M. One does not know whether to rejoice over that or not. The advance is in itself elevating. Sad is the circumstance that it will remain local, and, therefore, might not have a result. At any rate, these people make a better impression than the foolish voters on this and the other side of the ocean. Greetings and a shake.

“Yours, J. M.”

ALBERT R. PARSONS made the following statement in his own behalf:

“I have resided in Chicago for thirteen years. I was born June 20, 1848. On Sunday, May 2, I was in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio. Came back from there to Chicago on Tuesday morning, May 4th, between seven and eight o’clock. I caused a notice calling for a meeting of the American group at 107 Fifth Avenue, on the evening of May 4th, to be inserted in the Daily News of that evening. In the evening I left my house in company with Mrs. Holmes, my wife and two children, about eight o’clock. We walked from home until we got to Randolph and Halsted Streets. There I met two reporters that I have seen frequently at workingmen’s meetings. One of them was a reporter whose name I don’t know; the other was Mr. Heineman of the Tribune. There Mrs. Holmes, my wife and children and myself took a car and rode directly to the meeting at 107 Fifth Avenue. We arrived there about half-past eight and remained about half an hour. After the business for which the meeting had been called was about through, some one, I understood it was a committee, came over from the Haymarket and said that there was a large body of people and no speakers there except Mr. Spies, and myself and Mr. Fielden were urged to come over to address the mass-meeting. After finishing up the work, we adjourned and walked over. Fielden and myself crossed the river through the tunnel. There were three or four others present, but I don’t remember their names. I think it was after nine o’clock when I reached the meeting on Desplaines Street near the Haymarket. Mr. Spies was speaking. I managed to squeeze through the crowd, was assisted upon the wagon at once by some gentlemen standing about, and within a minute or two Mr. Spies concluded, stated that I had arrived and would address the meeting, and asked their attention while I was talking. I suppose I spoke about three-quarters of an hour. At the close of my speech I got down from the wagon. I think I was assisted by Henry Spies, who was standing by the wagon. Then I went to the wagon which stood about fifteen or twenty feet north of the speakers’ wagon, on which my wife and Mrs. Holmes were seated, listening to us. I got into that wagon, asked them how they were enjoying themselves, etc., and while talking with them, about ten minutes later, a coolness in the atmosphere attracted my attention. I looked up and observed white clouds rolling over from the north, and as I didn’t want the ladies to get wet, I went on to the speakers’ wagon and said: ‘Mr. Fielden, permit me to interrupt you a moment.’ ‘Certainly,’ he said. And I said: ‘Gentlemen, it appears as though it would rain. It is getting late. We might as well adjourn anyway, but if you desire to continue the meeting longer, we can adjourn to Zepf’s Hall, on the corner near by.’ Some one in the crowd said: ‘No, we can’t; it is occupied by a meeting of the furniture workers.’ With that I looked and saw the lights through the windows of the hall, and said nothing further. Mr. Fielden remarked that it did not matter; he had only a few words more to say. I went over again to where the ladies were, helped them off the wagon and told them to go down to this corner place, and we would all get together and go home. They walked off, and some one detained me for a moment; then I followed them and met near the edge of the crowd a man whom I knew very familiarly—Mr. Brown. I asked him to have a drink with me, as the speaking had made me hoarse, and we moved off a little in the rear of the ladies, to the saloon. There had been no appearance of the police, no explosion or any disturbance up to that time. As I entered the saloon I noticed some four or five gentlemen standing at the bar. There were possibly as many as ten people sitting at tables on the other side next the wall, and about five or six men standing in the center of the floor talking to each other, among whom I noticed Mr. Malkoff, talking to a gentleman whom I did not know, but I supposed he was a reporter. He was upon the witness-stand in this trial. I believe it was Mr. Allen. The ladies took seats about ten feet from the door, in the saloon, at the end of the first table, with their backs to it, looking into the street. I said something to them, and I believe just then I introduced some one to Mrs. Parsons. Afterwards I went to the bar with Brown, and we had a glass of beer and a cigar. Then I turned around and noticed Mr. Fischer sitting at one of the tables and said a few words to him and sat down at the table for a few moments. Then I think I went around to where the ladies were, and I was standing near them looking out and wondering if the meeting would not close, anxious to go home. All at once I saw an illumination. It lit up the whole street, followed instantly by a deafening roar, and almost simultaneously volleys of shots followed, every flash of which, it seemed to me, I could see. The best comparison I can make in my mind is that it was as though a hundred men held in their hands repeating revolvers and fired them as rapidly as possible until they were all gone. That was the first volley. Then there were occasional shots, and one or two bullets whistled near the door and struck the sign. I was transfixed. Mrs. Parsons did not move. In a moment two or three men rushed breathlessly in at the door. That broke the apparent charm that was on us by the occurrence in the street, and with that I called upon my wife and Mrs. Holmes to come with me to the rear of the saloon. We remained there, possibly, twenty minutes or so.”

On cross-examination Parsons said:

“I was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Since I came to Chicago I worked as a type-setter for the first eight or nine years; then for a year and a half myself and wife had a suit business on Larrabee street; then for about a year and a half myself and wife made ladies’ wrappers and suits, and I went out soliciting orders. For the last two years, since October, 1884, I was editor of the Alarm. It was a weekly paper for about a year, and then a semi-monthly. I wrote down the memorandum of my utterances on the night of May 4th, which I used in giving my testimony as to my speech, from time to time, as they occurred to me, and in looking over Mr. English’s report. When I referred to the methods which the Chicago Times and the Chicago Tribune and Tom Scott advised against striking workingmen, I told them they should defend themselves against such things in any way they could, by arming, if necessary. I did not mention dynamite at that meeting. I possibly mentioned it at other meetings. I said nothing about bombs that night, neither as a defensive means, or something to use against them. I did not, when I said that the present social system must be changed in the interest of humanity, explain to them how the social change should be brought about, because I did not know myself. I think I told the audience that the existing order of things was founded upon and maintained by force, and that the actions of the monopolists and corporations would drive the people into the use of force before they could obtain redress. I might have stated that—I am not sure. I did not tell them that the ballot was useless for them because the majority was against them. That is not correct; the workingmen are vastly in the majority. I did not tell them that night that the only way they could obtain their rights was by overturning the existing order of things by force. I could not tell whether there were any strikers present that night. There were very few Socialists present. I am a Socialist. I am an Anarchist, as I understand it.”

W. A. S. GRAHAM, a reporter with no Anarchistic tendencies, had interviewed Harry Gilmer at the City Hall as to what he had seen at the Haymarket and who threw the bomb.

HARRY GILMER was then recalled by the defendants and stated that he had seen the gentleman (pointing to Graham) at the Central Station, and that he (Graham) asked him if he could identify the man who threw the bomb. Gilmer had answered that he could if he saw him. Witness did not say during the conversation that he saw the man throw the bomb, but that the man had his back to him and had whiskers. Witness did not say that the man was of medium size with dark clothes, and that he saw him light the fuse and throw the bomb.

Mr. Graham was recalled and stated that the man (Gilmer) just on the stand had told him that he saw the man light the fuse and throw the bomb, and that he could identify him if he saw him. Gilmer told him that the man was of medium height, and thought he had whiskers and wore a soft black hat, but had his back turned toward him. On cross-examination witness said:

“I had this conversation about four o’clock in the afternoon of May 5th. I talked with him about three or four minutes. He said nothing about there being more than one man at that location, a knot of men, or anything of that kind. He said that one man lighted the fuse and threw the bomb; he did not say anything about how it was lighted, whether with a match or a cigar, I did not ask him that. He said he was standing in Crane’s alley when it was done.

This closed the evidence for the defense, and by agreement several newspaper articles and an address of Victor Hugo to the “Rich and Poor” were introduced. The State then proceeded to put in rebutting testimony.

DANIEL SCULLY, a justice of the peace, was first examined. He stated that at the preliminary examination, held on the 25th of May, Officer Wessler had not stated in his testimony that Stenner was the man who fired the shot from the wagon; neither had Officer Foley so stated.

“Did he, at that time, give a description of the man who fired the shot over the wagon that night as a stout man with heavy whiskers, saying at the same time that if he ever saw him again he thought he could identify him?” “Yes, sir. Stenner was discharged upon that examination.”

INSPECTOR JOHN BONFIELD met Mr. Simonson, a witness in this case, at the police station on the night of the Haymarket riot. The man was introduced to him by Capt. Ward as a member of the firm of J. V. Farwell & Co.

“We three stood together outside of the railing. Mr. Simonson opened the conversation by remarking to me that he understood that the horses belonging to the Police Department were getting used up with the constant work they had, and that either Mr. Farwell or the firm—I understood him to say Mr. Farwell—that their horses were at our service in case we needed any horses. I told him that our teams had stood the work so far very well, but that if the troubles continued for any length of time we would likely need assistance and would call upon him if occasion demanded it, thanking him for his offer. He then spoke about the trouble at McCormick’s and on Centre Avenue and Eighteenth Street that afternoon, and said the police ought to have dispersed those crowds; not to have allowed them to collect. I did not, in the course of that conversation, tell him that I would like to get a crowd of 3,000 without any women and children, and in that case would make short work of them, or anything to that effect.”

The most important part of the work done by the State at this phase of the proceedings was the strong indorsement of Harry W. Gilmer’s veracity which was produced before the jury. To the credibility of this witness, and to their acquaintance with, and respect for him, the following persons testified: Judge Tuthill of the Superior Court, Chas. A. Dibble, John Steele, Michael Smith, Benjamin F. Knowles, Chester C. Cole, ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of Iowa, Edward R. Mason, Clerk of the U. S. Circuit Court at Des Moines, Samuel Merrill, President of the Citizens’ National Bank of Des Moines, Canute R. Matson, Sheriff of Cook County, Sylvanus Edinburn, W. P. Hardy, John L. Manning, an attorney, and many others. Many of these witnesses had known Gilmer in Iowa for many years; others were old acquaintances of his in Chicago; all of them swore that he was worthy of belief.

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