The Last Scene in Court—Reasons Against the Death Sentence—Spies’
Speech—A Heinous Conspiracy to Commit Murder—Death for the
Truth—The Anarchists’ Final Defense—Dying for Labor—The Conflict
of the Classes—Not Guilty, but Scapegoats—Michael Schwab’s
Appeal—The Curse of Labor-saving Machinery—Neebe Finds Out what
Law Is—“I am Sorry I am not to be Hung”—Adolph Fischer’s Last
Words—Louis Lingg in his own Behalf—“Convicted, not of Murder, but
of Anarchy”—An Attack on the Police—“I Despise your Order, your
Laws, your Force-propped Authority. Hang me for it!”—George Engel’s
Unconcern—The Development of Anarchy—“I Hate and Combat, not the
Individual Capitalist, but the System”—Samuel Fielden and the
Haymarket—An Illegal Arrest—The Defense of Albert R. Parsons—The
History of his Life—A Long and Thrilling Speech—The Sentence of
Death—“Remove the Prisoners.”
AFTER motion in arrest of judgment had been overruled by Judge Gary,
Spies was asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death
should not be passed upon him. The prisoner rose, with pallid cheeks
and distended eyes, and advanced toward the bench with a hesitating
tread. The moment he faced the court he recovered his equanimity and
proceeded with much deliberation to give his reasons why he should not
be sent to death on the gallows. He spoke in a firm, almost a menacing
tone of voice, and seemed bent on posing as a martyr to the cause of
the laboring classes. In his very opening sentence he desired to have
that understood. “In addressing this court,” he said, “I speak as the
representative of one class to the representative of another. I will
begin with the words uttered five hundred years ago, on a similar
occasion, by the Venetian Doge Falieri, who, addressing the court,
said, ‘My defense is your accusation. The cause of my alleged crime
is your history.’” He then referred to his conviction, holding that
there was no evidence to show that he had any knowledge of the man who
threw the bomb, or that he had had anything to do with its throwing.
There being no evidence to establish his legal responsibility, he
maintained, his “conviction and the execution of the sentence would be
nothing less than willful, malicious and deliberate murder, as foul a
murder as may be found in the annals of religious, political or any
sort of persecution.” He charged that the representative of the State
had “fabricated most of the testimony which was used as a pretense to
convict,” and that the defendants had been convicted “by a jury picked
out to convict.”
“I charge,” he continued, “the State’s Attorney and Bonfield with
the heinous conspiracy to commit murder.” Having thus proved the
truth of the old adage that “no rogue e’er felt the halter draw with
good opinion of the law,” Spies next paid his compliments to the
Citizens’ Association, the Bankers’ Association and the Board of Trade,
attributing to them the inspiration for the attack on the Haymarket
meeting, and he proceeded to give an account of his movements on the
night of that meeting in the company of Legner. He again repeated that,
“notwithstanding the purchased and perjured testimony of some,” the
prosecution had not established the defendants’ legal responsibility,
and insisted that those who had brought about their conviction were
the “real and only law-breakers.” When he approached this part of the
subject Spies’ anger scarcely knew any bounds. He rose in a towering
passion and characterized the proceedings of the trial as “rascalities
perpetrated in the name of the people.” He continued:
“The contemplated murder of eight men, whose only crime is that they
have dared to speak the truth, may open the eyes of these suffering
millions; may wake them up. Indeed, I have noticed that our conviction
has worked miracles in this direction already. The class that clamors
for our lives, the good, devout Christians, have attempted in every
way, through their newspapers and otherwise, to conceal the true
and only issue in this case. By simply designating the defendants
as ‘Anarchists,’ and picturing them as a newly-discovered species
of cannibals, and by inventing shocking and horrifying stories of
dark conspiracies said to be planned by them, these good Christians
zealously sought to keep the naked fact from the working people
and other righteous parties, namely: That on the evening of May 4
two hundred armed men, under the command of a notorious ruffian,
attacked a meeting of peaceable citizens! With what intention? With
the intention of murdering them, or as many of them as they could. I
refer to the testimony given by two of our witnesses. The wage-workers
of this city began to object to being fleeced too much—they began
to say some very true things, but they were highly disagreeable to
our patrician class; they put forth—well, some very modest demands.
They thought eight hours’ hard toil a day, for scarcely two hours’
pay, was enough. This lawless rabble had to be silenced! The only
way to silence them was to frighten them, and murder those whom they
looked up to as their ‘leaders.’ Yes, these foreign dogs had to be
taught a lesson, so that they might never again interfere with the
high-handed exploitation of their benevolent and Christian masters.
Bonfield, the man who would bring a blush of shame to the managers
of the Bartholomew night—Bonfield, the illustrious gentleman with a
visage that would have done excellent service to Doré in portraying
Dante’s fiends of hell—Bonfield was the man best fitted to consummate
the conspiracy of the Citizens’ Association of our patricians. If I
had thrown that bomb, or had caused it to be thrown, or had known of
it, I would not hesitate a moment to state so. It is true a number of
lives were lost—many were wounded. But hundreds of lives were thereby
saved! But for that bomb there would have been a hundred widows and
hundreds of orphans where now there are few. These facts have been
carefully suppressed, and we were accused and convicted of conspiracy
by the real conspirators and their agents. This, your honor, is one
reason why sentence should not be passed by a court of justice—if
that name has any significance at all.”
Spies then adverted to the fact of his having published articles on
the manufacture of dynamite and bombs, and wanted to know what other
newspapers in the city had not done the same thing. He forgot to show,
however, that other papers had never urged the people to use dynamite
to the destruction of the lives and property of the people.
Spies claimed that his only offense was in espousing the cause of “the
disinherited and disfranchised millions,” and asked what they had said
in their speeches and publications.
“We have interpreted to the people their condition and relations in
society. We have explained to them the different social phenomena
and the social laws and circumstances under which they occur. We
have, by way of scientific investigation, incontrovertibly proved and
brought to their knowledge that the system of wages is the root of
the present social iniquities—iniquities so monstrous that they cry
to heaven. We have further said that the wage system, as a specific
form of social development, would, by the necessity of logic, have
to make room for higher forms of civilization; that the wage system
must prepare the way and furnish the foundation for a social system of
coöperation—that is, _Socialism_. That whether this or that theory,
this or that scheme regarding future arrangements were accepted, was
not a matter of choice, but one of historical necessity, and that to
us the tendency of progress seemed to be _Anarchism_—that is, a free
society without kings or classes—a society of sovereigns in which
the liberty and economic equality of all would furnish an unshakable
equilibrium as a foundation and condition of natural order.”
After some further explanation of Socialism, he said:
“I may have told that individual who appeared here as a witness that
the workingmen should procure arms, as force would in all probability
be the _ultima ratio_, and that in Chicago there were so and so many
armed men, but I certainly did not say that we proposed to inaugurate
the social revolution. And let me say here: Revolutions are no more
made than earthquakes and cyclones. Revolutions are the effect of
certain causes and conditions. I have made social philosophy a
specific study for more than ten years, and I could not have given
vent to such nonsense! I do believe, however, that the revolution
is near at hand—in fact, that it is upon us. But is the physician
responsible for the death of the patient because he foretold that
death?”
If the opinions of the court were good, Spies held there was “no person
in this country who could not be lawfully hanged,” and maintained
that they ought to be exempted from responsibility because they had
sought to bring about reforms. Then he turned to the labor movement and
pronounced his anathema against the wealthy classes.
“If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor
movement—the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the
millions who toil and live in want and misery—the wage slaves—expect
salvation—if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread
upon a spark, but there, and there, and behind you and in front of
you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean
fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you
stand. You can’t understand it. You don’t believe in magical arts,
as your grandfathers did, who burned witches at the stake, but you
do believe in conspiracies; you believe that all these occurrences
of late are the work of conspirators! You resemble the child that
is looking for his picture behind the mirror. What you see and what
you try to grasp is nothing but the deceptive reflex of the stings of
your bad conscience. You want to ‘stamp out the conspirators’—the
agitators? Ah! stamp out every factory lord who has grown wealthy
upon the unpaid labor of his employés. Stamp out every landlord who
has amassed fortunes from the rent of overburdened workingmen and
farmers. Stamp out every machine that is revolutionizing industry and
agriculture, that intensifies the production, ruins the producer,
that increases the national wealth, while the creator of all these
things stands amidst them, tantalized with hunger! Stamp out the
railroads, the telegraph, the telephone, steam and yourselves—for
everything breathes the revolutionary spirit. You, gentlemen, are the
revolutionists. You rebel against the effects of social conditions
which have tossed you, by the fair hand of fortune, into a magnificent
paradise. Without inquiring, you imagine that no one else has a
right in that place. You insist that you are the chosen ones, the
sole proprietors. The forces that tossed you into the paradise, the
industrial forces, are still at work. They are growing more active
and intense from day to day. Their tendency is to elevate all mankind
to the same level, to have all humanity share in the paradise you now
monopolize. You, in your blindness, think you can stop the tidal wave
of civilization and human emancipation by placing a few policemen,
a few Gatling guns and some regiments of militia on the shore—you
think you can frighten the rising waves back into the unfathomable
depths whence they have arisen, by erecting a few gallows in the
perspective. You, who oppose the natural course of things, _you_ are
the real revolutionists. _You_ and _you_ alone are the conspirators
and destructionists!
“Said the court yesterday, in referring to the Board of Trade
demonstration: ‘These men started out with the express purpose of
sacking the Board of Trade building.’ While I can’t see what sense
there would have been in such an undertaking, and while I know that
the said demonstration was arranged simply as a means of propaganda
against the system that legalizes the respectable business carried on
there, I will assume that the three thousand workingmen who marched
in that procession really intended to sack the building. In this case
they would have differed from the respectable Board of Trade men only
in this—that they sought to recover property in an unlawful way,
while the others sack the entire country lawfully and unlawfully—this
being their highly respectable profession. This court of ‘justice
and equity’ proclaims the principle that when two persons do the
same thing, it is not the same thing. I thank the court for this
confession. It contains all that we have taught, and for which we are
to be hanged, in a nutshell. Theft is a respectable profession when
practiced by the privileged class. It is a felony when resorted to in
self-preservation by the other class.”
He then scored the capitalistic class, and referred to the strikes in
the Hocking Valley, East St. Louis, Milwaukee and Chicago. Reverting
again to the prosecution, he continued:
“‘These men,’ Grinnell said repeatedly, ‘have no principle; they
are common murderers, assassins, robbers,’ etc. I admit that our
aspirations and objects are incomprehensible to some, but surely for
this we are not to be blamed. The assertion, if I mistake not, was
based on the ground that we sought to destroy property. Whether this
perversion of facts was intentional, I know not. But in justification
of our doctrines I will say that the assertion is an infamous
falsehood. Articles have been read here from the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_
and _Alarm_ to show the dangerous character of the defendants. The
files of the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_ and _Alarm_ have been searched for
the past years. Those articles which generally commented upon some
atrocity committed by the authorities upon striking workingmen were
picked out and read to you. Other articles were not read to the court.
Other articles were not what was wanted. The State’s Attorney, upon
those articles (who well knows that he tells a falsehood when he says
it), asserts that ‘these men have no principle.’”
What a perversion of facts! Some of the articles did comment on some
alleged atrocity, but those taken at various dates and published
in a preceding chapter show that force by the use of dynamite
was continually being agitated. However, in his criticism of the
prosecution Spies seemed to overlook a great many points. He repeated
what he had said to the Congregational ministers at the Grand Pacific
Hotel, on the 9th of January, 1886, with reference to Socialism, and
then stated that he had seen Lingg only twice before he was arrested,
but had never spoken to him. With Engel he had not been on speaking
terms for at least a year, and Fischer had gone about making speeches
against him. The article in the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_ with reference to
the Board of Trade demonstration, he claimed, he had not seen until he
had read it in the paper. In conclusion he said:
“Now, if we cannot be directly implicated with this affair, connected
with the throwing of the bomb, where is the law that says that ‘these
men shall be picked out to suffer’? Show me that law if you have it!
If the position of the court is correct, then half of this city—half
of the population of this city—ought to be hanged, because they are
responsible the same as we are for that act on May 4th. And if not
half of the population of Chicago is hanged, then show me the law
that says, ‘Eight men shall be picked out and hanged, as scapegoats’?
You have no good law. Your decision, your verdict, our conviction is
nothing but an arbitrary will of this lawless court. It is true there
is no precedent in jurisprudence in this case! It is true that we have
called upon the people to arm themselves. It is true that we have told
them time and again that the great day of change was coming. It was
not our desire to have bloodshed. We are not beasts. We would not be
Socialists if we were beasts. It is because of our sensitiveness that
we have gone into this movement for the emancipation of the oppressed
and suffering. It is true that we have called upon the people to arm
and prepare for the stormy times before us. This seems to be the
ground upon which the verdict is to be sustained. ‘But when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object,
evinces a design to reduce the people under absolute despotism, it
is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and
provide new guards for their future safety.’ This is a quotation
from the ‘Declaration of Independence.’ Have we broken any laws by
showing to the people how the abuses that have occurred for the last
twenty years are invariably pursuing one object, viz.: to establish an
_oligarchy_ in this country as strong and powerful and monstrous as
never before has existed in any country? I can well understand why
that man Grinnell did not urge upon the grand jury to charge us with
treason. I can well understand it. You cannot try and convict a man
for treason who has upheld the Constitution against those who try to
trample it under their feet. It would not have been as easy a job to
do that, Mr. Grinnell, as to charge ‘these men’ with murder.
“Now these are my ideas. They constitute a part of myself. I cannot
divest myself of them, nor would I if I could. And if you think that
you can crush out these ideas that are gaining ground more and more
every day, if you think you can crush them out by sending us to the
gallows—if you would once more have people suffer the penalty of
death because they have dared to tell the truth—and I defy you to
show us where we have told a lie—I say, if death is the penalty for
proclaiming the truth, then I will proudly and defiantly pay the
costly price! Call your hangman! Truth crucified in Socrates, in
Christ, in Giordano Bruno, in Huss, Galileo, still lives—they and
others whose number is legion have preceded us on this path. We are
ready to follow.”
MICHAEL SCHWAB had very little to say, but what he did say was that
it was “idle and hypocritical to think about justice” having been
done to them. He criticised the acts of the prosecution in securing
his conviction “for writing newspaper articles and making speeches,”
and contended that they had engaged in no conspiracy, as “all they
did was done in open daylight.” He seemed rather vindictive toward
Mr. Furthmann for having had the articles in the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_
translated, and excused his own inflammatory utterances by holding that
after the mayoralty election, in the spring of 1885, Edwin Lee Brown,
president of the Citizens’ Association, had urged the people, in a
public speech, “to take possession of the Court-house by force, even
if they had to wade in blood.” Schwab touched on the labor problem,
drawing largely from his own experience while living among the poor in
Europe, and then spoke of the condition of laborers in Chicago, holding
that they lived in miserable, dilapidated hovels, owned by greedy
landlords. He continued:
“What these common laborers are to-day, the skilled laborer will be
to-morrow. Improved machinery, that ought to be a blessing for the
workingman, under the existing conditions turns for him to a curse.
Machinery multiplies the army of unskilled laborers, makes the laborer
more dependent upon the men who own the land and the machines. And
that is the reason that Socialism and Communism got a foothold in
this country. The outcry that Socialism, Communism and Anarchism are
the creed of foreigners, is a big mistake. There are more Socialists
of American birth in this country than foreigners, and that is much,
if we consider that nearly half of all industrial workingmen are not
native Americans. There are Socialistic papers in a great many States,
edited by Americans for Americans. The capitalistic newspapers conceal
that fact very carefully.”
In conclusion Schwab said:
“If Anarchy were the thing the State’s Attorney makes it out to be,
how could it be that such eminent scholars as Prince Krapotkin and the
greatest living geographer, Elisée Reclus, were avowed Anarchists,
even editors of Anarchistic newspapers? Anarchy is a dream, but only
in the present. It will be realized. Reason will grow in spite of all
obstacles. Who is the man that has the cheek to tell us that human
development has already reached its culminating point? I know that our
ideal will not be accomplished this or next year, but I know that it
will be accomplished as near as possible, some day, in the future. It
is entirely wrong to use the word Anarchy as synonymous with violence.
Violence is one thing and Anarchy another. In the present state of
society violence is used on all sides, and therefore we advocated
the use of violence against violence, but against violence only, as
a necessary means of defense. I never read Mr. Most’s book, simply
because I did not find time to read it. And if I had read it, what
of it? I am an agnostic, but I like to read the Bible nevertheless.
I have not the slightest idea who threw the bomb on the Haymarket,
and had no knowledge of any conspiracy to use violence on that or any
other night.”
OSCAR NEEBE followed. In his opening sentence he very correctly
diagnosed the situation when he said: “I have found out during the
last few days what law is. Before I didn’t know.” He, more than all
the other defendants, except Parsons, ought to have known the law. He
was a citizen, and as such he should have known the law of the land
long before he engaged in the inculcation of force. He spoke of his
having presided at Socialistic meetings, having headed the Board of
Trade procession, and how he happened to drive to the office of the
_Arbeiter-Zeitung_ after learning on May 5 that Spies and Schwab had
been arrested.
The rest of his statement consists simply of abuse of the prosecution,
laudation of his own acts in endeavoring to ameliorate the
condition of the workingmen and in continuing the publication of
the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_ after May 4, and a disavowal of his having
distributed the “Revenge” circular. In speaking of his having organized
the Beer-brewers’ Union and attended a meeting at the North Side Turner
Hall to announce the result of his conference with the bosses, he said:
“I entered the hall. I went on the platform and I presented the union
with a document signed by every beer-brewer of Chicago, guaranteeing
ten hours’ labor and $65 wages—$15 more wages per month—and no
Sunday work, to give the men a chance to go to church, as many of
them are good Christians. There are a good many Christians among
them. So, in that way, I was aiding Christianity—helping the men to
go to church. After the meeting I left the hall, and stepped into
the front saloon, and there were circulars lying there called the
‘Revenge’ circular. I picked up a couple of them from a table and
folded them together and put them in my pocket, not having a chance to
read them, because everybody wanted to treat me. They all thought it
was by my efforts that they got $15 a month more wages and ten hours
a day. Why, I didn’t have a chance to read the circulars. From there
I went to another saloon across the street, and the president of the
Beer-brewers’ Union was there; he asked me to walk with him, and on
the way home we went into Heine’s saloon. He was talking to Heine
about the McCormick affair, and I picked up a circular and read it,
and Heine asked me: ‘Can you give me one?’ I gave him one, and he
laid it back on his counter. That is my statement.”
In conclusion Neebe said:
“They found a revolver in my house, and a red flag there. I
organized trades-unions. I was for reduction of the hours of labor,
and the education of laboring men, and the reëstablishment of the
_Arbeiter-Zeitung_—the workingmen’s newspaper. There is no evidence
to show that I was connected with the bomb-throwing, or that I
was near it, or anything of that kind. So I am only sorry, your
honor—that is, if you can stop it or help it, I will ask you to do
it—that is to hang me, too; for I think it is more honorable to die
suddenly than to be killed by inches. I have a family and children;
and if they know their father is dead, they will bury him. They can go
to the grave, and kneel down by the side of it; but they can’t go to
the penitentiary and see their father, who was convicted for a crime
that he hasn’t had anything to do with. That is all I have got to say.
Your honor, I am sorry I am not to be hung with the rest of the men.”
ADOLPH FISCHER rose with some signs of nervousness and proceeded slowly
and deliberately with his protest. “I was tried here in this room,” he
said, “for murder, and I was convicted of Anarchy.” He objected most
vigorously to the charge that he was a murderer, and insisted that
he had had nothing to do with the throwing of the bomb. He confessed
to having made arrangements for the Haymarket meeting, to having
been present, but urged that it had not been called for the purpose
of committing violence or crime. He said he had been present at the
Monday evening meeting,] of which Waller was chairman, but aside from
volunteering to have hand-bills printed for the Haymarket meeting he
had not done anything. He had invited Spies to speak at the Haymarket,
and in the original copy he had had the line put in, “Workingmen,
appear armed!” His reason for this was, he said, that he “did not want
the workingmen to be shot down in that meeting as on other occasions.”
He then entered into some details as to his movements on the night of
the Haymarket gathering and again launched into a protest against the
jury’s verdict. He said that the verdict against him was because he was
an Anarchist, and “an Anarchist,” he explained with a defiant toss of
his head, “is always ready to die for his principles.” He concluded as
follows:
“The more the believers in just causes are persecuted, the more
quickly will their ideas be realized. For instance, in rendering
such an unjust and barbarous verdict, the twelve ‘honorable men’ in
the jury-box have done more for the furtherance of Anarchism than
the convicted have accomplished in a generation. This verdict is
a death-blow to free speech, free press and free thought in this
country, and the people will be conscious of it, too. This is all I
care to say.”
[Illustration:
LINGG’S SUICIDE BOMBS.—FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
Made of gas-pipe, six inches in length, and with a notched bolt, as
shown, inserted in the bottom of each. These were found in Lingg’s
cell, and are similar to the bomb with which he took his life. The fuse
is so short that explosion ensues in one second after lighting, making
them fitted for self-destruction only.]
LOUIS LINGG was in no gentle frame of mind when he advanced to enter
his objection at the bar of the court. After a thrust at the court,
he said that he had been accused of murder and been convicted; and
“what proof,” he defiantly asked, “have you brought that I am guilty?”
He acknowledged that he had helped Seliger to make bombs; “but,” he
stoutly maintained, “what you have not proven—even with the assistance
of your bought ‘squealer,’ Seliger, who would appear to have acted
such a prominent part in the affair—is that any of those bombs were
taken to the Haymarket.” He referred to the testimony of the experts as
simply showing that the Haymarket bomb bore “a certain resemblance to
those bombs of his,” and that was the kind of evidence, he held, upon
which he had been convicted. He had been convicted of murder, but it
was Anarchy on which the verdict was based. “You have charged me with
despising ‘law and order,’” he said. “What does your ‘law and order’
amount to? Its representatives are the police, and they have thieves in
their ranks.” He then opened fire on me because the detectives I had
sent out had broken into his room, as he claimed, to effect his arrest,
and insisted that he had not been at the Monday night meeting, but at
Zepf’s Hall, at that time, which I had stated to be false.
Lingg next turned his attention to Mr. Grinnell, and accused him
of having “leagued himself with a parcel of base, hireling knaves,
to bring me to the gallows.” Then the Judge came in for a scoring.
“The Judge himself,” he held, “was forced to admit that the State’s
Attorney had not been able to connect me with the bomb-throwing.
The latter knows how to get around it, however. He charges me with
being a ‘conspirator.’ How does he prove it? Simply by declaring the
International Workingmen’s Association to be a ‘conspiracy.’ I was a
member of that body, so he has the charge securely fastened on me.
Excellent!” He concluded as follows:
“I tell you frankly and openly, I am for force. I have already told
Captain Schaack, ‘If they use cannon against us, we shall use dynamite
against them.’ I repeat that I am the enemy of the ‘order’ of to-day,
and I repeat that, with all my powers, so long as breath remains in
me, I shall combat it. I declare again, frankly and openly, that I am
in favor of using force. I have told Captain Schaack, and I stand by
it, ‘If you cannonade us, we shall dynamite you.’ You laugh! Perhaps
you think, ‘You’ll throw no more bombs,’ but let me assure you that
I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and
thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words; and when
you shall have hanged us, then, mark my words, they will do the
bomb-throwing! In this hope do I say to you: ‘I despise you. I despise
your order, your laws, your force-propped authority.’ Hang me for it!”
GEORGE ENGEL appeared the least concerned of all when it came his turn
to respond to the court’s question as to any reasons he might have
against the infliction of the death penalty. He opened by setting
forth his arrival in America in 1872 and gave some reasons which had
prompted him to espouse Anarchy. It was “the poverty, the misery of the
working classes.” People here in a free land, he said, were “doomed
to die of starvation.” He had read the works of Lassalle, Marx and
George, and after studying the labor question carefully he had come, he
said, to the conclusion that “a workingman could not decently exist in
this rich country.” He had sought to remedy the inequalities through
the ballot-box, but after a time, he said, it had become clear to him
“that the working classes could never bring about a form of society
guaranteeing work, bread and a happy life by means of the ballot.” He
had labored for a time in the interest of the Social-Democratic party,
but, finding political corruption in its ranks, he had left it.
“I left this party and joined the International Working People’s
Association, that was just being organized. The members of that body
have the firm conviction that the workingman can free himself from
the tyranny of capitalism only through force—just as all advances
of which history speaks have been brought about through force alone.
We see from the history of this country that the first colonists won
their liberty only through force; that through force slavery was
abolished, and just as the man who agitated against slavery in this
country had to ascend the gallows, so also must we. He who speaks
for the workingmen to-day must hang. And why? Because this republic
is not governed by people who have obtained their office honestly.
Who are the leaders at Washington that are to guard the interests of
this nation? Have they been elected by the people, or by the aid of
their money? They have no right to make laws for us, because they were
not elected by the people. These are the reasons why I have lost all
respect for American laws.”
Engel then alluded to the displacement of labor by machinery and held
that the amelioration of the workingmen’s condition could only be
effected through Socialism. As to his conviction, he declared that he
was not at all surprised. He had learned long ago that the workingman
had no more rights here than anywhere else in the world. His crime,
he insisted, consisted simply in having labored to “bring about a
system of society by which it is impossible for one to hoard millions,
through the improvements in machinery, while the great masses sink to
degradation and misery.” He believed that inventions should be free
to all and touched on the aims of Anarchy. In his opinion “Anarchy
and Socialism were as much alike as one egg is to another.” Whatever
difference existed was in tactics.
“It is true, I am acquainted with several of my fellow-defendants;
with most of them, however, but slightly, through seeing them at
meetings, and hearing them speak. Nor do I deny that I, too, have
spoken at meetings, saying that, if every workingman had a bomb in his
pocket, capitalistic rule would soon come to an end.
“That is my opinion, and my wish; it became my conviction when I
mentioned the wickedness of the capitalistic conditions of the day.
“Can any one feel any respect for a government that accords rights
only to the privileged classes, and none for the workers? We have
seen but recently how the coal barons combined to form a conspiracy
to raise the price of coal, while at the same time reducing the
already low wages of their men. Are they accused of conspiracy on that
account? But when workingmen dare ask an increase in their wages, the
militia and the police are sent out to shoot them down.
“For such a government as this I can feel no respect, and will combat
them, despite their power, despite their police, despite their spies.
“I hate and combat, not the individual capitalist, but the system that
gives him those privileges. My greatest wish is that workingmen may
recognize who are their friends and who are their enemies.
“As to my conviction, brought about, as it was, through capitalistic
influence, I have not one word to say.”
SAMUEL FIELDEN entered into a long disquisition on the troubles of the
working classes all over the world, and covered much of the ground
traversed by him when on the witness-stand. He spoke of his having
been in England a Sunday School superintendent, a local preacher of
the Methodist Church, and an exhorter, and then chronicled his change
of convictions after his arrival in the United States in 1868. He
branched out into an exposition of Socialism and cited instances of the
oppression practiced on working people by capitalists. He then reviewed
some of the points in the testimony against him and sought to show
wherein his speeches at various meetings had been incorrectly reported
in the newspapers. He had neither said at the Haymarket meeting, “Here
come the bloodhounds,” nor had he fired a revolver. He claimed that
the meeting had been a peaceable one, and held that there had been no
indication of trouble, and that his language had not been incendiary.
He said:
“I am charged with having said, ‘Stab the law.’ No one claims but that
it was in connection with my conception of the meaning of Foran’s
speech, and the word ‘stab’ is not necessarily a threat of violence
upon any person. Here at your primary elections you frequently hear
the adherents of different candidates state before the primaries are
called that they will ‘knife’ so and so. Do they mean that they are
going to kill him, stab him, take his life away from him? They are
forcible expressions—very emphatic expressions. They are adjectives
which are used in different ways to carry conviction, and perhaps make
the language more startling to the audience, in order that they may
pay attention.”
In speaking of his arrest he said:
“I didn’t attempt to run away. I had been out walking around the
street that morning, and there was plenty of opportunity for me to
have been hundreds of miles away. When the officer came there I opened
the door to him. He said he wanted me. I knew him by sight and I knew
what was his occupation. I said: ‘All right; I will go with you.’ I
have said here that I thought, when the representatives of the State
had inquired by means of their policemen as to my connection with it,
that I should have been released. And I say now, in view of all the
authorities that have been read on the law and regarding accessories,
that there is nothing in the evidence that has been introduced to
connect me with that affair. One of the Chicago papers, at the
conclusion of the State’s Attorney’s case, said that they might have
proved more about these men, about where they were and what they were
doing on the 2d and 3d of May. When I was told that Captain Schaack
had got confessions out of certain persons connected with this affair,
I said: ‘Let them confess all they like. As long as they will tell
only the truth, I care nothing for their confessions.’”
Fielden next dwelt upon his treatment at the Central Station, and
criticised the searching of houses without warrant. With reference to
the trial he said:
“We claim that the foulest criminal that could have been picked up in
the slums of any city of Christendom, or outside of it, would never
have been convicted on such testimony as has been brought in here,
if he had not been a dangerous man in the opinion of the privileged
classes. We claim that we are convicted, not because we have committed
murder. We are convicted because we were very energetic in advocacy
of the rights of labor. I call your attention to a very significant
fact—that on this day, at this time when the sentence of death is
going to be passed on us, the Stock-yards employers have notified
their employés that they will be required to work ten hours next
Monday or they will shut down. I think it is a logical conclusion to
draw that these men think they have got a dangerous element out of
the way now, and they can return again to the ten-hour system. I know
that I had considerable to do with the eight-hour question, although I
only spoke once in that neighborhood, every man there being a stranger
to me—but I went down there in March previous and made an eight hour
speech and formed the nucleus of an eight-hour organization there, and
the Stock-yards succeeded in starting the eight-hour system, though
they have not been able to keep it up in its entirety. We claim that
we have done much.”
He predicted that it would be a grand day when everybody adopted
Socialism, and then touched on his own case, denying that he had
entered into a conspiracy. Fischer, Lingg and Engel, he said, were
men with whom he had not associated for a year, and therefore, he
maintained, he could not have been conspiring with them. He had never,
he said, seen a dynamite bomb till he saw one in the court-room, and
had never known that dynamite was kept at the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_
office. In concluding his speech Fielden said:
Your honor, I have worked at hard labor since I was eight years of
age. I went into a cotton factory when I was eight years old, and I
have worked continually since, and there has never been a time in my
history that I could have been bought or paid into a single thing by
any man or for any purpose which I did not believe to be true. To
contradict the lie that was published in connection with the bill by
the grand jury charging us with murder, I wish to say that I have
never received one cent for agitating. When I have gone out of the
city I have had my expenses paid. But often when I have gone into
communities, when I would have to depend upon those communities for
paying my way, I have often come back to this city with money out of
pocket, which I had earned by hard labor, and I had to pay for the
privilege of my agitation out of the little money I might have in
my possession. To-day as the beautiful autumn sun kisses with balmy
breeze the cheek of every free man, I stand here never to bathe
my head in its rays again. I have loved my fellow-men as I have
loved myself. I have hated trickery, dishonesty and injustice. The
nineteenth century commits the crime of killing its best friend. It
will live to repent of it. But, as I have said before, if it will do
any good, I freely give myself up. I trust the time will come when
there will be a better understanding, more intelligence, and above
the mountains of iniquity, wrong and corruption, I hope the sun of
righteousness and truth and justice will come to bathe in its balmy
light an emancipated world.”
ALBERT R. PARSONS consumed a great deal of time in the delivery of
his speech. He began by declaring that the trial had been conducted
with “passion, heat and anger,” and pronounced the verdict as one of
“passion, born in passion, nurtured in passion, and the sum totality of
the organized passion of the city of Chicago.” For that reason he asked
for a suspension of sentence and a new trial. He said:
“Now, I stand here as one of the people, a common man, a workingman,
one of the masses, and I ask you to give ear to what I have to say.
You stand as a bulwark; you are as a brake between them and us. You
are here as the representative of justice, holding the poised scales
in your hands. You are expected to look neither to the right nor to
the left, but to that by which justice, and justice alone, shall be
subserved. The conviction of a man, your honor, does not necessarily
prove that he is guilty. Your law-books are filled with instances
where men have been carried to the scaffold and after their death
it has been proven that their execution was a judicial murder. Now,
what end can be subserved in hurrying this matter through in the
manner in which it has been done? Where are the ends of justice
subserved, and where is truth found in hurrying seven human beings at
the rate of express speed upon a fast train to the scaffold and an
ignominious death? Why, if your honor please, the very method of our
extermination, the deep damnation of its taking-off, appeals to your
honor’s sense of justice, of rectitude, and of honor. A judge may also
be an unjust man. Such things have been known.”
Parsons acknowledged being an Anarchist and proceeded to show the ends
Anarchy sought. Then he asked:
“Now, what is this labor question which these gentlemen treat with
such profound contempt, which these distinguished ‘honorable’
gentlemen would throttle and put to ignominious death, and hurry us
like rats to our holes? What is it? You will pardon me if I exhibit
some feeling? I have sat here for two months, and these men have
poured their vituperations out upon my head, and I have not been
permitted to utter a single word in my own defense. For two months
they have poured their poison upon me and my colleagues. For two
months they have sat here and spat like adders the vile poison
of their tongues, and if men could have been placed in a mental
inquisition and tortured to death, these men would have succeeded here
now—vilified, misrepresented, held in loathsome contempt, without a
chance to speak or contradict a word. Therefore, if I show emotion,
it is because of this, and if my comrades and colleagues with me
here have spoken in such strains as these, it is because of this.
Pardon us. Look at it from the right standpoint. What is this labor
question? It is not a question of emotion; the labor question is not
a question of sentiment; it is not a religious matter; it is not a
political problem; no, sir, it is a stern economic fact, a stubborn
and immovable fact.”
He entered into a long explanation of the capitalistic system and
pointed to the troubles experienced by the laboring classes under
the present conditions. He spoke of capitalistic combinations and
“corners,” touched on landlordism, discoursed on the eight-hour
movement, and then reviewed some of the evidence against him. Referring
to the _Alarm_, of which he had been editor, he said:
“Why, the very article that you quote in the _Alarm_, a copy of which
I have not, but which I would like to see, calling the American group
to assemble for the purpose of considering military matters and
military organization, states specifically that the purpose and object
is to take into consideration measures of defense against unlawful and
unconstitutional attacks of the police. The identical article shows
it. You forgot surely that fact when you made this observation; and
I defy any one to show, in a speech that is susceptible of proof, by
proof, that I have ever said aught by word of mouth or by written
article except self-defense. Does not the Constitution of the country,
under whose flag myself and my forefathers were born for the last
two hundred and sixty years, provide that protection, and give me,
their descendant, that right? Does not the Constitution say that I,
as an American, have a right to keep and to bear arms? I stand upon
that right. Let me see if this court will deprive me of it. Let me
call your attention to another point here. These articles that appear
in the _Alarm_, for some of them I am not responsible any more than
is the editor of any other paper. And I did not write everything in
the _Alarm_, and it might be possible that there were some things in
that paper which I am not ready to indorse. I am frank to admit that
such is the case. I suppose that you can scarcely find an editor of a
paper in the world but that could conscientiously say the same thing.
Now, am I to be dragged up here and executed for the utterances and
writings of other men, even though they were published in the columns
of a paper of which I was the editor? Your honor, you must remember
that the _Alarm_ was a labor paper, published by the International
Working People’s Association, belonging to that body. I was elected
its editor by the organization, and, as labor editors generally are,
I was handsomely paid. I had saw-dust pudding as a general thing for
dinner. My salary was eight dollars a week, and I have received that
salary as editor of the _Alarm_ for over two years and a half—eight
dollars a week! I was paid by the association. It stands upon the
books. Go down to the office and consult the business manager. Look
over the record in the book, and it will show you that A. R. Parsons
received eight dollars a week as editor of the _Alarm_ for over two
years and a half. This paper belonged to the organization. It was
theirs. They sent in their articles—Tom, Dick and Harry; everybody
wanted to have something to say, and I had no right to shut off
anybody’s complaint.”
He then offered some reasons to justify his utterances on labor
questions. He quoted from newspapers to show their hostility to
the interests of labor, and he dwelt on various strikes in the
United States and endeavored to show how the men had been treated
by corporations. The tramp question was next handled, and Parsons
maintained that the present social system was responsible for the fact
that millions did not know where to get a bed or supper. He continued:
“Who are the mob? Why, dissatisfied people, dissatisfied workingmen
and women; people who are working for starvation wages, people who are
on a strike for better pay—these are the mob. They are always the
mob. That is what the riot drill is for. Suppose a case that occurs.
The First Regiment is out with a thousand men armed with the latest
improved Winchester rifles. Here are the mobs; here are the Knights
of Labor and the trades-unions, and all of the organizations without
arms. They have no treasury, and a Winchester rifle costs eighteen
dollars. They cannot purchase those things. We cannot organize an
army. It takes capital to organize an army. It takes as much money to
organize an army as to organize industry, or as to build railroads;
therefore, it is impossible for the working classes to organize and
buy Winchester rifles. What can they do? What must they do? Your
honor, the dynamite bomb, I am told, costs six cents. It can be made
by anybody. The Winchester rifle costs eighteen dollars. That is the
difference. Am I to be blamed for that? Am I to be hanged for saying
this? Am I to be destroyed for this? What have I done? Go dig up the
ashes of the man who invented this thing. Find his ashes and scatter
them to the winds, because he gave this power to the world. It was not
I.”
Coming to the Haymarket meeting and referring to the presence of the
police as an affront, he said:
“Was not that a most grievous outrage? Was not that a violation of
all of those principles for which our forefathers struggled in this
country? At this juncture some unknown and unproven person throws a
bomb among the police, killing several men. You say that I did it,
or you say that I knew of it. Where is your proof, gentlemen of the
prosecution? You have none. You didn’t have any. Oh, but you have
a theory, and that theory is that no one else could have had any
motive to hurl that missile of death except myself, and, as is the
common remark of the great papers of the city, the police are never
short of a theory. There is always a theory on hand for everything.
A theory they have got, and especially the detectives; they hatch up
a theory at once and begin to follow that out. There was a theory
carried out during this trial. Let us examine that theory. I say that
a Pinkerton man, or a member of the Chicago police force itself, had
as much inducement to throw that bomb as I had, and why? Because it
would demonstrate the necessity for their existence and result in an
increase of their pay and their wages. Are these people any too good
to do such a thing? Are they any better than I am? Are their motives
any better than my own? Let us look at this thing now from every
standpoint. Perhaps, on the other hand, the dread missile was hurled
in revenge by some poor man or woman, or child even, whose parent or
protector or friend was killed by the police in some of their numerous
massacres of the people before. Who knows? And if it was, are we seven
to suffer death for that? Are we responsible for that act? Or, might
it not be that some person with the fear of death in his eyes threw
that bomb in self-defense? And if they did, am I responsible for it?
Am I to be executed for that? Is it law to put me to death for that?
And who knows? My own deliberate opinion concerning this Haymarket
affair is that the death-dealing missile was the work, the deliberate
work, of monopoly, the act of those who themselves charge us with the
deed. I am not alone in this view of the matter.”
Monopoly, Parsons held, was responsible for the labor troubles;
“What are the real facts of that Haymarket tragedy? Mayor Harrison, of
Chicago, has caused to be published his opinion—because, mark you,
your honor, this is all a matter of conjecture. It is only presumed
that I threw the bomb. They have only assumed that some one of these
men threw that bomb. It is only an inference that any of us had
anything to do with it. It is not a fact, and it is not proven. It is
merely an opinion. Your honor admits that we did not perpetrate the
deed, or know who did it, but that we, by our speeches, instigated
some one else to do so. Now, let us see the other side of this case.
Mayor Harrison, of Chicago, has caused to be published in the New York
_World_—and the interview was copied in the _Tribune_ of this city,
in which he says: ‘I do not believe there was any intention on the
part of Spies and those men to have bombs thrown at the Haymarket.
If so, why was there but one thrown? It was just as easy for them to
throw a dozen or fifty, and to throw them in all parts of the city,
as it was to have thrown one. And again, if it was intended to throw
bombs that night, the leaders would not have been there at all, in
my opinion. Like commanders-in-chief, they would have been in a safe
place. No, it cannot be shown that there was any intention on the
part of these individuals to kill that particular man who was killed
at that Haymarket meeting.’ Now, your honor, this is the Mayor of
Chicago. He is a sensible man. He is in a position to know what he is
talking about. He has first-rate opportunities to form an intelligent
opinion, and his opinion is worthy of respect. He knows more about
this thing than the jury that sat in this room, for he knows—I
suspect that the Mayor knows—of some of the methods by which most of
this so-called evidence and testimony was manufactured. I don’t charge
it, but possibly he has had some intimation of it, and if he has, he
knows more about this case and the merits of this case than did the
jury who sat here. There is too much at stake to take anything for
granted. Your honor can’t afford to do that.
“Is it nothing to destroy the lives of seven men? Are the rights of
the poor of no consequence? Is it nothing that we should regard it so
lightly, as a mere pastime? That is why I stand here at such length
to present this case to you, that you may understand it; that you may
have our side of this question as well as that of the prosecution.”
Parsons then referred to attacks of the police on workingmen’s
meetings, and reviewed some of the evidence against himself, insisting
that he had never seen Lingg until he saw him in the court-room.
“Waller testified in chief, and reiterated it in cross-examination,
that Engel and Fischer, these noble and brave Germans, offered a
resolution at Greif’s Hall, on the announcement that six men had been
wantonly and brutally murdered by the police at McCormick’s, that if
other men should come into encounter with the police we should aid
them; and further swore that this plan was to be followed only when
the police, by brutal force, should interfere with the workmen’s right
of free assemblage and free speech. Now, then, where is the foul and
dastardly criminal conspiracy here? Where is it? So preposterous was
it on its face to call such a noble compact to do a lawful thing a
conspiracy, that it became necessary, in face of a dozen witnesses,
both for the prosecution and the defense, who swear that the bomb
came from the pavement on Desplaines Street, south of the alley,
between the alley and Randolph Street—a statement made by Bonfield
himself to reporters about half an hour after the tragedy occurred,
and published in the _Times_, on May 5, the following morning—Louis
Haas, Bonfield’s special detective on the ground, at the Coroner’s
inquest, swore the bomb was thrown from the east side of Desplaines
Street, and about fifteen feet, he believed, south of the alley,
a statement confirmed by the witness Burnett, for the defense,
who located it fifteen feet further south than Haas or Bonfield
did—still, on the impeached testimony of Gilmer, who swore the bomb
was thrown from within the alley, we are convicted, because he was
also willing to perjure himself by swearing that Spies lit the fuse of
the fatal missile. The idea of a man striking a match in an alley to
light a bomb in the midst of a crowd, the people and police standing
all around him! It seems to me that such a statement as that ought,
among sensible men, on the face of it, to carry its own refutation.
Perfectly absurd! If this statement bore the semblance of truth with
regard to Gilmer, or was the truth, not one of these defendants would
shrink from the responsibility of the right of self-defense, your
honor, and of free speech, and the right of the people peaceably to
assemble. It is because this is not the work of the Anarchists or of
the workingmen that we repel the charge, which proves there was no
concerted action, and that it was none of the plans of these groups.
It is not unlawful to repel an invasion of our meetings.
“About this time some one, as testified to by three reputable
witnesses, stopped at Indianapolis. That was in May. The Haymarket
tragedy was the 4th. This man testifies to that fact. A stranger
stops there. He says: ‘I am going to Chicago. I have something that
will work. You will hear from it.’ The man was in his cups, no doubt;
probably he drank too much. The Pinkertons are not all temperance men;
they sometimes take a little, and sometimes possibly take a little too
much. Possibly he talked a little more than he ought to have talked.
Possibly he didn’t care, but at any rate it is sworn to that he said
it. He came to Chicago, and the bomb was heard from and heard around
the world. Your honor, is this an unreasonable assumption? It is far
more likely, much more reasonable than your honor’s surmise that I
instigated some one to do it.
“The absolute proof that the missile thrown was not dynamite, but
what was known in the late civil war as an infernal bomb, is in
the evidence of every surgeon who testified—that all incisions
were clean, and that the flesh was torn as from an explosive in the
interior. It was testified by these scientific men, your honor,
that dynamite is percussive, and had a shell the size of Lingg’s
manufacture, on exhibition in evidence, been thrown in the closed
ranks of the police, as was this infernal machine, instead of killing
but one on the spot, and wounding a few others, it would have blown to
unrecognizable fragments the platoons in the vicinity, and the wounds,
where there were wounds, would have been as clean as with solid
projectiles.
“This was an infernal bomb from New York, brought there by the
Indianapolis traveler, and not a dynamite bomb, the description in its
effects upon its victims exactly corresponding with the description
of those explosives when once used in battle on the Potomac. The
hollow bullets within the shell, after entering the victim, exploded,
lacerating the flesh and inflicting ugly internal and really infernal
wounds.
“Six of these condemned men were not even present at the Haymarket
meeting when the tragedy occurred. One of them was five miles
away, at the Deering Harvester Works, in Lake View, addressing a
mass-meeting of two thousand workingmen. Another was at home, in bed,
and knew not of the meeting being held at all until the next day.
These facts, your honor, stand uncontradicted before this court. Only
one witness—Gilmer—and his testimony is overwhelmingly impeached,
as I remarked before—connected the other two—two only—of these men
with the tragedy at the Haymarket at all.
“Now, with these facts, the attempt to make out a case of conspiracy
against us is a contemptible farce. What are the facts testified
to by the two so-called informers? They said that two of these
defendants were present at the so-called conspiracy meeting of Monday
night. What, then, have you done with the other six men who were
not members—who were not present, and did not know of the meeting
being held Monday night? These two so-called informers testified
that at the so-called conspiracy meeting of May 3 it was resolved
that in the future, when police and militia should attack and club
and kill workingmen at their meetings, then, and then only, they
were in duty bound to help defend these working people against such
unlawful, unrighteous and outrageous assaults. That was all that was
said or done. Was that a conspiracy? If it was, your honor, it was a
conspiracy to do right and oppose what is wrong.
“But your sentence says that it is criminal for the workingmen to
resolve to defend their lives and their liberties and their happiness
against brutal, bloody and unlawful assaults of the police and
militia.”
Parsons again returned to Anarchy and defined its doctrines at some
length. In concluding his remarks, which consumed two hours on Friday
and six hours on Saturday, he said:
“The next day I saw that they were dragging these men to prison,
treating them in a shameful manner. I left the city. I went to Geneva,
Ill., for a couple of days; staid there with friend Holmes. Then I
went to Elgin, Ill.; staid there a couple of days. Then I left there
and went to Waukesha, Wis., where I obtained employment as a carpenter
and afterwards as a painter, and remained for over seven weeks in
Waukesha. My health was debilitated, and I went to the springs when
I was thirsty. The house I was working on was only half a block from
the springs, and I needed the recreation and the rest, and the pure
air, and the water besides. When I saw the day fixed for the opening
of this trial, knowing I was an innocent man, and also feeling that
it was my duty to come forward and share whatever fate had in store
for my comrades, and also to stand, if need be, on the scaffold, and
vindicate the rights of labor, the cause of liberty, and the relief of
the oppressed, I returned. How did I return? It is interesting, but
it will take time to relate it, and I will not state it. I ran the
gauntlet. I went from Waukesha to Milwaukee. I took the St. Paul train
at the Milwaukee depot and came to Chicago; arrived here at 8:30, I
suppose, in the morning; went to the house of my friend Mrs. Ames, on
Morgan Street, sent for my wife and had a talk with her. I sent word
to Captain Black that I was here and prepared to surrender. He sent
word back to me that he was ready to receive me. I met him at the
threshold of this building, and we came up here together. I stood in
the presence of this court. I have nothing, not even now, to regret.”
The speeches of the defendants occupied three days—the 7th to the
9th of October, inclusive—and when Parsons had finished the court
proceeded to pronounce sentence. Judge Gary said:
“I am quite well aware that what you have said, although addressed
to me, has been said to the world; yet nothing has been said which
weakens the force of the proof, or the conclusions therefrom upon
which the verdict is based. You are all men of intelligence, and know
that, if the verdict stands, it must be executed. The reasons why it
shall stand I have already sufficiently stated in deciding the motion
for a new trial.
“I am sorry beyond any power of expression for your unhappy condition,
and for the terrible events that have brought it about. I shall
address to you neither reproaches nor exhortation. What I shall say
shall be said in the faint hope that a few words from a place where
the people of the State of Illinois have delegated the authority to
declare the penalty of a violation of their laws, and spoken upon an
occasion so solemn and awful as this, may come to the knowledge of and
be heeded by the ignorant, deluded and misguided men who have listened
to your counsels and followed your advice. I say in the faint hope;
for if men are persuaded that because of business differences, whether
about labor or anything else, they may destroy property and assault
and beat other men and kill the police if they, in the discharge of
their duty, interfere to preserve the peace, there is little ground to
hope that they will listen to any warning.
“It is not the least among the hardships of peaceable, frugal and
laborious people to endure the tyranny of mobs who, with lawless
force, dictate to them, under penalty of peril to limb and life,
where, when and upon what terms they may earn a livelihood for
themselves and their families. Any government that is worthy of
the name will strenuously endeavor to secure to all within its
jurisdiction freedom to follow their lawful avocations in safety for
their property and their persons, while obeying the law; and the law
is common sense. It holds each man responsible for the natural and
probable consequences of his own acts. It holds that whoever advises
murder is himself guilty of the murder that is committed pursuant to
his advice, and if men band together for forcible resistance to the
execution of the law, and advise murder as a means of making such
resistance effectual,—whether such advice be to one man to murder
another or to a numerous class to murder men of another class,—all
who are so banded together are guilty of any murder that is committed
in pursuance of such advice.
“The people of this country love their institutions. They love their
homes. They love their property. They will never consent that by
violence and murder their institutions shall be broken down, their
homes despoiled and their property destroyed. And the people are
strong enough to protect and sustain their institutions and to punish
all offenders against their laws. And those who threaten danger to
civil society if the law is enforced are leading to destruction
whoever may attempt to execute such threats.
“The existing order of society can be changed only by the will of the
majority. Each man has the full right to entertain and advance, by
speech and print, such opinions as suit himself; and the great body of
the people will usually care little what he says. But if he proposes
murder as a means of enforcing them he puts his own life at stake. And
no clamor about free speech or the evils to be cured or the wrongs to
be redressed will shield him from the consequences of his crime. His
liberty is not a license to destroy. The toleration that he enjoys
he must extend to others, and he must not arrogantly assume that the
great majority are wrong and that they may rightfully be coerced by
terror or removed by dynamite.
[Illustration: E. F. L. GAUSS.
From a Photograph.]
“It only remains that for the crime you have committed—and of which
you have been convicted after a trial unexampled in the patience
with which an outraged people have extended you every protection and
privilege of the law which you derided and defied—the sentence of
that law be now given.
“In form and detail that sentence will appear upon the records of
the court. In substance and effect it is that the defendant Neebe be
imprisoned in the State Penitentiary at Joliet at hard labor for the
term of fifteen years.
“And that each of the other defendants, between the hours of ten
o’clock in the forenoon and two o’clock in the afternoon of the third
day of December next, in the manner provided by the statute of this
State, be hung by the neck until he is dead. Remove the prisoners.”
_Capt. Black_—“Your honor knows that we intend to take an appeal to
the Supreme Court in behalf of all the defendants. I ask that there
be a stay of execution in the case of Mr. Neebe until the 3d day of
December.”
[Illustration: HENRY SEVERIN.
From a Photograph.]
_Mr. Grinnell_—“If the court please, that is a matter that usually
stands between counsel for the defendants and the State. Every
possible facility will be allowed and everything will be granted you
in that particular that good sense and propriety dictate.”
_Captain Black_—“That is sufficient.”
Thus closed the most remarkable trial which ever engaged the attention
of a judge and jury in America. It was begun, as stated, on the 21st
day of June, 1886, and ended on the 20th day of August, thus occupying
exactly two months. I cannot close this chapter without paying a
deserved tribute to Mr. E. F. L. Gauss, who acted as interpreter
throughout the trial. A very large proportion of the witnesses
testified in foreign tongues, but in all the mass of testimony rendered
into English by Mr. Gauss, not a syllable of the translation was ever
challenged.
Chief Bailiff Henry Severin, with his staff of twenty-six men, had
charge of the eight defendants. It was his duty to bring the prisoners
from and to the court, to preserve order in the crowded court-room, and
to guard the jury, escorting them to and from their hotel and in their
walks, and watching out to prevent any attack by the malcontents upon
the officers of the court.