AUGUST SPIES.

“In addressing this Court 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 Faliero, who, addressing the court, said: ‘My defense is your accusation; the causes of my alleged crime, your history.’ I have been indicted under the charge of murder as an accomplice or accessory. Upon this indictment I have been convicted. There was no evidence produced by the State to show or even indicate that I had any knowledge of the man who threw the bomb, or that I myself had anything to do with the throwing of the missile unless, of course, you weigh the testimony of the accomplices of the State’s Attorney and Bonfield, the testimony of Thompson and Gilmer, by the price they were paid for it. If there was no evidence to show that I was legally responsible for the deed, then my conviction and the execution of the sentence are nothing less than a willful, malicious and deliberate murder—as foul a murder as may be found in the annals of religious, political, or any other sort of persecution. Judicial murders have in many cases been committed where the representatives of the state were acting in good faith, believing their victims to be guilty of the charge or accusation. In this case the representatives of the state cannot justify themselves by a similar excuse, for they themselves have fabricated most of the testimony which was used as a pretense to convict us—convict us by a jury picked to convict before this Court and before the public, which is supposed to be the State. I charge the State’s Attorney and Bonfield with a heinous conspiracy to commit murder.

“I will now state a little incident which will throw light upon this charge. On the evening on which the prÆtorianPrÆtorian cohorts of the Citizens’ Association, the Bankers’ Association, the Bar Association, and railroad princes attacked the meeting of working men at the Haymarket with murderous intent—on that evening about 8 o’clock, I met a young man, Legner by name. My brother was with me at the same time, and never left me on that evening until I jumped from the wagon a few seconds before the explosion came. Legner knew that I had not seen Schwab that evening. He knew that I had no such conversation with anybody, as Marshall Field’s protege, Thompson has testified to. He knew that I did not jump from the wagon and strike a match and hand it to the man who threw the bomb. He is not a Socialist. Why didn’t we bring him on the stand? Because the honorable representatives of the State, Grinnell and Bonfield, spirited him away. These honorable gentlemen knew everything about Legner. They knew that his testimony would prove the perjury of Thompson and Gilmer beyond any reasonable doubt. Legner’s name was on the list of witnesses for the State. He was not called, however, for obvious reasons. First, as he stated to a number of friends, he had been offered $500 if he would leave the city, and threatened with direful things if he should remain here and appear as a witness for the defense. He replied that he could neither be bought nor bulldozed to serve such a foul, damnable, dastardly plot. But when we wanted Legner he could not be found. Mr. Grinnell said—and Mr. Grinnell is an honorable man—that he himself had been searching for the young man, but had not been able to find him. About three weeks later I learned that the very same young man had been kidnapped and taken to Buffalo, N. Y., by two of the illustrious guardians of the law, two Chicago detectives. Let Mr. Grinnell, let the Citizens’ Association, his employer, let them answer for themselves, and let the people—let the public—sit in judgment upon these would-be assassins. No, I reply, the Prosecution has not established our legal guilt, notwithstanding the purchased and perjured testimony of some, and notwithstanding the originality of the proceedings of the trial. And as long as this has not been done, and you pronounce the sentence of the appointed vigilante committee acting as a jury, I say that you, the alleged servant and high priests of the law, are the real and only law-breakers, and in this case you go to the extent of murder. It is well that the people know this. And when I speak of the people I do not mean the few conspirators of Grinnell, the noble patricians who are murderers of those whom they please to oppress. Those citizens may constitute the state. They may control the state; they may have their Grinnells, Bonfields, and their hirelings. No, when I speak of the people, I speak of the great mass of working beasts, who unfortunately are not yet conscious of the rascalities that are perpetrated in the name of the people—in their name. They condemn the murder of eight men whose only crime is that they have dared to speak the truth. This murder 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 and devout Christians, have attempted in every way, through their newspapers and otherwise, to conceal the true and only issue in this case, by designating the defendants Anarchists and picturing them as a newly-discovered tribe or species of cannibals, by inventing shocking and horrifying stories of their conspiracies.

“I believe with Buckle, with Paine, with Jefferson, with Emerson, with Spencer, and with many other great thinkers of this century, that the state of caste and classes, the state where one class dominates and lives upon the labor of another class and calls it order, should be abolished. Yes, I believe that this barbaric form of social organization, with its legalized thunder and murder, is doomed to die and make room for free society—volunteer associations if you like—universal brotherhood. You may pronounce your sentence upon me, honorable judge, but let the world know that in the year A. D. 1886, in the state of Illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice. Read the history of Greece and Rome; read that of Venice. Look over the dark pages of the church and follow the thorny path of science. No change! No change!

“You would destroy society and civilization, as ever, upon the cry of the ruling classes. They are so comfortably situated under the prevailing system that they naturally abhor and fear even the slightest changes. Their privileges are as dear to them as life itself, and every change threatens these privileges. But civilization is a record whose steps are monuments of such changes. Without these social changes, always brought about against the will and against the force of the ruling classes, there would be no civilization. As to the destruction of society, which we have been accused of seeking, it sounds like one of Æsop’s fables—like the cunning of the fox. We, who have jeopardized our lives to save society from the fiend that has grasped her by the throat, that seeks her life-blood and devours her substance; we, who would heal her bleeding wounds, who would free her from the fetters you have wrought around her, from the misery you have brought upon her—we are enemies. We have preached dynamite, it is said, and we have predicted from the lessons history has taught us, that the ruling class of to-day would no more listen to the voice of reason than did their predecessors. They would attempt by brute force to stay the march of progress. Was it a lie, or was it the truth that we stated? * * * I have been a citizen of this city fully as long as Mr. Grinnell, and am probably as good a citizen as Grinnell. At least I should not wish to be compared to him. Grinnell has appealed time and again, as has been stated by our attorneys, to the patriotism of the jury. To that I reply, and I will simply use the words of an English literateurlitterateur, ‘Patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel.’ My friends’ agitation in behalf of the disinherited and disfranchised millions, and my agitation in this direction, the popularization of the economic teachings in favor of the education of wage-workers, is declared to be a conspiracy against society. The word ’society’ is here wisely substituted for state, as represented by the patricians of to-day. It has always been the opinion of the ruling classes that the people must be kept in ignorance. They lose their servilityservility, modesty, and obedience to the arbitrary powers that be, as their intelligence grows. The education of a blackman, a quarter of a century ago was a criminal offense. Why? Because the intelligent slave would throw off his shackles at whatever cost, my Christian gentlemen. Why is the education of the working classes to-day looked upon by a certain class as treason against the State? For the same reason! The State, however, wisely avoided this point in the prosecution of the case. From their testimony one would really conclude that we had in our speeches and publications preached nothing else but destruction and dynamite. * * * You, gentlemen, are the revolutionists. You rebel against the effects of social conditions which have tossed you by fortune’s hand 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 of 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. Can you roll back the incoming tide or angry waves of old ocean by forbidding it to dash upon the shore? So you can no more frighten back the rising waves of intelligence and progress into their unfathomable depths by erecting a few gallows in the perspective. You, who oppose the natural forces of things, you are the real revolutionists. You, and you alone, are the conspirators and destructionists.”

ADOLPH FISCHER.

“Your Honor, you asked me why the sentence of death should not be passed upon me. I will not talk much. I will only say a few words, and that is that I protest against my being sentenced to death, because I committed no crime. I was tried here in this room for murder and I was convicted of Anarchy. I protest against being sentenced to death, because I have not been found guilty of murder. I have been tried for murder, but I have been convicted because I am an Anarchist. Although being one of the parties who were at the Haymarket meeting, I had no more to do with the throwing of that bomb, I had no more connection with it than State’s Attorney Grinnell had perhaps.

Adolph Fischer

Adolph Fischer.

“As I said, it is a fact, and I do not deny that I was one of the parties who called at the Haymarket meeting, but that meeting—(At this point Mr. Salomon stepped up and spoke to Fischer in a low tone, but Fischer waivedwaved him off and said: Mr. Salomon, be so kind. I know what I am talking about.) Now, that Haymarket meeting was not called for the purpose of committing violence and crime. No; but the meeting was called for the purpose of protesting against the outrages and against the crimes of the police committed on the day previous out at McCormick’s. The next day I went to Wehrer & Klein and had twenty-five thousand copies of the handbills printed, and I invited Spies to speak at Haymarket meeting. It is the fact, and I don’t deny it, in the original of the ‘copy’ I had the line ‘Working men, arm!’ and I had my reasons, too, for putting those lines in, because I didn’t want the working men to be shot down in that meeting as on other occasions. But as those circulars were printed and brought over to the Arbeiter Zeitung office, my comrade, Spies, saw one of those circulars. I had invited him to speak before that. He showed the circular and said: ‘Well, Fischer, if those circulars are distributed I won’t speak.’ And I admitted it would be better to take those lines out; and Mr. Spies spoke. And that is all I had to do with that meeting. I feel that I am sentenced, or will be sentenced to death because I am an Anarchist, and not because I am a murderer. I have never been a murderer. I have never committed any crime in my life yet; but I know a certain man who is on the way to becoming a murderer, an assassin, and that man is Grinnell—the State’s Attorney Grinnell—because he brought men on the witness stand whom he knew would swear falsely; and I publicly denounce Mr. Grinnell as being a murderer and an assassin if I should be executed. But, if the ruling classes think that by hanging us, hanging a few Anarchists, they can crush out Anarchy, they will be badly mistaken, because the Anarchist loves his principles more than his life. An Anarchist is always ready to die for his principles.”

MICHAEL SCHWAB.

“It is not much I have to say, and I would say nothing at all if keeping silence did not look like a cowardly approval of what has been done here. To those, the proceedings of a trial of justice would be a sneer. Justice has not been done. More than that, could not be done. If one class is arraigned against the other class it is idle and hypocritical to talk about justice and fairness. Anarchy was on trial, as the State’s Attorney put it in his closing speech. A doctrine, an opinion hostile to brute force, hostile to our present murderous system of production and distribution. I am condemned to die for writing newspaper articles and making speeches. The State’s Attorney knows as well as I do that the alleged conversation between Mr. Spies and me never took place. He knows a good deal more than that. He knows all the beautiful works of his organizer, Furthmann. When I was before the Coroner’s jury two or three witnesses swore very positively to having seen me at the Haymarket when Mr. Parsons finished his speech. I suppose they wanted at that time to fix the bomb-throwing on me, for the first dispatches to Europe said that M. Schwab had thrown several bombs at the police. Later on they found that would not do, and then Schnaubelt was the man. Anarchy was on trial. Little did it matter who the persons were to be honored by the prosecution. * * *

“As soon as the word is applied to us and to our doctrine it carries with it a meaning that we Anarchists see fit to give. ‘Anarchy’ is Greek, and means, verbatim, that we are not being ruled. According to our vocabulary Anarchy is a state of society in which the only government is reason; a state of society in which all human beings do right for the simple reason that it is right, and hate wrong because it is wrong. In such a society no compulsion will be necessary. The Attorney of the State was wrong when he exclaimed ‘Anarchy is dead!’ Anarchy up to the present time existed only as a doctrine, and Grinnell has not the power to kill any doctrine whatever. Anarchy, as defined by us, is called an idle dream, but that dream was called by God a divine blessing. One of the three great German poets and a celebrated German critic of the last century has also defined it. If Anarchy was the thing the State’s Attorney makes it out to be, how could it be that such eminent scholars as Prince Krapotkine should say what he has said about it? Anarchy is a dream, but only in the present. It will be realized, for 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 our ideal will not be accomplished this year or next year, but I know it will be accomplished as soon as possible, some day in the future. It is entirely wrong to use the word Anarchy as synonymous with violence. Violence is something, and Anarchy is 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 have never read Herr Most’s book simply because I don’t 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 at the Haymarket, and had no knowledge of any conspiracy to use violence that or any other night.”

OSCAR NEEBE.

“Your Honor: I have found out during the last few days what law is. Before I didn’t know it. I did not know that I was convicted because I knew Spies and Fielden and Parsons. I have met these gentlemen. I have presided at a meeting, as the evidence against me shows, in the Turner hall, to which meeting your Honor was invited. The judges, the preachers, the newspaper men, and everybody was invited to appear at that meeting for the purpose of discussing Anarchism and Socialism. I was at that hall. I am well known among the working men of the city, and I was the one elected chairman of that meeting. Nobody appeared to speak, to discuss the question of Labor and Anarchism or Socialism with laboring men. No, they couldn’t stand it. I was chairman of that meeting; I don’t deny it. I had the honor to be marshal of a labor demonstration in this city, and I never saw as respectable a lot of men as I saw that day.

“They marched like soldiers, and I was proud that I was marshal of those men. They were the toilers and the working men of this city. The men marched through the city of Chicago to protest against the wrongs of society, and I was marshal of them. If that is a crime, I have found out—as a born American—what I am guilty of. I always thought I had a right to express my opinion, to be chairman of a peaceable meeting, and to be marshal of a demonstration. My friends, the labor agitators, and the marshals of a demonstration—was it a crime to be marshal of a demonstration? I am convicted of that. I suppose Grinnell thought after Oscar Neebe was indicted for murder the Arbeiter Zeitung would go down. But it didn’t happen that way. And Mr. Furthmann, too—he is a scoundrel, and I can tell it to you to your face. There is only one man that acted as a lawyer, and he is Mr. Ingham, but you three fellows have not.

“I established the paper and issued it to the working men of the city of Chicago, and inside of two weeks I had enough money from the toilers—from hired girls, from men who would take the last cent out of their pocket to establish the paper—to buy a press. I could not publish the paper because the honorable detectives and Mr. Grinnell followed us up, and no printing house would print our paper, and we had to have our own press. We published our own paper after we had a press, bought by the money of the working men of the city. That is the crime I have committed—getting men to try and establish a working man’s paper that will stand to-day, and I am proud of it. They have not got one press—they have got two presses to-day, and they belong to the working men of this city. When the first issue came out, from that day up to the day now, your Honor, we have gained 4,000 subscribers. There are the gentlemen sitting over there from the Freie Presse and Staats Zeitung—they know it. The Germans of this city are condemning these actions. They would not read our paper. There is the crime of the Germans. I say it is a verdict against Germans, and I, as an American, must say that I never saw anything like that.

“Those are the crimes I have committed after the 4th of May. Before the 4th of May I committed some crimes. I organized trades unions. I was for the reduction of the hours of labor and the education of laboring men and the re-establishment of the Arbeiter Zeitung. There is no evidence to show that I was connected with the bomb-throwing, that I was near it or anything of that kind. So I am only sorry, your Honor, if you can stop it or help it, I will ask you to do it—that is, to hang me, too; and I think it is more honor to die certainly 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 in front of it; but they can’t go to Joliet and see their father convicted of a crime that he hasn’t anything to do with. That is all I have got to say. Your Honor, I am sorry I do not get hung with the rest of the men.”

LOUIS LINGG.

[Translated by Prof. H. H. Fick.]

“Court of Justice: With the same contempt with which I have tried to live humanely upon this American soil, I am now granted the privilege to speak. If I do take the word I do it because injustice and indignities have been heaped upon me right here. I have been accused of murder. What proofs have been brought in support of it? It has been proved that I assisted some man by the name of Seliger in manufacturing bombs. It has been furthermore stated that with the assistance of somebody else I have taken those bombs to 58 Clybourn avenue, but although one of these assistants has been produced as a State witness it has not been shown that one of these bombs was taken to the Haymarket. * * * What is Anarchy? * * * The points that we are driving at have been carefully withheld by the State. * * * But it has not been said that by their superior force we are driven to our course. Contempt of court has been charged against us. We have been treated as opponents of public order. What is this order? Such order as represented by police and detectives? On the slightest occasion the representatives of this public order have forced themselves into our midst. The same police that aim to give protection to property embraces thieves in its ranks. * * * I have told Capt. Schaack that I was at a meeting of carpenters at Zephf’s hall on May 3. He has stated that I admitted to him that I learned the fabrication of bombs from Most’s book, ‘Science of Warfare.’ That is perjury. * * * It has been proved that Grinnell has used Gilmer for his purpose intentionally. There are points which prove that. * * * I say that these seven persons here, of which I am one, are murdered purposely by Grinnell. * * * Grinnell has the courage to call me a coward, right here in this court of justice, and Grinnell is a person who has connived with miserable subjects to go against me, to get testimony against me, to kill me. * * * Is life worth living? What are their purposes in thus murdering these men? Low egotism, which finds its reward in a higher position, and which yields a return of money. * * * But it has been said that the International association of working men was in itself a conspiracy, and that I was a member of this association. My colleague, Spies, has already stated to you how we were connected. * * * And that is the conspiracy that has been proved against me, and for that I am to end my life upon the gallows—an instrument which you consider a disgrace to me. I declare here openly that I do not ackowledgeacknowledge these laws, and less so the sentence of the Court. * * * I would not say a word if I was really guilty according to this foolish law, but even according to these laws that would not be respected by a schoolboy, not even these laws have been carried out to the full extent when I was found guilty. * * * You smile. You perhaps think I will not use bombs any more, but I tell you I die gladly upon the gallows in the sure hope that hundreds and thousands of people to whom I have spoken will now recognize and make use of dynamite. In this hope I despise you, and I despise your laws. Hang me for it.”

GEORGE ENGEL.

[Translated by Mr. Gauss.]

“When I left Germany in the year 1872 it was by reason of my recognition of the fact that I could not support myself in the future as it was the duty of a man to do. I recognized that I could not make my living in Germany because the machinery and the guilds of old no longer furnished me a guarantee to live. I resolved to emigrate from Germany to the United States, praised by many so highly. When I landed at Philadelphia, on the 8th of January, 1873, my heart and my bosom expanded with the expectation of living hereafter in that free country which had been so often praised to me by so many emigrants, and I resolved to be a good citizen of this country; and I congratulated myself on having broken with Germany, where I could have no longer made my living, and I think that my past will show that, that which I resolved I intended to keep faithfully. For the first time I stand before an American court, and at that to be at once condemned to death. And what are the causes that have preceded it, and have brought me into this court? They are the same things that preceded my leaving Germany, and the same causes that made me leave. I have seen with my own eyes that in this free country, in this richest country of the world, so to say, there are existing proletarians who are pushed out of the order of society.”

After explaining how his dissatisfaction with the existing order of things led him to become a Socialist, Engel continued:

“I resolved to study Socialism with all my power. In the year 1878 I came from Philadelphia to Chicago, and took pains to eke out my existence here in Chicago, and believed that it would be an easier task to live here, than in Philadelphia, where I had previously in vain exerted my powers to live. I found that, that also was in vain. There was no difference for a proletariat, whether he lived in New York, or Philadelphia, or Chicago. * * * To make further investigations I tried to buy, from the money that I and my family earned, scientific books on those questions. I bought the works of Ferdinand LaSalleLassalle, Karl Marx and Henry George. After investigating these works I recognized these reasons why a proletariat could not exist, even in this country, as free as it is. I thought about the means by which that could be corrected. They praised to me this country where every man and every working man had a right to go to the ballot-box and choose his own officers. I scarcely believed that any citizen of the United States could have meant so honestly and well as I, when I turned my attention to politics, and took part in them. But even in this regard of freedom of the ballot-box I found myself mistaken. I learned to see that the working man was not free in his opinion, that he was not free in vote. It was in vain that the Socialistic party took pains in former times, honest pains, to elect honest officers. After a few vain attempts I found that it was impossible for a working man to free himself by means of the ballot-box, and to secure those things which were necessary for his existence. * * * In this city corruption even entered the ranks of the Social Democracy. I also obtained the conviction that through those men who put themselves over us as leaders, and occupied themselves with compromises, this was brought about, and then I left the ranks of the Social Democracy and gave myself over to the International which was then organizing; and what these men wanted, and what these men through their exertions sought to bring about was nothing more or less than the conviction that the freeing of the ruling classes could only be brought about by force, as have all revolutions been throughout history. This conviction, before I went over to those people, was obtained through study of the history of all lands. The history of all lands showed me that all advantages in a political, in a religious, and in a material direction, were always obtained only by the use of force; and if I confine myself to the history of this country where I am convicted, I take into consideration that the first emmigrantsimmigrants into this country and the first colonists, only freed themselves by force from the power of England. I afterward obtained the conviction that the slavery existing in this country, to the shame of the Republic, could only be put aside by force. And what does this history teach us? The man that spoke against existing slavery in this country was hanged, as it is intended that we should be hanged, to-day. In the course of time I became convinced that all those who spoke in favor of the ruling classes must hang. And what are the reasons for it? This Republic does not exist through, and its affairs are not conducted by, those persons who come into office by an honest ballot. * * * Under these conditions it is certainly not a wonder that there were men, noble men, noble scientific men, who have tried to find ways and means to bring back humanity to its original condition. And this is the social science to which I confess myself with joy. The State’s Attorney said here ‘Anarchism is on trial.’ Anarchism and Socialism are, according to my opinion, as like as one egg is to another. Only the tactics are different. Anarchism has abandoned the ways pointed out by Socialism to free man-mankind, and has resolved no longer to bear the yoke of slavery, and, therefore, I say to the working classes, do not believe any longer in the ballot-box and in those ways and means that are left open to you; but rather think about ways and means when the time comes, when the burden of the people becomes intolerable. And that is our crime. Because we have named to the people the ways and means by which they could free themselves in the fight against Capitalism, by reason of that, Anarchism is hated and persecuted in every state. In spite of that and again in spite of it Anarchism will exist, and if not in public it will exist in secret, because the powers force it to act in secret. If the State’s Attorney declares or thinks that after he has hanged these seven men and sent the other one to the penitentiary for fifteen years he has then killed Anarchism, I say, that will not be so. Only the tactics will be changed, and that will be all. No power in the world will tear from the working man his knowledge and his skill or opportunity in making bombs. I am convinced that Anarchism cannot be routed out,—if that was the case it would have been routed out in other countries long ago—in the least by our murdering the Anarchists. That evening when the first bomb in this country was thrown, I was sitting in my room; did not know anything about the conspiracy; did not know anything about that deed; did not know anything about the bomb; did not know anything about the conspiracy which the State’s Attorney had brought about here. * * * Can you have respect for a government that only gives rights to the privileged classes, but to the working men not at all, although there are conspiracies in all classes and connections of the capitalistic class. Although we have only recently experienced that the coal barons came together, put up the price of coal arbitrarily while they paid less wages to their working men, and wherever those coal workers, those miners have come together to consider the bettering their conditions, their demands have always been very modest on the whole, then the militia appears at once upon the scene and helps those people, while they are feeding the miners with powder and lead. For such a government I have no respect, and can have no respect in spite of all their followers, in spite of all their police, in spite of all their spies.

“I am not a man who hates a single capitalist. I am not the man who at all hates the person of the capitalist. I hate the system and all privileges, and my greatest desire is that the working classes will at last recognize who are their friends and who are their enemies. Against the condemnation of myself by the capitalistic influence I have no word to say.”

SAM FIELDEN.

Fielden prefaced his plea by reciteingreciting a poem called “Revolution”, written by Freilegrath, a German poet:

Fielden continued:

“It makes a great deal of difference, perhaps, what kind of a revolutionist a man is. The men who have been on trial here for Anarchy have been asked the question on the witness stand if they were revolutionists. It is not generally considered to be a crime among intellectual people to be a revolutionist, but it may be made a crime if a revolutionist happens to be poor. * * * If I had known that I was being tried for Anarchy I could have answered that charge. I could have justified it under the constitutional right of every citizen of this country, and more than the right which any constitution can give, the natural right of the human mind to draw its conclusion from whatever information it can gain, but I had no opportunities to show why I was an Anarchist. I was told that I was to be hung for being an Anarchist, after I had got through defending myself on the charge of murder.”

Fielden related that he was born in Lancashire; that his first speech was made to starving operatives in the streets of his native town; that it was here he began to hate kings and queens; his first speech was in support of the operatives of Lancashire as against the sympathizers with the South in the American rebellion; he came to the United States in 1868 and was a Methodist exhorter in Ohio, and came to Chicago in 1869. Fielden detailed how he had come to be a Socialist and Anarchist; reviewing the various speeches he had made at meetings in Chicago; attacking the veracity of witnesses who had testified against him, and declaring himself the victim of illegal prosecution. He continued:

“From the time I became a Socialist I learned more and more what it was. I knew that I had found the right thing; that I had found the medicine that was calculated to cure the ills of society. Having found it, I believed it, and I had a right to advocate it, and I did. The Constitution of the United States, when it says: ‘The right of free speech shall not be abridged,’ gives every man the right to speak. I have advocated the principles of Socialism and social equality, and for that and no other reason am I here, and sentence of death is to be pronounced upon me. What is Socialism? Taking somebody else’s property? That is what Socialism is in the common acceptation of the term. No; but if I were to answer it as shortly and as curtly as it is answered by its enemies, I would say it is preventing somebody else from taking your property. But Socialism is equality. Socialism recognizes the fact that no man in society is responsible for what he is; that all the ills that are in society are the production of poverty; and scientific Socialism says that you must go to the root of the evil. There is no criminal statistician in the world but will acknowledge that all the crime, when traced to its origin, is the product of poverty. * * * If I am to be convicted—hanged for telling the truth, the little child that kneels by its mother’s side on the West side to-day and tells its mother that he wants his papa to come home, and to whom I had intended as soon as its prattling tongue should begin to talk, to teach that beautiful sentiment—that child had better never be taught to read; had better never be taught that sentiment to love truth. If they are to be convicted of murder because they dare tell what they think is the truth, then it would be better that every one of your schoolhouses were reduced to the ground and one stone not left upon another. If you teach your children to read they will acquire curiosity from what they read. They will think, and then will search for the meaning of this and that. They will arrive at conclusions. And then if they love the truth, they must tell to each other what is truth or what they think is the truth. That is the sum of my offending. * * * The private property system then, in my opinion, being a system that only subserves the interests of a few, and can only subserve the interests of the few, has no mercy. It cannot stop for the consideration of such a sentiment. Naturally it cannot. So you ought not to have mercy upon the private property system, because it is well known that there are many people in the community with prejudices in their minds. They have grown up under certain social regulations, and they believe that those social regulations are right, just as Mr. Grinnell believes that everything in America is right, because he happened to be born here. And they have such a prejudice against any one who attacks those systems. Now, I say they ought not to have any mercy upon systems that do not subserve their interests. They ought not to have any respect for them that would interfere with their abolishing them.”

Fielden maintained that the throwing of the bomb at the Haymarket was a complete surprise to him; that he felt that he would be held in some respect, at least responsible, yet he resolved not to attempt flight; continuing:

“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, I should have been released. And I say now, in view of all the authorities that have been read on the law and accessory, that there is nothing in evidence that has been introduced to connect me with that affair. * * * The great Socialist who lived in this world nearly 1,900 years ago, Jesus Christ, has left these words, and there are no grander words in which the principles of justice and right are conveyed in any language. He said: ‘Better that ninety-nine guilty men should go unpunished than that one innocent man should suffer.’ Mr. Grinnell, I should judge from his statements here, is a Christian. I would ask him to apply that statement of the Great Teacher to the different testimony that has been given here, and the direct contrary in other places in the investigation of this case. Your Honor, we claim that this is a class verdict. We claim that the foulest criminal that could have been picked up in the slums of any city in 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. * * * If my life is to be taken for advocating the principles of Socialism and Anarchy, as I have understood them and honestly believe them to be in the interests of humanity, I say to you that I gladly give it up; and the price is very small for the result that is gained. * * * We claim that so far as we have been able to find out in trying to find a cure for the ills of society, we have not found out anything that has seemed to fit the particular diseases which society in our opinion is afflicted with to-day, better than the principles of Socialism. And your Honor, Socialism, when it is thoroughly understood in this community and in the world, as it is by us, I believe that the world, which is generally honest, prejudiced though it may be, will not be slow to adopt its principles. And it will be a good time, a grand day for the world; it will be a grand day for humanity; it will never have taken a step so far onward toward perfection, if it can ever reach that goal, as it will when it adopts the principles of Socialism. * * * 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. I thank your Honor for your attention.”

A. R. PARSONS.

Parsons made a speech addressed in the main to working men, starting out with the recital of a poem by George Heinig, entitled “Bread is Freedom.” He continued:

“Your Honor, if there is one distinguishing characteristic which has made itself prominent in the conduct of this trial it has been the passion, the heat, and the anger, the violence both to sentiment and to feeling, of everything connected with this case. You ask me why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon me, or, what is tantamount to the same thing, you ask me why you should give me a new trial in order that I might establish my innocence and the ends of justice be subserved. I answer you, your Honor, and say that this verdict is the verdict of passion, born in passion, nurtured in passion, and is the sum totality of the organized passion of the city of Chicago. For this reason I ask your suspension of the sentence, and a new trial. This is one among the many reasons which I hope to present to your Honor before I conclude. Now, your Honor, what is passion? Passion is the suspension of reason; in a mob upon the streets, in the broils of the saloon, in the quarrels on the sidewalk, where men throw aside their reason and resort to feelings of exasperation, we have passion. There is a suspension of the elements of judgment, of calmness, of discrimination requisite to arrive at the truth and the establishment of justice. I hold, your Honor, that you cannot dispute the proposition that I make that this trial has been submerged, immersedimmersed in passion from its inception to its close, and even at this hour, standing here upon the scaffold as I do with the hangman awaiting me with his halter, there are those who claim to represent public sentiment in the city, and I now speak of the capitalistic press—that vile and infamous organ and monopoly of hired liars, the people’s oppressors.” Parsons claimed to have been for thirty years identified with labor interests, and said: “And in what I say upon this subject relating to the labor movement or to myself as connected in this trial or before this bar, I will speak the truth, though my tongue should be torn from my mouth and my throat cut from ear to ear, so help me God.” The speaker then went into statistics, claiming that 9,000,000 out of the 12,000,000 voters in the United States were actual wage workers. He attacked the citizens’ Association as an organization of millionaires, and claimed that the Court should stand between the accused and their persecuterspersecutors. “Where,” he asked, “are the ends of justice observed, 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. We have in our histories heard of Lord Jeffreys. It need not follow that because a man is a judge he is also just. * * * Now, I hold that our execution, as the matter stands just now, would be judicial murder, and judicial murder is far worse than lynch law—far worse. But, your Honor, bear in mind please, this trial was conducted by a mob, prosecuted by a mob, by the shrieks and the howls of a mob, an organized powerful mob. The trial is over. Now, your Honor, you sit there judicially, calmly, quietly, and it is now for you to look at this thing from the standpoint of reason and from common sense. * * * Now, the money-makers, the business men, those people who deal in stocks and bonds, the speculators and employers, all that class of men known as the money-making class, they have no conception of this labor question; they don’t understand what it means. To use the street parlance, with many of them it is a difficult matter for them to ‘catch onto’ it, and they are perverse also; they will have no knowledge of it. They don’t want to know anything about it, and they won’t hear anything about it, and they propose to club, lock up, and if necessary strangle those who insist on their hearing this question. Now, your Honor, can you deny that there is such a thing in the world as the labor question? I am an Anarchist. Now strike! But hear me before you strike. What is Socialism, briefly stated? It is the right of the toiler to the free and equal use of the tools of production, and the right of the producer to their product. That is Socialism. The history of mankind is one of growth. It has been evolutionary and revolutionary.”

Parsons went into an explanation of the wage question and the relations of capital and labor, asserting that employers in owning capital and leaving nothing to the wage slave but the price of his work, had produced a conflict which would intensify as the power of the priviledgedprivileged classes over the non-possession of property classes increased. He continued:

“We were told by the Prosecution that law is on trial; that government is on trial. That is what the gentlemen on the other side have stated to the jury. The law is on trial, and government is on trial. Well, up to the conclusion of this trial we, the defendants, supposed that we were indicted and being tried for murder. Now, if the law is on trial, and the government is on trial, who has placed it upon trial? And I leave it to the people of America whether the prosecution in this case have made out a case; and I charge it here now, frankly, that in order to bring about this conviction the Prosecution, the representatives of the State, the sworn officers of the law—those whose duty it is to the people to obey the law and preserve order—I charge upon them a willful, a malicious, a purposed violation of every law which guarantees every right to every American citizen. They have violated free speech. In the prosecution of this case they have violated a free press. They have violated the right of public assembly. Yea, they have even violated and denounced the right of self-defense. I charge the crime home to them. * * * 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 this matter. What are the real facts of that Haymarket tragedy? Mayor Harrison of Chicago has caused to be published his opinion, in which he says: ‘I did not believe that there was any intention on the part of Spies and those men to have bombs thrown at the Haymarket.’ 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 some of this evidence and testimony might have been manufactured. I don’t charge it, your Honor, 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. * * * Before the trial began, during its prosecution, and since its close, a Satanic press has shrieked and howled itself wild, like ravenous hyenas, for the blood of these eight working men. Now, this subsidized press, in the pay of the monopoly and of laborers and slavers, commanded this Court and commanded this jury and this Prosecution to convict us. As a fitting climax to this damnable conspiracy against our lives and liberty, what follows? O hide your eye now! hide it! hide it! As a fitting climax to this damnable conspiracy against our lives and liberty some of Chicago’s millionaires proposed to raise a purse of $100,000 and present it to the jury for their verdict of guilty against us. This was done, as everybody knows, in the last days of the trial, and since the verdict so far as anybody knows to the contrary, this blood money has been paid over to that jury. * * * Condemned to death! Perhaps you think I do not know what for? Or maybe you think the people do not understand your motives? You are mistaken. I am here, standing in this spot awaiting your sentence, because I hate and loathe authority in every form. I am doomed by you to suffer an ignominious death because I am the outspoken enemy of coercion, of privilege, of force, of authority. It is for this you make me suffer. Think you the people are blind, are asleep, are indifferent? You deceive yourselves. I tell you, as a man of the people, and I speak for them, that your every word and act and thoughts are recorded. You are being weighed in the balance. The people are conscious of your power—your stolen power. They know you; that while you masquerade as their servants you are in reality playing the role of master. The people—the common working people—know full well that all your wealth, your ease and splendor, have been stolen from them by the exercise of your authority in the guise of law and order. I, a working man, stand here and to your face, in your stronghold of oppression, and denounce to you your crimes against humanity. It is for this I die, but my death will not have been in vain. I guess I have finished. I don’t know as I have anything more to say. Your Honor knows all I know about this case. I have taken your Honor’s time up that I might be able to lay this thing, the whole thing, before you, reserving nothing; opening my mind and heart, telling you the truth, the truth, and the whole truth. I am innocent of this offense. I had no connection with that Haymarket tragedy. I know nothing of it. I am not responsible for it. I leave the case in the hands of your Honor.”

SENTENCE PRONOUNCED.

Parsons spoke altogether nearly nine hours, and the addresses of all the prisoners occupied three days. Thousands of people were turned away during the closing days, and the scene in the courtroom when sentence was pronounced was peculiarly impressive. At the close of Parsons’ remarks Judge Gary delivered the following remarks, and pronounced the death sentence:

“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 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 the peaceable, frugal and laborious poor 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 the lawful avocations and 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 a 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, those 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 advocate by speech and print such opinions as suits 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 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 not arrogantly assume that the great majority are wrong and may rightfully be coerced by terror, or removed by dynamite. 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 to you every protection and privilege of the law which you derided and defied, that 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.”

Mrs. Parsons.