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

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

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

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

“I guess not.”

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

“Yes, sir.”

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

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

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

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

“Are you an Anarchist?”

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

“Are you an Anarchist?”

“Well, I can’t answer that.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Was money ever sent you for the Alarm?”

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

“Did you ever write contributions for the Alarm?”

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

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

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

“In whose handwriting is this postal card?”

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

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

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

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

“Johann Most.

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

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

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

“Yours,——————J. M.”