“We start out first upon the analysis of the facts of this case in this way: Was there an unlawful combination, a conspiracy, to overthrow the systems of this Government upon the 1st day of May, 1886? Was the bomb thrown on the 4th of May in pursuance of the common design? Are these defendants members of that conspiracy? When those questions are answered in the affirmative the guilt of each and every one of these defendants of murder is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. But, if we go further than that, the argument would embrace the topic: Was there a murder committed at the Haymarket? Did the defendants aid, abet and assist the commission of that act? Or, if they were not present aiding, abetting and assisting, had they advised, encouraged, aided and abetted the perpetration of the crime? Under either aspect of this case, the defendants are guilty of murder with malice aforethought.

“Was there a conspiracy? Was there a conspiracy to culminate on or about the 1st day of May? Were the defendants members of that conspiracy? Was the conspiracy unlawful? Was the bomb thrown in pursuance of the common design? Let us investigate the facts and answer each proposition.”

“Resolved, That while we are skeptical in regard to the benefits that will accrue to the wage-worker from the introduction of the eight-hour work-day, we nevertheless pledge ourselves to aid and assist our brethren of this class with all that lies in our power as long as they show an open and defiant front to our common enemy, the labor-devouring class of aristocratic vagabonds, the brutal murderers of our comrades in St. Louis, Chicago and Philadelphia and other places. Our war-cry is, ‘Death to the enemy of the human race, our despoilers.’

“What does that mean? It was published in the Alarm. Was there a conspiracy, gentlemen, against the police on the first day of May, 1886? After the reading, these resolutions were received with round after round of applause, and the chair was about to put a vote, when Mr. J. K. Magie arose and said that he understood a discussion of them to be in order. He denounced the revolutionary character of the resolutions. He believed that six hours of labor was enough! This man was a labor agitator and believes in the amelioration of labor. ‘This is the best form of government that ever existed,’ he said of this Republic. He is an American citizen and believes in the institutions of his country. ‘If there are abuses, there is a proper way to correct them. Eighty per cent. of the voting population are working people; they should strike with the ballot and not with the bullet.’ Then this ameliorator of labor, August Spies, supposed that Mr. Magie did not like the terms in which the members of the Government were referred to. The reason of this was that Mr. Magie was one of those political vagabonds himself. There were nine millions of the best people engaged in the industrial trades of this country. There were but one million of them as yet organized—one million, and by the way, that is significant in the fact that these men fought to achieve this result all over the country. Schnaubelt had said at 54 West Lake Street the night before, the 3d of May, ‘We must telegraph our success to all the other cities throughout the country.’

“To make the movement in which they were engaged—the eight-hour movement for the 1st of May—a successful one, it must be a revolutionary one. ‘Don’t let us,’ he exclaimed, ‘forget the most forcible argument, the gun and dynamite.’

“Was there a conspiracy? Turn to the cross-examination of Wilkinson by Capt. Black, and find that part where Wilkinson said he had heard Joe Gruenhut say that the revolution that Spies spoke of was to occur, the conflict was actually to occur on the 1st or after the 1st of May, 1886. This was brought out by Capt. Black himself on cross-examination of this witness. In the first place you must remember that Lingg was in this country before the Christmas of 1885, between the 1st day of January and the 14th day of January. The Czar bomb, but six or eight weeks after Lingg came here, was handed to Wilkinson by Spies—the twin, the same bomb in general construction and general make-up as that used at the Haymarket on that night, made by Lingg on the afternoon of that day, or filled with dynamite on the afternoon of that day.”

“‘Six months ago, May 4th, when the eight-hour movement began’—this is in Spies’ own handwriting—‘there were speakers and journals of the I. A. A.’—that is the International Arbeiter Association—‘who proclaimed and wrote: “Workingmen, if you want to see the eight-hour system introduced, arm yourselves. If you don’t do this you will be sent home with bloody heads, and the birds will sing May songs upon your graves.” “That is nonsense,” was the reply. “If the workingmen are organized they will gain the eight-hour in their Sunday clothes.” Well, what do you say now? Were we right or wrong? Would the occurrence of yesterday have been possible if our advice had been followed? Wage-workers, yesterday the police of this city murdered at McCormick’s factory four of your brothers, and wounded more or less,’ etc. ‘If the brothers who defended themselves with stones (a few of them had little snappers in the shape of revolvers) had been provided with good weapons and one single dynamite bomb, not one of the murderers would have escaped their well-merited fate.’

“The police went up there; they were nearly being murdered with stones; the mob were throwing at them before they ever fired a shot; and this man the next day writes: ‘Had they’—the mob—‘been provided with good weapons and one single dynamite bomb, not one of the murderers would have escaped his well-deserved fate.’ Then see: ‘As it was, only four of them were disfigured. That is too bad.”

“Here, here is a man that has no design upon the police, don’t believe in force. ‘That is too bad. The massacre of yesterday took place in order to fill the forty thousand workingmen of this city with fear and terror; took place in order to force back,’ etc. ‘ Will they succeed in this? Will they not find at last that they have miscalculated? The near future will answer this question. We will not anticipate the course of events with surmises.’

“That is what he himself said. If one single bomb had been used it would have been different. He sees these eight thousand men at his back, returns immediately to the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and writes out this, (indicating the Revenge circular). What did he mean? What did he mean? ‘Revenge.’ He says he did not write the word ‘Revenge’ in English. Rache, Rache, Revenge, Revenge—he never denied that he wrote it in the German language, nor any witness for him; but it makes no difference whether he wrote it, or whether he did not write it. He wrote ‘To arms;’ he says, ‘To arms, workingmen, to arms.’ What does that mean? Did anybody say at the Haymarket, ‘Here come the bloodhounds; you do your duty and I will do mine’? Let us see. ‘The bloodhounds’ was the common expression from the lips of these defendants as the designation for the police. Spies says in English—did he mean this or didn’t he?”

“Is that meaningless? ‘To arms, we call you to arms.’ Why, it is the cry of the revolutionist; it is the cry of the Communist; it is the cry of the Anarchist; it is the cry of Spies and Parsons—‘To arms, to arms!’ And yet the English was tame in comparison to the German version.

“Did they have no design upon individuals in this conspiracy? Why, they had the most awful, damning malice against the police. It was the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity. Without reason and without cause they had individualized the police; but Bonfield for the second time stood in the way of the Social Revolution. Just see how it forces up the blood of this social revolutionist: ‘The bloodhounds, the police are at you, in order to cure you, with bullets, of your dissatisfaction. Slaves, we ask, we conjure you by all that is sacred and dear to you, avenge’—what does that mean? What difference does it make whether he wrote revenge at the head of this circular or not? He wrote it in it. What did it mean? What did those conspirators mean?

“Avenge the atrocious murder which has been committed upon your brothers to-day, and which will be likely to be committed upon you to-morrow. Avenge, laboring men. Hercules, you have arrived at the cross-way. Which way will you decide, for slavery and hunger, or for freedom and bread? If you decide for the latter, then don’t delay a moment. Then, people, to arms! Annihilation, annihilation to the beasts in human form who call themselves your rulers. Uncompromising annihilation to them. This must be your motto. Think of the heroes whose blood has fertilized the road to progress, liberty and humanity, and strive to become worthy of them. Your brothers.

“Thousands of these were circulated throughout the city. Does that mean that there was a conspiracy and no malice against individuals?

“And then on Monday night a meeting at 54 West Lake Street took place, which has not been denied, and there were Lingg and Engel and Fischer. Engel’s plan was again reiterated; Lingg was to make the bombs, and Lingg was there to say he could make the bombs. He may have been to the Carpenters’ meeting before that. When he left the 54 West Lake Street meeting, he met Lehman upon the way home—Gustav Lehman, who testified he got the bombs from Lingg—and he said to Lehman, ‘If you want to know anything, you come to 58 Clybourn Avenue to-morrow night.’ In response to the question, ‘What has been going on in the meeting at 54 West Lake Street, in the basement?’

“At that meeting at 54 West Lake Street were represented all the different Socialistic and Anarchistic organizations. ‘Y, Come Monday night,’ had brought delegates, according to Waller’s testimony, from every group in the city. The West Side, the South Side, Southwest Side, the North Side, every group was represented, and the Lehr und Wehr Verein also had its delegates. The plan was arranged that on to-morrow, if the revolution took place in the daytime, and the conflict had occurred, the word ‘Ruhe’ should be published, all the men should be at their outlying groups ready to annihilate the police, the fire department, to cut the telegraph wires, and to prevent communication with the central meeting at the Haymarket. Waller had suggested that this meeting be at Market Square; Fischer says: ‘No; that is a mouse trap; we will make it the Haymarket.’ And then Spies takes it up north of the alley, north of the intersection of the street—and, by the way, that block has more alleys than perhaps any other block in the city of Chicago, and more means of escape—and locates that meeting just where he had located the street battle in his description to Mr. Wilkinson, and as Parsons had explained street warfare in the Alarm.

“Who called the meeting at the Haymarket to order on Desplaines Street beyond the alley? Spies. He had written with his own hand the word ‘Ruhe.’ He was after the social revolution. Why did he move the meeting to that place if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why was he there at all if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? He has told. Why was he on the wagon if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why didn’t he notify the police, if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant, not to come to that meeting? Why had he said upon the wagon, ‘If you want to do anything, why don’t you do it and say nothing?’ if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why did he leave his revolver before he ever got to that meeting unless he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? He follows out his own instructions in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, on that subject, when some one wrote:

“In the action itself one must be personally at the place to select personally that point on the place of the action and that part of the action which are the most important and are coupled with the greatest danger, upon which depend chiefly the success or failure of the whole affair.

“And he selected the place himself. Fischer says: ‘No, the Market Square is a mouse trap,’ and they named they Haymarket, and Spies designates the place of meeting and publishes the word ‘Ruhe;’ and then it is expected from twenty-five to forty thousand people will be at the meeting on Haymarket Square. Eight thousand had rebelled at McCormick’s; the skirmish lines had met, and it was expected that there would be twenty-five thousand at the Haymarket on that night; but there were not, and for that reason this mob was not dispersed. The police could not see at any time a meeting so large as to be beyond their control, but when this meeting became boisterous it was after ten o’clock, two hours later than the meeting was called for. If the police had been but two hours earlier in dispelling the meeting the flames would have been lighted out at Wicker Park; the instrument of fire described in Herr Most’s book, and found at Wicker Park, was for that purpose. The Northwestern group was to meet at Wicker Park, and come down past North Avenue Station. The North Side group was to annihilate the North Side Station, and Lingg was at his post of duty for that purpose.

“Was there a conspiracy? They take the word and Spies publishes it. He says in explanation: ‘Among the announcements it came to me by no person of whom I am aware, no one about whom I know anything.’ No questions were asked. In this way the mere editor, Spies, publishes in the Briefkasten the word ‘Ruhe’ prominently. The Briefkasten is used to answer private correspondence, personal letters and editorials, or it is used to place the advertisements of secret meetings in, and for no other purpose. ‘Y—Come Monday night,’ is found in the Letter-box of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. That is a secret thing, and means that the armed groups shall meet at 54 West Lake Street. ‘Ruhe’ was an answer to no correspondent; the word ‘Ruhe’ could enlighten no ignorant man on the subject alone; and the editor-in-chief of the Arbeiter-Zeitung picked up a piece of paper and wrote ‘Ruhe’ on it without ever knowing what it meant or where it came from, and says it was handed him among the labor announcements: ‘Mr. Editor, please publish the word “Ruhe” in the Letter box prominently.’ What tells you that it was a labor announcement? Who ever said it was a labor announcement? ‘Ruhe,’ peace, rest, quiet—‘Ruhe’ a labor announcement! Why, who said so? It would be lost if put in the announcements of labor organizations. ‘Mr. Editor, publish the word “Ruhe” in the column where you put “Y—Come Monday night,” the secret sign of the armed sections, and publish it prominently.’ Without a word he did so, and he asks you to believe it. Did he know what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why, he sent for Fischer, and Fischer told him it was harmless. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘that is foolish, Fischer; don’t do that, don’t do that.’ Rau had only told him that it meant: ‘Workmen, be at your groups, keep yourselves armed and in preparation, so that if you are attacked you can defend yourselves; workingmen, arm yourselves and be at your groups.’ That is what Rau said ‘Ruhe’ meant, and, when asked, Fischer says: ‘Why, that means, “Keep your powder dry,” that is all.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘Fischer, that is foolish; that is crazy; why, I cannot have that.’ What did he think was foolish and crazy? To keep their powder dry, when this man had said the day before, ‘Workingmen, arm yourselves, arm yourselves!’ This is the explanation of the word ‘Ruhe.’

“Did Parsons know of the conspiracy ‘Ruhe’? He was a party to the great conspiracy, for he had cried about April 24th for the revolution upon the 1st of May. That he has not denied; and to my mind he cuts one of the worst figures in this case. He was born at least upon American soil, and he stands here alone, alone amongst these vast hordes of witnesses who are not citizens of our republic, and whose purpose is her destruction. Albert R. Parsons is the only American, and he has no right, no right to belong to that nationality. He never said he did not know of the conspiracy, and he spoke of the 4th of May; it was said that night he staid away—by the way, he left this out—‘I should be accused of cowardice;’ but he did say, ‘I would come if I were to die before morning.’ Did he know of the conspiracy? Why, he had been in it for years. He published the order of street fighting in his Alarm, foreshadowing the battle in his description; and not only did he do that, but he made the alibi by calling at the American group on that night, a group organized and holding a meeting for the sewing girls when not a sewing girl was present, with no one there but a Nihilist, a Communist, a Socialist and an Anarchist. Mrs. Parsons was there and Mrs. Holmes. Where was any sewing girl?

“And here I want to ask you if, after hearing all the proof in this case; if, after reading Most’s ‘Revolutionary War,’ the instructions to the Nihilists and Anarchists; if after reading the Alarm here; if, after hearing the testimony of the witnesses, you will here and to-day say that the men lied who on that night stood when Captain Bonfield said ‘Fall in’—stood there when the concussion had riven to the earth sixty of Chicago’s noblest men because they had courage. When, out of the hundred and eighty, sixty lay wounded on the ground, the other one hundred and twenty killed the revolution with one blow. The men whose lives were spared fell in, and not a man has lived to say there was a coward in the whole one hundred and eighty.”

“Was Engel in the conspiracy? He proposed the plan at both meetings. He said to Captain Schaack, at the Chicago Avenue Station, that ‘what was in him had to come out,’ and he called it the dangerous power of internal eloquence. He planned the conspiracy of the Emma Street meeting, and has been an Anarchist for years, and instructor in the use of weapons, and adviser in the making of bombs. He not only was that, but he absolutely and unqualifiedly advised the Socialists to buy weapons for the express purpose of killing the police, maiming them, and then with all the cunning of a conspirator who has placed his neck within the noose, on the morning of the 4th of May he finds this infernal machine and takes it to the Chief of Police, and then comes the exhibition between Captain Bonfield and the leading counsel for the defense on that proposition. The counsel says: ‘He brought it to you freely,’ and he emphasized it, and then the tinner came, and the counsel says: ‘What is there about this piece of iron that makes you identify it? You only made that sheet; is that all? You just cut a piece of iron off for Mr. Engel.’ The witness says: ‘Please look at the mark on the inside; that is my mark.’ Was Engel in the conspiracy?

“Was Fischer, the lieutenant of Spies, in the conspiracy? Was Fischer, the messenger of Spies to the meeting at 54 West Lake Street, in the conspiracy? He was at the office on Monday afternoon between five and six o’clock, when the ‘Revenge’ circular was printed, and from there he went to 54 West Lake Street. Was he in the conspiracy—the man with the revolver nearly two feet long, and with the file dagger with grooves? What does that mean? Why, prussic acid evaporates; it dries off the instrument. ‘Use something with grooves.’ And the revolutionists must use files that are ground down, in order to have an instrument that is capable of holding poison. If you remember, there was another file dagger found in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung besides this one. Verdigris, which anyone can easily produce by dipping copper or brass into vinegar, and exposing it to the atmosphere, may also be mixed with gum arabic and applied to weapons, but the weapons ought to be grooved, so that the poison will remain on easier and in larger quantities. That is the explanation of the file dagger and the revolver. Was Fischer in the conspiracy, with the Lehr und Wehr Verein belt strapped upon his person, and traveling in the streets of the city of Chicago with an armament worse than any Western outlaw—because no outlaw ever carried on his person a dagger grooved, the slightest scratch of which meant death. It was conceived by nobody except the mind of the revolutionist and lieutenant of Spies.

“Was Lingg in the conspiracy? He made the very bomb that was used on that night, and it was used on that night in furtherance of the common design. Do you remember the analysis of that bomb? Do you remember the nuts used to fasten the half-globes together, identical with the one found in the wounded man upon the night of May 4? Do you remember Neff’s testimony and Seliger’s testimony—that after the bomb had been thrown, and Lingg was at 58 Clybourn Avenue, some one accused him and said: ‘You are responsible for all this—see what you have done’? Hubner said: ‘You are responsible for all this.’ This does not come from the lips of any indicted man, but from the lips of Mr. Neff, the proprietor at the place 58 Clybourn Avenue. Then Louis Lingg goes home and complains because he has been upbraided for his good work in this case, and then he flees, changes his appearance—and he is the only living man that changes his appearance in this case except the bomb-thrower. They are the two who shaved and cut their hair—Louis Lingg and Rudolph Schnaubelt. Was Lingg in the conspiracy? He was not only in the conspiracy, but he did everything in the world to carry out his part of it that night. ‘Lehman, you come to 58 Clybourn Avenue to-night, and you will find out what the meeting in the basement at 54 meant.’ And Lehman came, and on the next day he was at Lingg’s house, and bomb after bomb was distributed from that place before night. Where was Lingg in the morning, between eight and one? Looking after the revolution in the central part of the city. Men coming and going all day after bombs and with bombs—as Mrs. Seliger says—all day long, taking them away from that place.

“‘Seliger, make haste!’ ‘Hubner, make haste!’ ‘Muntzenberg, make haste!’ ‘Put the cloth over your heads so that you can’t get headache. Make haste. These bombs must be done so as to be used to-night!’ What a nice thing it would be, as he and Seliger stood at the corner of North Avenue and Larrabee Street, to throw a bomb in that station, Lingg says. Then it is 10:30, and the telephone has called for assistance from the North Avenue Station, and the patrol wagon goes out, and there stand Lingg and Seliger with bombs, and Lingg says, ‘Seliger, give me a light; they are going to the assistance of the others. It has happened; the revolution has come. Give me a light’—and here I am reminded that when a man throws a bomb in furtherance of the social revolution they do it by twos; one furnishes the light and the other throws the bomb. And this shows that it was not a solitary and single instance that occurred in the alley south of Crane’s when a match was lighted and Schnaubelt threw the bomb. The same thing was duplicated by Lingg and Seliger when Seliger was to furnish the light and Lingg throw the bomb. It was only because Seliger hesitated that those men were not killed by Lingg at North Avenue. Was Lingg in this conspiracy then? Why, he fled the next day, and he is the man who had the courage to give up all hope. You see, Lingg is a practical annihilator. He don’t believe in preaching; he believes in acting, and not only believes in it, but he will do it at any time. He saw Schuettler come into the room and jumped upon him the moment he passed the door, with one of those large revolvers. And then you will remember the fight and struggle there. Most’s book says when there is a possibility to annihilate an opposing party, or where it becomes a question of life and death, that death or resistance, or both, are advisable.

“That is the advice that Lingg acted on and that Spies acted on, but: ‘If you are sure that the arrest is made only on vague suspicion, then submit to the inevitable. It is easier in such case to extract yourself again. Prove an alibi.’ Was Lingg in this conspiracy? Was it a Lingg bomb? Hubner, Neff and Seliger swear that Hubner said to Lingg, ‘You are responsible for this, Louis Lingg,’ and they had a dispute and a violent discussion when it was discovered there. After he tries to throw the bomb at the station he goes home and he sees ‘Ruhe,’ and he is almost crazy, and he wants to go to the Haymarket, and he goes back to 58 Clybourn Avenue and finds that it is over and that the revolution is not accomplished; and then he gets angry because he is upraided as the one to blame for the whole thing. ‘You have done this,’ Hubner tells him. Hubner was there all day and helped to make bombs, and Muntzenberg and the Lehmans were in and out all day. Was it Louis Lingg’s bomb?”