Anarchy Now—The Fund for the Condemned Men’s Families—$10,000 Subscribed—The Disposition of the Money—The Festival of Sorrow—Parsons’ Posthumous Letter—The Haymarket Monument—Present Strength of the Discontented—7,300 Revolutionists in Chicago—A Nucleus of Desperate Men—The New Organization—Building Societies and Sunday-schools—What the Children are Taught—Education and Blasphemy—The Secret Propaganda—Bodendick and his Adventures—“The Rebel Vagabond”—The Plot to Murder Grinnell, Gary and Bonfield—Arrest of the Conspirators Hronek, Capek, Sevic and Chleboun—Chleboun’s Story—Hronek Sent to the Penitentiary.

THE question which will naturally present itself to the reader at this time is: What is the present condition of Anarchy in Chicago? Has the frightful fate of the convicted conspirators proven a salutary lesson to the others, or is the propaganda still maintained?

Unfortunately these questions must be answered in a manner not calculated to allay public apprehension.

After the death and the burial of the executed leaders there was a period of quietness among the Anarchists. They seemed stunned by the blow which had been leveled at them, but the impression soon wore away, and in a short time they were as rampant as ever.

Their first work was to provide for the families of the dead, and for this purpose a fund of $10,000 was speedily raised. Of this amount, strange to say, $4,000 has been invested in four per cent. Cook County bonds. This amount was intended as a reserve fund for the support of the families, and the rest of the money they are paying out in weekly installments to the families. On New Year’s Day of 1888 each of the families was presented with $202 in cash, and loans have been made to Mrs. Parsons, Mrs. Fielden and Mrs. Engel to the amount of $400 in each case. These loans are deducted in small amounts from the weekly allowances to these women. Later in the year funds were found to send Mrs. Parsons on a lecturing tour to England, an adventure which did not prove a conspicuous success if the reports are to be believed, for the English discontents showed marked disapproval of Mrs. Parsons’ dynamite appeals.

Money is still being collected for a monument at Waldheim Cemetery which shall be the shrine of Anarchist pilgrimages from every part of the country. In this connection the revolutionists have established a “Festival of Sorrow,” as they curiously call it, upon the anniversary of the execution.

In the proceedings of commemoration held at the cemetery on November 11, 1888, the most interesting episode was the reading of the following letter from Albert R. Parsons to his children, which had, by his instructions, remained sealed for a year. It ran as follows:

It was a somewhat disappointing epistle, for all the Anarchists had expected a sensational document, as the result of such a theatrical instruction.

On the other hand the people of Chicago have not been idle. A monument to the memory of the murdered policemen will soon grace Haymarket Square as a lasting memorial to the brave men who fell in the line of duty, and as showing the gratitude of the city to its defenders.

The pedestal for the police monument was completed long before the figure was ready to be placed. The foundation was begun and finished in December, 1888. The cost of the pedestal, with railings, light supports, and everything complete, in readiness for the figure, aggregated $5,000. The contract price for the pedestal was $3,500. This was increased to $4,000 by minor changes and extra work. The railings, electric lights and supports, and placing the figure in position, will add another $1,000. The figure itself will make the value of the monument $10,000.

The pedestal sits on a circular sub-base of dressed granite, sixteen feet nine inches in diameter, elevated two steps above the foundation. A base of dressed granite with Ionic cornices rests on the center of this circular sub-base. The central cube, decorated with a shield on which is the coat of arms of the city, supports a block bearing an inscription giving the date of the riot and appropriate sentiments. Worked around these inscriptions are branches and leaves of oak, indicative of strength. By a graceful series of Ionic cornices the pedestal ascends to the base of the figure, the height from the foundation being seven feet six inches. The pedestal is oblong, extending north and south across the circular base. Two arms of granite extending from the base unite on either side the granite base of the posts which support the lights.

The designer of the figure which surmounts the pedestal, and which represents a police officer in full uniform with his arm extended, is Charles F. Batchelder.

All of these are facts directly connected with and growing out of the trial of the case. I come now to the present status of Anarchy. The authorities have recognized the constant menace which the existence of this conspiracy conveyed to the cause of law and order, and consequently the malcontents have been watched with unceasing vigilance. Their meetings, their plottings, their purposes, their plan of organization and their system of propaganda we know nearly as well as they know it themselves.

The Socialists themselves estimate their numbers in Chicago at 75,000 men, women and children. As Socialism is the parent of Anarchy—the two are identical in their ultimate aims, differing only in tactics—these figures are significant.

The number of Anarchists in Chicago to-day is not far from 7,300 men and women. Of these there are thirty-five known to us to be desperate men, ready to commit murder, arson or any other crime to revenge themselves upon the officers and the magistrates who were concerned in bringing about the hanging of their leaders. These are the most dangerous conspirators in the body, and it may easily be believed that rather close attention is paid to their movements. Next to these comes a collection of some 275 men who are at heart dynamiters, and who would be ready to plunge into a revolt at any moment if they were not held back by the more prudent counsels of the others. These men are dangerous. Next to these there is a body of about 5,000 Anarchists, who would join in a revolt if they could persuade themselves or be persuaded that there was any real chance for success; but they are as a rule careful of themselves, and they are not going to rush to the gallows if they can help it. Only in a time of great public tumult are they to be really feared. I place in still another category a body of 2,000 “sympathizers”—men upon whom neither the Anarchists nor society could rely. They are a doubtful class, and might easily be led one way or the other by a decided victory on either side in a time of real struggle.

Many women are to be found in each of these classifications, from the most desperate up. There are about forty “women-workers” so called who are engaged in the Anarchic propaganda in the city, six of them being lecturers. They are doing a great deal of harm.

The present plans of the reds, as broadly stated by one of the open leaders, contemplate the use of every force in society—“the force of education, the force of agitation and the force of arms; the first now and always; the second, with great care and judgment; the last, when the time shall arrive for a strike at liberty.” The reds throughout the world have learned a lesson from the failure of Spies and his companions, and while their aims and sentiments are unchanged, their plans have undergone considerable modification.

A new system of organization has also been developed. They met at first in little groups of five or ten, fearing to gather in larger numbers in the excited times following the hanging. It was proposed to organize ward clubs, but this was negatived because the politicians would mix up with them to get their votes, and thus destroy the secrecy that they wanted. Their demand was for some sort of an organization enabling many people to meet together without attracting suspicion or inviting investigation by the police, and this they succeeded in doing by getting up a Building Society. This was followed by another and another in different parts of the town. They charge an initiation of ten cents, none but approved and guaranteed Anarchists are admitted, and the societies are working in full force, although I doubt whether they will greatly contribute to the material improvement of Chicago. The Anarchists are a very quarrelsome lot, and they often get into serious disputes with each other, and thus one party, to get revenge, would often come to me with information on his enemy. This has been stopped by the “Building Association,” which maintains committees to settle all quarrels between members.

Aside from a majority of the thirty-two organizations affiliated with the Central Labor Union, the reds of late have been propagating the revolutionary cause through the following societies:

1. The Workingmen’s Defense Association, composed chiefly of men, of which Fred Bentthin is secretary. This same organization raised the money to defend the reds who were tried for the conspiracy to assassinate Judges Gary and Grinnell, Bonfield and others.

2. The Pioneer Aid and Relief Society, composed chiefly of women. This institution came into existence immediately after the arrest of the Anarchists in May, 1886.

3. A. R. Parsons Assembly No. 1. This is a reorganization of the suspended or expelled Assembly 1307, once known as the Sons of Liberty. It has always been a hotbed of Anarchy, and is now composed of Anarchists almost exclusively. Its membership is composed of such revolutionary lights as Oliver, Holmes, Snyder, Brown, Glasgow, and other fire-brands. Snyder and Brown were arrested at the time of the Haymarket massacre and held in custody for months.

4. The English branch of the Socialistic Labor party, Waverly Hall, 122 Randolph Street.

5. The German branch of the Socialistic Labor party, 54 West Lake Street.

6. The Socialistic Publishing Society, which controls the Arbeiter-Zeitung on the communistic plan and devotes all surplus to the cause of the social revolution.

7. The “Arbeiter-Bund,” or Working People’s Confederation, recently organized at 636 Milwaukee Avenue. This is the most violent public organization of Anarchists in Chicago.

It was the Arbeiter-Bund which, through its attorneys, applied to Judge Tuley only a short time ago for an injunction to restrain the police from interfering with meetings of Socialists and Anarchists. While the injunction was not technically granted, still the decision was such as to render the police powerless to interfere with their gatherings. The Chancellor’s opinion is too lengthy to print here, but it was made on a broad construction of the constitutional provision guaranteeing free speech. I am not a lawyer, and I will not attempt to say that the learned Chancellor misunderstands the law or the Constitution, but it does seem that there ought to be some provision which should make it unsafe or impossible for bloody-minded revolutionists to preach their foreign doctrine in open defiance of a respectable and law-abiding community.

The impudence shown by the Anarchists, extreme Socialists and other enemies of society in claiming redress under the law would seem ridiculous if it were not contemptible. These agitators shout “throttle the law,” and then complain that their meetings are suppressed contrary to law. At their meetings, in their speeches, and in other ways they cover the courts and judges with opprobrium, and then apply to the courts for restraining orders forbidding the police to interfere with their meetings. With yells and screeches in foreign tongues they declare that the Constitution shall be destroyed, and then complain that they are denied freedom of speech in violation of the Constitution. Putting themselves outside the law and demanding its destruction, they at the same time demand its protection.

Other forms of public organization are the “Schulgemeinde” of the Northwest Side, and the “Arbeiter Bildungs-Verein.” The two last-named seem to have for their special object the establishment and maintenance of “Sunday schools.”

Of all this more will be said hereafter, but first I will call attention to the fact that the organizations named are only what appear on the surface. Underlying and controlling all these is the secret organization, which in Chicago consists of an “invisible committee.” It must be understood that the movement toward the object to which the Internationale looks forward—the social revolution—is local, national, and international, and it is probable that the committee for Chicago was appointed from the headquarters of the Internationale in New York, at the suggestion of that arch-conspirator and mischief-maker, Johann Most. The “invisible committee,” although they have full direction of the movement in Chicago, are supposed to be unknown to the mass of the order. They work individually, and not as a body, and always quietly. Their identity they hold sacredly secret. It is only when open revolutionary work has actually begun that they are to come to the front. In the meantime, the open workers and agitators report to the individual “invisibles,” and act under their advice. The “invisibles” themselves make it a point to practice moderation in their public utterances to divert suspicion. The old-time centralized organization, the reds believe, led to the detection and conviction of their leaders, after the failure of the Haymarket plot, and this it was that made the new plan not only advisable but necessary. Decentralization is now the ruling principle.

The public agitators are such people as Currlin, Holmes, Morgan, Mikolanda, Grottkau, Mostler, Bergman, G. Smith, Poch, Mittag, Mentzer and others. They declare themselves openly as Anarchists and agitators. They are of course well known to the police, and consequently they are on the look-out not to come in contact with us. They only enlist recruits, however. The secret agitators visit public meetings occasionally, but they very seldom do any talking. Nobody notices them, and this is what they want. They are seldom members of any “Verein,” and they form acquaintances on the street, in shops or saloons, but always with the utmost caution until they have gained confidence. They meet at private houses in parties of three or four, agitating wherever they can gain a point. When charged with being Anarchists they deny it, and to throw off suspicion some of them even go regularly to church. Among these there are fanatics who would do almost anything to gain their ends. I know a great many of this class, and I would not believe it if I did not know of my own knowledge that they are Anarchists of the purest water. They are the most harmless-looking men in Chicago.

The open and public movement still goes on under cover of the cause of labor. The plan of campaign is, so far as the public associations and meetings are concerned, to teach Anarchy; to create in the minds of Socialistic adherents a hatred of all law and of all religion, and to inspire a spirit of revenge for the execution of Spies and his comrades. Their teachings are carried out by speeches more or less incendiary.

The most potent factor for evil in Chicago to-day, as heretofore, is the Arbeiter-Zeitung. When this paper was first established it was delivered secretly through alleyways and at back doors. Now it has a circulation of 7,000 copies daily. Time was when the daily tirades of abuse scattered broadcast by that sheet were viewed with indifference by the English-speaking press of this city. That was in the seed-time of “theoretic” and “practical” Anarchy in Chicago. Then the dire meaning of it all escaped the bulk of the population. It was said—and the saying was flaunted in the faces of the sullen hordes until it acted like the red rag on an infuriated bull—that all this talk would end where it began—in talk. The paper is more readable and interesting now than it ever was. Its present editorial staff is an abler one, and understands better on occasion how to convey its meaning without expressing it in so many plain words. It comprises not only some of the old-time writers—men like Paul Grottkau and Albert Currlin—but it has now at its head a man of infinitely more cunning and ability than ever distinguished August Spies.

Editor Jens Christensen, a native of the formerly Danish province of Schleswig, is a good-looking young German, and bears quite a resemblance to his predecessor in personal appearance. He is thoroughly proficient not only in German, but also in English, French, and all the Scandinavian tongues, is a scientifically trained man, and has at command an arsenal of facts, arguments and deductions to be marshaled up in defense of his specious pleadings.

Christensen was at one time a Socialist candidate for the German Reichstag, and is now in constant and confidential correspondence with the leading European prophets of destruction. Although he has been in America less than a year, he has inspired in his disciples within that short time a degree of confidence which Spies never possessed. He has not the easy address of Spies in dealing with a crowd, and he is at all times a better, more logical and more forcible writer than orator; but he is, for all that, the best public speaker the destructionists of this city have within their ranks to-day. He is more suave than impassioned in his speech—reserved and self-possessed, and never at a loss for a reply. He is a zealot and a fanatic in the cause he has espoused, and he is probably the only Socialist in Chicago who can give a scientific basis for every dogma he announces, and a proof for every word he utters.

Since Christensen’s arrival here he has been in a newspaper warfare with Johann Most. He attacked Most, charging him with being an injury to the cause of the revolution by his bad judgment and radical plans of dynamite and other methods for the application of physical force. Most has been striking back in his characteristic way, and this has brought Christensen into considerable prominence. Moreover, he is a writer with great executive ability. He is a man of strong convictions, evident courage, but is quite a diplomat, and does not propose to follow his “comrades” to the gallows by any slip of the pen or tongue if he can help it. Christensen is a Socialist, not an Anarchist, he says, and yet he declares with a good deal of frankness that Socialists and Anarchists are pretty much the same, so far as the result sought is concerned, the only essential differences being in the tactics used to reach the object aimed at.

Such a man, it will be readily seen, when once started in the wrong path, is a much more dangerous foe than the hot-headed, rather selfish, openly ambitious Spies. And he shows his power in nothing better than in his manner of conducting the avowed organ of all the destructionists. Since his advent, this afternoon sheet has set the ferment of social agitation going again until the movement, as a matter of fact, is to-day in reality more formidable than it was three years ago, for now it is directed by a cautious, self-contained man who weighs every step before advising it, and who in all things considers the question of expediency first.

The paper he presides over is a daily proof of his skill and of his capacity for doing harm. It spreads the old doctrine of destruction and social upheaval, but it does so in a much more insidious, in a more guarded, and, probably, in a more effective manner. There is a general policy laid down, and that is never deviated from. Every line that goes into the reading columns of the Arbeiter-Zeitung has to serve a purpose. That purpose is to teach a lesson, to serve as one more grain of disgust with the existing state of things, to render the reader more weary of the society of to-day. Every piece of news is bent to that end—distorted, falsified, or magnified—so as to “point a moral or adorn a tale.” If a laborer has been cheated out of his wages, for instance, by his employer, a general deduction as to all employers is made. If a wealthy thief escape more or less merited punishment, the sharp edge of sarcasm and of lament over the futility of trying to regenerate this world by any but “radical” means is again used. Every piece of rascality, in fact, on the part of well-to-do or highly placed men, every misstep, every error, every unwise law and every unwise application of a wise one—all of these things and many more are seized and made to serve the purpose of this personally smooth and amiable Mephistopheles, and are dished up to his benighted readers, peppered, salted and seasoned with Chile sauce, to make them palatable.

Thus the paper acts on that vast body of half or wholly discontented, on all those who, with or without their own fault, are not as well off as they might be, on all those thousands who sympathized or still sympathize with the dread fate of the eight Anarchists arrested after the Haymarket slaughter, as a constant irritant, distorting everything to their mental eye and keeping them forever in an irritable mood and in a sort of self-made purgatory which embitters even their hours of rest and recreation. That this sort of effect cannot go accumulating in the minds of many thousands of men and women and children without finally producing something tangible, an explosion, is self-evident and needs no emphasizing. Did space permit, I should like to give here extracts to show how insidious and subtle the poison which is daily instilled into the minds of these readers.

Mr. Currlin, ex-editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, is known as the wandering missionary of Anarchy. He is busily engaged in the propagation of revolutionary ideas. His style of oratory and the general drift of his sentiments may be gathered from quotations heretofore given in this book.

George Schilling would strenuously object to being called an Anarchist. But he admits being a Socialist. When asked a short time ago if he expected another outbreak as the result of existing revolutionary forces, he said:

“I expect something of the kind about the end of the present century—say in ten years. Society is just now dormant, like a river frozen in winter time, but some night there will be a mighty crack in the ice, and under the warming influences of evolutionary forces there will be a mighty upheaval. There will no doubt be a squall or two before that time, but the great event will not come, in my judgment, much sooner. There will be lots of men and women who will not be able to see beyond the squall, and they will think the time has arrived. It will come, not as the result of a conspiracy of Anarchists, but as a conspiracy of all the evolutionary forces of society.”

Mrs. Lucy Parsons is still an active exhorter in the cause. She is simply irrepressible, and has made herself obnoxious to the more peaceable and conservative Socialists. To the ordinary hearer her harangues would seem ridiculous, were it not for the fact that the loss of a husband by death on the gallows naturally creates sympathy, even for a fanatic.

“Prison bars nor the scaffold shall ever prevent me from speaking the truth,” she exclaimed at a Sunday afternoon meeting of Socialists at Waverly Hall a few months ago. “The ballot is useless as a remedy, and a change in the present condition of the wage slave will never be brought about peacefully. Force is the only remedy, and force will certainly be used.”

This meeting had been called to listen to a paper by Prof. Charles Orchardson on “Salvation from Poverty.” The speaker, deprecating the incendiary arguments and appeals to forceful measures on the part of what were known as Anarchists, said that Anarchy never would improve the condition of society. He devoted himself principally to the private ownership of land, and claimed that more frauds had been committed in that name than in any other. Fire and murder were the sole right and title of the original owners of the land, and no original robbery could be tortured into a righteous transaction. The owner of the land was the owner of the inhabitants. Land in Chicago originally worth $1 an acre was now, in some localities, worth perhaps $1,000,000 an acre. The people made this value, but the land-owner reaped the benefit of the advance the people had created. A land speculator was nothing but a land peculator, and held the people at his mercy. The three evils of society to-day, the speaker said, were private enterprise, the competitive system and private ownership of land. The first remedy to be applied was the education of the people. Another remedy was to adopt the single-tax theories of Henry George and to establish the Australian method of secret voting, so that the employÉ could fearlessly deposit his ballot without fear of discharge from his employer. This method would also abolish the buying and selling of votes. Then men should be elected to represent the people in the halls of legislation and to resist the encroachments of the capitalists and monopolists. Private ownership in land should be abolished, and the capitalists should be compelled to stop the work of increasing poverty by curtailing the productions of the labor of man.

During the discussion which followed the reading of Prof. Orchardson’s paper, the ringing voice of Mrs. Parsons was heard in the rear of the hall. She had entered late, and few were aware of her presence, but she was greeted with loud applause as she rapidly and defiantly made her way to the front of the platform. She said:

Here the applause was almost deafening. Mrs. Parsons paused and gazed around the room.

“I do not care,” said she, “whether there are any policemen or detectives here or not, or whether the newspapers want to come out with sensational head-lines about me. Go on voting, and in ten years you will find yourselves where I am now. You will be no further advanced, and then you will have to come to the revolution of force which I advocate now.”

Her voice rang out strong and clear, and as she finished it seemed evident from the loud applause that followed that the majority of those present were in full accord with her sentiments.

Professor Orchardson then replied to his critic. He claimed that Mrs. Parsons had begun by picturing Anarchy as one of the most lovely and beautiful conditions imaginable, but before she had finished she had advocated murder, force, carbines and every violent measure conceivable. She had claimed that Anarchy did not mean war, and in the same breath had urged that all means were justifiable to secure it. “A man who undertakes to philosophize upon this question,” said he, “soon becomes contaminated by that horrible theory Anarchism.”

A few hisses were heard about the room.

“I see I have no sympathy here,” he continued, “and I here declare that if I live I will never speak again where Anarchists are admitted and permitted to speak.”

Here a storm of hisses and loud cries of “Shame” were heard on all sides, and for a moment it seemed as if trouble was imminent. The chairman, however, succeeded in restoring order, and the speaker was about to continue his remarks, when he was interrupted by Mrs. Parsons.

“Did you not advocate assassination in your lecture last night?” she asked.

“I did not. I simply said that if humanity had sunk so low that men would sell themselves out, secret societies should be formed for the purpose of bringing retribution on the men who had betrayed their trusts.”

“You said assassination,” shouted Mrs. Parsons, “and I can prove it.”

“I never did and never will advocate the vicious, horrible and bloodthirsty ideas of the Anarchists, that made it so hard to argue the Socialistic question before the people,” concluded the Professor, in evident disgust; “and I again repeat that I never will attend another meeting where such ideas are advocated.”

As the speaker took his seat, he was warmly cheered by a number present, but there was a loud murmur of dissent from the rear of the room, where Mrs. Parsons sat surrounded by her friends.

The most conspicuous feature of the propaganda of the Internationale in Chicago to-day is the Sunday school movement. There are now four of these schools in successful and established operation, and a number of others are fairly started.

The first was opened in the spring of 1888, at Lake View, by the “Socialistic Turn-Verein.” The second was begun in August, 1888, at Jefferson, by the Turn-Verein “Fortschritt.” The third was commenced in September, at “Thalia Hall,” by the “Arbeiter Bildungs-Verein” of the Northwest Side, and the fourth was started at 58 Clybourn Avenue, by the “Arbeiter Bildungs-Verein” of the North Side. The school at Lake View is frequented by about 190 children; the school of the Turn-Verein “Fortschritt” has from forty to fifty pupils; the school of the Northwest Side was visited on Sunday, December 9, 1888, by 230 children, and this Verein will have to rent another hall, as the present one is not large enough to accommodate all the pupils. The North Side school was attended by about 100 children on the same day. All schools are under the supervision of the one organized on December 9, 1888, at Aurora Turn Hall. The main mission of this school is the organization of others. It can easily be seen that the schools now established are prospering, because the number of pupils is increasing from day to day. The schools are of Socialistic and Anarchistic origin. Nothing is taught relating to dynamite or bombs. The German language is used in all the schools, and all the ordinary branches of education are embraced in the curriculum, but underneath and above all is the spirit of contempt for law and religion. The children are instructed that religion is nothing but a humbug; that there exists no God and no devil, no heaven and no hell, and that Christianity is only a preventive system adopted by the capitalists to rule the working people and keep them under. After this they are to be taught the spirit of revolution. In all, the main point is agitation for Socialism and Anarchy.

As showing the spirit of the Anarchist Sunday schools, I append the following appeal for Christmas presents from the Arbeiter-Zeitung of December 7, 1888. It seems to me that it leaves very little to be said, except perhaps to point out that 58 Clybourn Avenue is a low-class groggery, and that it was in the very room in which the school is held that the Anarchists who were to carry out Engel’s plan on the 4th of May, 1886, secured their supplies of dynamite and bombs:

Dr. E. G. Kleinoldt, who lives at 591 Sedgwick Street, is one of the chief teachers. He is an enthusiast in instructing innocent children that there is no God and no hereafter. He tells his small charges that priests, and ministers alike are swindlers, and there are in this city fathers who bring their children to the rear of a beer saloon on Sundays to be taught such doctrine by a drunkard.

On Saturday night, December 1, 1888, a dance was in progress in Yondorf’s Hall. Officer Lorch, of my command, called in to see what kind of a gathering it was. Entering the hall, he saw Kleinoldt with three young men, talking very busily. The officer approached near enough to hear that Kleinoldt was talking about dynamite, and finally heard him tell the young men how to make bombs, explaining the process in the same manner as Engel had done. He also suggested that if his hearers would make bombs and put them under “the leafers of policemen,” it would make the “bloodhounds” jump. The officer approached Kleinoldt and said:

“This is not an Anarchist meeting. Stop your talk, or I will put you out.”

Kleinoldt made some insulting remarks, and the officer took him by the back of the neck and pushed him out of the hall. This was the last of him there for that night, but the young men he had been talking to were not Anarchists. One of the three followed him out on the sidewalk and there met a friend whom he told what Kleinoldt had advised. The newcomer, who happened to carry a large turkey, was a little under the influence of liquor himself, but was sober enough to oppose Anarchy. He followed Kleinoldt, struck him with the turkey, knocked him down and broke his eye-glasses, apparently for the purpose of demonstrating to the worthy pedagogue that all people who drink too much beer are not necessarily Anarchists.

This man Kleinoldt was interviewed a short time ago by a reporter of the Chicago Herald. While other Anarchist pedagogues are loth to communicate their plans and doings, Kleinoldt talked readily, and what he said seems to me sufficiently interesting to repeat here.

“We do not teach Socialism or Anarchism in our Sunday-schools, and the newspapers do us an injustice when they say so,” said Dr. Kleinoldt. “The object of our Sunday schools is to keep the children away from the influence of the Jesuits, who teach the Bible, religious songs, and church doctrine, subjects that are very distasteful to us who are Socialists. I was one of the prime movers in the project to organize schools to be held on Sundays all over the city, which shall be open to children of all parents who are opposed to the hurtful influences of church instruction. While it is possibly true that most of those in attendance are the offspring of Socialists and Anarchists, still it is by no means restricted to them, for in one school, at 58 Clybourn Avenue, as well as others, you will find those whose fathers have no sympathy with our advanced ideas on sociology.”

“What do you teach at these schools?” asked the reporter.

“Our course takes in reading, writing, natural history, geography, literature, general history and morality—so much of ethics as young minds are capable of receiving.”

“And you do not teach the tenets of Anarchy?” queried the reporter.

“By no means. We say nothing of bombs, dynamite, overthrow of kingdoms, uprooting of our present social system, or anything of that kind. What would be the use of it? If you had a correct appreciation of the principles of Anarchy and Socialism you would readily understand that the questions are too grave for the apprehension of juvenile minds. Later on—well, that is something else.”

“Still, Doctor, your teachers are thoroughly imbued with these sentiments, and it would be only natural for you to desire, if you are honest in your convictions, that these young people should grow up in your peculiar faith.”

“That is another matter,” replied Dr. Kleinoldt, regarding the reporter fixedly through his spectacles. “As the twig is bent the tree’s inclined. We are honest in what we profess, else why should we profess at all, since we have nothing to gain but obloquy, in the present at least? Being honest and believing that our teachings are best for the human family, we should be strange beings indeed if we were not anxious to have our children grow up into our faith. What I have said is, and I repeat it, that we do not teach Anarchistic or Socialistic principles to the pupils in our Sunday schools.”

The reporter here read to the Doctor a paragraph from one of the Chicago dailies to the effect that at the school held in the rear of Rachau Bros’. saloon, corner of Lincoln Avenue and Halsted Street, the day before, a teacher had dilated upon the death of Spies and Parsons, declaring they were murdered by the capitalists and that they were martyrs.

“Of that I know nothing. All I know is that such is not the design of our schools. Such talk is not heard at our school in the rear of the saloon at 58 Clybourn Avenue. We use the same books that are used in the day schools, and what we teach is as I have told you before—only this and nothing more.”

“But since your teachers hold to these peculiar views, and since children have investigating minds—being eager to ask questions—is there anything to prevent teachers from defining their views even if they do not enter into arguments to demonstrate the tenableness of their position?”

“I repeat again, there are many children in attendance upon our schools whose parents are not Anarchists or Socialists. Those who are hear these opinions at their homes. Those who are not do not hear them.”

“True; but there are some, doubtless, in every class, who have heard at their homes the teachings of Anarchy or Socialism; they may ask questions. Is there anything to prevent the teachers from replying to them in such manner as to indoctrinate the others in this faith?”

“It is possible, I admit. But I say again, it is not so in our school. Indeed, most of the children are too small to know anything about such matters. You will say time will correct that. I add that our primary object is the education of the young people. We teach in German altogether, because the children learn English in the public schools. They all attend the latter, because it is a primary principle with us that it is education alone that can make men free. In addition to the studies named, we teach music and singing, and we hold a session at 58 Clybourn Avenue in the afternoon of each Sunday, when teachers from the Workingmen’s Educational Society—an art organization—teach them drawing.”

The Doctor is a short, thick-set, mild-mannered man, possessed of a gentle voice, and is, apparently, about thirty-five years old. He spoke carefully, and without excitement.

“Let me tell you further,” he said, after a brief pause, “we do not teach anything of what is termed religion, because we do not believe in that. We do teach morals, the duties we owe to our neighbors, the great principles of right and wrong. We desire the children to grow up into Socialists, that they may be worthy successors of their parents; but we do not think the Sunday school we have organized is the proper place to inculcate such doctrines.”

“Because your pupils are too young?” asked the reporter.

“Yes, and because, as I have said, the parents of some of the children do not hold to our views, and it is our desire to bring into our fold as many as possible, thus saving as many as we can from the evil influences of the church.”

“You say you teach music and songs. Do these include sacred music?”

“Our music and songs are strictly secular; we have nothing to do with anything connected with the churches.”

Dr. Kleinoldt may be correct in his statement that the school at 58 Clybourn Avenue has not taught Anarchy, yet it is nevertheless true that at least two of the school’s enthusiastic teachers have dilated upon the “martyrdom” of Spies, Parsons, Fischer and Engel, declaring that they died for a glorious cause, and that those officials who were instrumental in their arrest, and those who took part in the trial and at the execution, are guilty of the vilest of crimes. At one of the schools, a teacher even went so far as to allude to the Savior as the lazy loafer of Nazareth. It will not demand a very close reading “between the lines” of the interview with Dr. Kleinoldt, however, to find out that, whatever the motive of those who have inaugurated this movement, the ultimate result will be the same as though the open and expressed object were the dissemination of those views now universally regarded among civilized nations as subversive of all government. The schools are organized for the purpose of sowing in the minds of innocent children the seeds of atheism, discontent and lawlessness.

The Sunday school movement is only one feature of the general plan of the revolutionists. The Socialists fear as heartily as they hate the church, and of late they have had especial reason, from their standpoint, for both. Both Catholic and Protestant churches located in German, Bohemian and Polish sections have recently extended their facilities for reaching the youth of their nationalities, and hundreds of children have been gathered into Christian schools on Sundays, thus taking them for a brief while on that day from the squalid streets upon which they roam without restraint, and bringing them in contact with Christian influences. Even scores of children of Socialistic parents have had this experience. The great aim of the Internationals now, as always, is to increase their numerical strength. To do this they hold it necessary to establish secular Sunday schools wherein the principles of Socialism will be taught and where children will be made to despise, though they may obey, the laws.

It need only be added here that all the schools of the Socialists now in operation in Chicago are held either in the rear or in the basements of beer saloons.

Judge Tuley, in his decision on the application for an injunction, stated that “there are Christian Anarchists.” I venture the assertion, however, that the learned jurist has never seen one of that class. I know that I have not, and I never expect to see one. Christianity and Anarchy are entirely opposite. While it is possible of course that a man professing the religion of Christ should be blinded by the plausible preachings of the Anarchists, still the hallucination would be only temporary. Religion and Anarchy, as I understand and have seen it, do not and never will go together.

The conspirator Hronek, at his trial, was asked if he believed in God.

“I have never seen him,” was the reply.

Scratch the hide of an Anarchist, and you will find an infidel or a fool. An intelligent human being cannot reconcile the violent doctrines of Anarchy with any form of Christianity.

Charles L. Bodendick, twenty-five years old, 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighing 150 pounds, was arrested by Officer Hanley for robbing Justice White, March 18, 1886, and was held to the Criminal Court in $1,500 bonds. He was tried and sentenced to the penitentiary in Joliet for one year. During his trial it was demonstrated that he was a thorough Anarchist. The Arbeiter-Zeitung then called him a “crank” and said that he was crazy. Before he was arrested, however, he had made his home about the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, and at that time he had been looked on as a valuable man. The poor fellow had kept hanging around there, reading their misleading trash, until he was destitute and a vagrant. The next steps were robbery and the penitentiary.

After his release from prison Bodendick came back to the city, and, roaming about from place to place, finally fell into his old ways again, living on wind and Anarchy. He grew more desperate even than before his arrest. He wanted to manufacture something stronger than dynamite. A card was given to him by Dyer D. Lum, and he called at the Public Library for the “Techno-Chemical Receipt Book,” K 4314. On page 30 of this book Bodendick learned what he knew of the make-up of explosives. He admitted that he wanted to use sulphur, saltpeter and soda potash. He also procured other books on explosives, and he finally purchased a quantity of material and went to his room to experiment. But before he had learned very much he was arrested. Bodendick was kept in the Central Station in the sweat-box for two weeks. He was defiant at first, but finally sent word to the Inspector that he wanted to talk with him. He was brought to the office, and after he had given a lot of information, and promised to leave the city at once, he was released. The Anarchists claim that he never did “squeal.”

This Bodendick was an odd genius. Here is verbatim et literatim a poem in which he melodiously voiced his sentiments some years ago:

THE REBELL-VAGABOND.

I live and will take the right,
To demand of the world abundance;
To do so, I’m prepared to fight
the world and all its Dungeons.

Your a Loafer, says “the upper ten,”
You aught to go to Prison.
But, who are the priveledged ones
To loaf? the toilers lot dissmissend?

I’ve toiled hard, sometime ago,
From early morn till late.
That I ain’t worth some millions now
Is really too bad.

You see, a generous toiling man
Gets never much ahead;
For which a rascal always can
Rob men of life and (e)state.

7-10 from what I have produced
You took in your possessions
While the toiling part you have reduced
To crime and degradations.

Not only this, nay vamper like
Do suck the Blood of men
And with the bones you take the hide
But, things get to an end.

That time I was quiet ignorant
of, who was my enemy real,
That I’ve become to you a torment
Is only the result you feel.

I’ll work for life and liberty,
For thiefs like you I wont
The courage that is left in me
Makes me a Rebell-Vagabond.

The most serious recent development of the spirit of revolt and disorder, however, is that shown in the attempt of the men Hronek and Capek to assassinate Judges Gary and Grinnell and Inspector Bonfield.

In July of 1888, Judge Grinnell sent for me and told me that he had been informed by a Bohemian citizen that there was a conspiracy afoot to murder himself, Gary and Bonfield, and that he thought there was something in the information. It appears that there were three Bohemian Anarchists, John Hronek, Frank Capek and Frank Chleboun, who had determined to avenge the “martyrdom,” as they called it, of the Anarchist leaders. Chleboun was never in real sympathy with the others, and when the affair began to grow very serious he went to a Bohemian friend and confided to him the plot. This gentleman at once advised Judge Grinnell. Among the details was the fact that three men had examined the Judge’s house on July 4th, with a view to blowing it up if a good opportunity offered, and the Judge remembered having seen three suspicious-looking men loitering about Aldine Square on that day. They had eyed him so strangely that his attention was attracted to them. This fact made him attach much weight to the story he had been told. The Judge wished me to conduct the investigation, but the suspects all lived in Inspector Bonfield’s district, and I urged that the inquiry should be made by him, of course promising to cooperate as heartily as I could. After this Bonfield, the Judge and I had a conference in which we went over the whole ground. We had all the facts in the case pretty well in hand. On the morning of July 17th, Bonfield was ready to strike, and the arrests were made. On the evening before warrants were sworn out for these three men, and at 4 A.M. Bonfield drove Lieut. Elliott past Hronek’s house, 2952 Farrell Street, so that he might know it. Officers Rowan, Miller, Nordrum, Murtha, Styx and Meichowsky assisted in the arrests.

In describing what followed Inspector Bonfield said:

Frank Capek was arrested at his home, 498 West Twentieth Street, at the same time as was Frank Chleboun, who was found at Zion Place. Capek’s house was not searched, as it was known that he had made away with the dynamite that he had had there.

The arrests caused the greatest excitement in the city as soon as it became generally known what was the charge.

About the truth of it there could be no doubt. Hronek was a desperate fellow, quite ready and willing for any violence. He was an enthusiastic Anarchist, and a great admirer of the “martyrs,” as he called them, and he had a regular arsenal of explosives and weapons.

Chleboun’s story was a singular one. He was a tailor who had come from Bohemia to Chicago in 1882. He met Hronek shortly after the Haymarket riot, and the two struck up an acquaintanceship. With Frank Capek they discussed Anarchy and the trial of the leaders, and all went well as long as they confined themselves to theory and beer.