AUGUST SPIES.

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

Aug. Spies.

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

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

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