MR. ZEISLER FOR THE DEFENSE.
Mr. Zeisler, of the counsel for the defense, set to work at once to tear Mr. Walker’s address to pieces. He accused the assistant State’s Attorney of distorting the facts in the case, and attempting to bring about a conviction by working on the prejudices and suspicions of the jury. Mr. Walker impugned the motives and the characters of the defenses’ witnesses. Mr. Zeisler continued:
“Who are their principal witnesses? The policemen who were at the Haymarket. And before we get through we will show that these men were not heroes, but knaves, led on by the most cowardly knave who ever held a public position. It has been proved that most of these policemen who went on the stand had been at one time or another members of the detective force, and the Supreme Court tells us that a detective is a liar!”
The speaker went on to attack the other State witnesses. Detectives are taken from the criminal classes. Harry L. Gilmer, he said, is a constitutional liar, and the only witness who has been impeached. Some of the reporters, he acknowledges, tell the truth, and on their statements the defense will partially rely to show the innocence of the prisoners.
“Nobody understands why the police came down to break up the meeting. Detectives have sworn here that after Mr. Parsons suggested that the meeting adjourn to Zephf’s hall, and the sky clouded up, the crowd dwindled down to two hundred or three hundred men, and then came this army of 180 policemen, armed with clubs and revolvers, headed by this hero, Bonfield, the savior of his country, to break up this meeting of peaceable and unarmed citizens. Was this courageous, or was it cowardly? It was an assault in the eyes of the law. The counsel for the State have attempted to make you believe that these disciples of Herr Most took a match and lighted a bomb which Most says should have a fuse not longer than two inches. Doesn’t it seem very probable that they would have lighted with a match this fuse, which would burn out in a few seconds, when they could have carried a lighted cigar to do it with? We have the testimony of a number of witnesses that Spies was not out of the wagon till the trouble began; and if Mr. Grinnell had had more sense in the prosecution of this case; if he had not been blinded by malice and prejudice; if he had not been influenced by the police conspiracy to send these men to the gallows, he would have seen the uselessness of attempting to secure a conviction by such testimony as that of Gilmer.”