SAM FIELDEN.
Fielden prefaced his plea by reciteingreciting a poem called “Revolution”, written by Freilegrath, a German poet:
“And tho’ ye caught your noble prey within your hangman’s sordid thrall,
And tho’ your captive was led forth beneath your city’s rampart wall;
And tho’ the grass lies o’er her green, where at the morning’s early red
The peasant girl brings funeral wreaths—I tell you still—she is not dead!”
“You see me only in your cells; ye see me only in the grave;
Ye see me only wandering lone, beside the exile’s sullen wave—
Ye fools! Do I not live where you have tried to pierce in vain?
Rests not a nook for me to dwell, in every heart, and every brain?”
“‘Tis therefore I will be—and lead the peoples yet your hosts to meet,
And on your necks, your heads, your crowns, will plant my strong, resistless feet!
It is no boast—it is no threat—thus history’s iron law decrees—
The day grows hot, oh, Babylon! ‘Tis cool beneath thy willow trees!”
Fielden continued:
“It makes a great deal of difference, perhaps, what kind of a revolutionist a man is. The men who have been on trial here for Anarchy have been asked the question on the witness stand if they were revolutionists. It is not generally considered to be a crime among intellectual people to be a revolutionist, but it may be made a crime if a revolutionist happens to be poor. * * * If I had known that I was being tried for Anarchy I could have answered that charge. I could have justified it under the constitutional right of every citizen of this country, and more than the right which any constitution can give, the natural right of the human mind to draw its conclusion from whatever information it can gain, but I had no opportunities to show why I was an Anarchist. I was told that I was to be hung for being an Anarchist, after I had got through defending myself on the charge of murder.”
Fielden related that he was born in Lancashire; that his first speech was made to starving operatives in the streets of his native town; that it was here he began to hate kings and queens; his first speech was in support of the operatives of Lancashire as against the sympathizers with the South in the American rebellion; he came to the United States in 1868 and was a Methodist exhorter in Ohio, and came to Chicago in 1869. Fielden detailed how he had come to be a Socialist and Anarchist; reviewing the various speeches he had made at meetings in Chicago; attacking the veracity of witnesses who had testified against him, and declaring himself the victim of illegal prosecution. He continued:
“From the time I became a Socialist I learned more and more what it was. I knew that I had found the right thing; that I had found the medicine that was calculated to cure the ills of society. Having found it, I believed it, and I had a right to advocate it, and I did. The Constitution of the United States, when it says: ‘The right of free speech shall not be abridged,’ gives every man the right to speak. I have advocated the principles of Socialism and social equality, and for that and no other reason am I here, and sentence of death is to be pronounced upon me. What is Socialism? Taking somebody else’s property? That is what Socialism is in the common acceptation of the term. No; but if I were to answer it as shortly and as curtly as it is answered by its enemies, I would say it is preventing somebody else from taking your property. But Socialism is equality. Socialism recognizes the fact that no man in society is responsible for what he is; that all the ills that are in society are the production of poverty; and scientific Socialism says that you must go to the root of the evil. There is no criminal statistician in the world but will acknowledge that all the crime, when traced to its origin, is the product of poverty. * * * If I am to be convicted—hanged for telling the truth, the little child that kneels by its mother’s side on the West side to-day and tells its mother that he wants his papa to come home, and to whom I had intended as soon as its prattling tongue should begin to talk, to teach that beautiful sentiment—that child had better never be taught to read; had better never be taught that sentiment to love truth. If they are to be convicted of murder because they dare tell what they think is the truth, then it would be better that every one of your schoolhouses were reduced to the ground and one stone not left upon another. If you teach your children to read they will acquire curiosity from what they read. They will think, and then will search for the meaning of this and that. They will arrive at conclusions. And then if they love the truth, they must tell to each other what is truth or what they think is the truth. That is the sum of my offending. * * * The private property system then, in my opinion, being a system that only subserves the interests of a few, and can only subserve the interests of the few, has no mercy. It cannot stop for the consideration of such a sentiment. Naturally it cannot. So you ought not to have mercy upon the private property system, because it is well known that there are many people in the community with prejudices in their minds. They have grown up under certain social regulations, and they believe that those social regulations are right, just as Mr. Grinnell believes that everything in America is right, because he happened to be born here. And they have such a prejudice against any one who attacks those systems. Now, I say they ought not to have any mercy upon systems that do not subserve their interests. They ought not to have any respect for them that would interfere with their abolishing them.”
Fielden maintained that the throwing of the bomb at the Haymarket was a complete surprise to him; that he felt that he would be held in some respect, at least responsible, yet he resolved not to attempt flight; continuing:
“I have said here that I thought when the representatives of the State had inquired by means of their policemen as to my connection with it, I should have been released. And I say now, in view of all the authorities that have been read on the law and accessory, that there is nothing in evidence that has been introduced to connect me with that affair. * * * The great Socialist who lived in this world nearly 1,900 years ago, Jesus Christ, has left these words, and there are no grander words in which the principles of justice and right are conveyed in any language. He said: ‘Better that ninety-nine guilty men should go unpunished than that one innocent man should suffer.’ Mr. Grinnell, I should judge from his statements here, is a Christian. I would ask him to apply that statement of the Great Teacher to the different testimony that has been given here, and the direct contrary in other places in the investigation of this case. Your Honor, we claim that this is a class verdict. We claim that the foulest criminal that could have been picked up in the slums of any city in Christendom, or outside of it, would never have been convicted on such testimony as has been brought in here if he had not been a dangerous man in the opinion of the privileged classes. * * * If my life is to be taken for advocating the principles of Socialism and Anarchy, as I have understood them and honestly believe them to be in the interests of humanity, I say to you that I gladly give it up; and the price is very small for the result that is gained. * * * We claim that so far as we have been able to find out in trying to find a cure for the ills of society, we have not found out anything that has seemed to fit the particular diseases which society in our opinion is afflicted with to-day, better than the principles of Socialism. And your Honor, Socialism, when it is thoroughly understood in this community and in the world, as it is by us, I believe that the world, which is generally honest, prejudiced though it may be, will not be slow to adopt its principles. And it will be a good time, a grand day for the world; it will be a grand day for humanity; it will never have taken a step so far onward toward perfection, if it can ever reach that goal, as it will when it adopts the principles of Socialism. * * * To-day, as the beautiful autumn sun kisses with balmy breeze the cheek of every free man, I stand here never to bathe my head in its rays again. I have loved my fellow men as I have loved myself. I have hated trickery, dishonesty and injustice. The nineteenth century commits the crime of killing its best friend. It will live to repent of it. But, as I have said before, if it will do any good, I freely give myself up. I trust the time will come when there will be a better understanding, more intelligence, and above the mountains of iniquity, wrong and corruption, I hope the sun of righteousness and truth and justice will come to bathe in its balmy light an emancipated world. I thank your Honor for your attention.”
A. R. Parsons.