“Now, I defy any one to show from the record the proof that I wrote more than one of the many articles alleged to have been written by me. Yet the Supreme Court says that I wrote and am responsible for all of them. Again—concerning the alleged speeches—they were reported by the Pinkerton detective Johnson, who was, as the record shows, employed by Lyman Gage, president of the First National Bank, as the agent of the Citizens’ Association, an organization composed of the millionaire employers of Chicago.
“I submit to a candid world if this hired spy would not make false reports to earn blood-money. Thus, it is for speeches I did not make, and articles I did not write I am sentenced to die, because the court ‘assumes’ that these articles influenced some unknown and still unidentified person to throw the bomb that killed Degan. Is this law? Is this justice?
“The Supreme Court, in affirming the sentence of death upon me, proceeds to give further reasons, as follows: ‘Two circumstances are to be noted. First, it can hardly be said that Parsons was absent from the Haymarket meeting when he went to Zepf’s Hall. It has already been stated that the latter place was only a few steps north of the speakers’ wagon and in sight from it. We do not think that the defendant Parsons could escape his share of the responsibility for the explosions at the Haymarket because he stepped into a neighboring saloon and looked at the explosion through a window. While he was speaking men stood around him with arms in their hands. Many of these were members of the armed sections of the international groups. Among them were men who belonged to the International Rifles, an armed organization in which he himself was an officer, and with which he had been drilling in preparation for the events then transpiring.’
“The records of the trial will show that not one of the foregoing allegations is true. The facts are these: Zepf’s Hall is on the northeast corner of Lake and Desplaines streets, just one block north of the speakers’ wagon. The court says ‘it was only a few steps north of the speakers’ wagon.’ The court says further that ‘it can hardly be said that Parsons was absent from the Haymarket meeting when he was at Zepf’s Hall.’ If this is correct logic, then I was at two different places a block apart at the same instant. Truly the day of miracles has not yet passed. Again, the record will show that I did not ’step into a neighboring saloon and look at the explosion through a window.’ It will show that I went to Zepf’s Hall, one block distant, and across Lake street, accompanied by my wife and another lady, and my two children (a girl of five and a boy of seven years of age), they having sat upon a wagon about ten feet from the speakers’ wagon throughout my speech; that it looked like rain; that we had started home and went into Zepf’s Hall to wait for the meeting to adjourn, and walked home in company with a lot of friends who lived in that direction. Zepf’s building is on the corner and opens on the street with a triangular door six feet wide. Myself and ladies and children were just inside the door. Here, while waiting for our friends and looking toward the meeting, I had a fair view of the explosion. All this the record will show.
ABOUT THE BOMB.
“It would seem that, according to circumstances, a block is at one time ‘a few steps’ or a ‘few steps’ is more than a block, as the case may suit. The logical as well as the imaginative faculties of the Supreme Court are further illustrated in a most striking manner by the credence of the court to the ‘yarn’ of a ‘reporter,’ who testified that Spies had described to him the ‘Czar’ bomb, and the men who were to use them as follows. ‘He spoke of a body of tall, strong men in their organization who could throw bombs weighing five pounds 150 paces. He stated that the bombs in question were to be used in case of conflict with the police or the militia.’
“The court gives this sort of testimony as proof of the existence of a conspiracy to murder Degan. Wonderful credulity. To throw a five-pound bomb 150 paces or yards is to throw it 450 feet or a quarter of a mile.
“Gulliver, in his travels among the Brobdingnag race, tells us of the giants he met, and we have also heard of the giants of Patagonia. But we did not know until now that they were mere Lilliputians as compared with the ‘anarchist Swedes’ of Chicago.
“The court proceeds to say, ‘While he (Parsons) was speaking, men stood around him with arms in their hands.’ The record as quoted by the court shows that only one man flourished a pistol, not a number of men. Again, the court says, ‘Most of the men were members of the armed sections of the “International groups,”’ thus making it appear that many of these men (when there was only one who was even alleged to have exhibited a pistol) were armed.
“The court says: ‘Among them were men who belonged to the “International Rifles,” an armed organization in which he himself was an officer, and in which he had been drilling in preparation for the events then transpiring.’
“Now I
Cchallenge the Supreme Court or any other honorable gentleman to prove from the record that there ever existed such an organization as the armed section of the American group, known as the ‘International Rifles.’ It cannot be done. The record shows that some members of the American group did organize the ‘International Rifles,’ which never met but four or five times; was never armed with rifles or any other weapons, and was disbanded nearly a year before the 4th of May, 1886.“The Pinkerton man Johnson says that dynamite bombs were exhibited ‘in the presence of the “International Rifles.”’ It will take corroborative testimony before the American people will credit the statements of such a man engaged for such a purpose; and it is well known that Supreme courts have decided that the testimony of detectives should be taken with great caution.
HE APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE.
“I appeal to the American people, to their love of justice and fair play. I submit that the record does not show my
giltguilt of the crime of murder, but on the contrary it proves my innocence.“Against me in this trial all the rules of law and evidence have been reversed in that I have been held as guilty until I proved my innocence. I have been tried ostensibly for murder, but in reality for anarchy. I have been proved guilty of being an anarchist and condemned to die for that reason. The State’s attorney said in his statement before the court and jury in the beginning of the trial: ‘These defendants were picked out and indicted by the grand jury. They are no more guilty than the thousands who follow them. They are picked out because they are leaders. Convict them and our society is safe,’ and in their last appeal to the jury the prosecution said: ‘Anarchy is on trial. Hang these eight men and save our institutions. These are the leaders. Make examples of them.’ This is a matter of record.
A WORD FOR HIS COMRADES.
“So far as I have had time to examine the records I find the same fabrication and perversion of testimony against all my comrades as exists against myself. I therefore again appeal to to the American people to avert the crime of judicial murder. And this appeal I have faith will not be in vain.
“My ancestors partook of all the hardships incident to the establishment of this Republic. They fought, bled, and some of them died that the Declaration of Independence might live and the American flag might wave in triumph over those who claim the ‘divine right of kings to rule.’ Shall the flag now, after a century’s triumph, trail in the mire of oppression and protect the perpetration of outrages and oppressions that would put the older despotisms of Europe to shame?
“Knowing myself innocent of crime I came forward and gave myself up for trial. I felt that it was my duty to take my chances with the rest of my comrades. I sought a fair and impartial trial before a jury of my peers, and knew that before any fair-minded jury I could with little difficulty be cleared. I preferred to be tried and take the chances of an acquittal with my friends to being hunted as a felon. Have I had a fair trial?
PARSONS REFUSES EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY.
“The lovers of justice and fair play are assiduously engaged in an effort to thwart the consummation of judicial murder by a commutation of sentence to prison. I speak for myself alone when I say that for this I thank them and appreciate their efforts. But I am an innocent man. I have violated no law; I have committed no offense against any one’s rights. I am simply the victim of the malice of those whose anger has been aroused by the growth, strength and independence of the labor organizations of America. I am a sacrifice to those who say: ‘These men may be innocent. No matter. They are anarchists. We must hang them anyway.’
“My counsel informs me that every effort will be made to take this case before the highest tribunal in the land, and that there is strong hope of a hearing there. But I am also reliably informed that from three to five years will elapse before the Supreme Court of the United States can hear and adjudge the case.
“Since surrendering myself to the authorities, I have been locked up in close confinement twenty-one hours out of every twenty-four for six days, and from Saturday afternoon till Monday morning (thirty-eight hours) each week in a noisome cell, without a ray of sunlight or a breath of pure air. To be compelled to bear this for five or even three years would be to suffer a lingering death, and it is only a matter of serious consideration with me whether I ought to accept the verdict as it stands rather than die by inches under such conditions. I am prepared to die. I am ready, if needs be, to lay down my life for my rights and the rights of my fellow men. But I object to being killed on false and unproved accusations. Therefore I cannot countenance or accept the efforts of those who would endeavor to procure a commutation of my sentence to an imprisonment in the penitentiary. Neither do I approve of any further appeals to the courts of law. I believe them to be all alike—agency of the privileged classes to perpetuate their power, to oppress and plunder the toiling masses. As between capital and its legal rights, and labor and its legal rights, the courts of law must side with the capitalistic class. To appeal to them is in vain. It is the appeal of the wage slave to his capitalistic master for liberty. The answer is curses, blows, imprisonment, and death.
“If I had never been an anarchist before, my experience with courts and the laws of the governing class would make an anarchist of me now. What is anarchy? It is a state of society without any central or governing power. Upon this subject the court, in its affirmation of the death sentence, defines the object of the International Working Peoples’ Association as follows:
“‘It is designed to bring about a social revolution. Social revolution means the destruction of the right of private ownership of property, or of the right of the individual to own property. It means of the bringing about of a state of society in which all property should be held in common.’