“Well, how long before the police came did you miss Schnaubelt?”—“I cannot say; perhaps ten minutes.”
“You say Mr. Neebe was a member of the Internationalist organization. Now, you didn’t have any passwords, did you? It wasn’t an organization where you drilled, was it?”—“It was an avowed Socialistic order.”
Another sensational witness was Harry L. Gilmer, a workman, who testified that he saw Spies and Rudolph Schnaubelt standing inside the mouth of the alley at the Haymarket; that Spies lit a match for Schnaubelt, who in turn lit the fuse of the bomb and threw it among the police. An effort was made to shake the testimony of this witness, which was not successful, and witnesses were then brought forward to impeach his veracity, but the state produced many prominent men who knew him, and who stated that they would believe him under oath.
Captain Frank Schaack, in charge of the East Chicago avenue police station, who unearthed the Anarchists’ conspiracy after the Haymarket, was called to the stand on Thursday, July 29. Lingg’s trunk was placed before him. He was asked:
“Do you know any of the defendants in this case?”
“I have seen Spies, Schwab and Parsons, and Engel and Lingg were arrested and confined in my station.”
“When did you first converse with Lingg about this case?”
“About 3 o’clock on the afternoon of May 14. First I asked him his name. He told me. I asked him if he was at the meeting at 54 Lake street on Tuesday night. He said: ‘Yes.’ Then he said he made dynamite. I asked him what for. He said: ‘To use then.’ He looked excited. I asked why he disliked the police. He said he had a reason; the police clubbed the men at McCormick’s. He said he was down on the police because they took the part of the capitalists. I said: ‘Why don’t you use guns instead of dynamite?’ He said guns wouldn’t do; that the militia would outnumber the Socialists. I asked him how he learned to make dynamite. He said out of books, and that he made bombs out of gas-pipe and out of lead and metal mixed. He said he got the lead on the streets and the gas-pipe along the river or anywhere he could.”
“What other conversation did you have?”
“Lingg said he made those bombs and meant to use them. Then Mrs. Seliger accused him of making bombs a few weeks after he came to her house. I knew then that he had made a good many. John Thielen was arrested at the same time, and from him we got two bombs. I said to Lingg: ‘This man says you gave him the bombs. What have you to say?’ He looked at Thielen and shook his head, and Thielen said: ‘Oh, it’s no use, everything is known; you might just as well talk.’ But Lingg refused to say anything.”