On January 18 all working men were called to attend a meeting at Steinmetz hall. “To Arms,” was the caption. “Those who desire instruction in drilling will not have to pay.” At Mueller’s hall, a few days later, Schwab made an address, saying: “We have made all preparations for a revolution by force.” Spies said: “I have been accused by a paper that I tried to stir up a revolution. I concede this. What is crime, anyhow? When the working men try to secure the fruits of their labor it is called crime.”
Guns, dynamite and prussic acid, Spies preached, should be given the working men, and “for every clubbed head in the ranks of the working men there should be exacted twelve dead policemen.” In a long discourse on the means of action, Spies said: “In the action itself one must be personally at the place, to select personally that point of the place of action which is the most important, and is coupled with the greatest danger, upon which depends chiefly the success or failure of the whole affair. Otherwise the thing would reach the long ears of the police, which, as is known to every one, hear the grass grow and the fleas cough; but if this theory is acted on, the danger of discovery is extremely small.” “The Love of Self-Sacrifice”, as manifested by those who were killed during the uprising of the Paris Commune, while fighting under the red flag, was the subject of a long address on March 22, and March 23 it was said the question of arming was the one uppermost in labor circles. Working men, it was held, ought to be armed long ago. Daggers and revolvers were easily purchased; hand-grenades were plentiful, and so was dynamite. The approaching contest should not be gone into with empty hands.
The State here rested its case.
CHAPTER IV.
Under a cloud. A struggle for life. Contesting every point by shrewd counsel. Braving it out. The defense.
Attorney Zeisler moved to have the jury sent from the room pending a motion, and this the Court refused to do, saying it was a vicious practice, and that the jury should hear all there was in a case.
Capt. Black—“The motion we desire to make is that your Honor now instruct the jury, the State having rested, that they find a verdict of not guilty as to Oscar Neebe; and we desire to argue that motion.”
Counsel for the defense proceeded to argue the motion, and held that Neebe was not amenable; not having been present at the Haymarket, and having nothing to do with the Arbeiter Zeitung until after the arrest of Spies.