“Was there any reason why you did not walk when you started home that night?”—“Yes. I did not wish to be arrested that night.”
“You expected that you would be arrested?”—“Well, after that trouble I expected to be arrested.”
“WouYou were speaking when the police came up, and were making no inflammatory speech?”—“I did not incite anybody to do anything, to do any overt act. I told the people in general to resist the present socialistic system that oppressed them, and gave them no chance to earn a living.”
“And yet you expected to be arrested?”—“I had read something of criminal proceedings, and I knew that the police would arrest everybody connected with that meeting in order to find the one who was responsible. I made an explanation before the Coroner’s jury because I had a different idea of the police at that time. I thought if I made that statement and they inquired into the truth and were convinced of my innocence they would let me go. But I now see that I was mistaken.”
“Did the police indict you?”—“I don’t know who indicted me.”
Redirect—“You have heard what has been said about your expression of throttling the law, of killing it, of stabbing it. Just state the explanation which you said you desired to make in regard to that.”—“Well, it was just the explanation that a public orator would make when he was denouncing a political party. When he said he wanted to get rid of the Democratic party, for instance, he would kill it, stab it, or make way with it. The words would rush away with a public speaker, and in the hurry he could not add a lengthy explanation.”
“You also read the reporter’s notes in regard to snails and worms and said there was no connection there. What were your words in reference to snails and worms, and the idea that you now remember?”—“Well, the idea that I intended to convey at that time was that when men were thrown out of work through no fault of their own, and it being a fact that has been proven and asserted on the floor of the House of Representatives that over a million of men are out of employment through no fault of their own—these men being driven about, become degraded and loathsome, and people look upon them with contempt, and yet it is no fault of their own; they have no part in producing the condition of things that throws them out of employment, and leads them to their abject condition.”
“You did not know of the presence of a dynamite bomb or anything of that kind in the crowd?”—“No, sir; I did not even know of the presence of an unusual number of police at the station. I did not know that till after the meeting.”
Henry Schultz, an elderly German, testified that “from 9 o’clock until the fight was over I was on the Haymarket; I stood in the middle of the steetstreet, a little north of the wagon.”
“How long had you been in Chicago at that time?”—“Two weeks. I am a tourist.” [Laughter.]