“I will now state a little incident which will throw light upon this charge. On the evening on which the prætorianPrætorian cohorts of the Citizens’ Association, the Bankers’ Association, the Bar Association, and railroad princes attacked the meeting of working men at the Haymarket with murderous intent—on that evening about 8 o’clock, I met a young man, Legner by name. My brother was with me at the same time, and never left me on that evening until I jumped from the wagon a few seconds before the explosion came. Legner knew that I had not seen Schwab that evening. He knew that I had no such conversation with anybody, as Marshall Field’s protege, Thompson has testified to. He knew that I did not jump from the wagon and strike a match and hand it to the man who threw the bomb. He is not a Socialist. Why didn’t we bring him on the stand? Because the honorable representatives of the State, Grinnell and Bonfield, spirited him away. These honorable gentlemen knew everything about Legner. They knew that his testimony would prove the perjury of Thompson and Gilmer beyond any reasonable doubt. Legner’s name was on the list of witnesses for the State. He was not called, however, for obvious reasons. First, as he stated to a number of friends, he had been offered $500 if he would leave the city, and threatened with direful things if he should remain here and appear as a witness for the defense. He replied that he could neither be bought nor bulldozed to serve such a foul, damnable, dastardly plot. But when we wanted Legner he could not be found. Mr. Grinnell said—and Mr. Grinnell is an honorable man—that he himself had been searching for the young man, but had not been able to find him. About three weeks later I learned that the very same young man had been kidnapped and taken to Buffalo, N. Y., by two of the illustrious guardians of the law, two Chicago detectives. Let Mr. Grinnell, let the Citizens’ Association, his employer, let them answer for themselves, and let the people—let the public—sit in judgment upon these would-be assassins. No, I reply, the Prosecution has not established our legal guilt, notwithstanding the purchased and perjured testimony of some, and notwithstanding the originality of the proceedings of the trial. And as long as this has not been done, and you pronounce the sentence of the appointed vigilante committee acting as a jury, I say that you, the alleged servant and high priests of the law, are the real and only law-breakers, and in this case you go to the extent of murder. It is well that the people know this. And when I speak of the people I do not mean the few conspirators of Grinnell, the noble patricians who are murderers of those whom they please to oppress. Those citizens may constitute the state. They may control the state; they may have their Grinnells, Bonfields, and their hirelings. No, when I speak of the people, I speak of the great mass of working beasts, who unfortunately are not yet conscious of the rascalities that are perpetrated in the name of the people—in their name. They condemn the murder of eight men whose only crime is that they have dared to speak the truth. This murder may open the eyes of these suffering millions, may wake them up indeed. I have noticed that our conviction has worked miracles in this direction already. The class that clamors for our lives, the good and devout Christians, have attempted in every way, through their newspapers and otherwise, to conceal the true and only issue in this case, by designating the defendants Anarchists and picturing them as a newly-discovered tribe or species of cannibals, by inventing shocking and horrifying stories of their conspiracies.

“I believe with Buckle, with Paine, with Jefferson, with Emerson, with Spencer, and with many other great thinkers of this century, that the state of caste and classes, the state where one class dominates and lives upon the labor of another class and calls it order, should be abolished. Yes, I believe that this barbaric form of social organization, with its legalized thunder and murder, is doomed to die and make room for free society—volunteer associations if you like—universal brotherhood. You may pronounce your sentence upon me, honorable judge, but let the world know that in the year A. D. 1886, in the state of Illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice. Read the history of Greece and Rome; read that of Venice. Look over the dark pages of the church and follow the thorny path of science. No change! No change!

“You would destroy society and civilization, as ever, upon the cry of the ruling classes. They are so comfortably situated under the prevailing system that they naturally abhor and fear even the slightest changes. Their privileges are as dear to them as life itself, and every change threatens these privileges. But civilization is a record whose steps are monuments of such changes. Without these social changes, always brought about against the will and against the force of the ruling classes, there would be no civilization. As to the destruction of society, which we have been accused of seeking, it sounds like one of Æsop’s fables—like the cunning of the fox. We, who have jeopardized our lives to save society from the fiend that has grasped her by the throat, that seeks her life-blood and devours her substance; we, who would heal her bleeding wounds, who would free her from the fetters you have wrought around her, from the misery you have brought upon her—we are enemies. We have preached dynamite, it is said, and we have predicted from the lessons history has taught us, that the ruling class of to-day would no more listen to the voice of reason than did their predecessors. They would attempt by brute force to stay the march of progress. Was it a lie, or was it the truth that we stated? * * * I have been a citizen of this city fully as long as Mr. Grinnell, and am probably as good a citizen as Grinnell. At least I should not wish to be compared to him. Grinnell has appealed time and again, as has been stated by our attorneys, to the patriotism of the jury. To that I reply, and I will simply use the words of an English literateurlitterateur, ‘Patriotism is the last resort of the scoundrel.’ My friends’ agitation in behalf of the disinherited and disfranchised millions, and my agitation in this direction, the popularization of the economic teachings in favor of the education of wage-workers, is declared to be a conspiracy against society. The word ’society’ is here wisely substituted for state, as represented by the patricians of to-day. It has always been the opinion of the ruling classes that the people must be kept in ignorance. They lose their servilityservility, modesty, and obedience to the arbitrary powers that be, as their intelligence grows. The education of a blackman, a quarter of a century ago was a criminal offense. Why? Because the intelligent slave would throw off his shackles at whatever cost, my Christian gentlemen. Why is the education of the working classes to-day looked upon by a certain class as treason against the State? For the same reason! The State, however, wisely avoided this point in the prosecution of the case. From their testimony one would really conclude that we had in our speeches and publications preached nothing else but destruction and dynamite. * * * You, gentlemen, are the revolutionists. You rebel against the effects of social conditions which have tossed you by fortune’s hand into a magnificent paradise. Without inquiring, you imagine that no one else has a right in that place. You insist that you are the chosen ones, the sole proprietors of forces that tossed you into the paradise. The industrial forces are still at work. They are growing more active and intense from day to day. Their tendency is to elevate all mankind to the same level; to have all humanity share in the paradise you now monopolize. Can you roll back the incoming tide or angry waves of old ocean by forbidding it to dash upon the shore? So you can no more frighten back the rising waves of intelligence and progress into their unfathomable depths by erecting a few gallows in the perspective. You, who oppose the natural forces of things, you are the real revolutionists. You, and you alone, are the conspirators and destructionists.”

ADOLPH FISCHER.

“Your Honor, you asked me why the sentence of death should not be passed upon me. I will not talk much. I will only say a few words, and that is that I protest against my being sentenced to death, because I committed no crime. I was tried here in this room for murder and I was convicted of Anarchy. I protest against being sentenced to death, because I have not been found guilty of murder. I have been tried for murder, but I have been convicted because I am an Anarchist. Although being one of the parties who were at the Haymarket meeting, I had no more to do with the throwing of that bomb, I had no more connection with it than State’s Attorney Grinnell had perhaps.

Adolph Fischer.

“As I said, it is a fact, and I do not deny that I was one of the parties who called at the Haymarket meeting, but that meeting—(At this point Mr. Salomon stepped up and spoke to Fischer in a low tone, but Fischer waivedwaved him off and said: Mr. Salomon, be so kind. I know what I am talking about.) Now, that Haymarket meeting was not called for the purpose of committing violence and crime. No; but the meeting was called for the purpose of protesting against the outrages and against the crimes of the police committed on the day previous out at McCormick’s. The next day I went to Wehrer & Klein and had twenty-five thousand copies of the handbills printed, and I invited Spies to speak at Haymarket meeting. It is the fact, and I don’t deny it, in the original of the ‘copy’ I had the line ‘Working men, arm!’ and I had my reasons, too, for putting those lines in, because I didn’t want the working men to be shot down in that meeting as on other occasions. But as those circulars were printed and brought over to the Arbeiter Zeitung office, my comrade, Spies, saw one of those circulars. I had invited him to speak before that. He showed the circular and said: ‘Well, Fischer, if those circulars are distributed I won’t speak.’ And I admitted it would be better to take those lines out; and Mr. Spies spoke. And that is all I had to do with that meeting. I feel that I am sentenced, or will be sentenced to death because I am an Anarchist, and not because I am a murderer. I have never been a murderer. I have never committed any crime in my life yet; but I know a certain man who is on the way to becoming a murderer, an assassin, and that man is Grinnell—the State’s Attorney Grinnell—because he brought men on the witness stand whom he knew would swear falsely; and I publicly denounce Mr. Grinnell as being a murderer and an assassin if I should be executed. But, if the ruling classes think that by hanging us, hanging a few Anarchists, they can crush out Anarchy, they will be badly mistaken, because the Anarchist loves his principles more than his life. An Anarchist is always ready to die for his principles.”

MICHAEL SCHWAB.

“It is not much I have to say, and I would say nothing at all if keeping silence did not look like a cowardly approval of what has been done here. To those, the proceedings of a trial of justice would be a sneer. Justice has not been done. More than that, could not be done. If one class is arraigned against the other class it is idle and hypocritical to talk about justice and fairness. Anarchy was on trial, as the State’s Attorney put it in his closing speech. A doctrine, an opinion hostile to brute force, hostile to our present murderous system of production and distribution. I am condemned to die for writing newspaper articles and making speeches. The State’s Attorney knows as well as I do that the alleged conversation between Mr. Spies and me never took place. He knows a good deal more than that. He knows all the beautiful works of his organizer, Furthmann. When I was before the Coroner’s jury two or three witnesses swore very positively to having seen me at the Haymarket when Mr. Parsons finished his speech. I suppose they wanted at that time to fix the bomb-throwing on me, for the first dispatches to Europe said that M. Schwab had thrown several bombs at the police. Later on they found that would not do, and then Schnaubelt was the man. Anarchy was on trial. Little did it matter who the persons were to be honored by the prosecution. * * *

“As soon as the word is applied to us and to our doctrine it carries with it a meaning that we Anarchists see fit to give. ‘Anarchy’ is Greek, and means, verbatim, that we are not being ruled. According to our vocabulary Anarchy is a state of society in which the only government is reason; a state of society in which all human beings do right for the simple reason that it is right, and hate wrong because it is wrong. In such a society no compulsion will be necessary. The Attorney of the State was wrong when he exclaimed ‘Anarchy is dead!’ Anarchy up to the present time existed only as a doctrine, and Grinnell has not the power to kill any doctrine whatever. Anarchy, as defined by us, is called an idle dream, but that dream was called by God a divine blessing. One of the three great German poets and a celebrated German critic of the last century has also defined it. If Anarchy was the thing the State’s Attorney makes it out to be, how could it be that such eminent scholars as Prince Krapotkine should say what he has said about it? Anarchy is a dream, but only in the present. It will be realized, for reason will grow in spite of all obstacles. Who is the man that has the cheek to tell us that human development has already reached its culminating point? I know our ideal will not be accomplished this year or next year, but I know it will be accomplished as soon as possible, some day in the future. It is entirely wrong to use the word Anarchy as synonymous with violence. Violence is something, and Anarchy is another. In the present state of society violence is used on all sides, and therefore we advocated the use of violence against violence, but against violence only as a necessary means of defense. I have never read Herr Most’s book simply because I don’t find time to read it; and if I had read it, what of it? I am an agnostic, but I like to read the Bible, nevertheless. I have not the slightest idea who threw the bomb at the Haymarket, and had no knowledge of any conspiracy to use violence that or any other night.”

OSCAR NEEBE.

“Your Honor: I have found out during the last few days what law is. Before I didn’t know it. I did not know that I was convicted because I knew Spies and Fielden and Parsons. I have met these gentlemen. I have presided at a meeting, as the evidence against me shows, in the Turner hall, to which meeting your Honor was invited. The judges, the preachers, the newspaper men, and everybody was invited to appear at that meeting for the purpose of discussing Anarchism and Socialism. I was at that hall. I am well known among the working men of the city, and I was the one elected chairman of that meeting. Nobody appeared to speak, to discuss the question of Labor and Anarchism or Socialism with laboring men. No, they couldn’t stand it. I was chairman of that meeting; I don’t deny it. I had the honor to be marshal of a labor demonstration in this city, and I never saw as respectable a lot of men as I saw that day.

“They marched like soldiers, and I was proud that I was marshal of those men. They were the toilers and the working men of this city. The men marched through the city of Chicago to protest against the wrongs of society, and I was marshal of them. If that is a crime, I have found out—as a born American—what I am guilty of. I always thought I had a right to express my opinion, to be chairman of a peaceable meeting, and to be marshal of a demonstration. My friends, the labor agitators, and the marshals of a demonstration—was it a crime to be marshal of a demonstration? I am convicted of that. I suppose Grinnell thought after Oscar Neebe was indicted for murder the Arbeiter Zeitung would go down. But it didn’t happen that way. And Mr. Furthmann, too—he is a scoundrel, and I can tell it to you to your face. There is only one man that acted as a lawyer, and he is Mr. Ingham, but you three fellows have not.

“I established the paper and issued it to the working men of the city of Chicago, and inside of two weeks I had enough money from the toilers—from hired girls, from men who would take the last cent out of their pocket to establish the paper—to buy a press. I could not publish the paper because the honorable detectives and Mr. Grinnell followed us up, and no printing house would print our paper, and we had to have our own press. We published our own paper after we had a press, bought by the money of the working men of the city. That is the crime I have committed—getting men to try and establish a working man’s paper that will stand to-day, and I am proud of it. They have not got one press—they have got two presses to-day, and they belong to the working men of this city. When the first issue came out, from that day up to the day now, your Honor, we have gained 4,000 subscribers. There are the gentlemen sitting over there from the Freie Presse and Staats Zeitung—they know it. The Germans of this city are condemning these actions. They would not read our paper. There is the crime of the Germans. I say it is a verdict against Germans, and I, as an American, must say that I never saw anything like that.

“Those are the crimes I have committed after the 4th of May. Before the 4th of May I committed some crimes. I organized trades unions. I was for the reduction of the hours of labor and the education of laboring men and the re-establishment of the Arbeiter Zeitung. There is no evidence to show that I was connected with the bomb-throwing, that I was near it or anything of that kind. So I am only sorry, your Honor, if you can stop it or help it, I will ask you to do it—that is, to hang me, too; and I think it is more honor to die certainly than to be killed by inches. I have a family and children, and if they know their father is dead they will bury him. They can go to the grave and kneel down in front of it; but they can’t go to Joliet and see their father convicted of a crime that he hasn’t anything to do with. That is all I have got to say. Your Honor, I am sorry I do not get hung with the rest of the men.”

Louis Lingg.

LOUIS LINGG.