Anarchy and Anarchists / A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators

by Michael J. Schaack

IT was not difficult to locate the moral responsibility for the bold and bloody attack on law and authority. The seditious utterances of such men as Spies, Parsons, Fielden, Schwab and other leaders at public gatherings for weeks and months preceding the eight-hour strike, and the defiant declarations of such papers as the Arbeiter-Zeitung and the Alarm, clearly pointed to the sources from which came the inspiration for the crowning crime of Anarchy. It was likewise a strongly settled conviction that the thrower of the bomb was not simply a Guiteau-like crank, but that there must have been a deliberate, organized conspiracy, of which he was a duly constituted agent. In the work, therefore, of getting at the inside facts, the points sought were: What was the exact nature of that conspiracy, and who constituted the chief conspirators? The possession of every detail in connection with these two points was absolutely necessary in order to fix the criminal responsibility, and to the solution of this problem the officers bent all their energies.

The detectives were well aware that the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung had been the headquarters for the central, controlling body of the Anarchist organizations in Chicago, and on the morning following the explosion Inspector Bonfield determined to raid the establishment and bring in such of the leaders as might be found there. Several detectives were assigned to this duty, and they soon returned, having under arrest August Spies, his brother Chris, Michael Schwab and Adolph Fischer. These were locked up at the Central Station. Shortly thereafter fifteen or sixteen compositors of the paper were arrested and brought to the same place. They were a meek-looking set, and were visibly moved with fear.

Immediately after 12 o’clock, State’s Attorney Grinnell, Assistant State’s Attorney Furthmann, Lieut. Joseph Kipley, Lieut. John D. Shea, Detectives James Bonfield, Slayton, Baer, Palmer, Thehorn and several other officers repaired to the Arbeiter-Zeitung building and made a most thorough search of every room in the premises. A lot of manuscript was found on hooks attached to the printers’ cases, and this was carefully wrapped up and taken away. The files of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and Alarm were also piled into a wagon and carted to the Central Station.

ADOLPH FISCHER.
From a Photograph taken by the Police.

Subsequent investigation by Mr. Furthmann of all the scraps of paper brought over by the police revealed Spies’ manuscript with the signal word “Ruhe,” the manuscript of the “Revenge Circular,” issued on the afternoon of May 4, the manuscript for the “Y, come Monday night” notice, Spies’ copy of the article headed “Blood,” published in the Arbeiter-Zeitung of May 4, and a number of other documents damaging in their character. This discovery was regarded as highly important, and in the trial it proved extremely serviceable to the State. It likewise served, as will be shown, in furnishing a point by which, when I came to take up the case I was enabled to finally lay bare the whole conspiracy from its inception to its conclusion.

With the clues obtained from the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, the officers were enabled to put some pointed questions to the prisoners, but they failed to properly utilize even the meager information they had managed to extract. At this time the Police Department, from the Chief to the detective branch, was rent with rivalries, dissensions and jealousies, and it did not require much frowning or many innuendoes from the one to destroy in the other any special interest in pursuing a clue to its legitimate results. At the start all the officers were on a keen scent, and while outwardly all seemed working like Trojans in order to meet public expectations, which was keyed up to its highest pitch, not alone in Chicago but throughout the country, still the fear that one might get the credit for the work done by another operated to destroy discipline and deaden personal enthusiasm. Outside events alone prevented a complete failure in the prosecution.

The arrested Anarchists, however, knew nothing of these dissensions. All they knew was that public indignation was strong against them, and they realized that they were in a very embarrassing situation.

THE FISCHER FAMILY. From a Photograph.