OSCAR W. NEEBE.
From a Photograph.
Oscar W. Neebe was fortunate in the failure of the prosecution to show his direct complicity in the Haymarket murder. There was no doubt as to his active participation in all the plots of the Anarchist leaders, and, had it not been for the loss of some important papers, he would now be serving a life sentence instead of a fifteen years’ term in the penitentiary. He took an active part in stirring up the members of the Brewers’ Union after the McCormick riot, and he contributed no little towards sending many of those members to the Haymarket meeting, ready for violence and desperate deeds. Immediately following the Haymarket slaughter, he was placed under arrest and taken to the Central Station at the City Hall. He was there questioned in a general way, but the near-sighted officials then in charge of that important department were unable to see any reason for his detention and permitted him to depart with his friend Schnaubelt, who had been gathered in about the same time. This led him to believe that he had friends at the Central Headquarters. His belief in his “influence” was somewhat shaken, however, when I ordered a search of his house on the 8th of May. The officers on that occasion found one Springfield rifle, one Colt’s 38-caliber revolver, one sword and belt of the Lehr und Wehr Verein, a red flag, a transparency, a lot of circulars calling different meetings, including the one calling for “revenge,” and several cards of Anarchist groups, and with all these and other evidence of his connection with the great conspiracy, I went before the grand jury and had him indicted for conspiracy to murder. On the 27th of May, about 6 o’clock, Deputy Sheriff Alexander Reed called at the Chicago Avenue Station and asked me for assistance to arrest Neebe under the indictment. I detailed Officer Whalen for this duty, and the two called at the man’s house, No. 307 Sedgwick Street. The deputy sheriff informed Neebe that he was under arrest, and the officer explained the nature of the charge against him. They told him that they would be obliged to take him to the County Jail.
Neebe smiled when notified of the charge, and remarked in a most careless manner:
“Is that all? That’s nothing. I will get out on bail right away.”
But he did not; he had to linger for a long time.
Neebe was born in the State of New York, in 1850, of German parents, and since his location in Chicago he had succeeded in establishing a prosperous business in the sale of yeast to grocers and traders. He was ambitious to distinguish himself in other directions, however, and he chose Anarchy as a basis for building up a reputation as a leader among men. He achieved considerable notoriety, as he was active, energetic and pushing, and at the time of the Board of Trade demonstration he acted as chief marshal of the procession.
Neebe was in the habit of taking members of the North Side group to Sheffield, Ind., for the purpose of practicing and experimenting with dynamite bombs. It was on one of these experimenting excursions that he lost the joints of all the fingers of his right hand by a premature explosion. When questioned about it, he told all his friends and even his own family that he had lost his fingers in assisting a friend to lift a sharp building-stone on the South Side. His family physician was asked with reference to the matter, and, after some hesitation, finally stated that Neebe had admitted that he had lost his fingers through the explosion of a bomb. In the explanation Neebe gave to his friends he overlooked the fact that if a sharp building-stone had taken off his fingers it would not have taken his thumb, because that member of the hand is never in a position to be crushed when one lifts a heavy stone.