From May 7, 1886, to November 20, 1887, I had a great deal of work, there were so many things to look after, but after matters had become systematized and the force had been brought down to good working order, the burdens of the office became much easier than most people would suppose.
In the first place, I had one hundred and sixty rank Anarchists to look after; but as soon as these became known to my men, it was an easy matter for the officers to report where they had seen them and with whom they associated. Then I had ten small halls to watch where the Anarchists met night and day. There were also seventeen saloons where these people were accustomed to congregate. Three of these latter had small halls connected with them. Twelve of the other saloons had rear rooms where the reds would sit at times and hold small meetings. After we had all their haunts located, and knowing the kind of men who frequented them, the work of keeping track of them was not so hard. Some of these Anarchists would enter boldly into these places, while others would almost crawl on their stomachs to get into the resorts without being seen. Others again would disguise themselves so that their identity could not become known to detectives.
The officers made no attempt to close these places, and possibly the reader may ask why such notorious and dangerous resorts were permitted to continue unmolested.
My reason for not closing them was that the Anarchists were bound to meet in some place. We knew their resorts thoroughly, and I had plenty of my men among them, who worked ostensibly for the cause of Anarchy, but who continually furnished me pointers. Again, we knew just where they would meet and could always have our men present. If I had shut them out from these places, they would have been driven into private houses, broken up into smaller factions, and our work would have been made much broader and harder in keeping track of them and their doings. So long as I had the machine, so to speak, in my own hands, and knew all that had been done and said, we let them alone. And the results justified our course.
Among the saloon-keepers there was one who seemed to have a special liking for me. This man, who had a place on Lake Street, on taking his first drink in the morning would invariably drink to my health, saying: “I hope that that d——d Luxemburger, Schaack, will be killed before I go to bed to-night;” and when he was about to close his doggery for the day, he would take two drinks and say: “I hope I will find Schaack hanging to a lamp-post in the morning when I get up.”
When the saloon-keepers were particularly loaded with beer, they shouted louder than any one else for Anarchy, and the louder and more vehemently they shouted the more “solid” did they become with their Anarchist customers. At every meeting held at these places, collections were taken up, and the saloon-keepers could always be counted upon to contribute liberally.
The worst of these ignorant fools never did realize why the saloon-keepers shouted so lustily for Anarchy until they came home to find their wives and little ones crying for bread. Then, perhaps, it faintly dawned upon their minds that the saloon-keepers were after their nickels. These liquor-sellers were Anarchists for revenue only, and they sought in every way to keep on the right side of the rank and file of the party. They always looked to it, the first thing in the morning, that plenty of Anarchist literature and a dozen or so copies of the Arbeiter-Zeitung were duly on the tables of their places, and in some saloons beer-bloated bums, who could manage to read fairly, were engaged to read aloud such articles as were particularly calculated to stir up the passions of the benighted patrons. Robber and hypocrite are terms too weak to apply to these saloon-keepers. Some of them had “walking delegates” by their side, and if an Anarchist seemed to them to be “going wrong” by seeking work, the delegate and assistant robber would tell him to go back to his headquarters and wait, assuring him that they would have all things right in a few days.
And this is the way these poor fools and their families were kept in continual misery. Many of the dupes have had their eyes opened and have quit frequenting these places and the underground caves. What is the result? Their families are better looked after, and the difference in their comfort is very apparent. They used to call the Chicago Avenue Station “Schaack’s Bastile,” but let me say that those saloon-keepers with their low and contemptible resorts were the real bastile-keepers. Hundreds and hundreds of men, heads and fathers of families, have been kept in squalid want by spending their very last cent in these holes, and their dependents have been left without food, proper clothing or fuel. I believe in unions for proper objects, but even these should not be continued for the benefit of such saloon-keepers.
All these men were great heroes so long as they could hope to enrich themselves, but when the chief conspirators were locked up in jail, and liberal contributions were demanded for the defense, their enthusiasm in the holy cause of Anarchy was considerably cooled.
While Chicago is regarded as the head center of Anarchy in America, people of other cities and States should not imagine that the vicious reds are all in this city. There are plenty of them scattered throughout the country, and this fact was made quite manifest at the time the Anarchists were being arrested. Friends of the imprisoned men came to Chicago from all over the United States, and financial assistance poured in on all sides. Those who came here were open in their declarations of sympathy and never attempted to conceal their actions.