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

Friend:—I sold three revolvers during the last two days, and I will sell three more to-day (Wednesday). I sell them from $6.00 to $7.80 apiece.

Respectfully and best regards, L. Lingg.

At this time Hermann was the general agent in this city for buying and selling arms to the Anarchists. Engel had been an agent at one time, but the men claimed that he had fleeced them, and he was dropped.

Lingg thus proved himself a very useful man to the order. He could make an effective speech; he was a good organizer; he could make bombs with dynamite whose power had been enhanced manifold through his skill; he would carry hand-bills, and he would do anything to help along the cause. In truth, he was the shiftiest as well as the most dangerous Anarchist in all Chicago.

Gas-Pipe Bombs, Without Fuse.
Found in Lingg’s Room.

Having been a pupil of Reinsdorf, Lingg was an opponent of all peaceable agitation. He believed in organizing armed forces and conquering everything by main force. He had no love at all for those who talked peaceable agitation; he called them fools and cranks. Of this class were the old-time Socialists, and he looked upon them with haughty disdain. He found better material to work on for helping him in the revolution he proposed, and, although he molded many an Anarchist out of the softer clay of humanity, still he was not satisfied, but complained continually that they did not move fast enough, did not take hold with celerity and failed to develop such heroic qualities as he wished to see. The restless spirit within him, his implacable hatred of society, tinged with the bitterness of his doubtful birth, and his strong impulses manifested themselves in all his acts and utterances. An illustration of these traits is the impatience he exhibited over the failure of trusted men to come early to the house of Seliger to secure bombs on the evening of May 4, and his departure with the bombs to Neff’s Hall to have them speedily distributed. Another example is found in the bitter reproaches he heaped on those who had failed to carry out their part after the inauguration of the Haymarket riot. His hopes, his ambitions, had been set on the successful consummation of that plot. It was to have overthrown all government and all law, which he declared were good enough for old women to prevent them from quarreling, but needless for men of intelligence and independence.

For four weeks prior to the 4th of May he was out of work, but he was by no means idle. He worked early and late attending meetings and making bombs, so that, the moment the signal for the general revolution was given, every member of the armed sections might be supplied with the destructive agent. He wanted the whole city blown up, every capitalist wiped off the face of the earth; and he and his trusted comrades, Sunday after Sunday, in anticipation of the uprising, practiced in the suburbs with rifles and 44-caliber revolvers. Lingg became the most expert of them all and was looked upon by his associates as a crack shot.

Lingg’s money and time were freely given to the purchase of arms and to the manufacture of dynamite bombs. His room at Seliger’s became a veritable arsenal, and, the more deadly “stuff” he brought into the house, the more pleased he became, and the more bitter grew the enmity of Mrs. Seliger toward him. How careful and elaborate were his preparations for the coming day is not only shown by the deadly implements found in his room, but is evidenced in the statements of his trusted lieutenants. These statements—made to me by men anxious to save themselves, prostrate suppliants for mercy, whose every material revelation was corroborative of the others, although given independently and under different circumstances and without knowledge of what others had said—unmistakably pointed to a most gigantic conspiracy. Read any of these statements, and no doubt can exist that, had it not been for the hand of Providence on the night of May 4, thousands of people would have been killed and vast districts of the city laid waste. Lingg expected it as certainly as he believed in his own existence at the time, and his intimate comrades bent all their energy in the direction of carrying out the villainous plot.