The men who were always relied upon to carry these flags in the processions of the reds were Ernst Hubner, Appelman, Paul Otto, Stohlbaum, W. Hageman, Seliger, Lutz, Gustav Lehman, Paul Lehman, and Mrs. Parsons, Mrs. Holmes and some other women, and possibly some of these may know something of the mysterious disappearance of the Anarchists’ chief standard.
AN INCENDIARY CAN.—From a Photograph.
This is a tin can filled with petroleum, and provided with a small powder flask, secured in the center by means of a screw-top, which also serves to hold the fuse in position. Numbers of these cans were found. They were intended for setting fire to buildings and other property.
During the searches by the department for other suspicious and inflammatory articles, several fire-cans were found in the northwest part of the city, on the 3d of June, by Officer Whalen. In exterior appearance these looked very harmless, but an examination of their contents showed them capable of doing a great deal of mischief. They each had a capacity of a quart, and were made of medium heavy tin, with a round hole in the center of the top, about an inch in diameter. This opening was provided with a threaded neck of tin about an inch high, with a cover to fit. Underneath the cover was a sort of clasp, into which fitted the neck of a small vial, and through the cover a small hole was bored, for the admission of a fuse into the vial. When ready for use the can would be filled with an explosive or with coal-oil, and the flask would contain powder. All that then remained would be to light the fuse, throw the can either into a lumber-yard or under the stairway of some residence or business block, and no one would know the perpetrator of a possibly disastrous fire. The cans found by Officer Whalen were loaded and had evidently been intended for use on the night of May 4. Fortunately the owner must have become frightened and hid them to escape arrest.
The suggestion for the manufacture of these cans came from across the water. A short time preceding May 4, at a meeting held in Thalia Hall, a few Frenchmen and several Germans, who had passed through the reign of the Commune in Paris in 1871, gave a general idea of the important part such cans had played in that city and added that women at that time did as good work with them as the men. Such fire-cans, together with glass balls filled with nitro-glycerine, were carried in baskets, and if the reds wanted to destroy a building they would throw a can through the window, or if they desired to annihilate a guard of soldiers they would hurl into their midst one of the glass balls, which would explode by concussion and tear the men to pieces.
These missiles had created great havoc in Paris, and the members of the Thalia Hall gathering were urged to adopt them for use in Chicago. At that time there were enough desperate Anarchists in the city to have used all that could have been manufactured, but some of the men at the meeting insisted that the women should be asked to assist in disposing of them to the destruction of the town. One big, loud-mouthed fellow, evidently a coward, shouted:
“My wife will do that. She is an Anarchist as good as any one of us.”