Mr. Grinnell said:
“Gentlemen:—For the first time in the history of our country are people on trial for their lives for endeavoring to make Anarchy the rule, and in that attempt for ruthlessly and awfully destroying life. I hope that while the youngest of us lives this in his memory will be the last and only time in our country when such a trial shall take place. It will or will not take place as this case is determined.
“The State now and at no time hereafter will say aught to arouse your prejudices or your indignation, having confidence in the case that we present; and I hope I shall not at any time during this trial say anything to you which will in any way or manner excite your passions. I want your reason. I want your careful analysis. I want your careful attention. We—my associates and myself—ask the conviction of no man from malice, from prejudice, from anything except the facts and the law. I am here, gentlemen, to maintain the law, not to break it; and, however you may believe that any of these men have broken the law through their notions of Anarchy, try them on the facts. We believe, gentlemen, that we have a case that shall command your respect, and demonstrate to you the truthfulness of all the declarations in it, and, further, that by careful attention and close analysis you can determine who are guilty and the nature of the crime.
“On the 4th of May, 1886, a few short weeks ago, there occurred, at what is called Haymarket Square, the most fearful massacre ever witnessed or heard of in this country. The crime culminated there—you are to find the perpetrators. The charge against the defendants is that they are responsible for that act. The testimony that shall be presented to you will be the testimony which will show their innocence or their guilty complicity in that crime.
HON. JULIUS S. GRINNELL.
From a Photograph.
“We have been in this city inclined to believe, as we have all through the country, that, however extravagantly men may talk about our laws and our country, however severely they may criticise our Constitution and our institutions; that as we are all in favor of full liberty, of free speech, the great good sense of our people would never permit acts based upon sentiments which meant the overthrow of law. We have believed it for years; we were taught it at our schools in our infancy, we were taught it in our maturer years in school, and all our walks in life thereafter have taught us that our institutions, founded on our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and our universal freedom, were above and beyond all Anarchy. The 4th of May demonstrated that we were wrong, that we had too much confidence, that a certain class of individuals, some of them recently come here, as the testimony will show, believe that here in this country our Constitution is a lie. Insults are offered to the Declaration of Independence, the name of Washington is reviled and traduced, and we are taught by these men, as the testimony will show, that freedom in this country means lawlessness and absolute licence to do as we please, no matter whether it hurts others or not. In the light of the 4th of May we now know that the preachings of Anarchy, the suggestions of these defendants hourly and daily for years, have been sapping our institutions, and that where they have cried murder, bloodshed, Anarchy and dynamite, they have meant what they said, and proposed to do what they threatened.
“We will prove, gentlemen, in this case, that Spies no longer ago than last February said that they were armed in this city for bloodshed and riot. We will prove that he said then that they were ready in the city of Chicago for Anarchy, and when told, by a gentleman to whom he made the declaration, that they ‘would be hung like snakes,’ said—and there was the insult to the Father of our Country—then he said George Washington was no better than a rebel, as if there was any possible comparison between those declarations, between that sentiment of Washington’s and his noble deeds, and the Anarchy of this man. He has said in public meetings—and the details of them I will not now worry you with—he has said in public meetings for the last year and a half, to go back no further—he and Neebe and Schwab and Parsons and Fielden have said in public meetings here in the city of Chicago that the only way to adjust the wrongs of any man was by bloodshed, by dynamite, by the pistol, by the Winchester rifle. They have advised, as will appear in proof here, that dynamite was cheap, and ‘you had better forego some luxuries, buy dynamite, kill capitalists, down with the police, murder them, dispose of the militia, and then demand your rights.’ That is Anarchy.
“On the 11th day of October, 1885, in a prominent public hall upon the West Side, August Spies, the defendant in this case, and his confrères there, introduced a resolution at a public meeting, in which he said that he did not believe that the eight-hour movement would do the laboring man any good. We will prove in this case that he has always been opposed to the eight-hour law. That is not what he wants. He wants Anarchy. These defendants that I mentioned passed a resolution, which we shall offer in evidence here, and it shall be read to you later—to the effect that the laboring men must arm, must prepare themselves with rifles and dynamite. When? By the 1st of May, 1886, because then would come the contest.
“I will prove to you that Parsons—be it said to the shame of our country, because I understand that he was born on our soil—that Parsons, in an infamous paper published by him, called the Alarm, has defined the use of dynamite, told how it should be used, how capitalists could be destroyed by it, how policemen could be absolutely wiped from the face of the earth by one bomb; and further has published a plan in his paper of street-warfare by dynamite against militia and the authorities.