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

“Gentlemen, leaders of any great cause are either heroes or cowards. The testimony in this case will show that August Spies, Parsons, Schwab and Neebe are the biggest cowards that I have ever seen in the course of my life. They have advised the use of dynamite and have advised the destruction of property for months and years in the city of Chicago, and now pitifully smile at our institutions, as they have through their lives—and, like cowards contemplating crime, they sought to establish an alibi for the 4th of May, of which I will speak directly.

“I will prove to you further that in January last August Spies told a newspaper reporter of integrity, honesty and fidelity that they were going to precipitate the matter on or about the 1st of May; that he told this man how they could dispose of the police, and in that connection he told that reporter that they would arrange it so that their meeting should be at or near the intersection of two streets. Having this as Randolph Street and Desplaines (pointing on map), not calling it any particular name, and that he would have a meeting in which there should be assembled large bodies of laboring men, of which he falsely claims to be the exponent; that they would be located just above the intersection of the streets; that he and his dynamiters would be there; that they would be provided with dynamite bombs at the place of meeting; that they would hold a meeting there; that the police or the militia would walk up towards them; that when they got up there their dynamite-throwers would be situated on different sides of the street near the walks; that when they proceeded up here they would throw the dynamite into their ranks, clean them out and take possession of the town. ‘But,’ said the reporter to him, ‘Mr. Spies, that sounds to me like braggadocio and vaporing nonsense.’ That is, gentlemen, what it has sounded to us for years. Let it sound no longer like that to us. Spies said to him, red in the face and excited: ‘I tell you I am telling the truth, and mark my words, that it will happen on or about the 1st of May, 1886.’ And the reason he was so ready to say so was because he believes our Constitution is a lie, our institutions are not worthy of respect, and he desires to pose as a leader, although in fact a coward.

“That is not all, gentlemen. Mr. Spies at that interview at that time handed that gentlemanly reporter—and I will commend him to you now, whatever may be your notion of newspaper men. Look at that man when he goes upon the stand and judge him by his words and by his appearance. He, Spies, did more than what I have said. At that time he handed to the newspaper reporter a dynamite bomb, empty—almost the exact duplicate of the bomb Lingg made which killed the officers; handed it to this witness and said to him: ‘These are the bombs that our men are making in the city of Chicago, and they are distributed from the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, because the men who make them have not the facilities for distributing them, and we distribute them here.’

“Those are facts that will be proven here.

“I want to suggest to you now, gentlemen, this is a vastly more important case than perhaps any of you have a conception of. Perhaps I have been with it so long, have investigated it so much, come in contact with such fearful and terrible things so often, that my notions may be somewhat exaggerated; but I think not. I think they are worse even than my conception has pictured. The firing upon Fort Sumter was a terrible thing to our country, but it was open warfare. I think it was nothing compared with this insidious, infamous plot to ruin our laws and our country secretly and in this cowardly way; the strength of our institutions may depend upon this case, because there is only one step beyond republicanism—that is Anarchy. See that we never take that step, and let us stand to-day as we have stood for years, firmly planted on the laws of our country.

“After teaching Anarchy, bombs, the manufacture of them and everything of that character for months, and I may say for years, here in town, having put the ball in motion, having done everything toward the end they declared should be accomplished—towards the end they sought—then began the numerous conspiracies. The beginning of the whole matter was among the nest of snakes in the Arbeiter-Zeitung office, and the foundation of the conspiracy, published, notorious and open, was at West Twelfth Street Turner Hall, on the 11th of October last. At that time, on the introduction of that resolution by Spies, it was opposed by one man in the audience, who is a labor agitator, but not an Anarchist—opposed by one man in that audience, and he was denounced; he was told to take a back seat, and in support of the resolution it was there said by Spies—and a man, as I understand, by the name of Belz was chairman—that the time for argument has passed; the only argument by which to meet these things was dynamite and the rifle—by force.

“As is well known, requiring no proof, for a long time before, it was arranged by a universal arrangement or consent among all the laboring classes in town that there should be a universal strike for eight hours, to take place on or about the 1st day of May. On the 1st day of May began those strikes. On the 2nd—on the 3d—the 2nd was Sunday—on the 3d day of May, on Monday, you will remember from your reading, as it will appear in proof here, there was difficulty at McCormick’s factory down on what they called the Black Road. The fact about that meeting was this: A large number of lumber-shovers, or men who work in the lumber-yards, had a meeting appointed to wait on the lumber-dealers, There were a great many of them Bohemians, some Germans, and some of other nationalities—mostly embraced in those two nationalities that I first spoke of, but all nationalities represented there. The chief officers and the chief men in the movement were Bohemians. Some of them will be presented to you by us. The committee that was to wait upon the lumber-dealers was to report there in an open place called the Black Road, or in that locality, to the meeting, what the lumber-dealers proposed. In other words, a peaceful proposition was made by that committee to the lumbermen to accede to eight hours, and a meeting was held there; the committee were to come back from the lumber-dealers and report to that meeting. Spies and a man by the name of Fehling—who ought also to have been in this indictment, and I will say just a word later about that—one other man whose identity we have not fully established—went down there uninvited by any of that committee, or by the chairman of it—went down there and made an inflammatory speech for the purpose of precipitating that riot. That is the truth. It was precipitated. I am rather inclined to think that some other of these men were there. I am not going to state anything to you here, at any time, in this case, that I do not believe I can prove. I know Spies was there, and spoke from the top of a car. He wrote up the speech later on, which I will speak of directly. The president of that organization down there, the laborers, opposed his speaking and informed the people that this man was not one of them, but that he was a Socialist, and they did not want to hear him. He insisted upon speaking, and the friend that was with him has fled the city and does not dare return. That will be in proof. Spies did the unmanly thing that he always does. He exasperated other people to rush on McCormick’s regardless of the president of that committee, who desired quiet and peace and desired it honestly, although he was in favor of eight hours. But Spies is not anxious for eight hours. We will prove that in this case. He does not want eight hours. If the laboring men—if the bosses and employers in the city of Chicago on the 1st day of May had universally acceded to the eight-hour project, Spies was a dead duck; they would have had no further use for him, and he didn’t want it. Therefore he went down there and exasperated the people, and he made a speech. The police didn’t come on the ground until after McCormick’s was attacked, and until after stones and bombs were used, or pistols and lead against McCormick’s factory. What does Spies do, this redoubtable knight? He runs away and gets home just as soon as he can. He takes a car and comes north. I will say nothing more about that meeting for the present. Let us follow Spies. Now, mind you, he saw trouble. He had exasperated this crowd to attack McCormick’s; they did attack McCormick’s, and stones were thrown by the mob at McCormick’s men—some of them—they are called scabs; they didn’t happen to belong to any union. Of course my opinion about that may be different from some of yours; I will not criticise. I believe one man is just as good as another, whether he belongs to a union or not. If he is an honest man and desires to work, I think he ought to be permitted to work. But those fellows didn’t belong to the union. They swam across the river, got away the best they could, saved their lives. But what does Spies do? He rushes away as soon as he can, when he sees the starting of the difficulty; when he has got everybody inflamed into frenzy and madness he quietly gets out to save his august person; he quietly gets out and goes away. That is not all. He lands that afternoon at the corner of Desplaines and Lake, where there was a crowd of other men, laborers meeting there, and pronounces a lie by telling them that ‘twelve or fourteen of your brothers have been killed at McCormick’s, and by the bloodhounds, the police.’ Spies knew as well as anything that he ever knew in his life that he was uttering a falsehood. He knew, if he knew anything, that, so far as his observation was concerned, not a man had been killed—not a single man had been killed—and he inflamed the people there by his suggestion, heated as he was and showing excitement, coming in there at Desplaines and Lake at that meeting, inflaming those people so that they were then ready to go with the torch and the sword and level everything before them.

“That is not all. He left there about four o’clock in the afternoon, perhaps between four and five, and went to this nest of treason and Anarchy, No. 107 Fifth Avenue, and there about five o’clock arrived, heated, excited, and told his men not to stop work, that he wanted to use them. What did he do? He then and there wrote what is called the ‘Revenge’ circular. It is written in English and in German. The English part is tame, more tame than the German—and he knew what he was doing then; there was a plan in that. We have the circular as printed, which will be presented to you. We have in addition to that the type from which it was printed; we have in addition to that the manuscript from which the type was set. The manuscript is in Spies’ handwriting! That ‘Revenge’ circular, gentlemen, perpetrated another lie. It said that ‘six of your brothers have been killed at McCormick’s.’ He decreased it a little. That ‘Revenge’ circular was hurriedly passed out to all the German settlements of the town and everywhere, by every possible means. Neebe distributed them; others distributed them. They were ‘revenge;’ revenge for what? Revenge for the declared murder of the brothers of the laboring men at McCormick’s Monday afternoon—when he had no knowledge that a single man was killed. I have since learned and shall prove that one man did die days or weeks afterwards from wounds he did receive there, and only one.

“I want to suggest another thing to you here. It will appear in proof—because we have had the German part of that circular translated—that the German part of that circular is the most infamous thing that ever was in print. The translation of the German part of that circular is not like the English part. A man picking up the circular who was an English scholar—as I remember, the English part of the circular comes first, and following that is the German part—and any man, even some of these German newspaper men, would pick that up, and the first thing they would read would be the English part, not the German. They would read the English hastily through and they would say, ‘That’s some of Spies’ vaporing nonsense again; nothing very serious about it, but bad—bad taste—bad judgment in inflamed times.’ But the revenge circular as printed in German is altogether a different thing. It is not only treason and Anarchy, but a bid to bloodshed, and a bid to war. Anybody reading the English part of that circular would drop it—even the Germans. And the German newspapers until afterwards did not perceive the dissimilarity between the two, the English and the German. Now, where is this matter read? It is fortunate for the English-speaking people that defendants embrace only two of that class; one of them was born in this country, the other in England. That circular was read among the Germans. That circular was spread throughout the western part and the northern part of the city of Chicago and in other places, at the instance of Spies, who had it circulated himself. ‘Revenge on the bloodhounds, the police.’ For his life, in regard to those who were killed, he could not have known whether anybody was killed or not, because he took care of his royal person so speedily after the difficulty at McCormick’s that he had no chance to know whether anybody was killed, and he took good care to see that he was not hurt. So much for the ‘Revenge’ circular.

“Now, gentlemen, we are getting down to the 4th of May. There is more in it than this. Monday was the 3d day of May; Tuesday was the 4th, the day the bomb was thrown. Everything was ripe with the Anarchists for ruining the town. Bombs were to be thrown in all parts of the city of Chicago. Everything was to be done that could be done to ruin law and order. I wish to say right here, gentlemen, that the proof in this case will develop a strange state of facts in regard to the complicity of others in this matter, and in that particular perhaps there ought to be some apology for myself. The conspiracy was so large, the number of criminals interested in that conspiracy so appalling, that I distrusted my own judgment, and, whereas in my soul I believed that at least thirty men and perhaps more should have been indicted for murder, the developments in the case were of that kind, when the grand jury was in session, that the facts could not all clearly be known. And further, there was that feeling and inspiration in the matter, if you please, that the leaders, the men who have incited these things, the men who have caused this anarchy and bloodshed here, and who seek for more—that they should be picked out and, if possible, punished and blotted out.