INTERIOR PLAN OF GREIF’S HALL.
“I cannot tell whether Lingg was in the basement, but he went home with me. We had a little quarrel. Lingg came up to us from behind, on the sidewalk, and said to us, ‘You are all oxen, fools.’ I asked him what had taken place at the meeting, where we were just coming from. Lingg told me that if I wanted to know something I should come to 58 Clybourn Avenue the next evening. There were present Seliger, my brother, and one other man. The next day I worked on Sedgwick Street. After I quit work, at three o’clock, I met a gentleman, Schneideke, and we went to Lingg’s. Got there about five o’clock. I saw there Lingg, Seliger, and a blacksmith, whose name I don’t know, and Hubner. I stayed there about ten minutes. They did some work in the bed-room. I couldn’t understand what they were doing. I did not work at anything. Lingg and Huebner had a cloth tied around their faces. I had gone there because my countryman wanted to buy a revolver. After I left I went home with my countryman. At about seven o’clock I went back to Lingg’s, and stayed there perhaps ten minutes. They were still busy in the bed-room. Hubner was cutting a fuse, or a coil of fuse, into pieces. I saw something like that fuse (indicating a coil of fuse) and caps. I didn’t do anything there. They were making these fuse and caps in the front room. That afternoon Lingg gave me a small hand satchel, with a tin box in it, and three round bombs, and two coils of fuse and some caps. This here (indicating) is the box which he gave me. It was said that dynamite was in it. It was nearly full. This box of caps (indicating) I found afterwards in the satchel. Lingg said to me he wanted me to keep these things so that no one could find them. I took them home with me, to the wood-shed; got up at three o’clock that night and carried them away to the prairie, about Clybourn Avenue, behind Ogden’s Grove.
“After supper on that Tuesday evening I was about to go to Uhlich’s Hall, but there was no carpenters’ meeting there. Then I was about to go home, but we went to 58 Clybourn Avenue, Neff’s Hall, because of what Lingg had told us Monday night. Schneideke was with me. We stayed at Neff’s Hall about ten minutes. We got there about half past nine. I did not see anybody there whom I knew but the barkeeper. After leaving Neff’s Hall we went up Clybourn Avenue to Larrabee Street. We had no special place in view. I got home about eleven o’clock. We met Seliger and Lingg standing together on the sidewalk on Larrabee Street, near Clybourn Avenue. We stood there with them, but one—I don’t know whether it was Seliger or Lingg—remarked: ‘We four should not keep together.’ Then we went towards North Avenue, along Larrabee Street. Near North Avenue we met Thielen. I afterwards went to the prairie with a detective, about May 19th or 20th, to find the things that Lingg had given me. The bombs and the dynamite, the fuse and the caps were still there.”
“Have you ever been a member of any Socialistic organization?”
“I have been a member of the North Side Group of the International Workingmen’s Association. I belonged to the group about three months prior to the 4th of May. The group met at 58 Clybourn Avenue, regularly, every Monday evening. We talked together there, advised together, and reviewed what had happened among the workingmen during the week. We had hunting-guns and shot-guns with which we drilled. I kept my gun at my house.”
“Did you ever attend a dance at Florus’ Hall?”
“Yes, about March of this year. It was a ball of the Carpenters’ Union. Lingg was present there. There was about ten or ten and a half dollars’ profit on the beer. The money, according to a resolution passed at the next meeting of the Carpenters’ Union, at 71 West Lake Street, was handed over to Lingg, with the instruction to buy dynamite with it, and experiment with it to find out how it was used. I heard Engel make a speech at 58 Clybourn Avenue, about January or February of this year, before the assembled workingmen of the North Side. He said those who could not buy revolvers should buy dynamite. It was cheap and easily handled. A gas-pipe was to be taken and a wooden plug put into the ends, and it was to be filled with dynamite. Then the other end is also closed up with a wooden plug, and old nails are tied around the pipe by means of wire. Then a hole is bored into one end of it, and a fuse with a cap is put into that hole. I was chairman at that meeting. Engel said some gas-pipe was to be found on the West Side, near the river, near the bridge.”
On cross-examination Lehman stated:
“The meeting at which Engel spoke was a public, open-door meeting. A notice under the signal ‘Y,’ which was understood to be the call for a meeting at 54 West Lake Street, I have seen once before. I belonged to the armed section for about three or four months. The meetings of the armed section at 54 West Lake Street were irregular, governed by such a notice in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I did not see Lingg at 54 West Lake Street that Monday night. I don’t know that he was there. As we went home he came up to us from behind on the sidewalk. Whether he was there or not I cannot say. When I went to Clybourn Avenue Tuesday night, Lingg was not there. Seliger went down in the basement at the meeting at 54 Lake Street Monday night. He was there for some time, but I cannot tell how long. I am sure about that. We went there together from where the carpenters’ meeting was to have taken place. I, my brother, he and several others went down together. I am as sure of Seliger’s having been down there in the basement that night as of any fact that I have testified to.”
Jeremiah Sullivan, a detective, testified: