“I am Mayor of the city of Chicago since over seven years. On the 4th of May last I was present during a part of the Haymarket meeting so-called. On the day before there was a riot at McCormick’s factory, which was represented to me to have grown out of a speech made by Mr. Spies. During the morning of the 4th I received information of the issuance of a circular of a peculiar character and calling for a meeting at the Haymarket that night. I directed the Chief of Police that if anything should be said at that meeting that might call out a recurrence of such proceedings as at McCormick’s factory, the meeting should be dispersed. I believed that it was better for myself to be there and disperse the meeting myself instead of leaving it to any policeman. I went to the meeting for the purpose of dispersing it in case I should feel it necessary for the safety of the city. I arrived there about five minutes before eight. There was a large concourse of people about the Haymarket, but it was so long before any speaking commenced that probably two-thirds of the people there assembled left, as it seemed to me. It was about half-past eight when the speaking commenced and the meeting congregated around Crane’s building, or the alley near it.
“Mr. Spies may have been speaking one or two minutes before I got near enough to hear distinctly what he said. I judge I left the meeting between 10 and 10:05 o’clock that night. I staid to hear Mr. Spies’ speech, and I heard all of Mr. Parsons’ up to the time I left, with the exception of five or ten minutes, during which I went over to the station. When I judged that Mr. Parsons was looking towards the close of his speech I went over to the station, spoke to Capt. Bonfield, and determined to go home, but instead of going immediately I went back to hear a little more; staid there about five minutes longer and then left. Within about twenty minutes from the time that I left the meeting I heard the sound of the explosion of the bomb at my house. While at the meeting I noticed that I was observed when I struck a match to light my cigar and the full blaze showed my face. I thought Mr. Spies had observed me, as the tone of his speech suddenly changed, but that is mere conjecture. Prior to that change in the tone of Mr. Spies’ speech I feared his remarks would force me to disperse the meeting. I was there for that purpose; that is to say, it was my own determination to do it against the will of the police. After that occurrence the general tenor of Spies’ speech was such that I remarked to Capt. Bonfield that it was tame.”
“Did anything transpire in the address of either Spies or Parsons, after the incident of the lighting of your cigar to which you have referred, that led you to conclude to take any action in reference to the dispersing of the meeting?”
The State objected to an answer, and the objection was sustained.
“I did in fact take no action at the meeting about dispersing it. There were occasional replies from the audience, as ‘Shoot him,’ ‘Hang him’ or the like, but I do not think, from the directions in which they came, here and there and around, that there were more than two or three hundred actual sympathizers with the speakers. Several times cries of ‘Hang him’ would come from a boy in the outskirts, and the crowd would laugh. I felt that a majority of the crowd were idle spectators, and the replies nearly as much what might be called ‘guying’ as absolute applause. Some of the replies were evidently bitter; they came from immediately around the stand. The audience numbered from eight hundred to one thousand. The people in attendance, so far as I could see during the half hour before the speaking commenced, were apparently laborers or mechanics, and the majority of them not English-speaking people—mostly Germans. There was no suggestion made by either of the speakers looking toward calling for the immediate use of force or violence toward any person that night; if there had been I should have dispersed them at once. After I came back from the station Parsons was still speaking, but evidently approaching a close. It was becoming cloudy and looked like threatening rain, and I thought the thing was about over. There was not one-fourth of the crowd that had been there during the evening listening to the speakers at that time. In the crowd I heard a great many Germans use expressions of their being dissatisfied with bringing them there and having this speaking. When I went to the station during Parsons’ speech, I stated to Capt. Bonfield that I thought the speeches were about over; that nothing had occurred yet or looked likely to occur to require interference, and that he had better issue orders to his reserves at the other stations to go home. Bonfield replied that he had reached the same conclusion from reports brought to him, but he thought it would be best to retain the men in the station until the meeting broke up, and then referred to a rumor that he had heard that night which he thought would make it necessary for him to keep his men there, which I concurred in. During my attendance of the meeting I saw no weapons at all upon any person.”
On cross-examination Mr. Harrison stated:
“The rumor that I referred to was related to me by Capt. Bonfield immediately after my reaching the station. Bonfield told me he had just received information that the Haymarket meeting, or a part of it, would go over to the Milwaukee and St. Paul freight-houses, then filled with ‘scabs,’ and blow it up. There was also an intimation that this meeting might be held merely to attract the attention of the police to the Haymarket, while the real attack, if any, should be made that night on McCormick’s. Those were the contingencies in regard to which I was listening to those speeches. In listening to the speeches, I concluded it was not an organization to destroy property that night, and went home. My order to Bonfield was that the reserves held at the other stations might be sent home, because I learned that all was quiet in the district where McCormick’s factory is situated. Bonfield replied he had already ordered the reserves in the other stations to go in their regular order.
“Bonfield was there, detailed by the Chief of Police, in control of that meeting, together with Capt. Ward. I don’t remember of hearing Parsons call ‘To arms! To arms! To arms!’ When I speak of a rumor in regard to a possible attack upon McCormick’s, the fact is it was not a rumor that came from others, but rather a fear or apprehension on my own part, and it was suggested first by myself that this might be the aim of this meeting. There was a direct statement by Mr. Bonfield to me that he had heard the rumor about the freight-houses.”
Barton Simonson, a traveling salesman for E. Rothschild & Bros., wholesale clothing, concluded, after taking supper at his mother’s house, No. 50 West Ohio Street, to take in the Haymarket meeting, and he went there and remained throughout the proceedings, until the explosion of the bomb. He testified: