“The speakers were northeast from me, in front of Crane Bros’. building, a few feet north of the alley. I remember the alley particularly. As far as I remember Spies’ speech, he said: ‘Please come to order. This meeting is not called to incite any riot.’ He then said that McCormick had charged him with the murder of the people at the meeting the night before; that Mr. McCormick was a liar. McCormick was himself responsible. Somebody had opposed his speaking at the meeting near McCormick’s because he was a Socialist. The people he spoke to were good Christian, church-going people. While he was speaking, McCormick’s people had come out. Some of the men and boys had started for them, and had had some harmless sport throwing stones into the windows, etc. Then he said that some workingmen were shot at and killed by the police. That is as far as my memory goes.
“Parsons illustrated that the capitalists got the great bulk of the profit out of everything done. I remember in his speech he said: ‘To arms! To arms! To arms!’ but in what connection I cannot remember. Somebody in the crowd said, ‘Shoot’ or ‘Hang Gould,’ and he says, ‘No, a great many will jump up and take his place. What Socialism aims at is not the death of individuals, but of the system.’
“Fielden spoke very loud, and as I had never attended a Socialistic meeting before in my life, I thought they were a little wild. Fielden spoke about a Congressman from Ohio who had been elected by the workingmen and confessed that no legislation could be enacted in favor of the workingmen; consequently he said there was no use trying to do anything by legislation. After he had talked awhile a dark cloud with cold wind came from the north. Many people had left before, but when the cloud came a great many people left. Somebody said, ‘Let’s adjourn,’—to some place, I can’t remember the name of the place. Fielden said he was about through, there was no need of adjourning. He said two or three times, ‘Now, in conclusion,’ or something like that, and I became impatient. Then I heard a commotion and a good deal of noise in the audience, and somebody said, ‘Police.’ I looked south and saw a line of police when it was at about the Randolph Street car-tracks. The police moved along until the front of the column got about up to the speakers’ wagon. I heard somebody near the wagon say something about dispersing. I saw some persons upon the wagon. I could not tell who they were. About the time that somebody was giving that command to disperse, I distinctly heard two words coming from the vicinity of the wagon or from the wagon. I don’t know who uttered them. The words were ‘peaceable meeting.’ That was a few seconds before the explosion of the bomb. As the police marched through the crowd the latter went to the sidewalks on either side, some went north, some few went on Randolph Street east, and some west. I did not hear any such exclamation as ‘Here come the bloodhounds of the police; you do your duty and I’ll do mine,’ from the locality of the wagon or from Mr. Fielden. I heard nothing of that sort that night. At the time the bomb exploded I was still in my position upon the stairs. A reporter talked to me while I was on those stairs. I remember he went down, and just before the police came he ran up past me again. There was no pistol fired by any person upon the wagon before the bomb exploded. No pistol shots anywhere before the explosion of the bomb. Just after the command to disperse had been given, I saw a lighted fuse or something—I didn’t know what it was at the time—come up from a point nearly twenty feet south of the south line of Crane’s alley, from about the center of the sidewalk on the east side of the street, from behind some boxes. I am positive it was not thrown from the alley. I first noticed it about six or seven feet in the air, a little above a man’s head. It went in a northwest course and up about fifteen feet from the ground, and fell about the middle of the street. The explosion followed almost immediately, possibly within two or three seconds. Something of a cloud of smoke followed the explosion. After the bomb exploded there was pistol-shooting. From my position I could distinctly see the flashes of the pistols. My head was about fifteen feet from the ground. There might have been fifty to one hundred and fifty pistol shots. They proceeded from about the center of where the police were. I did not observe either the flashes of pistol shots or hear the report of any shots from the crowd upon the police prior to the firing by the police. I staid in my position from five to twenty seconds. There was shooting going on in every direction, as well up as down. I could see from the flashes of the pistols that the police were shooting up. The police were not only shooting at the crowd, but I noticed several of them shoot just as they happened to throw their arms. I concluded that my position was possibly more dangerous than down in the crowd, and then I ran down to the foot of the stairs, ran west on the sidewalk on Randolph Street a short distance, and then on the road. A crowd was running in the same direction. I had to jump over a man lying down, and I saw another man fall in front of me about one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet west of Desplaines Street. I took hold of his arm and wanted to help him, but the firing was so lively behind me that I just let go and ran. I was to the rear of the crowd running west, the police still behind us. There were no shots from the direction to which I was running.
“I am not and have never been a member of any Socialistic party or association. Walking through the crowd before the meeting, I noticed from their appearance that the meeting was composed principally of ordinary workingmen, mechanics, etc. The audience listened, and once in awhile there would be yells of ‘Shoot him!’ ‘Hang him!’ from the audience. I didn’t find any difference in the bearing of the crowd during Fielden’s speech from what it was during Parsons’ or Spies’. In the course of the conversation which I had with Capt. Bonfield at the station before the meeting that night, I asked him about the trouble in the southwestern part of the city. He says, ‘The trouble there is that these’—whether he used the word Socialists or strikers, I don’t know—‘get their women and children mixed up with them and around them and in front of them, and we can’t get at them. I would like to get three thousand of them in a crowd, without their women and children’—and to the best of my recollection he added, ‘and I will make short work of them.’ I noticed a few women and children at the bottom of the steps where I was. I don’t think there were any in the body of the crowd around the wagon. At the time the police came up there, I did not observe any women or children.”
On cross-examination Mr. Simonson said:
“I have several times visited police stations in the city. I attended a Salvation Army meeting on East Chicago Avenue, and I thought the roughs there interrupted the meeting. I went across to see Capt. Schaack two or three times about it. I was once at the Desplaines Street Station and made complaint against a policeman for abusing an old man, and one evening I brought there a fellow who asked me for something to get him a lodging on the West Side, and I asked the police to take care of him. And another time, when I heard about the way people who had received lodging at the station were treated there, I went to the station to satisfy myself what was the fact about the matter, and Capt. Ward told me a different story.
“I went to the Haymarket meeting out of curiosity to know what kind of meetings they held, believing that the newspapers ordinarily misrepresented such things. I had my impression that the papers had misrepresented the meetings of workingmen, not from anything definite I had, but from having seen reports in papers of occurrences I had seen, and, as a rule, they were one-sided. I went to the meeting to satisfy myself—to prove or disprove my impression. That was one of my reasons for going there. At that conversation with Mr. Bonfield that I testified to, nobody else was present. It was in the main office of Desplaines Street Station. Capt. Ward, I believe, was walking around at the time. There was a good deal of noise in the police station, and we talked quietly. I believe no one else could hear it. I believe it was last fall that I visited the North Side police station in regard to the Salvation Army again. I visited about a half dozen of their meetings. I saw Capt. Schaack at the station. I did not ask him to arrest any people who had disturbed the meeting, nor to arrest the Salvation Army people. I told him that in going to the meeting I heard somebody swear a very vicious oath and curse the Salvation Army people. The police were standing within hearing, and the crowd joined in the laugh. I told him it seemed to me that the police ought not to allow anything of that kind. The windows of the Salvation Army were filled with boards. I told Capt. Schaack that it seemed not right that in front of the police station they should do any such thing. He said he would order the boards taken down, and if they wanted protection they could get it. I went another time to Capt. Schaack when some of the Salvation Army people were confined in the Bridewell. Mayor Harrison had given me a note to Mr. Felton, telling him to let them go, and I went to Capt. Schaack to tell him that.
“My recollection is that Fielden said: ‘The law is your enemy. Kill it, stab it, throttle it, or it will throttle you.’ When the police came, I looked at them and at the crowd. I watched both to some extent. I don’t know how many lines of police there were. When I saw them at the Randolph Street tracks, I saw a straight line of police filling the whole street. There was more than one column, but I don’t know how many. I was at that time contemplating the question of my own safety. I was looking in the direction of the wagon at the time the bomb was thrown. I didn’t see the officer command the meeting to disperse, but heard somebody, in some form, tell the meeting to disperse. The only words I remember to have heard were: ‘Command—meeting—to disperse.’ During the delivery of that, or right after it, I heard somebody say something, of which I caught the two words, ‘Peaceable meeting.’ The first column of police were standing on about a line with the north line of the alley. I don’t know where the other columns were with reference to where the bomb exploded. I only saw the police in a large body march out. It looked to me at the time as if the bomb struck the ground and exploded just a little behind the front line of police. I saw policemen behind the first line of police, but I did not distinguish the columns. I don’t know whether the bomb exploded directly behind the front line, or between the second and the third or third and fourth lines.
“The firing began from the police, right in the center of the street. I did not see a single shot fired from the crowd on either side of the street. I didn’t know what became of the men in the wagon. I don’t think there were any shots fired in the neighborhood of the wagon. I was not looking at the wagon all the time, but was looking over the scene in general. If you got up on a place as high as I was, and it was dark, you could see every flash; the flashes show themselves immediately when they are out of the revolver, on a dark night. The scene impressed itself so upon me that now, looking back, I see it as I did then. Looking at where the bomb exploded, I could not help looking toward the wagon, too. My impression is, the boxes on the opposite side of the street were from two to four feet high. I have been at the Haymarket to look over the ground, several times since the 4th of May, so as to get an idea of the dimensions of the thing. I went there of my own volition; nobody asked me to go there. It was on my way to mother’s house. I am employed by Rothschild Brothers, on commission.”
When this witness returned to the store, the firm by whom he was employed at once discharged him, saying that he was one of the worst Anarchists in the city and they had no use for him.