“I don’t remember whether I was home on that Sunday morning,” continued the witness. “I was not on Emma Street that Sunday morning. I have known Spies a year and a half; saw him at the Arbeiter-Zeitung and at several Socialistic meetings; once at our group, the other times I don’t remember where. I have known Neebe for a short time by sight. I have known Schwab as long as Spies; saw him at our group. He did not belong to the group. He made a speech once every few months. I know Lingg since the 1st of May. I met him at the Carpenters’ Union, not any other place.”
Mrs. Lizzie May Holmes, assistant editor of the Alarm for about a year, detailed what transpired at the meeting of the American group on Tuesday evening, May 4th, and stated that she, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Parsons and Mr. Brown, went to the Haymarket. Subsequently they went to Zepf’s Hall. She could not say just where Parsons was in the saloon when the explosion occurred. She had not heard of the word “Ruhe” at the meeting Tuesday evening.
On cross-examination she said:
“My name has been Holmes since November 26th last. Before that my name was Swank. All articles in the Alarm under which the initials L. M. S. appear are my articles. I wrote an article under date of April 23d, 1886, headed, ‘It is Coming.’ I meant it in the same way that any prophet means anything, judging from events of past history. I was a member of the American group of the Internationale. That night I went home with Mrs. Parsons and staid there over night. Mr. Parsons did not go home that night. I left him on the corner of Kinzie. I am an Anarchist as I understand Anarchy. I have known Spies about three years, Fielden about four years. The latter was a stockholder in the paper, and I believe complaints were directed to him. I was sometimes absent for a whole week from the Arbeiter-Zeitung building. I wrote my articles at home and at various places. I don’t think I have ever been at the Arbeiter-Zeitung building more than six or eight times. I can’t remember where the Bureau of Information for the Internationale was. I suppose it was in the Arbeiter-Zeitung.
“I never advocated arson, or advised persons to commit arson in my life. I wrote the article entitled ‘Notice to Tramps,’ in the April 24th number of the Alarm, which reads:
“In a beautiful town, not far from Chicago, lives a large class of cultivated, well-informed people. They have Shakespeare, Lowell, Longfellow and Whittier at their tongues’ ends, and are posted in history and grow enthusiastic over the wickedness of the safely abolished institutions of the past. They say eloquent things about old fugitive slave laws, etc., which made it criminal to feed and shelter a starving human being if he were black. Posted at the roadside, in the hotels and stores, is a ‘Notice to Tramps,’ an abominable document which compares well with the old notices to runaway negroes which used to deface similar buildings. It is against the law to feed a tramp. You are liable to a fine if you give a cup of coffee and a piece of bread to a fellow-man who needs it and asks you for it. This is a Christian community, under the flag of the free. Look out, you wretched slaves. If, after toiling through your best years, you are suddenly thrown out of a job along with thousands of others, do not start out to hunt for work, for you will strike plenty of such towns as this. You must not walk from town to town. You must not stay where you are in idleness—you must move on. You must not ride—you have no money, and those tracks and cars you helped to build are not for such as you. You must not ask for anything to eat, or a place to sleep. You must not lie down and die, for then you would shock people’s morals. What are you to do? Great heavens! Jump into the lake? Fly up into the air? Or stay—have you a match about you?”
“I wrote that article deliberately; it speaks for itself. I don’t think it needs any explanation from me.”
Samuel Fielden was then put on the witness-stand and testified in his own behalf as follows:
“On May 4th last I took a load of stone to Waldheim Cemetery. I had engaged to speak that night at 268 Twelfth Street, and intended to go there. When I got home in the evening I bought a copy of the Daily News and there saw the announcement of a meeting of the American group to be held at 107 Fifth Avenue, that night. I believe it said important business. I was the treasurer of the American group, and as such had all the money it was worth. We should have had our semi-annual election the Sunday previous; besides, I thought that some money would be wanted, as important business was announced, so I determined to go to that meeting instead of to the meeting at which I had engaged to speak. I arrived at 107 Fifth Avenue about ten minutes before eight. I was there when some telephoning was done with reference to the Deering meeting. The witnesses who have detailed that occurrence are substantially correct. After I had entered the room I asked what the meeting was called for, and a gentleman named Patterson, who was not a member of our organization, showed me a hand-bill, which did not call that meeting, but had reference to the organization of the sewing women. I paid, as treasurer, five dollars to those who had laid out the costs of printing those hand-bills, and who might need a little money for car-fare in going around to hire halls, and other incidental expenses. Schwab must have left there about ten or fifteen minutes past eight. During the progress of the meeting a request was received from the Haymarket meeting for speakers, in response to which Parsons and I went over. Mr. Parsons, I believe, brought his two children down-stairs and gave them a drink of water in the saloon; then we walked together through the tunnel, and from about the west end of the tunnel I walked with Mr. Snyder, with whom I had a conversation. Spies spoke about five minutes longer after we had arrived there; then he introduced Mr. Parsons. During Parsons’ speech I was on the wagon. After he concluded I was introduced by Mr. Spies to make a short speech. I did not wish to speak, but Mr. Spies urged me, and I did speak about twenty minutes. I referred to some adverse criticism of the Socialists by an evening paper, which had called the Socialists cowards and other uncomplimentary names, and I told the audience that that was not true; that the Socialists were true to the interests of the laboring classes and would continue to advocate the rights of labor. I then spoke briefly of the condition of labor. I referred to the classes of people who were continually posing as labor reformers for their own benefit, and who had never done anything to benefit the laboring classes, but had at all times approved the cause of labor, in order to get themselves into office. To substantiate this, I cited the case of Martin Foran, who, in a speech in Congress on the arbitration bill that was brought in by the labor committee, had stated that the working classes of this country could get nothing through legislation in Congress, and that only when the rich men of this country understood that it was dangerous to live in a community where there were dissatisfied people would the labor problem be solved. Somebody in the audience cried out, ‘That is not true,’ or ‘That is a lie.’ Then I went over it again, adding words like these: That here was a man who had been on the spot for years, had experience, and knew what could be done there, and this was his testimony. It was not the testimony of a Socialist. Then I went on to state that under such circumstances the only way in which the working people could get any satisfaction from the gradually decreasing opportunities for their living—the only thing they could do with the law would be to throttle it. I used that word in a figurative sense. I said they should throttle it, because it was an expensive article to them and could do them no good. I then stated that men were working all their lifetime, their love for their families influencing them to put forth all their efforts, that their children might have a better opportunity of starting in the world than they had had. And the facts, the statistics of Great Britain and the United States, would prove that every year it was becoming utterly impossible for the younger generation, under the present system, to have as good an opportunity as the former ones had had.