“On May 4th I was performing my regular duties at the Arbeiter-Zeitung. A little before nine in the forenoon I was invited to address a meeting on the Haymarket that evening. That was the first I heard of it. I had no part in calling the meeting. I put the announcement of the meeting into the Arbeiter-Zeitung at the request of a man who invited me to speak. The Arbeiter-Zeitung is an afternoon daily paper, and appears at 2 P. M. About eleven o’clock a circular calling the Haymarket meeting was handed to me to be inserted in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, containing the line, ‘Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force.’ I said to the man who brought the circular that, if that was the meeting which I had been invited to address, I should certainly not speak there, on account of that line. He stated that the circulars had not been distributed, and I told him if that was the case, and if he would take out that line, it would be all right. Mr. Fischer was called down at that time, and he sent the man back to the printing-office to have the line taken out. I struck out the line myself before I handed it to the compositor to put it in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. The man who brought the circular to me and took it back with the line stricken out was on the stand here—Grueneberg I believe is his name.
“I left home that evening about half-past seven o’clock and walked down with my brother Henry, arriving at the Haymarket about twenty or twenty-five minutes after eight. I had understood from the invitation that I should address the meeting in German; and, knowing that the English speeches would come first, I did not go there in time to reach the opening of the meeting. When I got there, there was no meeting in progress, however; simply crowds were standing around the corners here and there, talking together. I called them together. After having looked around for a speakers’ stand—we generally had very primitive platforms—I saw this wagon on Desplaines Street; and being right near the corner, I thought it was a good place to choose and told the people that the meeting would take place there. There was no light upon the wagon. Early in the meeting I think the sky was bright. I cannot tell whether the lamp at the alley was burning or not; my impression is that it was. I could not say about any other light. I found the wagon just where we used it. It was not an ordinary truck wagon; it was a half truck and half express wagon, the truck with the box on. I don’t know that there were any stakes on it; it was a large, long express wagon. I believe I spoke with my brother Henry as to the advisability of choosing that place. Henry was with me during the entire evening. After the audience got together, somebody suggested to draw the wagon into the Haymarket. I replied that that might interfere with the street traffic, and that the cars would make a good deal of noise. Then I asked if Mr. Parsons was present. I thought he had been invited to address the meeting. I was not on the arrangement committee; but seeing the crowd and seeing that the meeting had been very poorly arranged, I took the initiative. When I asked for Parsons, one of the editors of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, one Schroeder, stepped up and said: ‘Parsons is speaking up on the corner of Halsted and Randolph Streets; I just saw him there.’ I told him to go and call him. He left, but staid quite a while, and I left the wagon myself, and, in the company of my brother Henry, one Legner and Schnaubelt, whom I had just met, went up the street to find Parsons. Schwab was not with me at that time or at any time that evening. Schnaubelt told me I had been wanted at Deering, but as I had not been at hand Schwab had gone out there. After I left the wagon I did not go to the mouth of Crane’s alley. I did not even know at the time that there was an alley there at all. I did not enter the alley with Schwab, had no conversation with him there in which I referred to pistols and police, and in which Schwab asked whether one would be enough, etc., nor anything of that kind. Neither did I have that conversation with anybody else. I left the wagon and moved in a southwesterly direction obliquely across the street to the corner of the Haymarket. From there I went, in company with those I mentioned, up on Randolph Street, beyond Union and pretty near Halsted Street, but, seeing only a few people, probably twenty or twenty-five, standing there scattered, and not seeing Parsons, we returned, walking on the north side of Randolph Street, as we had in going down. I went on the wagon and addressed the meeting. I had no conversation with Schwab, at or about the crossing of Union Street, in which we spoke about being ready for them and that they were afraid to come. I had no such conversation with any one. I don’t remember exactly of what we were speaking, but Schnaubelt and I, as we walked along, were conversing in German. I have known Schnaubelt for about two years. I think he has not been in the country more than two years. He cannot speak English at all. He wore a light gray suit that night. In returning to the wagon I went from the corner of the Haymarket right straight to the wagon, in a northeasterly direction. I did not, on my return, or at any time that evening, walk with Schwab across Desplaines Street to the center of the sidewalk, some fifteen feet south of Crane’s alley, and at that point meet Schnaubelt, and there take anything out of my pocket, or otherwise, and give it to Schnaubelt, or anybody else, at that location.
“I spoke about fifteen or twenty minutes. I began by stating that I heard a large number of patrol wagons had gone to Desplaines Street Station; that great preparations had been made for a possible outbreak; that the militia had been called under arms, and that I would state at the beginning that this meeting had not been called for the purpose of inciting a riot, but simply to discuss the situation of the eight-hour movement and the atrocities of the police on the preceding day. Then I referred to one of the morning papers of the city, in which Mr. McCormick said that I was responsible for the affair near his factory; that I had incited the people to commit violence, etc., and I stated that such misrepresentations were made in order to discredit the men who took an active part in the movement. I stated that such outbreaks as had occurred at McCormick’s, in East St. Louis, in Philadelphia, Cleveland and other places, were not the work of a band of conspirators, of a few Anarchists or Socialists, but the unconscious struggle of a class for emancipation; that such outbreaks might be expected at any minute and were not the arbitrary work of individuals. I then pointed to the fact that the people who committed violence had never been Socialists or Anarchists, but in most instances had been up to that time the most lawful citizens, good Christians, the exemplary so-called honest workmen, who were contrasted by the capitalists with the Anarchists. I stated that the meeting at McCormick’s was composed mostly of humble, church-going good Christians, and not by any means atheists, or materialists, or Anarchists. I then stated that for the past twenty years the wage-workers had asked their employers for a reduction of the hours of labor; that, according to the statement of the secretary of the National Bureau of Labor Statistics, about two millions of physically strong men were out of employment; that the productive capacity had, by the development of machines, so immensely increased that all that any rationally organized society required could be produced in a few hours, and that the mechanical working of men for ten hours a day was simply another method of murdering them. Though every student of social phenomena admitted the fact that society was, under the present condition of overwork, almost retrograding and the masses sinking into degradation, still their demands have been refused. I proceeded to state that the legislators had different interests at stake than those involved in this question, and did not care so much about the welfare of any class of society as for their own interests, and that at last the workingmen had conceived, consciously or unconsciously, the idea to take the matter in their own hands; that it was not a political question, but an economic question; that neither legislatures nor Congress could do anything in the premises, but the workingmen could only achieve a normal day’s work of eight hours or less by their own efforts.
“I believe when I had gone so far somebody told me that Mr. Parsons had arrived. Turning around, I saw Parsons; and as I was fatigued, worn out, I broke off and introduced Parsons. I spoke in English. After introducing Parsons I staid on the wagon. When I stopped and Parsons began, I believe there were pretty nearly 2,000 people there; it was an ordinarily packed crowd. The people who wanted to listen would crowd to the wagon, others would stand on the opposite sidewalk, but I did not see any very packed crowd, exactly. While I spoke, I was facing, I believe, in a southwesterly direction; the bulk of the audience stood around the wagon south and southwesterly toward the Haymarket. Parsons spoke forty-five minutes to an hour. He stopped about ten o’clock. I had been requested by several persons to make a German speech, but Parsons had spoken longer than I expected, it was too late, and I didn’t feel much like speaking; so I asked Mr. Fielden to say a few words in conclusion and then adjourn. I introduced Fielden to the audience and remained on the wagon until the command was given by Capt. Ward to disperse. I did not see the police until they formed in columns on the corner of Desplaines and Randolph Streets. Somebody behind me, I think, said: ‘The police are coming.’ I could not understand that. I did not think even when I saw them that they were marching toward the meeting. The meeting was almost as well as adjourned. There were not over two hundred on the spot. About five minutes previous to that a dark cloud came moving from the north, and it looked so threateningly that most of the people ran away, and some people suggested an adjournment to Zepf’s Hall; more than two-thirds of the attendants left at that time. The police halted three or four feet south of the wagon. Capt. Ward walked up to the wagon. Fielden was standing in front of me, in the rear of the wagon. I was standing in the middle of the wagon. Ward held something in his hand, a cane or a club, and said: ‘In the name of the people of the State of Illinois, I command you to disperse,’ and Fielden said: ‘Why, Captain, this is a peaceable meeting.’ And Ward repeated, I think, that command, and then turned around to his men, and while I didn’t understand what he said to them, I thought he said, ‘Charge upon the crowd,’ or something to that effect. I did not hear him say: ‘I call upon you and you to assist;’ he may have said that and I may have misunderstood him. My brother and one Legner and several others that I did not know stood at the side of the wagon; they reached out their hands and helped me off the wagon. I felt very indignant over the coming of the police, and intended to ask them what right they had to break up the meeting, but I jumped down from the wagon. When I reached the sidewalk I heard a terrible detonation; I thought the city authority had brought a cannon there to scare the people from the street. I did not think they would shoot upon the people, nor did I think in the least, at that time, of a bomb. Then I was pushed along; there was a throng of people rushing up, and I was just carried away with them. I went into Zepf’s Hall. The firing began immediately, simultaneously with the explosion. I did not see any firing from the crowd upon the police. I did not hear, as I stood upon the wagon, either by Fielden or anybody else, any such exclamation as ‘Here come the bloodhounds; men, do your duty and I will do mine.’ Fielden did not draw a revolver and fire from the wagon upon the police or in their direction. I did not, before the explosion of the bomb, leave my position upon the wagon, go into the alley, strike a match and light a bomb in the hands of Rudolph Schnaubelt. I did not see Rudolph Schnaubelt in the mouth of the alley then or at any time that evening with a bomb. I did not at that time or any other time that evening go into the mouth of the alley and join there Fischer and Schnaubelt and strike a match for any purpose. Schnaubelt is about six feet three inches tall, I should judge, of large frame and large body.
“I remember the witness Wilkinson, a reporter of the News. He was up at the office several times, but I only had one conversation with him as far as I remember. He made an interview out of it. He was introduced to me by Joe Gruenhut, who told me that the News wanted to have an article. Wilkinson inquired as to the report of some paper that the Anarchists had placed an infernal machine at the door of the house of Lambert Tree, and I told him that, in my opinion, the Pinkertons were doing such things to force people to engage them and to advertise themselves. He then asked whether I had ever seen or possessed any bombs? I said yes. I had had at the office for probably three years four bombshells. Two of them had been left at the office in my absence, by a man who wanted to find out if it was a good construction. The other two were left with me one day by some man who came, I think, from Cleveland or New York, and was going to New Zealand from here. I used to show those shells to newspaper reporters, and I showed one to Mr. Wilkinson and allowed him to take it along and show it to Mr. Stone. I never asked him for it since. That part of the conversation was at noon, while I was in a hurry. Wilkinson came in the evening again with Joe Gruenhut, and invited me to dine with him. I had just about half an hour to spend. At the table we talked about an infernal machine which had been placed a few days previous into an office of the Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and about another placed in front of Lambert Tree’s house, and I gave the explanation which I have already stated. Talking about the riot drill that had shortly before been held on the lake front, and about the sensational reports published by the papers in regard to the armed organizations of Socialists, I told him that it was an open secret that some three thousand Socialists in the city of Chicago were armed. I told him that the arming of these people, meaning not only Socialists but workingmen in general, began right after the strike of 1877, when the police attacked workingmen at their meetings, killed some and wounded others; that they were of the opinion that if they would enjoy the rights of the Constitution, they should prepare to defend them too, if necessary; that it was a known fact that these men had paraded the streets, as many as 1,500 strong at a time, with their rifles; that there was nothing new in that, and I could not see why they talked so much about it. And I said I thought that they were still arming and I wished that every workingman was well armed.
“Then we spoke generally on modern warfare. Wilkinson was of the opinion that the militia and the police could easily defeat any effort on the part of the populace by force, could easily quell a riot. I differed from him. I told him that the views which the bourgeoise took of their military and police was exactly the same as the nobility took, some centuries ago, as to their own armament, and that gunpowder had come to the relief of the oppressed masses and had done away with the aristocracy very quickly; that the iron armor of the nobility was penetrated by a leaden bullet just as easily as the blouse of the peasant; that dynamite, like gunpowder, had an equalizing, leveling tendency; that the two were children of the same parent; that dynamite would eventually break down the aristocracy of this age and make the principles of democracy a reality. I stated that it had been attempted by such men as General Sheridan and others to play havoc with an organized body of military or police by the use of dynamite, and it would be an easy thing to do it. He asked me if I anticipated any trouble, and I said I did. He asked me if the Anarchists and Socialists were going to make a revolution. Of course I made fun of that; told him that revolutions were not made by individuals or conspirators, but were simply the logic of events resting in the conditions of things. On the subject of street warfare I illustrated with toothpicks the diagram which had appeared in one of the numbers of the Alarm, introduced in evidence here. I said to him that I wasn’t much of a warrior, but had read a good deal on the subject, and I particularly referred to that article in the Alarm. I said that if, for instance, a military body would march up a street, they would have men on the house-tops on both sides of the street protecting and guarding the main body from possible onslaught, possibly by shooting, firing or throwing of bombs. Now, if the revolutionists or civilians, men not belonging to the privileged military bodies, would form an oblique line on each side of the street at a crossing, they could then very successfully combat the on-marching militia and police, by attacking them with fire-arms or dynamite. And I used Market Square for illustration. I said there was a system of canalization in large cities. Now, supposing they expected an attack, they could, by the use of a battery and dynamite, blow up whole regiments very easily. I don’t think that I said what Wilkinson testified to here in regard to the tunnel, but I may have given the talk a little color. I knew he wanted a sensational article for publication in the News, but there was no particular reference to Chicago, or any fighting on our part. The topic of the conversation was that a fight was inevitable, and that it might take place in the near future, and what might and could be done in such an event. It was a general discussion of the possibilities of street warfare under modern science.
“I wrote the word ‘Ruhe’ for insertion in the Arbeiter-Zeitung on May 4th. It happened just the same as with any other announcement that would come in. I received a batch of announcements from a number of labor organizations and societies a little after eleven o’clock, in my editorial room, and went over them. Among them was one which read: ‘Mr. Editor, please insert in the letter-box the word ‘Ruhe,’ in prominent letters.’ This was in German. There is an announcement column of meetings in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, but a single word or something like that would be lost sight of under the announcements. In such cases people generally ask to have that inserted under the head of ‘Letter-box.’ Upon reading that request, I just took a piece of paper and marked on it ‘Briefkasten’ (Letter-box), and the word ‘Ruhe.’ The manuscript which is in evidence is in my handwriting. At the time I wrote that word and sent it up to be put in the paper, I did not know of any import whatever attached to it. My attention was next called to it a little after three o’clock in the afternoon. Balthasar Rau, an advertising agent of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, came and asked me if the word ‘Ruhe’ was in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. I had myself forgotten about it, and took a copy of the paper and found it there. He asked me if I knew what it meant, and I said I did not. He said there was a rumor that the armed sections had held a meeting the night before, and had resolved to put in that word as a signal for the armed sections to keep themselves in readiness in case the police should precipitate a riot, to come to the assistance of the attacked. I sent for Fischer, who had invited me to speak at the meeting that evening, and asked him if that word had any reference to that meeting. He said, ‘None whatever;’ that it was merely a signal for the boys—for those who were armed to keep their powder dry, in case they might be called upon to fight within the next days. I told Rau it was a very silly thing, or at least that there was not much rational sense in that, and asked him if he knew how it could be managed that this nonsense would be stopped; how it could be undone. Rau said he knew some persons who had something to say in the armed organizations, and I told him to go and tell them that the word was put in by mistake. Rau went pursuant to that suggestion, and returned to me at five o’clock.
“I was not a member of any armed section. I have not been for six years. I have had in my desk for two years two giant-powder cartridges, a roll of fuse and some detonating caps. Originally I bought them to experiment with them, as I had read a good deal about dynamite and wanted to get acquainted with it, but I never had occasion to go out for that purpose, as I was too much occupied. The reporters used to bother me a good deal, and when they would come to the office for something sensational I would show them these giant cartridges. They are the same that were referred to here by certain witnesses as having been shown on the evening of the Board of Trade demonstration. One of them will yet show a little hole in which I put that evening one of those caps, to explain to the reporter how terrible a thing it was. In fact, if that cartridge, as it is, were exploded in a free place, it would just give a detonation, and the concussion of the air might throw one on the floor, but it could do no harm to anybody. I know absolutely nothing about the package of dynamite which was exhibited here in court, and was claimed to have been found on a shelf in a closet in the Arbeiter-Zeitung building. I never saw it before it was produced here in court. I don’t know anything about a revolver claimed to have been found in the Arbeiter-Zeitung. That was not my revolver, but I always carried a revolver. I had a very good revolver. I was out late at night, and I always considered it a very good thing to be in a position to defend myself. Strangely, I did not have that pistol with me on the night of the Haymarket. It was too heavy for me, and, while I took it along first, I left it with ex-Alderman Stauber on my way. I guess it is there now.
“I was arrested on Wednesday morning after the Haymarket meeting, about half-past eight o’clock, at the Arbeiter-Zeitung editorial room. I had begun writing. I had come to the office a little after seven o’clock, as usual. A man who afterwards told me he was an officer, James Bonfield, asked Mr. Schwab and myself to come over to police headquarters; that Superintendent Ebersold wanted to have a talk with us on the affair of the previous night. I was very busy and asked him if it could not be delayed until after the issue of the paper. He said he would rather have me come along then, and I, unsuspectingly, went along to the station. The Superintendent received us by saying: ‘You dirty Dutch —— ——, you dirty hounds, you rascals, we will choke you; we will kill you.’ And then they jumped upon us, tore us from one end to the other, went through our pockets, took my money and everything I had. I never said anything. They finally concluded to put us in a cell, and then Mr. Ebersold said: ‘Well, boys, let’s be cool.’ I think Mr. James Bonfield interfered during the assault made upon us by Mr. Ebersold, and suggested to him that that was not the proper way nor the proper place. I have been continuously confined from then until now.”
On cross-examination Spies stated: