Following this Mr. Walker reviewed Parsons’ utterances in the Alarm, quoting many of them. He argued that it was this sort of language and the dynamite bomb at the Haymarket which accounted for the failure of the eight-hour movement in the United States.
Coming to August Spies, he read from the Arbeiter-Zeitung the following characteristic morceau:
“‘Six months ago, May 4th, when the eight-hour movement began’—this is in Spies’ own handwriting—‘there were speakers and journals of the I. A. A.’—that is the International Arbeiter Association—‘who proclaimed and wrote: “Workingmen, if you want to see the eight-hour system introduced, arm yourselves. If you don’t do this you will be sent home with bloody heads, and the birds will sing May songs upon your graves.” “That is nonsense,” was the reply. “If the workingmen are organized they will gain the eight-hour in their Sunday clothes.” Well, what do you say now? Were we right or wrong? Would the occurrence of yesterday have been possible if our advice had been followed? Wage-workers, yesterday the police of this city murdered at McCormick’s factory four of your brothers, and wounded more or less,’ etc. ‘If the brothers who defended themselves with stones (a few of them had little snappers in the shape of revolvers) had been provided with good weapons and one single dynamite bomb, not one of the murderers would have escaped their well-merited fate.’
“The police went up there; they were nearly being murdered with stones; the mob were throwing at them before they ever fired a shot; and this man the next day writes: ‘Had they’—the mob—‘been provided with good weapons and one single dynamite bomb, not one of the murderers would have escaped his well-deserved fate.’ Then see: ‘As it was, only four of them were disfigured. That is too bad.”
“Here, here is a man that has no design upon the police, don’t believe in force. ‘That is too bad. The massacre of yesterday took place in order to fill the forty thousand workingmen of this city with fear and terror; took place in order to force back,’ etc. ‘ Will they succeed in this? Will they not find at last that they have miscalculated? The near future will answer this question. We will not anticipate the course of events with surmises.’
“That is what he himself said. If one single bomb had been used it would have been different. He sees these eight thousand men at his back, returns immediately to the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and writes out this, (indicating the Revenge circular). What did he mean? What did he mean? ‘Revenge.’ He says he did not write the word ‘Revenge’ in English. Rache, Rache, Revenge, Revenge—he never denied that he wrote it in the German language, nor any witness for him; but it makes no difference whether he wrote it, or whether he did not write it. He wrote ‘To arms;’ he says, ‘To arms, workingmen, to arms.’ What does that mean? Did anybody say at the Haymarket, ‘Here come the bloodhounds; you do your duty and I will do mine’? Let us see. ‘The bloodhounds’ was the common expression from the lips of these defendants as the designation for the police. Spies says in English—did he mean this or didn’t he?”
Mr. Walker here read the text of the “Revenge” circular, both the English and German versions, as given in a previous chapter, and continued:
“Is that meaningless? ‘To arms, we call you to arms.’ Why, it is the cry of the revolutionist; it is the cry of the Communist; it is the cry of the Anarchist; it is the cry of Spies and Parsons—‘To arms, to arms!’ And yet the English was tame in comparison to the German version.
“Did they have no design upon individuals in this conspiracy? Why, they had the most awful, damning malice against the police. It was the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity. Without reason and without cause they had individualized the police; but Bonfield for the second time stood in the way of the Social Revolution. Just see how it forces up the blood of this social revolutionist: ‘The bloodhounds, the police are at you, in order to cure you, with bullets, of your dissatisfaction. Slaves, we ask, we conjure you by all that is sacred and dear to you, avenge’—what does that mean? What difference does it make whether he wrote revenge at the head of this circular or not? He wrote it in it. What did it mean? What did those conspirators mean?
“Avenge the atrocious murder which has been committed upon your brothers to-day, and which will be likely to be committed upon you to-morrow. Avenge, laboring men. Hercules, you have arrived at the cross-way. Which way will you decide, for slavery and hunger, or for freedom and bread? If you decide for the latter, then don’t delay a moment. Then, people, to arms! Annihilation, annihilation to the beasts in human form who call themselves your rulers. Uncompromising annihilation to them. This must be your motto. Think of the heroes whose blood has fertilized the road to progress, liberty and humanity, and strive to become worthy of them. Your brothers.