“Thousands of these were circulated throughout the city. Does that mean that there was a conspiracy and no malice against individuals?
“And then on Monday night a meeting at 54 West Lake Street took place, which has not been denied, and there were Lingg and Engel and Fischer. Engel’s plan was again reiterated; Lingg was to make the bombs, and Lingg was there to say he could make the bombs. He may have been to the Carpenters’ meeting before that. When he left the 54 West Lake Street meeting, he met Lehman upon the way home—Gustav Lehman, who testified he got the bombs from Lingg—and he said to Lehman, ‘If you want to know anything, you come to 58 Clybourn Avenue to-morrow night.’ In response to the question, ‘What has been going on in the meeting at 54 West Lake Street, in the basement?’
“At that meeting at 54 West Lake Street were represented all the different Socialistic and Anarchistic organizations. ‘Y, Come Monday night,’ had brought delegates, according to Waller’s testimony, from every group in the city. The West Side, the South Side, Southwest Side, the North Side, every group was represented, and the Lehr und Wehr Verein also had its delegates. The plan was arranged that on to-morrow, if the revolution took place in the daytime, and the conflict had occurred, the word ‘Ruhe’ should be published, all the men should be at their outlying groups ready to annihilate the police, the fire department, to cut the telegraph wires, and to prevent communication with the central meeting at the Haymarket. Waller had suggested that this meeting be at Market Square; Fischer says: ‘No; that is a mouse trap; we will make it the Haymarket.’ And then Spies takes it up north of the alley, north of the intersection of the street—and, by the way, that block has more alleys than perhaps any other block in the city of Chicago, and more means of escape—and locates that meeting just where he had located the street battle in his description to Mr. Wilkinson, and as Parsons had explained street warfare in the Alarm.
“Who called the meeting at the Haymarket to order on Desplaines Street beyond the alley? Spies. He had written with his own hand the word ‘Ruhe.’ He was after the social revolution. Why did he move the meeting to that place if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why was he there at all if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? He has told. Why was he on the wagon if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why didn’t he notify the police, if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant, not to come to that meeting? Why had he said upon the wagon, ‘If you want to do anything, why don’t you do it and say nothing?’ if he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why did he leave his revolver before he ever got to that meeting unless he knew what ‘Ruhe’ meant? He follows out his own instructions in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, on that subject, when some one wrote:
“In the action itself one must be personally at the place to select personally that point on the place of the action and that part of the action which are the most important and are coupled with the greatest danger, upon which depend chiefly the success or failure of the whole affair.
“And he selected the place himself. Fischer says: ‘No, the Market Square is a mouse trap,’ and they named they Haymarket, and Spies designates the place of meeting and publishes the word ‘Ruhe;’ and then it is expected from twenty-five to forty thousand people will be at the meeting on Haymarket Square. Eight thousand had rebelled at McCormick’s; the skirmish lines had met, and it was expected that there would be twenty-five thousand at the Haymarket on that night; but there were not, and for that reason this mob was not dispersed. The police could not see at any time a meeting so large as to be beyond their control, but when this meeting became boisterous it was after ten o’clock, two hours later than the meeting was called for. If the police had been but two hours earlier in dispelling the meeting the flames would have been lighted out at Wicker Park; the instrument of fire described in Herr Most’s book, and found at Wicker Park, was for that purpose. The Northwestern group was to meet at Wicker Park, and come down past North Avenue Station. The North Side group was to annihilate the North Side Station, and Lingg was at his post of duty for that purpose.
“Was there a conspiracy? They take the word and Spies publishes it. He says in explanation: ‘Among the announcements it came to me by no person of whom I am aware, no one about whom I know anything.’ No questions were asked. In this way the mere editor, Spies, publishes in the Briefkasten the word ‘Ruhe’ prominently. The Briefkasten is used to answer private correspondence, personal letters and editorials, or it is used to place the advertisements of secret meetings in, and for no other purpose. ‘Y—Come Monday night,’ is found in the Letter-box of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. That is a secret thing, and means that the armed groups shall meet at 54 West Lake Street. ‘Ruhe’ was an answer to no correspondent; the word ‘Ruhe’ could enlighten no ignorant man on the subject alone; and the editor-in-chief of the Arbeiter-Zeitung picked up a piece of paper and wrote ‘Ruhe’ on it without ever knowing what it meant or where it came from, and says it was handed him among the labor announcements: ‘Mr. Editor, please publish the word “Ruhe” in the Letter box prominently.’ What tells you that it was a labor announcement? Who ever said it was a labor announcement? ‘Ruhe,’ peace, rest, quiet—‘Ruhe’ a labor announcement! Why, who said so? It would be lost if put in the announcements of labor organizations. ‘Mr. Editor, publish the word “Ruhe” in the column where you put “Y—Come Monday night,” the secret sign of the armed sections, and publish it prominently.’ Without a word he did so, and he asks you to believe it. Did he know what ‘Ruhe’ meant? Why, he sent for Fischer, and Fischer told him it was harmless. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘that is foolish, Fischer; don’t do that, don’t do that.’ Rau had only told him that it meant: ‘Workmen, be at your groups, keep yourselves armed and in preparation, so that if you are attacked you can defend yourselves; workingmen, arm yourselves and be at your groups.’ That is what Rau said ‘Ruhe’ meant, and, when asked, Fischer says: ‘Why, that means, “Keep your powder dry,” that is all.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘Fischer, that is foolish; that is crazy; why, I cannot have that.’ What did he think was foolish and crazy? To keep their powder dry, when this man had said the day before, ‘Workingmen, arm yourselves, arm yourselves!’ This is the explanation of the word ‘Ruhe.’
“Did Parsons know of the conspiracy ‘Ruhe’? He was a party to the great conspiracy, for he had cried about April 24th for the revolution upon the 1st of May. That he has not denied; and to my mind he cuts one of the worst figures in this case. He was born at least upon American soil, and he stands here alone, alone amongst these vast hordes of witnesses who are not citizens of our republic, and whose purpose is her destruction. Albert R. Parsons is the only American, and he has no right, no right to belong to that nationality. He never said he did not know of the conspiracy, and he spoke of the 4th of May; it was said that night he staid away—by the way, he left this out—‘I should be accused of cowardice;’ but he did say, ‘I would come if I were to die before morning.’ Did he know of the conspiracy? Why, he had been in it for years. He published the order of street fighting in his Alarm, foreshadowing the battle in his description; and not only did he do that, but he made the alibi by calling at the American group on that night, a group organized and holding a meeting for the sewing girls when not a sewing girl was present, with no one there but a Nihilist, a Communist, a Socialist and an Anarchist. Mrs. Parsons was there and Mrs. Holmes. Where was any sewing girl?
“And here I want to ask you if, after hearing all the proof in this case; if, after reading Most’s ‘Revolutionary War,’ the instructions to the Nihilists and Anarchists; if after reading the Alarm here; if, after hearing the testimony of the witnesses, you will here and to-day say that the men lied who on that night stood when Captain Bonfield said ‘Fall in’—stood there when the concussion had riven to the earth sixty of Chicago’s noblest men because they had courage. When, out of the hundred and eighty, sixty lay wounded on the ground, the other one hundred and twenty killed the revolution with one blow. The men whose lives were spared fell in, and not a man has lived to say there was a coward in the whole one hundred and eighty.”