“Not only, then, are Waller and Seliger Communists, Socialists and Anarchists, but they are State’s witnesses, co-confederates and conspirators, men whose testimony is regarded with disfavor and with suspicion by the law.
“They tell us that a man will lie to save his life. Said Mr. Walker, ‘Do you believe Mr. Spies? Will he not lie to save his life?’ Then I retort the argument of the gentleman upon his own head and say, ‘Would not Seliger lie to save his own neck?’
“They take Mr. Seliger down and they examine him and they get his statement and they reduce it to writing. The detective force is turned loose upon him. His statement is not strong enough; that won’t do; it is not enough; still there are missing links. ‘Mr. Seliger, this statement won’t do; we want something stronger than that.’ I can imagine—I am not giving the testimony now, but I can imagine how those detectives would go to Seliger, carried away from his family as he was, shut up in a dark dungeon, kept there day after day—‘Now, Seliger, here are two propositions: here is a rope and here is a statement; choose between them.’ He chose the lesser of the two evils—the statement, as any man would, Mr. Walker says, to save his own life. He makes the statement. He goes away. I can imagine, I say, the conduct and the actions of the detective force as they ply him with questions from day to day. ‘It won’t do, Mr. Seliger, it won’t do. There are too many missing links. We want something more. Isn’t this so, isn’t that so? Didn’t this happen, didn’t that happen?’ And poor Seliger, frightened, weak-minded and timid, ignorant of the laws of this country, ignorant of the rights which American citizens have under the laws, sits down and makes the second statement. And still the thing goes on, still he is kept in confinement, still he is plied with questions, still he is examined and cross-examined: ‘Mr. Seliger, the first statement won’t do, and the second statement won’t do. Mr. Seliger, we want more from you than this.’ And, says Mr. Walker, ‘Won’t a man lie to save his life?’ And Mr. Seliger makes the third statement, and again he goes back to his dungeon, and after a while again they go to Seliger and they say to Seliger, ‘This won’t do. You have made a statement, you have made a second statement, you have made a third statement, but still there are missing links. Isn’t this so, isn’t that so?’ And, as Mr. Walker says, ‘Won’t any man lie to save his life?’ And the fourth statement is made by Seliger. And these statements are unrolled as he sits here quivering and trembling, knowing perhaps that he is destroying the lives of these eight men, his former friends and associates, and questions are pronounced after questions, and the testimony is introduced before you, gentlemen, from a Socialist, from a Communist, from an Anarchist, from a conspirator, and from a man that will lie to save his own life; and upon that testimony you are to act, and you are not to act upon any testimony introduced by the defendants in this case.
“You remember the candy-maker that was brought upon the stand by the merest accident. You remember the circumstance that when his name was called he responded from that corner of the room (indicating)—none of us had ever seen him; we didn’t know it, and I don’t to-day hardly know how we got any information in regard to the man at all. And when he came forward here you will remember that this case was delayed until Mr. Zeisler and myself took him into the other room to ascertain if possible why he was here and to what facts he was going to testify. He came upon the stand, and what does he tell you? He tells you that on the night of the 4th of May he was at the Haymarket. He tells you that he was south of the alley, and when it was rumored there that the police were coming he started with others down. He tells you that at the time he did not know how far it was south of the alley, but he knows from the location and from the surroundings, and that since then he has gone there with his tape-line and he has measured it, and that it is thirty-eight feet south of the south line of Crane’s alley. He tells you that as they were going down, when the police had come up he saw a man with this motion, indicating a backward and upward motion with the right hand—not with this motion that Frank Walker tells about—cast a burning fuse, as it went hissing through the air; that he followed it until it struck, that he looked at it until the whole country around about was illuminated by the explosion and policemen bit the dust.
“Is he a reliable man, gentlemen? Is there anything wrong in his character? If there was, why, as late as two weeks before the time that he testified, was Mr. Furthmann placing before him the picture of Rudolph Schnaubelt? If he was an unreliable man and they knew it, if they did not believe his statement because of his unreliability, why, I say, was Mr. Furthmann two weeks before—according to the testimony of the witness which Mr. Furthmann has not undertaken to gainsay or deny—presenting the photograph of Rudolph Schnaubelt to see whether he could identify that man as being the man who threw the bomb? If he was an unreliable man, he tells us where he has worked; he tells us where he has lived; he tells us who his associates are; he tells us all about it. If there is anything wrong, then Captain Schaack would turn loose his detectives and his police and in less than an hour’s time the character, the true character, the villainous character of the man would have been exhibited before you. But nothing of that kind is done. They ascertain the fact that he saw the bomb-thrower—they know that he saw the bomb-thrower—at least, they believe that he saw the bomb-thrower, and the question is, Who shall be used? Shall the candy-maker be used, or shall Gilmer be used? Which shall it be—the candy-man or Gilmer?
“Now, you will remember that the State was two weeks putting in their testimony, and you will remember that the defense was one week—a week and one day more. You will remember the testimony of this witness was that two weeks before that time, which was one week after the State began to introduce their testimony, Mr. Furthmann presented before his face the picture of Rudolph Schnaubelt and demanded to know whether he could recognize the picture as being the man who threw the bomb. I say then it seems, Mr. Gilmer to the contrary notwithstanding, that a week after they had commenced the introduction of their testimony it was still a doubtful, uncertain and mooted question as to where took place the throwing of that bomb, and into whose hands to place it.
“What does the candy-maker say? He says honestly to Mr. Furthmann: ‘I cannot recognize that man as being the man; I don’t believe that that man had whiskers; all I know is that I think he had a light mustache and I think he was an ordinary-sized man; that is all I know about him.’
“And, gentlemen, that is a reasonable story. Hurrying away as he was in that crowd, supposing that the police had come there for a purpose, seeing this thing take place and the disaster that resulted from it and the excitement incident to it, would we expect that he would know or would be able to see any more than that? He did not recognize Schnaubelt as being the man; he did not recognize Fischer as being present at the time the bomb was thrown; he did not recognize Spies as being the man who lighted the fuse, and the prosecution did not want him, and so they sent him back to the candy-shop in obscurity, and there intended that he should remain. They did not want him. Why didn’t they? They had found a conspiracy, they say, to use violence for certain illegal purposes. They had established the fact of murder; there was a missing link; that was what was troubling them, and that is what has troubled them from the beginning of this trial down to the present time—the missing link. Where is the man in all the face of God’s green earth, where is the man that can identify one of these men that we will show was in any conspiracy to do anything which we might criticise or object to, that is in any way responsible for what was done at the Haymarket that night? They must have the missing link, or else they must fail in this prosecution. The candy-man won’t furnish it. He tells his story, a consistent and reasonable story. They believe his story because they take him up and they exhibit to him the picture—‘Is that the man?’ Oh, if he had only said, ‘Yes, that is the man, that is the man that was in company with him,’ how quickly the candy-maker would have come before us as a witness. But no; the man said honestly, ‘I cannot do that; I was in a crowd in the darkness; I was in the bustle and the excitement; I cannot do that.’ They didn’t want him; they sent him home. And still there is a missing link. Who is going to furnish it?
“Gilmer comes proudly to the front. He says, ‘Rather than have the play stopped I will furnish the missing link.’ Gilmer—Harry L. Gilmer—the old soldier that they tell us about. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe he was ever in the army a day of his life, because I believe if he had been that my brother Grinnell, of all witnesses that had been called, would have asked him that very first question. Some of you gentlemen bear upon your breasts the emblem of the Grand Army of the Republic; some of you were in the war and marched at the peril of your lives under the stars and stripes, and you would delight in meeting a man, and delight in believing in his honor and integrity, if you believed that he was engaged in the common cause with you in those trying days; and still the shrewd counsel never asked the question. A veteran! Yes, a veteran of Battery D, a veteran of Chicago, of the Home Rangers, a man that never smelt burnt powder in his life perhaps—he is the veteran soldier that is lauded before you gentlemen in the argument of counsel who have addressed you on the part of the prosecution in this case.
“I undertake to say, gentlemen, that all history, ancient and modern, has given to the world three of the grandest, the most consummate and infernal liars that ever existed since Adam first was set in the Garden of Eden—three names prominently that we find in the history that we are making now, in modern history and in ancient, and in importance they stand in the order in which I name them. First of all, greater than all, above them all in infamy and falsehood, is Harry L. Gilmer; next to him comes M. M. Thompson, and third is Ananias of old, whose Christian name I never heard, if, in fact, he ever had one. All history, ransacked, will furnish no three such men as the three names that I have suggested.”