Mr. Foster then adverted to some points in the management of the case, and touched at some length on the fact that Gilmer had not testified before the grand jury. He proceeded as follows:
“Of all the testimony that has been introduced here, the testimony of Harry Gilmer is paramount. Bind the rest of it together in a sheaf, set it alongside of the testimony of Harry Gilmer, and it is as a molehill compared to a mountain, if the testimony of Harry Gilmer is true. If the testimony of Harry Gilmer is true, August Spies and Mr. Fischer must die. If you believe him, they must be swept from the face of the earth; and yet Mr. Grinnell, saying, ‘We have nothing to conceal and nothing to hide,’ forgets to tell you that he has the man who saw Mr. Spies, in the presence of Mr. Fischer, light the fuse which was thrown by Mr. Schnaubelt, and which destroyed Officer Degan. He never expected to prove it. If he did—if it is true that he expected to, and if it is true that he had nothing to conceal and nothing to hide, why, then, didn’t he say it? Why had it not been published broadcast to the land by these newspaper gentlemen? Why was it that Harry Gilmer’s face was not published and sent forth in every paper that is published in the land? Why was it that it was not said: ‘This is the man—this is the man who has the testimony within his knowledge which will show the connection and establish the link which fastens some of the defendants, at least, to the murder of Mathias J. Degan?’ Not a word—not a word upon the subject of Harry L. Gilmer, the veteran of the war, the old soldier, so eloquently discoursed upon by my brother Walker. Where was Gilmer then?
“I can imagine brother Grinnell, in his anxiety and his quandary in determining what course to pursue here, discussing with himself and his associates as to whether or not this case should be determined upon the testimony of Thompson alone, or Thompson and Gilmer mixed. It has been a serious consideration on the part of the gentlemen. There can’t be any doubt about that. But the honest man who says, ‘No, I can’t identify them,’ is sent home, and Harry Gilmer is brought to the front. He will identify Schnaubelt—oh, yes; no question about that. He will do more than that; he will identify Fischer—oh, yes; he will do more than that. Fischer may prove an alibi; they do not know whether Fischer was there, but there is one man that they do know was there, and that he was there all that time upon that wagon, and that was August Spies, and, if necessary, Harry Gilmer will identify Spies. Now, do you believe that, gentlemen? Do you believe that? And I do not charge my brother Grinnell with putting Harry Gilmer upon the stand knowing that he was swearing to a pack of lies. Not at all; I do not charge him with that. I charge him with placing no reliance upon the man at all. I say that, if Mr. Grinnell knew at the time he made his opening statement that Harry Gilmer was to come upon the stand and swear to that fact, he did not do his duty as a lawyer and he did not keep his pledge to the jury, and if he did not know it, it shows the absolute unreliability of the testimony of Mr. Gilmer.
“Now, I say to you, gentlemen, from all the surrounding circumstances in this case—I say that Harry L. Gilmer—and I stated to you the other day that I was not in the habit of calling witnesses liars; I preferred to present their testimony under the suspicion of mistake rather than the suspicion of falsehood—but I say as to Harry L. Gilmer that he is a stupendous, colossal, a monumental liar, and there is no escape from it. Now, just think of it for a moment. The world was excited; every daily paper in the universe published accounts—in Paris and in London, in Petersburg and Vienna, on the morning following the 4th of May, citizens read of the disaster of the Haymarket; the civilized world was shocked with the outrage that was perpetrated there. Where was Harry Gilmer, the man who could identify the man who threw the bomb, the man who could identify his companion, and the man who could identify the person who lit the fuse? Where was Harry Gilmer on the 5th day of May? He tells us he was in Crane’s alley the night of the 4th; he was there in the alley; he saw Spies; he says, ‘That is the man right over there; that is the man that threw it;’ he saw that man right over there—Spies—strike a match and light the fuse, and saw Fischer in his company. Schnaubelt threw it in the ranks of the policemen.
“There is the missing link, and if you believe that testimony as to two of these defendants, the chain is complete. Darwin is dead, but the missing link has been found. The man who furnished the missing link went home. The man that has seen this meandered through Crane’s alley and went quietly home to his roost, and he went to bed undisturbed. It is true he had seen the man who threw the bomb; he would know him anywhere. He would know him by his picture; he knows how many buttons of his coat were buttoned. He saw the man that stood by. He would know him anywhere. He knows what kind of clothing he had on and how many buttons he had buttoned of his clothes. He knew the kind of hat, the kind of clothes. He knew the man who lit the match, who touched the fuse that exploded the bomb that Schnaubelt threw. He knew him. He knew whether his coat was buttoned and how many buttons. He knew all about it—everything that every man in the universe demanded should be known by the officers of the law. And he went home and went to bed and never said a word to any living soul about it. And he got up in the morning, fresh upon his mind the fact of this great outrage that was perpetrated and that everybody was talking about everywhere—in restaurants, on the street and in street-cars—knowing that he was the man that could recognize them all—he goes and buys a paper on the street and sits down to read how terrible it was, goes into a restaurant and there sits, where men were conversing of the horror and of the outrage, and never opens his head in regard to knowing anything about it—not a word. Then he goes, after he has had his ‘meal,’ and gets upon the car—goes to the corner of Twenty-second Street and Wabash Avenue, and there he meets a friend, a brother painter, and they work all day, and from a third to half the time, as he states, they were painting together and lapping each other’s brushes as they painted upon the side of the building, and when noon came they sat down to discuss matters and talk, over their lunch. They speak, at times, about the Haymarket meeting and the great disaster, and he never tells his friend that he had seen the bomb thrown, or knew anything about it—not a word. The world was in flames, but Harry Gilmer was cool.”
Mr. Foster continued his attention to Gilmer at considerable length, making, however, no new points against him, and then proceeded:
“Now, Mr. Graham is not a Socialist. He is not a Communist nor an Anarchist. He is a reporter, and I say that he is an honorable man. His bearing showed it; his countenance indicated it; and the fact that he is not attacked nor impeached, nor one word said against him, either in argument or in testimony, in my mind establishes it.
“Well, that didn’t amount to very much. There are always knowing ones around, and Gilmer was one of them. He liked to loaf about police stations. He remembered the time when he was collecting the dog tax in Des Moines. He associated with men that wore uniforms, and he liked it. He wanted to ingratiate himself into their good opinions, and he says: ‘I believe I would know the fellow. I was there. I was right in plain sight, and I saw him light the fuse and I saw him toss the bomb. His back was to me, it is true, but I do believe I would know him.’ Ah! where was Fischer then? Where was ‘that man sitting over there,’ as Gilmer expresses it? Where was Spies and where was Fischer then? Well, they hadn’t developed at that stage of the proceeding, that is all. They were the afterbirth in his testimony.”
Mr. Foster went into a long and searching examination of the evidence, arguing out the more important facts developed, and closing with an eloquent appeal to the sympathies of the jury. His speech was effective and impressive.
On the next morning—Tuesday—Capt. Black began his argument for the defense, and was listened to by the jury with marked attention. He is a forcible speaker and dwelt upon the testimony favorable to his side with earnestness and emphasis. He traversed necessarily a good deal of the ground covered by his colleagues, but he clothed his argument in captivating language, and made a striking and effective appeal for his clients. The following will show the points he made: