Anarchy and Anarchists / A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators

by Michael J. Schaack

“On the morning of the 5th of May, 1886, the good people of the city of Chicago were startled and shocked at the event of the previous night, frightened, many of them, not knowing whereunto this thing might lead. Fear is the father of cruelty. It was no ordinary case. Immediately after that first emotion came a feeling which has found expression from many lips in the hearing of many, if not all of you: ‘A great wrong has been done; somebody must be punished, somebody ought to suffer for the suffering which has been wrought.’ Perhaps it was that feeling—I know not—which led to the unusual and extraordinary proceedings which were taken in connection with this matter immediately following the 4th of May. Perhaps it was that feeling, in a large measure, which led to the arrest and presentment of these eight defendants. Perhaps it was something of that feeling which will explain the conduct of the prosecution in this case. I am not disposed to say that there has been any willful or deliberate intent on the part of the representatives of the State to act unfairly. I am not disposed to charge that there has been upon their part any disposition to do an injustice to any man. But in their case, as in the case of all, passion perverts the heart, prejudice corrupts the judgment.

“On the night of the 4th of May a dynamite bomb was thrown in the city of Chicago and exploded. It was the first time that in our immediate civilization, and immediately about us, this great destructive agency was used in modern contests. I beg you to remember, in the consideration of this case, that dynamite is not the invention of Socialists; it is not their discovery. Science has turned it loose upon the world—an agency of destruction, whether for defense or offense, whether for attack or to build the bulwarks round the beleaguered city. It has entered into modern warfare. We know from what has already transpired in this case that dynamite is being experimented with as a weapon of warfare by the great nations of the world. What has been read in your hearing has given you the results of experiments made under the direction of the Government of Austria, and while you have sat in this jury-box considering the things which have been deposed before you, with reference to reaching a final and correct result, the Government of the United States has voted $350,000 for the building of a dynamite cruiser. It is in the world by no procurement of Socialism, with no necessary relationship thereto. It is in the world to stay. It is manufactured freely; it is sold without let, hindrance or restriction. You may go from this jury-box to the leading powder companies of the country, or their depots, and buy all the dynamite that you wish without question as to your purpose, without interrogation as to your motive. It is here. Is it necessarily a thing of evil? It has entered into the great industries, and we know its results. It has cleared the path of commerce where the great North River rolls on its way to the sea. It is here and there blasting out rocks, digging out mines, and used for helpfulness in the great industries of life. But there never came an explosive into the world, cheap, simple of construction, easy of manufacture, that it did not enter also into the world’s combats.

CAPT. WILLIAM P. BLACK
From a Photograph.

I beg you to remember also that hand-bombs are not things of Socialistic devising. It may be that one or another, here and there, professing Socialistic tenets, has devised some improvements in their construction, or has made some advances with reference to their composition; they have not invented them. The hand-grenade has been known in warfare long ere you and I saw the light. The two things have come together—the hand-grenade, charged no longer with the powder of old days, but charged with the dynamite of modern science. It is a union which Socialists are not responsible for. It is a union led up to by the logic of events and the necessities of situations, and it is a union that will never be divorced. We stand amazed at the dread results that are possible to this union; but as we look back over history we know this fact, contradictory as it may seem, strange as it may first strike us, that in the exact proportion in which the implements of warfare have been made effective or destructive, in that precise proportion have wars lost the utmost measure of their horror, and in that precise proportion has death by war diminished. When gunpowder came into European warfare there was an outcry against it. All the chivalry which had arrogated to itself the power and glory of battle in martial times sprang up against the introduction of gunpowder, an agency that made the iron casque and shield and cuirass of the plumed knight no better a defense than the hemp doublet of the peasant. But now, instead of wars that last through thirty years, that are determined by the personal collision of individuals, that desolate nations, the great civilized nations of the world hesitate at war because of its possibilities of evil, and diplomacy sits where once force alone was intrenched. The moral responsibility for dynamite is not upon Socialism.”

Captain Black insisted that the sole question before the jury was who threw the bomb, for the doctrine of accessory before the fact, under which it was sought to hold the defendants, was nothing but the application to the criminal law of the civil or common law doctrine that what a man does by another he does himself. When the prosecution charged that the defendants threw it, their charge involved that the bomb was thrown by the procurement of these men, by their advice, direction, aid, counsel or encouragement, and that the man who threw it acted not alone for himself, or upon his own responsibility, but as a result of the encouragement or procurement of these men. He held that the State must show that the agent of the defendants did the deed, and that it is not sufficient to show that the defendants favored such deeds. Upon this point counsel spoke at some length. Next he took up the case of one of the talesmen examined with reference to his taking a place on the jury, who swore that, having been for three years connected with the office of the Prosecuting Attorney in the State of New York, he found in himself that the habit of thought and life to which he had there devoted himself had created in him a predisposition to believe every accused man guilty, which, in his own deliberate judgment before God, disqualified him from sitting as an impartial juror in a criminal case. The application of this case to the attachés of the State’s Attorney’s office who had appeared before the jury was made the most of.

After going over the evidence as to the other conspirators Capt. Black came to the case against Fischer and Engel. He said:

“It is perhaps proper that, in view of the circumstance that Fischer and Engel were the only two defendants at the West Lake Street meeting on Monday night, I should present briefly my opinions touching that meeting as relating to this case. Two witnesses, Waller and Schrade, testified as to what occurred at that meeting. Waller said there were seventy or eighty people present; the other placed the attendance at thirty-five to forty. Let us suppose thirty-five or forty met together in that basement. In the progress of the meeting it transpired that there had been a meeting of the North Side group, of which Mr. Engel was a member, on the previous morning (Sunday). At that meeting a resolution was adopted, which was brought before the Monday night meeting for consideration, and it was adopted in the manner indicated by Waller. I think I state it fairly to the State and fairly to the defendants themselves, when I say that the action then and there resolved upon was this, no more, no less: That if in the event of a struggle the police should attempt by brute force to overpower the strikers unlawfully and unjustly, those men would lend their help to their fellow-wageworkers as against the police. A plan of action was suggested by one of the group which contemplated the blowing up of police stations, cutting telegraph wires and disabling the Fire Department. Every particle of that resolution, gentlemen, was expressly dependent upon the unlawful invasion of the rights of the working people by the police. Nothing was to be inaugurated by the so-called conspirators, there was to be no resort to force by them in the first instance. It was solely defensive, and had reference alone to meeting force by force; it had reference alone to a possible attack in the future, dependent upon the action that the police themselves might take. I am not here to defend the action of that meeting. The question here is: Had that action anything whatever to do with the result of the Haymarket meeting? The action of the North Side group had nothing to do with that, since the Haymarket meeting had never been dreamed of or suggested at that time. By whom was the Tuesday meeting suggested? What was its scope, purpose and object? As then and there declared, it was simply to be a mass-meeting of workingmen with reference to police outrages that had already taken place. Were the armed men, those conspirators who met at West Lake Street, present? ‘No; they were not there.’ That is the testimony of Waller and Schrade. I am not here even to say that the proposition to call that meeting was a wise one. The event has proven how sadly unwise it was. But I am here to say that the men who in that Monday night meeting proposed the calling of the Tuesday night meeting, if we take the testimony of the State itself, had no dream or expectation of violence, difficulty or contest on that eventful night. But before the Tuesday night meeting was proposed, a suggestion was made that they ought to have some sort of signal for action, and the word ‘Ruhe’ was suggested by somebody. Waller could not tell who suggested it; Schrade did not know it had been agreed upon. Evidently there was no very clear idea that night what ‘Ruhe’ did mean, because Lingg saw it in the paper at eleven o’clock, and said: ‘That is a signal that we ought to be over at 54 West Lake Street.’ Waller finally, under close examination by the State, said the word ‘Ruhe’ was to be inserted in the ‘Letter-box’ of the Arbeiter-Zeitung in the event of the time arriving for a downright revolution. Had that revolution come; had it commenced when the word was put in the ‘Letter-box’? No. When the members saw this in the ‘Letter-box’ what were they to do? Go to the Haymarket and attack anybody? No. They were to go to their respective places of meeting, and then, according to advices brought to them, were to determine upon a course of action. It had no reference to the throwing of the bomb at the Haymarket. Did that Monday night meeting pick out the man who was to throw the bomb? Did it provide that a collision between the police and the people was to be brought about at the Haymarket? Did it contemplate murder? Not at all. When Fischer told Spies that the word ‘Ruhe’ had no connection with the Haymarket meeting, he spoke the truth. It was a signal that the armed men should meet at the places designated by themselves to determine what action should be taken with reference to whatever might have transpired.

“But it is to be borne in mind that the meeting of the armed section never took place. There was no meeting of the Northwest Side groups; there was no meeting of any group pursuant to the word ‘Ruhe.’ Were any bombs to be thrown, any violence to be resorted to? No. If the police made an attack, a committee was to take word to the groups, and the groups were then, and not till then, to determine what action they should take in the line of offense. Does that make every man who was present at the Monday night meeting responsible for the throwing of the bomb? Not at all. Unless they are all responsible, it does not make Fischer and Engel responsible. Engel was not at the Tuesday night meeting. Fischer was there and went quietly away before the bomb was thrown. There was absolutely nothing in connection with the Monday night meeting which contemplated violence at the Haymarket or provided for the throwing of the bomb.

“Let me call your attention, in passing, to another thing. When Waller, having from some source heard of the lamentable occurrence at the Haymarket, went to Engel’s house, he found him drinking beer with two or three friends. After listening to the details of the affair Engel said, while Waller was saying, ‘Let’s do something,’ ‘You had better go home. I have no sympathy with a movement of this kind. The police are of the common people, and when the general revolution does occur, they should be with us. I am utterly opposed to this slaughtering of them.’ That is the full extent of the case against these two defendants, except the further fact that Fischer had a pistol and a dagger. It is not right to hang any man for the Haymarket murder simply because he had a dagger or a pistol in his possession.