In conclusion Schwab said:
“If Anarchy were the thing the State’s Attorney makes it out to be, how could it be that such eminent scholars as Prince Krapotkin and the greatest living geographer, Elisée Reclus, were avowed Anarchists, even editors of Anarchistic newspapers? Anarchy is a dream, but only in the present. It will be realized. Reason will grow in spite of all obstacles. Who is the man that has the cheek to tell us that human development has already reached its culminating point? I know that our ideal will not be accomplished this or next year, but I know that it will be accomplished as near as possible, some day, in the future. It is entirely wrong to use the word Anarchy as synonymous with violence. Violence is one thing and Anarchy another. In the present state of society violence is used on all sides, and therefore we advocated the use of violence against violence, but against violence only, as a necessary means of defense. I never read Mr. Most’s book, simply because I did not find time to read it. And if I had read it, what of it? I am an agnostic, but I like to read the Bible nevertheless. I have not the slightest idea who threw the bomb on the Haymarket, and had no knowledge of any conspiracy to use violence on that or any other night.”
Oscar Neebe followed. In his opening sentence he very correctly diagnosed the situation when he said: “I have found out during the last few days what law is. Before I didn’t know.” He, more than all the other defendants, except Parsons, ought to have known the law. He was a citizen, and as such he should have known the law of the land long before he engaged in the inculcation of force. He spoke of his having presided at Socialistic meetings, having headed the Board of Trade procession, and how he happened to drive to the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung after learning on May 5 that Spies and Schwab had been arrested.
The rest of his statement consists simply of abuse of the prosecution, laudation of his own acts in endeavoring to ameliorate the condition of the workingmen and in continuing the publication of the Arbeiter-Zeitung after May 4, and a disavowal of his having distributed the “Revenge” circular. In speaking of his having organized the Beer-brewers’ Union and attended a meeting at the North Side Turner Hall to announce the result of his conference with the bosses, he said:
“I entered the hall. I went on the platform and I presented the union with a document signed by every beer-brewer of Chicago, guaranteeing ten hours’ labor and $65 wages—$15 more wages per month—and no Sunday work, to give the men a chance to go to church, as many of them are good Christians. There are a good many Christians among them. So, in that way, I was aiding Christianity—helping the men to go to church. After the meeting I left the hall, and stepped into the front saloon, and there were circulars lying there called the ‘Revenge’ circular. I picked up a couple of them from a table and folded them together and put them in my pocket, not having a chance to read them, because everybody wanted to treat me. They all thought it was by my efforts that they got $15 a month more wages and ten hours a day. Why, I didn’t have a chance to read the circulars. From there I went to another saloon across the street, and the president of the Beer-brewers’ Union was there; he asked me to walk with him, and on the way home we went into Heine’s saloon. He was talking to Heine about the McCormick affair, and I picked up a circular and read it, and Heine asked me: ‘Can you give me one?’ I gave him one, and he laid it back on his counter. That is my statement.”
In conclusion Neebe said:
“They found a revolver in my house, and a red flag there. I organized trades-unions. I was for reduction of the hours of labor, and the education of laboring men, and the reëstablishment of the Arbeiter-Zeitung—the workingmen’s newspaper. There is no evidence to show that I was connected with the bomb-throwing, or that I was near it, or anything of that kind. So I am only sorry, your honor—that is, if you can stop it or help it, I will ask you to do it—that is to hang me, too; for I think it is more honorable to die suddenly than to be killed by inches. I have a family and children; and if they know their father is dead, they will bury him. They can go to the grave, and kneel down by the side of it; but they can’t go to the penitentiary and see their father, who was convicted for a crime that he hasn’t had anything to do with. That is all I have got to say. Your honor, I am sorry I am not to be hung with the rest of the men.”
Adolph Fischer rose with some signs of nervousness and proceeded slowly and deliberately with his protest. “I was tried here in this room,” he said, “for murder, and I was convicted of Anarchy.” He objected most vigorously to the charge that he was a murderer, and insisted that he had had nothing to do with the throwing of the bomb. He confessed to having made arrangements for the Haymarket meeting, to having been present, but urged that it had not been called for the purpose of committing violence or crime. He said he had been present at the Monday evening meeting,] of which Waller was chairman, but aside from volunteering to have hand-bills printed for the Haymarket meeting he had not done anything. He had invited Spies to speak at the Haymarket, and in the original copy he had had the line put in, “Workingmen, appear armed!” His reason for this was, he said, that he “did not want the workingmen to be shot down in that meeting as on other occasions.” He then entered into some details as to his movements on the night of the Haymarket gathering and again launched into a protest against the jury’s verdict. He said that the verdict against him was because he was an Anarchist, and “an Anarchist,” he explained with a defiant toss of his head, “is always ready to die for his principles.” He concluded as follows:
“The more the believers in just causes are persecuted, the more quickly will their ideas be realized. For instance, in rendering such an unjust and barbarous verdict, the twelve ‘honorable men’ in the jury-box have done more for the furtherance of Anarchism than the convicted have accomplished in a generation. This verdict is a death-blow to free speech, free press and free thought in this country, and the people will be conscious of it, too. This is all I care to say.”