CHAPTER XXXVII.
Anarchy Now—The Fund for the Condemned Men’s Families—$10,000 Subscribed—The Disposition of the Money—The Festival of Sorrow—Parsons’ Posthumous Letter—The Haymarket Monument—Present Strength of the Discontented—7,300 Revolutionists in Chicago—A Nucleus of Desperate Men—The New Organization—Building Societies and Sunday-schools—What the Children are Taught—Education and Blasphemy—The Secret Propaganda—Bodendick and his Adventures—“The Rebel Vagabond”—The Plot to Murder Grinnell, Gary and Bonfield—Arrest of the Conspirators Hronek, Capek, Sevic and Chleboun—Chleboun’s Story—Hronek Sent to the Penitentiary.
THE question which will naturally present itself to the reader at this time is: What is the present condition of Anarchy in Chicago? Has the frightful fate of the convicted conspirators proven a salutary lesson to the others, or is the propaganda still maintained?
Unfortunately these questions must be answered in a manner not calculated to allay public apprehension.
After the death and the burial of the executed leaders there was a period of quietness among the Anarchists. They seemed stunned by the blow which had been leveled at them, but the impression soon wore away, and in a short time they were as rampant as ever.
Their first work was to provide for the families of the dead, and for this purpose a fund of $10,000 was speedily raised. Of this amount, strange to say, $4,000 has been invested in four per cent. Cook County bonds. This amount was intended as a reserve fund for the support of the families, and the rest of the money they are paying out in weekly installments to the families. On New Year’s Day of 1888 each of the families was presented with $202 in cash, and loans have been made to Mrs. Parsons, Mrs. Fielden and Mrs. Engel to the amount of $400 in each case. These loans are deducted in small amounts from the weekly allowances to these women. Later in the year funds were found to send Mrs. Parsons on a lecturing tour to England, an adventure which did not prove a conspicuous success if the reports are to be believed, for the English discontents showed marked disapproval of Mrs. Parsons’ dynamite appeals.
Money is still being collected for a monument at Waldheim Cemetery which shall be the shrine of Anarchist pilgrimages from every part of the country. In this connection the revolutionists have established a “Festival of Sorrow,” as they curiously call it, upon the anniversary of the execution.
In the proceedings of commemoration held at the cemetery on November 11, 1888, the most interesting episode was the reading of the following letter from Albert R. Parsons to his children, which had, by his instructions, remained sealed for a year. It ran as follows: