After the bombs had been completed by Lingg and his assistants, Lingg and Seliger put them in a trunk or satchel and carried them over towards Neff’s Hall, at No. 58 Clybourn Avenue. On the way they were met by Munzenberger, who took the trunk, and, placing it on his shoulder, carried it the rest of the distance. At this time—it being evening—there was a meeting of painters in a hall at the rear of Neff’s saloon, and the package was placed at the entrance for a moment’s exhibition. Lingg asked the proprietor if any one had called and inquired for him, and, on being answered in the negative, proceeded with Seliger and Munzenberger into the hallway connecting the saloon and the assembly-room. Placing the trunk on the floor, he opened it for inspection. Several parties examined the bombs and took some of them away. Seliger helped himself to two and kept them until after the Haymarket explosion, when he hid them under a sidewalk on Sigel Street. Lingg, Seliger and Munzenberger then left the premises. The direction the last-named took is a matter in doubt. Neff had never seen him before, Lehman did not know him, and Seliger had not even learned his name.
It is clear that all this work was part of the conspiracy concocted at Greif’s Hall the previous evening. It is also well settled that Munzenberger was the chosen agent to secure the bombs and see that they were placed in the hands of trusted Anarchists for use at the proper moment. The secrecy surrounding the latter’s identity was in complete accord with the method of procedure outlined in the instructions given to Socialists:
In the commission of a deed, a comrade who does not live at the place of action, that is, a comrade of some other place, ought, if possibility admits, to participate in the action, or, formulated difficulty, a revolutionary deed ought to be enacted where one is not known.
Still further steps were taken to precipitate the revolution. In conformity with the Monday night plan, armed men were to be stationed, on the evening of Tuesday, in the vicinity of the police stations. We find that Lingg, Seliger, Lehman, Smidke, Thielen and two large unknown men were in the vicinity of the North Avenue Station. They skulked about the corners of the streets leading to that station, between eight and ten o’clock, fully armed with bombs and ready for desperate deeds. Others, who had secured bombs at Neff’s Hall, went further northward and hovered around the police station near the corner of Webster and Lincoln Avenues. Seliger and Lingg also paid that vicinity a visit. There were also armed men at Deering, where a meeting of striking workingmen was held, and which was addressed by Schwab after he had left the Haymarket. Anarchists also posted themselves in the vicinity of the Chicago Avenue Station. Men were also near the North Avenue Station, and some twenty-five posted themselves at the corner of Halsted and Randolph Streets, two blocks from the Desplaines Street Station. Spies and Schwab entered this group and held some secret consultation with the leaders. Fischer and Waller were also close to that station.
It furthermore appears that several men called on Tuesday evening at Waller’s residence while he was eating his supper and desired him to accompany them to Wicker Park, saying that they “wanted to be at their post.” Two of these men were Krueger and Kraemer, belonging to the “armed sections.” Some men also called at Engel’s store, and one of them exhibited a revolver. Another, a stranger, explained to a comrade that he was waiting for some “pills.” He waited only five minutes, when a young girl about ten or twelve years of age came in, carrying a mysterious package. This she handed to the stranger, who stepped behind a screen and then hastened out.
It is thus manifest that the various parties were bent on a carnival of riot and destruction and only awaited the proper signal from the committee. The men intrusted with the secrets of pillage, murder and general destruction belonged to what was known in the order as the “Revolutionary Group.” The plan was not communicated to any one else. The utmost secrecy had to be maintained for its successful accomplishment, and the conspiracy was only communicated to such as had proved themselves in the past, by word and deed, in full accord with revolutionary methods. The “revolutionary party” consisted of the Lehr und Wehr Verein, commanded by Breitenfeld; the Northwest Side group, under command of Engel, Fischer and Grumm; the North Side group, commanded by Neebe, Lingg and Hermann; the American group, commanded by Spies, Parsons and Fielden; the Karl Marx group, directed by Schilling; the Freiheit group and the armed sections of the International Carpenters’ Union and Metal-workers’ Union. These various sections, or groups, were under the management of a general committee which included among its leading spirits Spies, Schwab, Parsons, Neebe, Rau, Hirschberger, Deusch and Bélz. This committee met at stated periods at the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and formulated orders for the guidance of the groups. Its expenses were met by monthly contributions from all the Socialistic societies. It was under the inspiration of this committee that the Monday night meeting was held. Why the signal for a concerted raid on the police stations, the burning of buildings and the slaughter of capitalists was not given on the fateful night of the Haymarket riot,—or, if given, as seems to be believed in many quarters, in Fielden’s declaration, “We are peaceable,” why it was not carried out completely,—is not explicable upon any other hypothesis than that the courage of the trusted leaders failed them at the critical moment.