At this juncture the police made their appearance. During the remarks of Spies and Parsons, detectives had frequently reported to the station that only moderate, temperate sentiments were being uttered, but after Fielden had got fairly worked up to his subject, this was changed. The crowd was being wrought up to a high point of excitement, and there were frequent interjections of approval and shouts of indignation. Fielden’s was just such a speech as they had expected to hear. Very little was required to incite them to the perpetration of desperate deeds. Like a sculptor with his plastic model, Fielden had molded his audience to suit the purpose of the occasion. With his rough and ready eloquence he stirred up their innermost passions. His biting allusions to capitalists caught the hearts of the uncouth mob as with grappling-hooks, and his appeals for the destruction of existing laws shook them as a whirlwind.
It would be as well, he said, for workmen to die fighting as to starve to death. “Exterminate the capitalists, and do it to-night!” The officers detailed to watch the proceedings saw that the speech portended no good, and they communicated the facts to Inspector Bonfield. Even then the Inspector hesitated. To use his own language, in the report he sent to Superintendent Ebersold: “Wanting to be clearly within the law, and wishing to leave no room for doubt as to the propriety of our actions, I did not act on the first reports, but sent the officers back to make further observations. A few minutes after ten o’clock, the officers returned and reported that the crowd were getting excited and the speaker growing more incendiary in his language. I then felt that to hesitate any longer would be criminal, and gave the order to fall in and move our force forward on Waldo Place,”—a short street south of the Desplaines Street Station.
LIEUT. (NOW CHIEF) G. W. HUBBARD.
The force formed into four divisions. The companies of Lieuts. Steele and Quinn formed the first; those of Lieuts. Stanton and Bowler, the second; those of Lieut. Hubbard and Sergt. Fitzpatrick, the third; and two companies commanded by Lieuts. Beard and Penzen constituted the fourth, forming the rear guard, which had orders to form right and left on Randolph Street, to guard the rear from any attack from the Haymarket. These various divisions thus covered the street from curb to curb. Inspector Bonfield and Capt. Ward led the forces, in front of the first division. On seeing them advancing in the distance, Fielden exclaimed:
“Here come the bloodhounds. You do your duty, and I’ll do mine!”
Arriving on the ground, they found the agitator right in the midst of his incendiary exhortations, that point where he was telling his Anarchist zealots that he had some resistance in him, and assuring them that he knew they had too. At that moment the police were ordered to halt within a few feet of the truck wagon, and Capt. Ward, advancing to within three feet of the speaker, said:
“I command you, in the name of the people of the State, to immediately and peaceably disperse.”
Turning to the crowd, he continued: “I command you and you to assist.”