Chapter XVII (2)

Not a syllable of reply.

“See here,” said I, “you cannot make us feel bad. I will give you just two minutes by the watch to get over your lockjaw.”

This aroused Niendorf, and, looking around at all the officers present, he said:

“Gentlemen, I have been warned not to speak. I did not see the party, but some one called out my name and asked if I had been to the office yet. I answered no. The voice then said: ‘When you go there, don’t open your mouth, be motionless, and they will soon fire you out. Don’t forget.’”

“That is just what I expected,” I remarked. “Now you can do as you please—talk or not talk. That party is not a friend of yours, and he wants to see you go to jail. Officer, take him down stairs.”

“Are you not going to let me speak?” nervously inquired the prisoner.

“How long will it take you to find your speech?” exclaimed Furthmann.

“Have I got to swear to what I tell you?”

“Yes; you will have to do that whenever we send for you, and you must not leave the city without permission,” said I.

Niendorf then gave a statement of his knowledge of Anarchy. He appeared very ignorant, but, when spoken to, he showed that he was quite intelligent. He was twenty-six years of age, lived at No. 29 Croker Street, and, with fiery red hair, was a rather homely-looking man.

He was released, and after his departure the officers determined to ascertain whether it was an “Anarchist ghost” or a man in flesh and bones that had hovered about the station warning Niendorf not to squeal. A close watch was accordingly put in the cell department to fathom the mystery. About ten o’clock that night a young fellow called at the station for a night’s lodging. He was told to sit down and wait. He did so, and his wish was reported to me. Officer Loewenstein was sent back to look him over, and that officer presently returned and reported that the man did not look like a tramp. He looked more like an Israelite who had means, and the fellow was at once called into the office. There the officers unbuttoned his coat and discovered a clean young fellow, with a nice suit of clothes and a gold watch and chain.

“What is your name?” I asked sternly. “And don’t forget to give it right.”

“Oh, please,—I—I did not mean anything bad.”

“Are you not baptized; have you no name? Officer, lock him up until I find a name for him.”

“Let me go, and I will never come here again.”

“Who sent you here?” I demanded.

“I cannot tell—do let me go. I will never, I promise you, come back again.”

“I don’t think you will. When you leave here you will go through the ‘sewer.’”

With exclamations of great grief and remorse, he looked appealingly to all the officers in the room, and, recognizing Officer Loewenstein as one of his race, he fell on his knees and begged the officer not to have him put through the “sewer.”

“Were you not here last night?” asked the Captain.

“No, sir; it was another fellow.”

The turnkey of the station was sent for and confirmed the stranger’s denial. The now thoroughly frightened young man was then asked as to who the lodger of the night before was, but all he knew was that he himself had been hired by an unknown man that evening for one dollar to come and seek lodgings at the station to warn Anarchists. When the stranger had measurably recovered from his trepidation, he gave his name as Moses Wulf, and, his information being of no value, he was released with a severe lecture.

Niendorf’s statement ran as follows:

“I was at a meeting held May 3 at 8 P.M., at No. 122 West Lake Street. I was chairman. I heard some one state that the police had killed a dozen workingmen at McCormick’s factory. That created a great deal of excitement for some time at the meeting. Then some one shouted: ‘Better be quiet and let us attend to our own affairs.’ We were only looking after the eight-hour movement. I saw the revenge circular at that meeting, which called the people to arms. Louis Lingg was present to report some meeting and some business transactions as a committeeman. William Seliger was there as recording secretary of the meeting. Rau was there, and some one said to me that he had brought the circular. A man named Soenek made a speech and advised us to use force. It was decided, on motion, that we should act in sympathy with the people at McCormick’s factory. I have been a member of the North Side group for about a year. I was at a meeting at Zepf’s Hall May 3, which lasted till eleven o’clock P.M. About nine o’clock a man at the back door called out that all the men who belonged to the armed sections should go to 54 West Lake Street in the basement, where a meeting was to be held, and I saw a lot of members get up and leave the hall. I know Lingg belonged to the armed section. At one time he offered me some of his dynamite bombs. I told him I did not want any of them. He told me on another occasion that I had better take some and try some of his stuff. I told him that I was afraid to handle his stuff and I did not want it. Our meeting May 3 at Zepf’s Hall was known as that of the Central Labor Union. A little fellow named Lutz was financial secretary at that meeting. Rau was there only ten minutes. At a meeting held some time ago in Lake View, I was chairman. Lingg was one of the speakers, and also a man named Poch. Seliger called the meeting to order. I know Gruenwald; he is thirty-five years old, a carpenter by trade, five feet eight or nine inches tall, and has red whiskers. I heard Lingg say at several meetings that if any members wanted any of his ‘chocolate,’ meaning dynamite or dynamite bombs, he would supply them.”

JOHANNES GRUENEBERG, a German, had the distinction conferred on him of being one of the last of the more conspicuous Anarchists to be arrested. He had been known to the police for some time, in a general way, and inquiries about him brought out the fact that he was a prominent figure in Anarchistic circles. He knew where all the leaders lived, frequently visited them, and tramped around so often that he became quite a well-known character. Even the dogs that infested the localities through which he passed wagged their tails in cheerful recognition, and Grueneberg always had a kind word for both the brutes and his Anarchist friends. He was forty-five years of age, a married man with a family, and lived at No. 750 West Superior Street. He was a carpenter by trade. On the 17th of June he was working on a new building at No. 340 Dearborn Avenue, and, while right in the midst of an exhortation to the other workingmen on the beauties of Anarchy, he was interrupted by Officers Hoffman and Schuettler, who notified him that he was under arrest.

“That is just what I have been waiting for,” he exclaimed, not in the least disconcerted. “Is it that d——d Schaack that wants to see me? I will tell that fellow who I am. I will surprise him.”

“Johannes,” said Schuettler, “you can save yourself all of that trouble. Schaack knows all about you. I saw your name in the book.”

“Come on quick,” said Johannes, “I will show you a gamy man. Whenever I leave home I always bid my wife good-by, because I have expected to be arrested at any time, and did not know when I would see her again, for I will not squeal. I knew of these squealers, and I told my wife I would kill myself first before I would squeal.”

Officers and prisoner started for the station. Johannes opened up on a half run, and the officers could hardly keep up with him, so anxious did he appear. He entered the office with hair disordered and on end, and his eyes bulged out with excitement as he hurriedly surveyed some six officers who were in the office at the time.

“Which one of you fellows,” he wildly asked, “is Schaack? Show him to me quick.”

“Grueneberg,” said I, for I recognized him at once from the descriptions I had had of the man, “what is the matter?”

“Are you Schaack?”

“Yes, I am Schaack.”

“You sent for me to squeal, did you?”

He instantly pulled out a big jack-knife, and, handing it out towards me, he continued:

“Take this and cut my head off.”

He twice repeated the request, and, still holding out his extended hand, said:

“I will never squeal; you can kill me first.”

“I heard that you were crazy,” said I, “but I never thought you were quite so bad as this. You must suffer terribly. The weather is too warm for you. I think you had better go down stairs and have a glass of ice water.”

“No,” vehemently responded Johannes, “we had better settle this matter right now. I want to go out a free man, or else you will have to carry me out of here a dead man. I would thank you, however, for a glass of water, but don’t put me down stairs. I have heard too much of that place already.”

“Oh,” said I, “it is not a bad place. Just go down and see for yourself. You will like the place; it is nice and cool.”

“Please, Captain, let me sit in the next room,” said Johannes, cooling down considerably, and modulating his voice to a gentler key; “I will behave myself.”

His austerity of manner had completely vanished, and his ferocious mien and language had gradually disappeared. He saw in me a different man from what he had expected, and the courteous treatment accorded him had melted his heart and vanquished his anger. I granted his request and told an officer to sit with him in an adjoining room.

The moment the officer and prisoner were in the room, Johannes remarked:

“Schaack is not a bad fellow. Is he not going to stop arresting people?”

“Oh, no,” said the officer, “he has a long list yet.”

“Are you with him all the time?”

“I am.”

“Do you hear and see all?”

“I do.”

“Do the fellows all squeal?”

“Yes, every one of them. If they don’t squeal right away, they squeal the first chance they get.”

“I am too much of a man, and it would be very small in me to do so.”

“There have been as brave men as you in this office, and every one has squealed.”

“Well, when a man has a family, that cuts a big figure,” said Johannes, hesitatingly.

“If you are going to talk to Captain Schaack,” said the officer, reading the man’s mind, “you must understand that he does not want any fooling. You either tell him all or nothing, because some one has already told on you.”

This settled the matter with Grueneberg. He wanted to see me, and he was brought back into the office.

“I was a little excited,” began Johannes, apologetically.

“All right,” I assuringly replied; “sit down and tell on yourself first. I am going to give you a trial.”

Grueneberg then went on to say:

“Well, I am an Anarchist. I always worked hard for the working people. I am proud of it. I did good as long as I could, but now it is all up. I am a member of the Northwest Side group and always attended our meetings. I never missed one.

“On Monday night, May 3, I attended a meeting at Zepf’s Hall. I remained there until about 9:15 o’clock. From there I went to Greif’s Hall. This was a secret meeting of the armed men. While the meeting continued all the doors were kept locked, and guards stood on the outside of each door, and also on the inside, and extra guards on the sidewalk. If any one stopped on the sidewalk, he would be told to move on. I heard Engel speak of his plan; that it was a good one. If only every one would do his work, then the matter would be a very easy one of accomplishment. He stated that the plan had been made up last Sunday at 63 Emma Street, and had already been adopted by the Lehr und Wehr Verein and the groups. All who had heard of the plan, he said, were very much in favor of it, and all understood by this time how to act. ‘We are,’ he continued, ‘going to do this right, because all the boys look to us as the leaders, and we are going to call a meeting for to-morrow night at the Haymarket. Since all the people are excited, we will have a large crowd, and we will have things so shaped that the police will interfere. Then will be the chance to give it to them! I could notice by the acts of all present at this meeting that there was a great deal of bad blood among them against the police on account of the killing of so many people at McCormick’s.”

“Do you now believe that a single person was killed at McCormick’s?”

“Of course I do. You killed six men.”

“Not one was killed,” said I, “and you ought to know that by this time.”

“All I know,” said Johannes, “is what August Spies said. I was a carrier of the _Anarchist_, Engel’s paper. My route was on Madison Street, and on the Southwest Side,” he continued, dropping the 54 West Lake Street meeting.

“And what did you think of that paper?” I inquired.

“That was the best paper we ever had.”

“It was too bad,” added I, “that the sweet little paper died so young. Where was it printed?”

“I don’t know, because the papers were sent to my house by the Southwest Side group.”

“Who else carried that paper?”

“Messerschmidt, Schneider, Schoenfeld, Geimer and Kirbach. We each carried about fifty papers at a time.”

“Do you know anything more about the secret meeting at No. 54 West Lake Street, May 3d?”

“Well, I don’t know all. I went out twice.”

“And how did you get in every time?”

“I had a card, and I had to show that every time. That is all, and, besides, the boys all knew me.”

“What do you know about Louis Lingg?”

“He is a good man. I like him. He speaks to the point.”

“On dynamite,” I suggested.

“Yes, and on other things.”

“He only likes Anarchists,” I interrupted.

“Yes, that is so.”

“What do you know about the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_?”

“Well, it is a very good paper, but it is too mild.”

“Do you mean to tell me that a paper which advises people to murder and kill is too mild?” I asked.

“They don’t put force enough into it. They don’t keep up things as they ought to. I know all who visit there. I am a friend of all the Spieses.”

After being “roasted” for three hours, Johannes was permitted to go back to his work, and he left under the impression that, after all, he had not said anything criminally implicating any of his comrades. He was not asked to report when wanted, as he was too noisy a fellow to have around the station, and the officers were as well pleased to see him go as they had been pleased to arrest him. He inaugurated no reform on his release. On the contrary, he was again as rabid as ever and ran around night and day trying to gather a mob to go to the jail and liberate the Anarchists. He made no secret of his work. He loved the red flag, he said, and he would die for it if necessary. One night he came to me in company with two other fellows and demanded the return of a large red flag which at one time belonged to International Carpenters’ Union No. 1. This flag had been taken by the police with many others some time before. Grueneberg said that he had marched behind it many times and he was proud of it. He wanted to see the “dear old flag” once more and secure possession of it. I had the flag at the station, but, knowing that Anarchists had an “undying love” for Inspector Bonfield, I remarked:

“If you want the flag, all you have to do is to see the Inspector, and I am quite sure he will give it to you.”

An expression of intense disgust came over the faces of the three Anarchists, and Grueneberg excitedly exclaimed:

“Bonfield! Bonfield! Ah, the d——d black Bonfield! I see _him_? Oh, no! he is not gentleman enough for me to see.”

“Bonfield is a very clever fellow,” said I; “he likes such men as you.”

“Oh, yes; he would like my head in a bag. Good night, Mr. Schaack; I don’t want the flag.”

Grueneberg belonged at this time to Carpenters’ Union No. 241, and, on account of his peculiar and ridiculous actions, the members gradually grew suspicious of him and finally believed that he was a paid spy in the employ of some detective agency. They harbored their mistrust for a time, and then accused him of being a traitor. He demanded that charges be preferred against him, and it was done. Grueneberg failing to answer these charges, he was expelled from the union. A few weeks thereafter he reformed, and one day, meeting me, he said:

“I am done with these people. They are all cranks. No person can do enough for them. I worked with them night and day. They put me on all the committees. I had to do all the running, and for all my trouble and as a reward they call me a spy. I am working steady now and they can all go to the d——l. I am only sorry for my poor children—the way they suffered while I was giving my time to Anarchy. I have now worked four weeks and made full time. This I have not done before for the last two years.”

About two months after the above incident, Grueneberg and his family passed the Desplaines Street Station. Meeting me, Grueneberg spoke up, saying:

“Well, Captain, what do you think of my family now?”

“I must give you a great deal of credit,” said I pleasantly. “You are all looking remarkably well. A man that has gone as far as you in Anarchy deserves credit for such a great change, and if all the rest were kicked out of their unions, I think it would be a blessing to their poor wives and children.”

After bidding me good-by, Grueneberg and his family walked away proud and happy in their new condition, and I went to my office and drew this moral from the example of reform I had just seen: Here was a man who had belonged to the Anarchists for three or four years, and had been at one time one of the “rankest” kind. For two years his family had suffered want, and now, after having left the desperate band for two months only, his wife and children were once more made happy. Anarchy keeps men in poverty and families in trouble, distress and suffering.

Grueneberg up to the present time has kept away from his former associates, and his change appears permanent and sincere.

OTTO BAUM was one of the desperate Anarchists who made the air blue with imprecations against capital. He would have been gathered in with the others had it not been for his special care to keep out of the reach of the police. He lived at No. 137 Cleveland Avenue, was married and had three children, and, when he worked, which he rarely did, it was at the carpenter’s trade. He was a strong, robust man, nearly six feet high, and with black hair, full, black beard, and piercing black eyes, he presented a rather vicious appearance. When he first came to Chicago, some four years preceding the Haymarket meeting, he joined the Socialists, and he soon became a full-fledged Anarchist. He belonged to the notorious International Carpenters’ Union No. 1. This union had then a thousand members, and Baum’s number was 100. About two years ago the union changed its number to 241, and a worse set of Anarchists could not be found in the United States than the members of this organization just before the 4th of May, 1886. They were provided with all kinds of arms—revolvers, daggers, rifles, dynamite and fire-cans. Lingg was one of the leading spirits in this revolutionary gang. After the Haymarket explosion, when the police took up a hot pursuit of the conspirators, Baum changed his residence with his family and carefully kept off the streets during the daytime. On the conclusion of the trial of the leading conspirators, he became emboldened over the immunity he had enjoyed from arrest, and crawled out of his hole, like a coon does in the spring-time.

So great was Baum’s interest in Anarchy that he wholly neglected his family. He never troubled himself about wife or children, but hung around saloons guzzling beer and breathing vengeance against the police and society. He went lower and lower from day to day, and frequently reeled home in a drunken stupor, only to abuse his family. About a year and a half ago, when his last child was born, his neglect had left not a mouthful in the house, and, had it not been for the kindly assistance of friends and neighbors, the family would have been in a most deplorable condition. When the child was a week old, the wife, poor and sickly as she was, had to leave the house and seek work to supply the family with the necessaries of life. With food thus obtained, almost at the sacrifice of the poor woman’s life, the burly brute of a husband was always first at the table, and eagerly devoured what she had provided. Did he seek to obtain employment? Not at all. He preferred loafing and talking about Anarchy. The poor wife’s uncomplaining toil he rewarded with abuse and cruelty, calling her the vilest of names, and even kicking her about as if she were made of rubber. She was a delicate, sickly woman, but she bore his fiendish treatment, hoping that a change would come over him after the law had made an example of other Anarchists. But the change did not come, and finally she determined to seek the protection of the courts. Accordingly she went to the Chicago Avenue Police Court on the 6th of February, 1888, with her infant in her arms, and swore out a warrant against her husband.

The lazy giant was at once arrested, and on the next morning the poor woman appeared to testify against him. Being unable to speak English, an interpreter was called, and during the recital of her grievances and the many indignities imposed upon her by her liege lord, the court-room was as quiet almost as a death-chamber. All eagerly listened to her troubles, and, her statements being given in such a simple, convincing manner, many eyes were moist with tears. Justice Kersten, who presides over this court, has no regard for wife-beaters, and he promptly fined Baum $50.

“That,” said he, in an emphatic manner, “will keep you locked up for one hundred and three days.”

The brute was then locked up where so many of his former associates had been incarcerated two years previously, and in the afternoon he was sent to the House of Correction by Bailiff Scanlan.

During this episode it came out that Baum had been quite active in Anarchist circles, and at the time the Anarchists were confined in the County Jail he was engaged in an attempt to gather a mob to effect their liberation. One night he went about saying that he was determined to kill somebody before the next morning. The more he talked, the more frenzied he became, and with his frenzy grew his thirst for liquor, the need of which he felt to get up his courage to the required pitch. A few hours afterwards he was found in the yard fronting his house, asleep and “dead drunk.” The only courage he ever displayed was in lording it over his wife and beating her almost to death. He was a type of a very large class of Anarchists. He would call the better class of people tyrants, because they did not fill his pockets with plenty of money so that he could get drunk as often as he desired, but in his own household he was the meanest of tyrants.

Had Mrs. Baum been a little shrewder, she would not have had to endure his brutalities as long as she did. There are many other wives of Anarchists who are ill-treated by their husbands, but some of these managed to bring their lords to their senses by a neat ruse. While the investigations into the deeds of the Anarchists were going on the bandits would almost crawl into a sewer to get out of the way of the police, and, noticing the timely fright that overcame the “reds” whenever an officer or detective appeared in their midst, many shrewd wives quieted wrathful husbands by threatening to go out and see me. This ruse, I learn, was often resorted to to avert a beating from a drunken Anarchist.

GUSTAV POCH was a conspicuous figure in Anarchist plots, and never tired of working for the cause. But Anarchists are an anxious, jealous and thankless lot of people, and because Gustav was achieving a little more prominence than some of his immediate associates, they found fault with him and sought to degrade him. They might have secretly given him away to the police, and thus got him out of the way of their own advancement, but a fear for their own safety prevented such a course, and so they began calling him hard names. But I shall let Gustav state his own grievance. Here is a letter he wrote to his union:

CHICAGO, September 10, 1884.

At a meeting held on the 3rd of September, instant, of Branch No. 2, of Union No. 21, Carpenters and Joiners, the Secretary read a letter in which I, the undersigned, was insulted in a shameful manner. In this letter they called me a swindler simply for the purpose of breaking up the Union, and at the end of the letter they stated that I would be expelled from the Union on account of it. The letter was signed by Fr. Ebert and Dom. All these insults and injuries to my reputation I can’t let pass. My honor, my reputation and my future prosperity are damaged and at stake. I would, therefore, move that an investigation be made into the matter and that the instigators of the complaint be punished. What was their motive? For the last few weeks complaints have been made against me by the Secretary to the effect that I, as Acting Secretary, had made false entries on the books. As he could not exonerate himself in the eyes of my brothers, he drew up the letter, which was published at the meeting of September 3rd, and which was signed by Fritz Ebert and Dom, to put me in a bad light before the Union. The evidence: Fritz Ebert told me in the presence of John Zwirlein that the main object out of which this accusation originated was the following: I was selected by President Blair on the 3rd of May to the Main Committee in place of Brother Eppinger, who could not serve on account of having too much other work while the strike lasted. After that I held this position nineteen days. I got paid for twelve days, and they withheld seven days from me and said I was discharged from the Main Committee. Is there anything to show that I was expelled? Of course I put in my claim for $21 in writing, and no one ever told me what became of this claim. I was the only German-speaking representative on the Strike Committee, and I had to do more labor than any one else. Any one who participated in the strike during the last seven days can confirm this assertion. Now, how can Mr. Printer put up such a letter and show me up as a swindler?

In consequence of the insults inflicted on me, I beg for an investigation and for his punishment according to the rules and regulations of the Brotherhood.

GUSTAV POCH.