Chapter IX

REASONS WHY THE SENTENCE OF THE LAW SHOULD NOT BE EXECUTED
UPON THEM. SPEECHES BY THE ANARCHISTS.

AUGUST SPIES.

"In addressing this Court I speak as the representative of one
class to the representative of another. I will begin with the
words uttered five hundred years ago on a similar occasion by
the Venetian Doge Faliero, who, addressing the court, said:
'My defense is your accusation; the causes of my alleged
crime, your history.' I have been indicted under the charge
of murder as an accomplice or accessory. Upon this indictment
I have been convicted. There was no evidence produced by the
State to show or even indicate that I had any knowledge of the
man who threw the bomb, or that I myself had anything to do
with the throwing of the missile unless, of course, you weigh
the testimony of the accomplices of the State's Attorney and
Bonfield, the testimony of Thompson and Gilmer, by the price
they were paid for it. If there was no evidence to show that I
was legally responsible for the deed, then my conviction and
the execution of the sentence are nothing less than a willful,
malicious and deliberate murder--as foul a murder as may be
found in the annals of religious, political, or any other
sort of persecution. Judicial murders have in many cases been
committed where the representatives of the state were acting
in good faith, believing their victims to be guilty of the
charge or accusation. In this case the representatives of the
state cannot justify themselves by a similar excuse, for
they themselves have fabricated most of the testimony which
was used as a pretense to convict us--convict us by a jury
picked to convict before this Court and before the public,
which is supposed to be the State. I charge the State's
Attorney and Bonfield with a heinous conspiracy to commit
murder.

"I will now state a little incident which will throw light
upon this charge. On the evening on which the Prætorian
cohorts of the Citizens' Association, the Bankers'
Association, the Bar Association, and railroad princes
attacked the meeting of working men at the Haymarket with
murderous intent--on that evening about 8 o'clock, I met a
young man, Legner by name. My brother was with me at the same
time, and never left me on that evening until I jumped from
the wagon a few seconds before the explosion came. Legner
knew that I had not seen Schwab that evening. He knew that I
had no such conversation with anybody, as Marshall Field's
protege, Thompson has testified to. He knew that I did not
jump from the wagon and strike a match and hand it to the
man who threw the bomb. He is not a Socialist. Why didn't we
bring him on the stand? Because the honorable representatives
of the State, Grinnell and Bonfield, spirited him away.
These honorable gentlemen knew everything about Legner. They
knew that his testimony would prove the perjury of Thompson
and Gilmer beyond any reasonable doubt. Legner's name was
on the list of witnesses for the State. He was not called,
however, for obvious reasons. First, as he stated to a number
of friends, he had been offered $500 if he would leave the
city, and threatened with direful things if he should remain
here and appear as a witness for the defense. He replied
that he could neither be bought nor bulldozed to serve such
a foul, damnable, dastardly plot. But when we wanted Legner
he could not be found. Mr. Grinnell said--and Mr. Grinnell
is an honorable man--that he himself had been searching for
the young man, but had not been able to find him. About
three weeks later I learned that the very same young man had
been kidnapped and taken to Buffalo, N. Y., by two of the
illustrious guardians of the law, two Chicago detectives. Let
Mr. Grinnell, let the Citizens' Association, his employer,
let them answer for themselves, and let the people--let the
public--sit in judgment upon these would-be assassins. No, I
reply, the Prosecution has not established our legal guilt,
notwithstanding the purchased and perjured testimony of some,
and notwithstanding the originality of the proceedings of
the trial. And as long as this has not been done, and you
pronounce the sentence of the appointed vigilante committee
acting as a jury, I say that you, the alleged servant and high
priests of the law, are the real and only law-breakers, and
in this case you go to the extent of murder. It is well that
the people know this. And when I speak of the people I do not
mean the few conspirators of Grinnell, the noble patricians
who are murderers of those whom they please to oppress. Those
citizens may constitute the state. They may control the state;
they may have their Grinnells, Bonfields, and their hirelings.
No, when I speak of the people, I speak of the great mass
of working beasts, who unfortunately are not yet conscious
of the rascalities that are perpetrated in the name of the
people--in their name. They condemn the murder of eight men
whose only crime is that they have dared to speak the truth.
This murder may open the eyes of these suffering millions,
may wake them up indeed. I have noticed that our conviction
has worked miracles in this direction already. The class
that clamors for our lives, the good and devout Christians,
have attempted in every way, through their newspapers and
otherwise, to conceal the true and only issue in this case, by
designating the defendants Anarchists and picturing them as a
newly-discovered tribe or species of cannibals, by inventing
shocking and horrifying stories of their conspiracies.

"I believe with Buckle, with Paine, with Jefferson, with
Emerson, with Spencer, and with many other great thinkers
of this century, that the state of caste and classes, the
state where one class dominates and lives upon the labor of
another class and calls it order, should be abolished. Yes,
I believe that this barbaric form of social organization,
with its legalized thunder and murder, is doomed to die and
make room for free society--volunteer associations if you
like--universal brotherhood. You may pronounce your sentence
upon me, honorable judge, but let the world know that in the
year A. D. 1886, in the state of Illinois, eight men were
sentenced to death because they had not lost their faith in
the ultimate victory of liberty and justice. Read the history
of Greece and Rome; read that of Venice. Look over the dark
pages of the church and follow the thorny path of science. No
change! No change!

"You would destroy society and civilization, as ever, upon the
cry of the ruling classes. They are so comfortably situated
under the prevailing system that they naturally abhor and
fear even the slightest changes. Their privileges are as
dear to them as life itself, and every change threatens
these privileges. But civilization is a record whose steps
are monuments of such changes. Without these social changes,
always brought about against the will and against the force
of the ruling classes, there would be no civilization. As to
the destruction of society, which we have been accused of
seeking, it sounds like one of Æsop's fables--like the cunning
of the fox. We, who have jeopardized our lives to save society
from the fiend that has grasped her by the throat, that seeks
her life-blood and devours her substance; we, who would heal
her bleeding wounds, who would free her from the fetters you
have wrought around her, from the misery you have brought upon
her--we are enemies. We have preached dynamite, it is said,
and we have predicted from the lessons history has taught
us, that the ruling class of to-day would no more listen to
the voice of reason than did their predecessors. They would
attempt by brute force to stay the march of progress. Was it
a lie, or was it the truth that we stated? * * * I have been
a citizen of this city fully as long as Mr. Grinnell, and am
probably as good a citizen as Grinnell. At least I should not
wish to be compared to him. Grinnell has appealed time and
again, as has been stated by our attorneys, to the patriotism
of the jury. To that I reply, and I will simply use the words
of an English litterateur, 'Patriotism is the last resort
of the scoundrel.' My friends' agitation in behalf of the
disinherited and disfranchised millions, and my agitation in
this direction, the popularization of the economic teachings
in favor of the education of wage-workers, is declared to be a
conspiracy against society. The word 'society' is here wisely
substituted for state, as represented by the patricians of
to-day. It has always been the opinion of the ruling classes
that the people must be kept in ignorance. They lose their
servility, modesty, and obedience to the arbitrary powers that
be, as their intelligence grows. The education of a blackman,
a quarter of a century ago was a criminal offense. Why?
Because the intelligent slave would throw off his shackles at
whatever cost, my Christian gentlemen. Why is the education
of the working classes to-day looked upon by a certain class
as treason against the State? For the same reason! The State,
however, wisely avoided this point in the prosecution of the
case. From their testimony one would really conclude that
we had in our speeches and publications preached nothing
else but destruction and dynamite. * * * You, gentlemen, are
the revolutionists. You rebel against the effects of social
conditions which have tossed you by fortune's hand into a
magnificent paradise. Without inquiring, you imagine that no
one else has a right in that place. You insist that you are
the chosen ones, the sole proprietors of forces that tossed
you into the paradise. The industrial forces are still at
work. They are growing more active and intense from day to
day. Their tendency is to elevate all mankind to the same
level; to have all humanity share in the paradise you now
monopolize. Can you roll back the incoming tide or angry waves
of old ocean by forbidding it to dash upon the shore? So you
can no more frighten back the rising waves of intelligence
and progress into their unfathomable depths by erecting a few
gallows in the perspective. You, who oppose the natural forces
of things, you are the real revolutionists. You, and you
alone, are the conspirators and destructionists."

ADOLPH FISCHER.

"Your Honor, you asked me why the sentence of death should
not be passed upon me. I will not talk much. I will only say
a few words, and that is that I protest against my being
sentenced to death, because I committed no crime. I was tried
here in this room for murder and I was convicted of Anarchy.
I protest against being sentenced to death, because I have not
been found guilty of murder. I have been tried for murder,
but I have been convicted because I am an Anarchist. Although
being one of the parties who were at the Haymarket meeting,
I had no more to do with the throwing of that bomb, I had no
more connection with it than State's Attorney Grinnell had
perhaps.

"As I said, it is a fact, and I do not deny that I was one
of the parties who called at the Haymarket meeting, but that
meeting--(At this point Mr. Salomon stepped up and spoke to
Fischer in a low tone, but Fischer waved him off and said:
Mr. Salomon, be so kind. I know what I am talking about.)
Now, that Haymarket meeting was not called for the purpose of
committing violence and crime. No; but the meeting was called
for the purpose of protesting against the outrages and against
the crimes of the police committed on the day previous out
at McCormick's. The next day I went to Wehrer & Klein and
had twenty-five thousand copies of the handbills printed,
and I invited Spies to speak at Haymarket meeting. It is the
fact, and I don't deny it, in the original of the 'copy' I
had the line 'Working men, arm!' and I had my reasons, too,
for putting those lines in, because I didn't want the working
men to be shot down in that meeting as on other occasions.
But as those circulars were printed and brought over to the
_Arbeiter Zeitung_ office, my comrade, Spies, saw one of those
circulars. I had invited him to speak before that. He showed
the circular and said: 'Well, Fischer, if those circulars are
distributed I won't speak.' And I admitted it would be better
to take those lines out; and Mr. Spies spoke. And that is all
I had to do with that meeting. I feel that I am sentenced, or
will be sentenced to death because I am an Anarchist, and
not because I am a murderer. I have never been a murderer.
I have never committed any crime in my life yet; but I know
a certain man who is on the way to becoming a murderer, an
assassin, and that man is Grinnell--the State's Attorney
Grinnell--because he brought men on the witness stand whom he
knew would swear falsely; and I publicly denounce Mr. Grinnell
as being a murderer and an assassin if I should be executed.
But, if the ruling classes think that by hanging us, hanging a
few Anarchists, they can crush out Anarchy, they will be badly
mistaken, because the Anarchist loves his principles more
than his life. An Anarchist is always ready to die for his
principles."

MICHAEL SCHWAB.

"It is not much I have to say, and I would say nothing at
all if keeping silence did not look like a cowardly approval
of what has been done here. To those, the proceedings of
a trial of justice would be a sneer. Justice has not been
done. More than that, could not be done. If one class is
arraigned against the other class it is idle and hypocritical
to talk about justice and fairness. Anarchy was on trial,
as the State's Attorney put it in his closing speech. A
doctrine, an opinion hostile to brute force, hostile to our
present murderous system of production and distribution.
I am condemned to die for writing newspaper articles and
making speeches. The State's Attorney knows as well as I do
that the alleged conversation between Mr. Spies and me never
took place. He knows a good deal more than that. He knows
all the beautiful works of his organizer, Furthmann. When I
was before the Coroner's jury two or three witnesses swore
very positively to having seen me at the Haymarket when Mr.
Parsons finished his speech. I suppose they wanted at that
time to fix the bomb-throwing on me, for the first dispatches
to Europe said that M. Schwab had thrown several bombs at
the police. Later on they found that would not do, and then
Schnaubelt was the man. Anarchy was on trial. Little did it
matter who the persons were to be honored by the prosecution.
* * *

"As soon as the word is applied to us and to our doctrine
it carries with it a meaning that we Anarchists see fit to
give. 'Anarchy' is Greek, and means, verbatim, that we are
not being ruled. According to our vocabulary Anarchy is a
state of society in which the only government is reason; a
state of society in which all human beings do right for the
simple reason that it is right, and hate wrong because it is
wrong. In such a society no compulsion will be necessary. The
Attorney of the State was wrong when he exclaimed 'Anarchy
is dead!' Anarchy up to the present time existed only as a
doctrine, and Grinnell has not the power to kill any doctrine
whatever. Anarchy, as defined by us, is called an idle dream,
but that dream was called by God a divine blessing. One of the
three great German poets and a celebrated German critic of the
last century has also defined it. If Anarchy was the thing the
State's Attorney makes it out to be, how could it be that such
eminent scholars as Prince Krapotkine should say what he has
said about it? Anarchy is a dream, but only in the present.
It will be realized, for 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 our ideal will not be accomplished this year or next
year, but I know it will be accomplished as soon as possible,
some day in the future. It is entirely wrong to use the word
Anarchy as synonymous with violence. Violence is something,
and Anarchy is 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 have never read Herr Most's
book simply because I don't 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 at the Haymarket, and had no knowledge of any
conspiracy to use violence that or any other night."

OSCAR NEEBE.

"Your Honor: I have found out during the last few days what
law is. Before I didn't know it. I did not know that I was
convicted because I knew Spies and Fielden and Parsons. I
have met these gentlemen. I have presided at a meeting, as
the evidence against me shows, in the Turner hall, to which
meeting your Honor was invited. The judges, the preachers, the
newspaper men, and everybody was invited to appear at that
meeting for the purpose of discussing Anarchism and Socialism.
I was at that hall. I am well known among the working men of
the city, and I was the one elected chairman of that meeting.
Nobody appeared to speak, to discuss the question of Labor and
Anarchism or Socialism with laboring men. No, they couldn't
stand it. I was chairman of that meeting; I don't deny it. I
had the honor to be marshal of a labor demonstration in this
city, and I never saw as respectable a lot of men as I saw
that day.

"They marched like soldiers, and I was proud that I was
marshal of those men. They were the toilers and the working
men of this city. The men marched through the city of Chicago
to protest against the wrongs of society, and I was marshal
of them. If that is a crime, I have found out--as a born
American--what I am guilty of. I always thought I had a right
to express my opinion, to be chairman of a peaceable meeting,
and to be marshal of a demonstration. My friends, the labor
agitators, and the marshals of a demonstration--was it a crime
to be marshal of a demonstration? I am convicted of that. I
suppose Grinnell thought after Oscar Neebe was indicted for
murder the _Arbeiter Zeitung_ would go down. But it didn't
happen that way. And Mr. Furthmann, too--he is a scoundrel,
and I can tell it to you to your face. There is only one man
that acted as a lawyer, and he is Mr. Ingham, but you three
fellows have not."

I established the paper and issued it to the working men of
the city of Chicago, and inside of two weeks I had enough
money from the toilers--from hired girls, from men who would
take the last cent out of their pocket to establish the
paper--to buy a press. I could not publish the paper because
the honorable detectives and Mr. Grinnell followed us up,
and no printing house would print our paper, and we had to
have our own press. We published our own paper after we had
a press, bought by the money of the working men of the city.
That is the crime I have committed--getting men to try and
establish a working man's paper that will stand to-day, and
I am proud of it. They have not got one press--they have got
two presses to-day, and they belong to the working men of
this city. When the first issue came out, from that day up to
the day now, your Honor, we have gained 4,000 subscribers.
There are the gentlemen sitting over there from the _Freie
Presse_ and _Staats Zeitung_--they know it. The Germans of
this city are condemning these actions. They would not read
our paper. There is the crime of the Germans. I say it is a
verdict against Germans, and I, as an American, must say that
I never saw anything like that.

"Those are the crimes I have committed after the 4th of May.
Before the 4th of May I committed some crimes. I organized
trades unions. I was for the reduction of the hours of labor
and the education of laboring men and the re-establishment of
the _Arbeiter Zeitung_. There is no evidence to show that I
was connected with the bomb-throwing, that I was near it or
anything of that kind. So I am only sorry, your Honor, if you
can stop it or help it, I will ask you to do it--that is, to
hang me, too; and I think it is more honor to die certainly
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 in front of it; but they can't
go to Joliet and see their father convicted of a crime that
he hasn't anything to do with. That is all I have got to say.
Your Honor, I am sorry I do not get hung with the rest of the
men."

LOUIS LINGG.

[Translated by Prof. H. H. Fick.]

"Court of Justice: With the same contempt with which I have
tried to live humanely upon this American soil, I am now
granted the privilege to speak. If I do take the word I do
it because injustice and indignities have been heaped upon
me right here. I have been accused of murder. What proofs
have been brought in support of it? It has been proved that
I assisted some man by the name of Seliger in manufacturing
bombs. It has been furthermore stated that with the assistance
of somebody else I have taken those bombs to 58 Clybourn
avenue, but although one of these assistants has been produced
as a State witness it has not been shown that one of these
bombs was taken to the Haymarket. * * * What is Anarchy? * * *
The points that we are driving at have been carefully withheld
by the State. * * * But it has not been said that by their
superior force we are driven to our course. Contempt of court
has been charged against us. We have been treated as opponents
of public order. What is this order? Such order as represented
by police and detectives? On the slightest occasion the
representatives of this public order have forced themselves
into our midst. The same police that aim to give protection
to property embraces thieves in its ranks. * * * I have told
Capt. Schaack that I was at a meeting of carpenters at Zephf's
hall on May 3. He has stated that I admitted to him that I
learned the fabrication of bombs from Most's book, 'Science
of Warfare.' That is perjury. * * * It has been proved that
Grinnell has used Gilmer for his purpose intentionally. There
are points which prove that. * * * I say that these seven
persons here, of which I am one, are murdered purposely by
Grinnell. * * * Grinnell has the courage to call me a coward,
right here in this court of justice, and Grinnell is a person
who has connived with miserable subjects to go against me,
to get testimony against me, to kill me. * * * Is life worth
living? What are their purposes in thus murdering these men?
Low egotism, which finds its reward in a higher position,
and which yields a return of money. * * * But it has been
said that the International association of working men was
in itself a conspiracy, and that I was a member of this
association. My colleague, Spies, has already stated to you
how we were connected. * * * And that is the conspiracy that
has been proved against me, and for that I am to end my life
upon the gallows--an instrument which you consider a disgrace
to me. I declare here openly that I do not acknowledge these
laws, and less so the sentence of the Court. * * * I would
not say a word if I was really guilty according to this
foolish law, but even according to these laws that would not
be respected by a schoolboy, not even these laws have been
carried out to the full extent when I was found guilty. * * *
You smile. You perhaps think I will not use bombs any more,
but I tell you I die gladly upon the gallows in the sure hope
that hundreds and thousands of people to whom I have spoken
will now recognize and make use of dynamite. In this hope I
despise you, and I despise your laws. Hang me for it."

GEORGE ENGEL.

[Translated by Mr. Gauss.]

"When I left Germany in the year 1872 it was by reason of my
recognition of the fact that I could not support myself in the
future as it was the duty of a man to do. I recognized that I
could not make my living in Germany because the machinery and
the guilds of old no longer furnished me a guarantee to live.
I resolved to emigrate from Germany to the United States,
praised by many so highly. When I landed at Philadelphia,
on the 8th of January, 1873, my heart and my bosom expanded
with the expectation of living hereafter in that free country
which had been so often praised to me by so many emigrants,
and I resolved to be a good citizen of this country; and I
congratulated myself on having broken with Germany, where I
could have no longer made my living, and I think that my past
will show that, that which I resolved I intended to keep
faithfully. For the first time I stand before an American
court, and at that to be at once condemned to death. And what
are the causes that have preceded it, and have brought me
into this court? They are the same things that preceded my
leaving Germany, and the same causes that made me leave. I
have seen with my own eyes that in this free country, in this
richest country of the world, so to say, there are existing
proletarians who are pushed out of the order of society."

After explaining how his dissatisfaction with the existing order of things led him to become a Socialist, Engel continued:

"I resolved to study Socialism with all my power. In the year
1878 I came from Philadelphia to Chicago, and took pains to
eke out my existence here in Chicago, and believed that it
would be an easier task to live here, than in Philadelphia,
where I had previously in vain exerted my powers to live. I
found that, that also was in vain. There was no difference for
a proletariat, whether he lived in New York, or Philadelphia,
or Chicago. * * * To make further investigations I tried to
buy, from the money that I and my family earned, scientific
books on those questions. I bought the works of Ferdinand
Lassalle, Karl Marx and Henry George. After investigating
these works I recognized these reasons why a proletariat
could not exist, even in this country, as free as it is. I
thought about the means by which that could be corrected.
They praised to me this country where every man and every
working man had a right to go to the ballot-box and choose
his own officers. I scarcely believed that any citizen of
the United States could have meant so honestly and well as
I, when I turned my attention to politics, and took part in
them. But even in this regard of freedom of the ballot-box
I found myself mistaken. I learned to see that the working
man was not free in his opinion, that he was not free in
vote. It was in vain that the Socialistic party took pains
in former times, honest pains, to elect honest officers.
After a few vain attempts I found that it was impossible for
a working man to free himself by means of the ballot-box,
and to secure those things which were necessary for his
existence. * * * In this city corruption even entered the
ranks of the Social Democracy. I also obtained the conviction
that through those men who put themselves over us as leaders,
and occupied themselves with compromises, this was brought
about, and then I left the ranks of the Social Democracy
and gave myself over to the International which was then
organizing; and what these men wanted, and what these men
through their exertions sought to bring about was nothing more
or less than the conviction that the freeing of the ruling
classes could only be brought about by force, as have all
revolutions been throughout history. This conviction, before
I went over to those people, was obtained through study of
the history of all lands. The history of all lands showed me
that all advantages in a political, in a religious, and in a
material direction, were always obtained only by the use of
force; and if I confine myself to the history of this country
where I am convicted, I take into consideration that the
first immigrants into this country and the first colonists,
only freed themselves by force from the power of England. I
afterward obtained the conviction that the slavery existing
in this country, to the shame of the Republic, could only be
put aside by force. And what does this history teach us? The
man that spoke against existing slavery in this country was
hanged, as it is intended that we should be hanged, to-day.
In the course of time I became convinced that all those who
spoke in favor of the ruling classes must hang. And what are
the reasons for it? This Republic does not exist through,
and its affairs are not conducted by, those persons who come
into office by an honest ballot. * * * Under these conditions
it is certainly not a wonder that there were men, noble men,
noble scientific men, who have tried to find ways and means
to bring back humanity to its original condition. And this is
the social science to which I confess myself with joy. The
State's Attorney said here 'Anarchism is on trial.' Anarchism
and Socialism are, according to my opinion, as like as one egg
is to another. Only the tactics are different. Anarchism has
abandoned the ways pointed out by Socialism to free mankind,
and has resolved no longer to bear the yoke of slavery, and,
therefore, I say to the working classes, do not believe any
longer in the ballot-box and in those ways and means that
are left open to you; but rather think about ways and means
when the time comes, when the burden of the people becomes
intolerable. And that is our crime. Because we have named
to the people the ways and means by which they could free
themselves in the fight against Capitalism, by reason of that,
Anarchism is hated and persecuted in every state. In spite
of that and again in spite of it Anarchism will exist, and
if not in public it will exist in secret, because the powers
force it to act in secret. If the State's Attorney declares
or thinks that after he has hanged these seven men and sent
the other one to the penitentiary for fifteen years he has
then killed Anarchism, I say, that will not be so. Only the
tactics will be changed, and that will be all. No power in
the world will tear from the working man his knowledge and
his skill or opportunity in making bombs. I am convinced that
Anarchism cannot be routed out,--if that was the case it would
have been routed out in other countries long ago--in the least
by our murdering the Anarchists. That evening when the first
bomb in this country was thrown, I was sitting in my room; did
not know anything about the conspiracy; did not know anything
about that deed; did not know anything about the bomb; did
not know anything about the conspiracy which the State's
Attorney had brought about here. * * * Can you have respect
for a government that only gives rights to the privileged
classes, but to the working men not at all, although there
are conspiracies in all classes and connections of the
capitalistic class. Although we have only recently experienced
that the coal barons came together, put up the price of coal
arbitrarily while they paid less wages to their working men,
and wherever those coal workers, those miners have come
together to consider the bettering their conditions, their
demands have always been very modest on the whole, then the
militia appears at once upon the scene and helps those people,
while they are feeding the miners with powder and lead. For
such a government I have no respect, and can have no respect
in spite of all their followers, in spite of all their police,
in spite of all their spies.

"I am not a man who hates a single capitalist. I am not the
man who at all hates the person of the capitalist. I hate the
system and all privileges, and my greatest desire is that the
working classes will at last recognize who are their friends
and who are their enemies. Against the condemnation of myself
by the capitalistic influence I have no word to say."

SAM FIELDEN.

Fielden prefaced his plea by reciting a poem called "Revolution", written by Freilegrath, a German poet:

"And tho' ye caught your noble prey within your hangman's sordid thrall, And tho' your captive was led forth beneath your city's rampart wall; And tho' the grass lies o'er her green, where at the morning's early red The peasant girl brings funeral wreaths--I tell you still--she is not dead!"

* * * * *

"You see me only in your cells; ye see me only in the grave; Ye see me only wandering lone, beside the exile's sullen wave-- Ye fools! Do I not live where you have tried to pierce in vain? Rests not a nook for me to dwell, in every heart, and every brain?"

* * * * *

"'Tis therefore I will be--and lead the peoples yet your hosts to meet, And on your necks, your heads, your crowns, will plant my strong, resistless feet! It is no boast--it is no threat--thus history's iron law decrees-- The day grows hot, oh, Babylon! 'Tis cool beneath thy willow trees!"

Fielden continued:
"It makes a great deal of difference, perhaps, what kind of a
revolutionist a man is. The men who have been on trial here
for Anarchy have been asked the question on the witness stand
if they were revolutionists. It is not generally considered to
be a crime among intellectual people to be a revolutionist,
but it may be made a crime if a revolutionist happens to be
poor. * * * If I had known that I was being tried for Anarchy
I could have answered that charge. I could have justified
it under the constitutional right of every citizen of this
country, and more than the right which any constitution
can give, the natural right of the human mind to draw its
conclusion from whatever information it can gain, but I had no
opportunities to show why I was an Anarchist. I was told
that I was to be hung for being an Anarchist, after I had got
through defending myself on the charge of murder."

Fielden related that he was born in Lancashire; that his first speech was made to starving operatives in the streets of his native town; that it was here he began to hate kings and queens; his first speech was in support of the operatives of Lancashire as against the sympathizers with the South in the American rebellion; he came to the United States in 1868 and was a Methodist exhorter in Ohio, and came to Chicago in 1869. Fielden detailed how he had come to be a Socialist and Anarchist; reviewing the various speeches he had made at meetings in Chicago; attacking the veracity of witnesses who had testified against him, and declaring himself the victim of illegal prosecution. He continued:

"From the time I became a Socialist I learned more and more
what it was. I knew that I had found the right thing; that
I had found the medicine that was calculated to cure the
ills of society. Having found it, I believed it, and I had
a right to advocate it, and I did. The Constitution of the
United States, when it says: 'The right of free speech shall
not be abridged,' gives every man the right to speak. I have
advocated the principles of Socialism and social equality,
and for that and no other reason am I here, and sentence of
death is to be pronounced upon me. What is Socialism? Taking
somebody else's property? That is what Socialism is in the
common acceptation of the term. No; but if I were to answer
it as shortly and as curtly as it is answered by its enemies,
I would say it is preventing somebody else from taking your
property. But Socialism is equality. Socialism recognizes the
fact that no man in society is responsible for what he is;
that all the ills that are in society are the production of
poverty; and scientific Socialism says that you must go to the
root of the evil. There is no criminal statistician in the
world but will acknowledge that all the crime, when traced to
its origin, is the product of poverty. * * * If I am to be
convicted--hanged for telling the truth, the little child that
kneels by its mother's side on the West side to-day and tells
its mother that he wants his papa to come home, and to whom I
had intended as soon as its prattling tongue should begin to
talk, to teach that beautiful sentiment--that child had better
never be taught to read; had better never be taught that
sentiment to love truth. If they are to be convicted of murder
because they dare tell what they think is the truth, then
it would be better that every one of your schoolhouses were
reduced to the ground and one stone not left upon another. If
you teach your children to read they will acquire curiosity
from what they read. They will think, and then will search for
the meaning of this and that. They will arrive at conclusions.
And then if they love the truth, they must tell to each other
what is truth or what they think is the truth. That is the sum
of my offending. * * * The private property system then, in
my opinion, being a system that only subserves the interests
of a few, and can only subserve the interests of the few,
has no mercy. It cannot stop for the consideration of such a
sentiment. Naturally it cannot. So you ought not to have mercy
upon the private property system, because it is well known
that there are many people in the community with prejudices
in their minds. They have grown up under certain social
regulations, and they believe that those social regulations
are right, just as Mr. Grinnell believes that everything in
America is right, because he happened to be born here. And
they have such a prejudice against any one who attacks those
systems. Now, I say they ought not to have any mercy upon
systems that do not subserve their interests. They ought not
to have any respect for them that would interfere with their
abolishing them."

Fielden maintained that the throwing of the bomb at the Haymarket was a complete surprise to him; that he felt that he would be held in some respect, at least responsible, yet he resolved not to attempt flight; continuing:

"I have said here that I thought when the representatives
of the State had inquired by means of their policemen as to
my connection with it, I should have been released. And I
say now, in view of all the authorities that have been read
on the law and accessory, that there is nothing in evidence
that has been introduced to connect me with that affair. * *
* The great Socialist who lived in this world nearly 1,900
years ago, Jesus Christ, has left these words, and there
are no grander words in which the principles of justice and
right are conveyed in any language. He said: 'Better that
ninety-nine guilty men should go unpunished than that one
innocent man should suffer.' Mr. Grinnell, I should judge
from his statements here, is a Christian. I would ask him to
apply that statement of the Great Teacher to the different
testimony that has been given here, and the direct contrary in
other places in the investigation of this case. Your Honor, we
claim that this is a class verdict. We claim that the foulest
criminal that could have been picked up in the slums of any
city in Christendom, or outside of it, would never have been
convicted on such testimony as has been brought in here if he
had not been a dangerous man in the opinion of the privileged
classes. * * * If my life is to be taken for advocating the
principles of Socialism and Anarchy, as I have understood them
and honestly believe them to be in the interests of humanity,
I say to you that I gladly give it up; and the price is very
small for the result that is gained. * * * We claim that so
far as we have been able to find out in trying to find a cure
for the ills of society, we have not found out anything that
has seemed to fit the particular diseases which society in our
opinion is afflicted with to-day, better than the principles
of Socialism. And your Honor, Socialism, when it is thoroughly
understood in this community and in the world, as it is by
us, I believe that the world, which is generally honest,
prejudiced though it may be, will not be slow to adopt its
principles. And it will be a good time, a grand day for the
world; it will be a grand day for humanity; it will never have
taken a step so far onward toward perfection, if it can ever
reach that goal, as it will when it adopts the principles of
Socialism. * * * To-day, as the beautiful autumn sun kisses
with balmy breeze the cheek of every free man, I stand here
never to bathe my head in its rays again. I have loved my
fellow men as I have loved myself. I have hated trickery,
dishonesty and injustice. The nineteenth century commits the
crime of killing its best friend. It will live to repent of
it. But, as I have said before, if it will do any good, I
freely give myself up. I trust the time will come when there
will be a better understanding, more intelligence, and above
the mountains of iniquity, wrong and corruption, I hope the
sun of righteousness and truth and justice will come to bathe
in its balmy light an emancipated world. I thank your Honor
for your attention."

A. R. PARSONS.

Parsons made a speech addressed in the main to working men, starting out with the recital of a poem by George Heinig, entitled "Bread is Freedom." He continued:

"Your Honor, if there is one distinguishing characteristic
which has made itself prominent in the conduct of this trial
it has been the passion, the heat, and the anger, the violence
both to sentiment and to feeling, of everything connected
with this case. You ask me why sentence of death should not
be pronounced upon me, or, what is tantamount to the same
thing, you ask me why you should give me a new trial in
order that I might establish my innocence and the ends of
justice be subserved. I answer you, your Honor, and say that
this verdict is the verdict of passion, born in passion,
nurtured in passion, and is the sum totality of the organized
passion of the city of Chicago. For this reason I ask your
suspension of the sentence, and a new trial. This is one
among the many reasons which I hope to present to your Honor
before I conclude. Now, your Honor, what is passion? Passion
is the suspension of reason; in a mob upon the streets, in
the broils of the saloon, in the quarrels on the sidewalk,
where men throw aside their reason and resort to feelings of
exasperation, we have passion. There is a suspension of the
elements of judgment, of calmness, of discrimination requisite
to arrive at the truth and the establishment of justice. I
hold, your Honor, that you cannot dispute the proposition
that I make that this trial has been submerged, immersed in
passion from its inception to its close, and even at this
hour, standing here upon the scaffold as I do with the hangman
awaiting me with his halter, there are those who claim to
represent public sentiment in the city, and I now speak of the
capitalistic press--that vile and infamous organ and monopoly
of hired liars, the people's oppressors." Parsons claimed to
have been for thirty years identified with labor interests,
and said: "And in what I say upon this subject relating to
the labor movement or to myself as connected in this trial
or before this bar, I will speak the truth, though my tongue
should be torn from my mouth and my throat cut from ear to
ear, so help me God." The speaker then went into statistics,
claiming that 9,000,000 out of the 12,000,000 voters in the
United States were actual wage workers. He attacked the
citizens' Association as an organization of millionaires, and
claimed that the Court should stand between the accused and
their persecutors. "Where," he asked, "are the ends of justice
observed, and where is truth found in hurrying seven human
beings at the rate of express speed upon a fast train to the
scaffold, and an ignominious death? Why, if your Honor please,
the very method of our extermination, the deep damnation of
its taking off, appeals to your Honor's sense of justice, of
rectitude, and of honor. A judge may also be an unjust man.
Such things have been known. We have in our histories heard
of Lord Jeffreys. It need not follow that because a man is a
judge he is also just. * * * Now, I hold that our execution,
as the matter stands just now, would be judicial murder, and
judicial murder is far worse than lynch law--far worse. But,
your Honor, bear in mind please, this trial was conducted by
a mob, prosecuted by a mob, by the shrieks and the howls of
a mob, an organized powerful mob. The trial is over. Now,
your Honor, you sit there judicially, calmly, quietly, and it
is now for you to look at this thing from the standpoint of
reason and from common sense. * * * Now, the money-makers, the
business men, those people who deal in stocks and bonds, the
speculators and employers, all that class of men known as the
money-making class, they have no conception of this labor
question; they don't understand what it means. To use the
street parlance, with many of them it is a difficult matter
for them to 'catch onto' it, and they are perverse also; they
will have no knowledge of it. They don't want to know anything
about it, and they won't hear anything about it, and they
propose to club, lock up, and if necessary strangle those who
insist on their hearing this question. Now, your Honor, can
you deny that there is such a thing in the world as the labor
question? I am an Anarchist. Now strike! But hear me before
you strike. What is Socialism, briefly stated? It is the
right of the toiler to the free and equal use of the tools of
production, and the right of the producer to their product.
That is Socialism. The history of mankind is one of growth. It
has been evolutionary and revolutionary."

Parsons went into an explanation of the wage question and the relations of capital and labor, asserting that employers in owning capital and leaving nothing to the wage slave but the price of his work, had produced a conflict which would intensify as the power of the privileged classes over the non-possession of property classes increased. He continued:

"We were told by the Prosecution that law is on trial; that
government is on trial. That is what the gentlemen on the
other side have stated to the jury. The law is on trial, and
government is on trial. Well, up to the conclusion of this
trial we, the defendants, supposed that we were indicted and
being tried for murder. Now, if the law is on trial, and the
government is on trial, who has placed it upon trial? And I
leave it to the people of America whether the prosecution in
this case have made out a case; and I charge it here now,
frankly, that in order to bring about this conviction the
Prosecution, the representatives of the State, the sworn
officers of the law--those whose duty it is to the people
to obey the law and preserve order--I charge upon them a
willful, a malicious, a purposed violation of every law which
guarantees every right to every American citizen. They have
violated free speech. In the prosecution of this case they
have violated a free press. They have violated the right of
public assembly. Yea, they have even violated and denounced
the right of self-defense. I charge the crime home to them. *
* * My own deliberate opinion concerning this Haymarket affair
is that the death-dealing missile was the work, the deliberate
work of monopoly--the act of those who themselves charge us
with the deed. I am not alone in this view of this matter.
What are the real facts of that Haymarket tragedy? Mayor
Harrison of Chicago has caused to be published his opinion, in
which he says: 'I did not believe that there was any intention
on the part of Spies and those men to have bombs thrown at
the Haymarket.' He knows more about this thing than the jury
that sat in this room, for he knows--I suspect that the Mayor
knows--of some of the methods by which some of this evidence
and testimony might have been manufactured. I don't charge it,
your Honor, but possibly he has had some intimation of it,
and if he has he knows more about this case and the merits of
this case than did the jury who sat here. * * * Before the
trial began, during its prosecution, and since its close,
a Satanic press has shrieked and howled itself wild, like
ravenous hyenas, for the blood of these eight working men.
Now, this subsidized press, in the pay of the monopoly and of
laborers and slavers, commanded this Court and commanded this
jury and this Prosecution to convict us. As a fitting climax
to this damnable conspiracy against our lives and liberty,
what follows? O hide your eye now! hide it! hide it! As a
fitting climax to this damnable conspiracy against our lives
and liberty some of Chicago's millionaires proposed to raise a
purse of $100,000 and present it to the jury for their verdict
of guilty against us. This was done, as everybody knows, in
the last days of the trial, and since the verdict so far as
anybody knows to the contrary, this blood money has been paid
over to that jury. * * * Condemned to death! Perhaps you
think I do not know what for? Or maybe you think the people
do not understand your motives? You are mistaken. I am here,
standing in this spot awaiting your sentence, because I hate
and loathe authority in every form. I am doomed by you to
suffer an ignominious death because I am the outspoken enemy
of coercion, of privilege, of force, of authority. It is for
this you make me suffer. Think you the people are blind, are
asleep, are indifferent? You deceive yourselves. I tell you,
as a man of the people, and I speak for them, that your every
word and act and thoughts are recorded. You are being weighed
in the balance. The people are conscious of your power--your
stolen power. They know you; that while you masquerade as
their servants you are in reality playing the role of master.
The people--the common working people--know full well that all
your wealth, your ease and splendor, have been stolen from
them by the exercise of your authority in the guise of law
and order. I, a working man, stand here and to your face, in
your stronghold of oppression, and denounce to you your crimes
against humanity. It is for this I die, but my death will not
have been in vain. I guess I have finished. I don't know as I
have anything more to say. Your Honor knows all I know about
this case. I have taken your Honor's time up that I might be
able to lay this thing, the whole thing, before you, reserving
nothing; opening my mind and heart, telling you the truth, the
truth, and the whole truth. I am innocent of this offense. I
had no connection with that Haymarket tragedy. I know nothing
of it. I am not responsible for it. I leave the case in the
hands of your Honor."

SENTENCE PRONOUNCED.

Parsons spoke altogether nearly nine hours, and the addresses of all the prisoners occupied three days. Thousands of people were turned away during the closing days, and the scene in the courtroom when sentence was pronounced was peculiarly impressive. At the close of Parsons' remarks Judge Gary delivered the following remarks, and pronounced the death sentence:

"I am quite well aware that what you have said, although
addressed to me, has been said to the world; yet nothing
has been said which weakens the force of the proof or the
conclusions therefrom upon which the verdict is based. You
are all men of intelligence, and know that if the verdict
stands, it must be executed. The reasons why it shall stand I
have already sufficiently stated in deciding the motion for
a new trial. I am sorry beyond any power of expression for
your unhappy condition and for the terrible events that have
brought it about. I shall address to you neither reproaches
nor exhortation. What I shall say, shall be said in the faint
hope that a few words from a place where the people of the
State of Illinois have delegated the authority to declare
the penalty of a violation of their laws, and spoken upon an
occasion solemn and awful as this, may come to the knowledge
of and be heeded by the ignorant, deluded and misguided men
who have listened to your counsels and followed your advice. I
say in the faint hope; for if men are persuaded that because
of business differences, whether about labor or anything else,
they may destroy property and assault and beat other men, and
kill the police, if they, in the discharge of their duty,
interfere to preserve the peace, there is little ground to
hope that they will listen to any warning. It is not the least
among the hardships of the peaceable, frugal and laborious
poor to endure the tyranny of mobs, who, with lawless force,
dictate to them, under penalty of peril to limb and life,
where, when and upon what terms they may earn a livelihood for
themselves and their families. Any government that is worthy
of the name will strenuously endeavor to secure to all within
its jurisdiction freedom to follow the lawful avocations and
safety for their property and their persons, while obeying
the law, and the law is common sense. It holds each man
responsible for the natural and probable consequences of his
own acts. It holds that whoever advises murder is himself
guilty of the murder that is committed pursuant to his advice,
and if men band together for a forcible resistance to the
execution of the law and advise murder as a means of making
such resistance effectual, whether such advice be to one man
to murder another, or to a numerous class to murder men of
another class, all who are so banded together are guilty of
any murder that is committed in pursuance of such advice.
The people of this country love their institutions, they
love their homes, they love their property. They will never
consent, that by violence and murder, those institutions shall
be broken down, their homes despoiled, and their property
destroyed. And the people are strong enough to protect and
sustain their institutions and to punish all offenders against
their laws; and those who threaten danger to civil society,
if the law is enforced, are leading to destruction whoever
may attempt to execute such threats. The existing order of
society can be changed only by the will of the majority. Each
man has the full right to entertain and advocate by speech
and print such opinions as suits himself, and the great body
of the people will usually care little what he says. But if
he proposes murder as a means of enforcing he puts his own
life at stake. And no clamor about free speech or the evils to
be cured or the wrongs to be redressed, will shield him from
the consequences of his crime. His liberty is not a license
to destroy. The toleration that he enjoys he must extend to
others, and not arrogantly assume that the great majority are
wrong and may rightfully be coerced by terror, or removed
by dynamite. It only remains that for the crime you have
committed, and of which you have been convicted after a trial
unexampled in the patience with which an outraged people have
extended to you every protection and privilege of the law
which you derided and defied, that the sentence of that law be
now given. In form and detail that sentence will appear upon
the records of the Court. In substance and effect it is that
the defendant Neebe be imprisoned in the State Penitentiary at
Joliet at hard labor for the term of fifteen years. And that
each of the other defendants, between the hours of ten o'clock
in the forenoon and two o'clock in the afternoon of the third
day of December next, in the manner provided by the statute of
this state, be hung by the neck until he is dead. Remove the
prisoners."

Stay of sentence in the case of Neebe was granted until December 3, the date set for the execution of the other principles; and the counsel for the condemned Anarchists announced that they should file a bill of exceptions before the Illinois Supreme Court, and petition for a supersedeas.