That poem epitomizes the aspirations, the hope, the need of the working classes, not alone of America, but of the civilized world.

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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 I person, 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 and say that this, verdict is the verdict of passion, born in passion, nurtured in passion, and is the sum total 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 before I conclude. Now, 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 that you cannot dispute the charge which I make, that this trial has been submerged, immersed in passion from its inception to its close, and even to 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 this city — and I now speak of the capitalistic press, that vile and infamous organ of monopoly, of hired liars, the people's oppressor — even to this day these papers, standing where I do, with my seven condemned colleagues, are clamoring for our blood in the heat and violence of passion. Who can deny this? Certainly not this Court. The Court is fully aware of these facts.

In order that I may place myself properly before you, it is necessary, in vindication of whatever I may have said or done in the history of my past life, that I should enter somewhat into detail, and I claim, even at the expense of being lengthy, the ends of justice require that this shall be done.

For the past twenty years my life has been closely identified with, and I have actively participated in, what is known as the

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The United States census for 1880 reports that there are in the United States 16,200,000 wage-workers. These are the persons who, by their industry, create all the wealth of this country. And now before I say anything further it may be necessary, in order to clearly understand what I am going to state further on, for me to define what I mean and what is meant in the labor movement by these words, wage-worker. A wage-worker is one who works for wages and who has no other means of subsistence than by the selling of his daily toil from hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, as the case may be. Their whole property consists entirely of their labor, strength, and skill — or rather, they possess nothing but their empty hands. They live only when afforded an opportunity to work, and this opportunity must be procured from the possessors of the means of subsistence — capital — before their right to live at all or the opportunity to do so is possessed. Now, there are 16,200,000 of these people in the United States, according to the census of 1880. Among this number are 9,000,000 men, and reckoning five persons to each family, they represent 45,000,000 of our population. It is claimed that there are between eleven and twelve millions of voters in the United States. Now, out of these 12,000,000, 9,000,000 of these voters are wage-workers. The remainder of the 16,200,000 is composed of the women, boys and girls — the children — employed in the factories, the mines, farms, and the various avocations of this country. The class of people — the producing class — who alone do all the productive labor of this country, are the hirelings and dependents of the propertied class.

Your honor, I have, as a workingman, espoused what I conceive to be the just claims of the working class; I have defended their right to liberty and insisted upon their right to control their

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Now, I stand here as one of the people, a common man, a workingman, one of the masses, and I ask you to give ear to what I have to say. You stand as a bulwark; you are as a brake between them and us. You are here as the representative of justice, holding the poised scales in your hands. You are expected to look neither to the right nor to the left, but to that by which justice, and justice alone, shall be subserved. The conviction of a man, your honor, does not necessarily prove that he is guilty. Your law books are filled with instances where men have been carried to the scaffold and after their death it has been proven that their execution was a judicial murder. Now, what end can be subserved in hurrying this matter through in the manner in which it has been done? Where are the ends of justice subserved, 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 methods 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. As everyone knows, it has long since become the practice in American politics for the candidates for judgeships throughout the United States to be named by corporation and monopoly influences, and it is a well-known secret that more than one of our Chief Justices have been appointed to their seats upon the bench of the United States Supreme Court at the instance of the leading railway magnates of America — the Huntingtons and Jay Goulds. Therefore

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Now, I have not been able to gather together and put in a consecutive shape these thoughts which I wish to present here for your consideration. They have been put together hurriedly in the last few days, since we began to come in here — first, because I did not know what you would do, nor what the position of your honor would be in the case; and secondly, because I did not know upon what around the deduction of the prosecution would be made denying us the right of a rehearing, and, therefore, if the method of the presentation of this matter be somewhat disconnected and disjointed, it may be ascribed to that fact, over which I have had no control.

I maintain that our execution, as the matter stands just now, would be a judicial murder, rank and foul, and judicial murder is far more infamous than lynch law — far worse. 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. But that trial is now over. You sit here judicially, calmly, quietly, and it is now for you to look at this thing from the standpoint of reason and common sense. There is one peculiarity about the case that I want to call your attention to. It is the manner and the method of its prosecution! On the one side, the attorneys for the prosecution conducted this case from the standpoint of capitalists as against laborers. On the other side, the attorneys for the defense conducted this case as a defense against murder — not for laborers and not against capitalists.

The prosecution in this case throughout has been a capitalistic prosecution, inspired by the instinct of capitalism, and I mean by that by class feelings, by a dictatorial right to rule, and a denial to common people the right to say anything or have anything to say to these men, by that class of persons who think that working people have but one right and one duty to perform, viz.: Obedience. They conducted this trial from that standpoint throughout, and, as was very truthfully stated by my comrade Fielden, we were prosecuted ostensibly for murder until near the end of the trial, when all at the jury is commanded — yea, commanded — to render a verdict against us as Anarchists.

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Your honor, you are aware of this; you know this to be the truth; you sat and heard it all. I will not make a statement but what will be in accord with facts, and what I do say is said for the purpose of refreshing your memory and asking you to look at both sides of this matter and view it from the standpoint of reason and 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, 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 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. Can it be any longer denied that there is such a thing as the labor question in this country?

I am an Anarchist. Now strike! But hear me before you strike. What is Socialism, or Anarchism? Briefly stated, it is the right of the toilers to the free and equal use of the tools of production, and the right of the producers to their product. That is Socialism. The history of mankind is one of growth. It has been evolutionary and revolutionary. The dividing line between evolution and revolution, or that imperceptible boundary line where one begins and the other ends, can never be denned. Who believed at the time that our forefathers tossed the tea into the Boston harbor that it meant the first revolt of the revolution separating this continent from the dominion of George III. and founding this Republic here in which we, their descendants, live to-day? Evolution and revolution are synonymous. Evolution is the incubatory state of revolution. The birth is the revolution — its process the evolution. What is the history of man with regard to the laboring classes?

Originally the earth and its contents were held in common by all men. Then came a change brought about by violence, robbery and wholesale murder, called war. Later, but still way back in history, find that there were but two classes in the world — slaves and masters. Time rolled on and we find a labor system of serfdom. This serf-labor

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We see, by a mere glance back into history, that the sixteenth century was engaged in a struggle for religious freedom and the right of conscience — mental liberty. Following that, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was the struggle throughout France which resulted in the establishment of the Republic and the founding of the right of political liberty. The struggle to-day, which follows on in the line of progress, and in the logic of events, the industrial problem, which is here in this court-room, of which we are the representatives, and of which the State's Attorney has said we were, by the grand jury selected because we were the leaders of it, and are to be punished and consigned to an ignominious death for that reason, that the wage slaves of Chicago and of America may be horrified, terror-stricken, and driven like "rats back to their holes," to hunger, slavery, misery and death. The industrial question, owing on in the natural order of events, the wage system, of industry, is now up for consideration; it presses for a hearing; it demands a solution; it cannot be throttled by this District Attorney, nor the District Attorneys upon the soil of America.

Now, what is this labor question which these gentlemen treat such profound contempt, which these distinguished, "honorable" gentlemen would throttle and put to ignominious death, and hurry us like "rats to our holes"? What is it? You will pardon me if I

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What is this labor question? It is not a question of emotion; the labor question is not a question of sentiment; it is not a religious matter; it is not a political problem; no, sir, it is a stern economic fact, a stubborn and immovable fact. It has, it is true, its emotional phase; it has its sentimental, religious, political aspects, but the sum total of this question is the bread and butter question, the how and the why we will live and earn our daily bread. This is the labor movement. It has a scientific basis. It is founded upon fact, and I have been to considerable pains in my researches of well-known and distinguished authors on this question to collect and present to you briefly what this question is and what it springs from. I will first explain to you briefly what capital is.

Capital — artificial capital — is the stored-up, accumulated surplus of past labor; capital is the product of labor. Its function is — that is the function of capital is — to appropriate or confiscate for its own use and benefit the "surplus" labor product of the wealth-producer. The capitalistic system originated in the forcible seizure, of natural opportunities and rights by a few and then converting those things into special privileges which have since become "vested rights," formally intrenched behind the bulwarks of statute law and Government. Capital could not exist unless there also existed a majority class who were propertyless, that is, without capital, a class whose only mode of existence is by selling their labor to capitalists. Capitalism is maintained, fostered, and perpetuated by law; in fact, capital is law — statute law — and law is capital.

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Now, briefly stated, for I will not take your time but a moment, what is labor? Labor is a commodity and wages is the price paid for it. The owner of this commodity — of labor — sells it, that is, himself to the owner of capital in order to live. Labor is the expression of energy, the power of the laborer's life. This energy or Power he must sell to another person in order to live. It is his only means of existence. He works to live, but his work is not simply a part of his life; it is the sacrifice of it. His labor is a commodity which under the guise of free labor, he is forced by necessity to hand over to another party. The whole of the wage laborer's activity is not the product of his labor — far from it. The silk he weaves, the palace he builds, the ores he digs from out the mines are not for him — oh, no. The only thing he produces for himself is his wage, and the silk, the ores and the palace which he has built are simply transformed for him into a certain kind of means of existence, namely, a cotton shirt, a few pennies, and the mere tenantcy of a lodging-house. In other words, his wages represent the bare necessities of his existence and the unpaid-for or "surplus" portion of his labor product constitutes the vast superabundant wealth of the non-producing or capitalistic class. That is the capitalistic system denned in a few words. It is this system that creates these classes, and it is these classes that produce this conflict. This conflict intensifies as the power of the privileged classes over the non-possessing or propertyless classes increases and intensifies, and this power increases as the idle few become richer and the producing many become poorer, and this produces what is called the labor movement. This is the labor question. Wealth is power; poverty is weakness.

If I had time I might stop here to answer some suggestions that Probably arise in the minds of some persons, or perhaps of your honor, not being familiar with this question. I imagine I hear your honor say, "Why, labor is free. This is a free country." Now, we had in the Southern States for nearly a century a form of labor known as chattel slave labor. That has been abolished, and I hear you say that labor is free; that the war has resulted in establishing free labor all over America. Is this true? Look at it. The chattel slave of the past — the wage slave of to-day; what is the difference?

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I am a Socialist. I am one of those, although myself a wage slave, who holds that it was wrong — wrong to myself, wrong to my neighbor,

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What becomes of these people? Where are they? They become competitors of other laborers, and are made to reduce wages and increase the work hours. Many of them are candidates for the gibbet, they are candidates for your prison cells. Build more penitentiaries; erect more scaffolds, for these men are upon the highway of crime, of misery, of death.

Your honor, there never was an effect without a cause. The tree is known by its fruit. Socialists are not those who blindly close their eyes and refuse to hear, but having eyes to see, they see, and having ears to hear, they hear. Look at this capitalistic system; look at its operation upon the small business men, the small dealers, the middle class. Bradstreet's tells us in last year's report that there were 11,000 small business men financially destroyed in the past twelve months.

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Your honor, Socalism comes to the people and asks them to look into this thing, to discuss it, to reason, to examine it, to investigate it, to know the facts, because it is by this, and this alone, that violence will be prevented and bloodshed will be avoided, because, as my friend here has said, men in their blind rage, in their ignorance, not knowing what ails them, strike blindly, and do as they did with Maxwell in this city, and fight the labor-saving machinery. Imagine such an absurd thing, and yet the capitalistic press has taken great pains to say the Socialists do these things; that we fight machinery; that we fight property. Why, sir, it is an absurdity; it is ridiculous; it is preposterous. No man ever heard an utterance from the mouth of a Socialist to advise anything of the kind. They know to the contrary. We don't fight machinery; we don't oppose these things. It is only the manner and methods of employing it that we object to That is all. It is the manipulations of these things in the interest of a few; it is the monopolization of them that we object to. We desire that all the forces of nature, all the forces of society, of the gigantic strength which has resulted from the combined intellect and labor of the ages of the past shall be turned over to man and made his servant, his obedient slave forever. This is the object of Socialism. It asks no one to give up anything. It seeks no harm to anybody, when we witness this condition of things — when we see little children

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Your honor, if you will permit it, I would like to stop now and resume to-morrow morning.

The Court here adjourned until 10 o'clock the following day.

Your honor, I concluded last evening at that portion of my statement before you which had for its purpose a showing of the operations and effects of our existing social system, the evils which naturally flow from the established social relations, which are founded upon the economic subjection and dependence of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor and the resources of life. I sought in this connection to show that the ills that afflict society — social miseries, mental degradations, political dependence — all resulted from the economic subjection and dependence of the man of labor upon the monopolizer of the means of existence; and as long as the cause remains the effect must certainly follow.

I pointed out what Bradstreet's had to say in regard to the destruction of the middle class last year. As it affects the small dealers, the middle class men of our shop streets, the same influences are likewise at work among the farming classes. According to statistics 90 per cent. of the farms of America are to-day under mortgage. The man who a few years ago owned the soil that he worked is to-day a tenant at will, and a mortgage is placed upon his soil, and when he — the farmer whose hand tickles the earth and causes it to blossom as the rose and bring forth its rich fruits for human sustenance — even while this man is asleep the interest upon the mortgage continues. It grows and it increases, rendering it more and more difficult for him

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Your honor, we do not have to go to Ireland to find the evils of landlordism. We do not have to cross the Atlantic, ocean to find Lord Lietriem's rack-renters, landlords who evict their tenants. We have them all around us. There is Ireland right here in Chicago and everywhere else in this country. Look at Bridgeport, where the Irish live! Look! Tenants at will, huddled together as State's Attorney Grinnell calls them, like rats; living as they do in Dublin, living precisely as they do in Limerick — taxed to death, unable to meet the extortions of the landlord.

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 stated to the jury. The law is on trial, and Government is on trial. Well, up to near 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 if 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 obligation 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. These; great blood-bought rights, for which our forefathers spent centuries

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I have violated no law of this country. Neither I nor my colleagues here have violated any legal right of American citizens. We stand upon the right of free speech, of free press, of public assemblage, unmolested and undisturbed. We stand upon the constitutional right of self-defence, and we defy the prosecution to rob the people of America of these dearly bought rights. But the prosecution imagines that they have triumphed because they propose to put to death seven men. Seven men to be exterminated in violation of law, because they insist upon the inalienable rights. Seven men are to be exterminated because they demand the right of free speech and exercise it. Seven men by this court of law are to be put to death because they claim their right of self-defence. Do you think, gentlemen of the prosecution, that you will have settled the case when you are carrying my lifeless bones to the potter's field? Do you think that this trial will be settled by my strangulation and that of my colleagues? I tell you that there is a greater verdict yet to be heard from. The American people will have something to say about this attempt to destroy their rights, which they hold sacred. The American people will have something to say when they understand this case, as to whether or not the Constitution of this country can be trampled under foot at the dictation of monopoly and corporations and their hired tools.

Your honor read yesterday your reasons for refusing us a new trial, and I want to call your attention to it, if you please, on some points on which I think your honor is laboring under misapprehension. Your honor says that there can be no question in the mind of any one who has read these articles (referring to the Alarm and Arbeiter-Zeitung), or heard these speeches, which were written and en long before the eight-hour movement was talked of, that this

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It is not fair, and it is not right for you to conclude that, from the showing made by these gentlemen, we were not what we pretended to be in this labor movement. Take the record. Why, I am well known throughout the United States for years and years past — my name is — and I have come in personal contact with hundreds of thousands of workingmen from Nebraska in the West to New York in the East, and from Maryland to Wisconsin and Minnesota, have traversed the States for the past ten years, and I am known by hundreds of thousands who have seen and heard me. Possibly I had better stop a little, just a moment, here, and explain how this was. These labor organizations sent for me. Sometimes it was the Knights of Labor, sometimes it was the trades unions, sometimes the

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Now, if there is anything for which I am well known it is my advocacy of the eight-hour system of labor. But because I have in this connection that I did not believe it would be possible to bring about a reform of this present wage system, because of the fact that the power of the employing class is so great that they can refuse to make any concessions, you say that I had no interest in the eight-hour movement.

Is it not a fact that the present social system places all power in the hands of the capitalistic class? They can and do refuse to make any concessions, and where they grant anything they retract it when they choose to do so. They can do it. The wage system gives them, the power. The tyranny and the despotism of the wage system of labor consists in the fact that the laborer is compelled under penalty of hunger and death by starvation to obey and accept terms laid down to him by his employer. Hence I have pointed out that it might be difficult, for this reason, to establish an eight-hour rule.

What have I said in this connection? I have said to the employers, to the manufacturers, and to the corporations — the monopolists of America: "Gentlemen, the eight-hour system of labor is the olive branch of peace held out to you. Take it. Concede this moderate demand of the working people. Give them better opportunities. Let them possess the leisure which eight hours will bring. Let it operate on the wants and the daily habits of the people." I have talked this way to the rich of this country in every place I have gone, and I have told them — not in the language of a threat, not in the language of intimidation — I have said: "If you do not concede this demand, if on the other hand you increase the hours of labor and employ more and more machinery, you thereby increase the number of enforced idle; you thereby swell the army of the compulsory idle and unemployed; you create new elements of discontent; you increase the army of idleness and misery." I said to them: "This is a dangerous condition of things to have in a country. It is liable to lead to violence. It will drive the workers into revolution. The eight-hour demand is a measure which is in the

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Now, your honor, can you take your comments there and say that we had other motives and ulterior motives? Your impression is derived from the inflammatory sections and articles selected by the prosecution for your honor to read. I think I know what my motives were, and I am stating them deliberately, and fairly and honestly leaving you to judge whether or not I am telling the truth. You say that "the different papers and speeches furnish direct contradiction to the arguments of the counsel for the defense that we proposed to resort to arms only in case of unlawful attacks of the police." Why, the very article that you quote in the Alarm — a copy of which I have not, but which I would like to see — calling the American Group to assemble for the purpose of considering military matters and military organization, states specifically that the purpose and object is to take into consideration measures of defense against unlawful and unconstitutional attacks of the police. That identical article shows it. You forgot, surely, that fact when you made this observation; and I defy any one to show, in a speech that is susceptible of proof, by proof, that I have ever said aught by word of mouth or by written article except in self-defense. Does not the constitution of the country, under whose flag myself and my forefathers were born for the last 260 years, provide that protection, and give me, their descendant, that right? Does not the Constitution say that I, as an American, have a right to keep and bear arms? I stand upon that right. Let me see if this Court will deprive me of it.

Let me call your attention to another point here. These articles that appear in the Alarm, for some of them I am not responsible any more than the editor of any other paper. I did not write everything in the Alarm, and it might be possible that there were some things in that paper which I am not ready to endorse. I am frank to admit that such is the case. I suppose you could scarcely find an editor of a paper in the world but could conscientiously say the same thing. Now, am I to be dragged here and executed for the utterances and the writings of other men, even though they were published in the columns of a paper of which I was the editor?

Your honor, you must remember that the Alarm was a labor

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Now, consider for a moment. Suppose, as is now the case with me here, I see little children suffering, men and women starving. I see others rolling in luxury and wealth and opulence, out of the unpaid for labor of the laborers. I am conscious of this fact. I see the streets of Chicago, as was the case last winter, filled with 30,000 men in compulsory idleness; destitution, misery, and want upon every hand. I see this thing. Then, on the other hand, I see the First Regiment out in a street-riot drill, and reading the papers the next morning describing the affair, I am told by the editor of this capitalistic newspaper that the First Regiment is out practicing a street-riot drill for the purpose of mowing down these wretches when they come out of their holes that the prosecution talks about here in this case; that the working people are to be slaughtered in cold blood, and that men are drilling upon the streets of the cities of America to butcher their fellow-men when they demand the right

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In this connection I want to call your attention to the way armed men — militiamen and Pinkerton's private army — are used against workingmen, strikers; the way they are used to shoot, to arrest, to put up jobs on them, and carry them out. In the Alarm of October 17, 1885, there is printed the following:

The secretary of the Minneapolis, Minn., Trades and Labor Assembly sends us the following note:

"MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., October 6, 1885.
"Editor of the ‘Alarm’. — Dear Sir: Please pay your respects to the Pinkerton pups for their extreme kindness to labor. Try to have the Government of your city do away with its metropolitan police and employ the Pinkerton protectors. [Of course this is sarcastic.] The inclosed circular fell into the hands of the Minneapolis Trades Assembly, which thought it not out of place to pass it around. Please insert it in your paper. Yours fraternally,
"T. W. BROSNAN."

This letter is under the seal of the Trades and Labor Assembly of the city of Minneapolis, Minn. Then, after referring to the services rendered to the capitalists, corporations and monopolists during the strikes in all parts of the country during the past year the circular closes with the following paragraphs, which we give in full as illustrative of the designs of these secret enemies upon organized labor. Let every workingman ponder over the avowed purposes of these armies of thugs. It says:

"The Pinkerton Protective Patrol is connected with Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, and is under the same management. Corporations or individuals desirous of ascertaining the feelings of their employes, whether they are likely to engage in strikes or join any secret labor organization, such as the Knights of Labor, with a view of compelling terms from corporations or employers, can obtain upon application to the superintendent of either of the offices a detective suitable to associate with their employes and obtain this information."

This circular continues:

"At this time, when there is so much dissatisfaction among the labor

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classes, and secret labor societies are organizing throughout the United States, we suggest whether it would not be well for railroad companies and other corporations, as well as individuals who are extensive employers, to keep a close watch for designing men among their own employes, who, in the interest of secret labor societies, are influencing their employes to join these organizations and eventually cause a strike. It is frequently the case that, by taking a matter of this kind in time, and discovering the ring-leaders, and dealing promptly with them [discovering the ring-leaders, mark you, and dealing promptly with them] serious trouble may be avoided in the future.

Yours respectfully,
WILLIAM A. PINKERTON,
General Superintendent Western Agency, Chicago.
RORERT A. PINKERTON,
General Superintendent Eastern Division, New York."

Now here is a concern, an institution which organizes a private army. This private army at the command and under the control of those who grind the faces of the poor, who keep wages down to the starvation point. This private army can be shipped to the place where it is wanted. Now it goes to the Hocking Valley to subjugate the starving miners; then it is carried across the plains to Nebraska to shoot the striking miners in that region; then it is carried to the East to stop the strike of the factory operatives and put them down. The army moves about to and fro over the country, sneaks into the labor organizations, worms itself into these labor societies, finds out, as it says, who the ring-leaders are and deals promptly with them. "Promptly," your honor, "with them." Now, what does that mean? It means this: that some workingman who has got the spirit of a man in his organization, who gets up and speaks out his sentiments, protests, you know, objects, won't have it, don't like these indignities, and says so; he is set down as a ring-leader, and these spies go to work and put up a job on him. If they can not aggravate him and make him, as the New York Tribune says, violate the law so they can get hold of him, they go to work and put up a scheme on him, and concoct a conspiracy that will bring him into Court. When he is brought into Court he is a wage-slave; he has got no money — who is he? Why, he stands here at the bar like a culprit. He has neither position, wealth, honor, nor friends to defend him. What is the result? Why, sixty days at the Bridewell or a year in the County jail, in State's prison, or hanged, as the Monopolists may determine him to be more or less dangerous to

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Now, it was these things that caused the American Group to take an exceeding interest in this manner of treatment on the part of the corporations and monopolies of the country, and we became indignant about it. We expostulated, we denounced it. Could we do otherwise? We are a part and parcel of the miseries brought about by this condition of things. Could we do otherwise than expostulate and object to it and resent it? Now, to illustrate what we did, I read to you from the Alarm of December 12, 1885, the proceedings of the American Group, of which I was a member, as a sample. I being present at that meeting, and that meeting being reported in this paper, I hold that this report of the meeting, being put into the Alarm at that time, is worthy of your credence and respect, as showing what our attitude was upon the question of force and of arms and of dynamite. The article is headed: "Street Riot Drill. Mass Meeting of Working People held at 106 East Randolph Street." This was the regular hall and place of meeting. The article reads:

A large mass-meeting of working men and women was held by the American Group of the International last Wednesday evening at their hall, 106 East Randolph street. The subject under discussion was the street-riot drill of the First Regiment on Thanksgiving day. William Holmes presided. The principal speaker was Mrs. Lucy E. Parsons. She began by saying that the founders of this Republic, whose motto was that every human being was by nature entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, would turn in their graves if they could read and know that a great street-riot drill was now being practiced in times of peace. "Let us," said she, "examine into this matter and ascertain, if we can, what this street-riot drill of the military is for. Certainly not for the purpose of fighting enemies from without; not for a foreign foe, for if this was the case we would be massing our armies on the sea-coast. Then it must be for our enemies within. Now, then, do a contented, prosperous and happy people leave their avocations and go out upon the streets to riot? Do young men and maidens who are marrying and given in marriage forsake the peaceful paths of life to become a riotous mob? Then who is the street-riot drill for? For whom is it intended? Who is to be

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shot? When the tramp of the military is heard, and grape and canister are sweeping four streets at a time, as is contemplated by this new-fangled drill which was so graphically described in the capitalistic press which gave an account of it, it is certainly not for the purpose of shooting down the bourgeoise, the wealthy, because this same press makes a stirring appeal to them to contribute liberally to a military fund to put them on a good footing and make the militia twice as strong as it is at present, because their services would soon be needed to shoot down the mob." The speaker then read an extract from a capitalistic account of the street-riot drill on Thanksgiving day.

Your honor, this meeting was held the week following Thanksgiving day, and the drill took place on Thanksgiving day. This article which is a description of the drill copied from a capitalistic paper, reads as follows:

As a conclusion the divisions were drawn up in line of battle and there was more firing by companies, by file, and by battalion. The drill was creditable to the regiment, and the First will do excellent service in the streets in case of necessity. Opportunities, however, are needed for rifle practice, and Col. Knox is anxious to have a range established as soon as possible. Instead of 400 members, the regiment should have 800 members on its rolls. Business men should take more interest in the organization and help put it in the best possible condition to cope with a mob, for there may be need for its services at no distant day.

That article appeared either in the Times or Tribune of the next day. I don't know which. The speaker says:

What must be the thought of the oppressed in foreign lands when they hear the tramp of the militia beneath the folds of the stars and stripes? They who first flung this flag to the breeze proclaimed that beneath its folds the oppressed of all lands would find a refuge and a haven and protection against the despotism of all lands. Is this the case to-day, when the counter-tramp 2,000,000 homeless wanderers is heard throughout the land of America — men strong and able and anxious and willing to work, that they may purchase for themselves and their families food; when the cry of discontent is heard from the working classes everywhere, and they refuse longer to starve and peaceably accept a rifle diet and die in misery according to law, and order is enforced by the military drill — is this military drill for the purpose of sweeping them down as a mob with grape and canister upon the street?

This is the language of the speaker at the meeting:

"We working people hear these ominous rumblings, which create inquiry as to their origin. A few years ago we heard nothing of this kind; but great

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changes have taken place during the past generation. Charles Dickens, who visited America forty years ago, said that what surprised him most was the general prosperity and equality of all people, and that a beggar upon the streets of Boston would create as much consternation as an angel with a flaming sword. What of Boston to-day? Last winter, said a correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, writing from that city, 30,000 persons were destitute, and there were whole streets of tenement-houses where the possession of a cooking-stove was regarded as a badge of aristocracy, the holes of which were rented to other less wealthy neighbors for a few pennies per hour. So, too, with New York, Chicago, and every other industrial center in this broad land. Why is this? Have we had a famine? Has nature refused to yield her harvest? These are grave and serious questions for us, the producers and sufferers, to consider, at least. Take a glance at the wealth of this country. In the past twenty years it has increased over $20,000,000,000. Into whose hands has the wealth found its way? Certainly not into the hands of the producers, for if it had there would be no need for street-riot drills. This country has a population of 55,000,000, and a statistical compilation shows that there are in the cities of New York, Philadelphia and Boston twenty men who own as their private property over $750,000,000, or about one-twenty-sixth of the entire increase which was produced by the labor of the working class, these twenty individuals being as one in 3,000,000. In twenty years these profit-mongers have fleeced the people of the enormous sum of $750,000,000 — and only three cities and twenty robbers heard from! A Government that protects this plundering of the people — a Government which permits the people to be degraded and brought to misery in this manner — is a fraud upon the face of it, no matter under what name it is called, or what flag floats over it; whether it be a Republic, a Monarchy, or an Empire," said the speaker. "The American flag protects as much economic despotism as any other flag on the face of the earth to-day to the ratio of population. This being the case, of what does the boasted freedom of the American workingman consist? Our fathers used to sing:

Come along, come along; make no delay;
Come from every nation, come from every way;
Come along, come along ; don't be alarmed —
Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.

"The ‘stars and stripes’ in those days floated upon every water as the emblem of the free, but to-day it obeys only the command and has become the ensign of monopoly and corporations, of those who grind the face of the poor and rob and enslave the laborer. Could Russia do more than drill in its streets to kill the people? But alas! Americans creep and crawl at the foot of wealth and adore the golden calf. Can a man amass millions without despoiling the labor of others? We all know he can not. American workingmen seem to be degenerating. They do not seem to understand what liberty and freedom

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really consist of. They shout themselves hoarse on election day — for what? For the miserable privilege of choosing their master; which man shall be their boss and rule over them; for the privilege of choosing just who are the bosses and who shall govern them. Great privilege! These Americans — sovereigns — millions of them do not know where they could get a bed or a supper. Your ballot — what is it good for? Can a man vote himself bread, or clothes, or shelter, or work? In what does the American wage-slave's freedom consist? The poor are the slaves of the rich everywhere. The ballot is neither a protection against hunger nor against the bullets of the military. Bread is freedom, freedom bread. The ballot is no protection against the bullets of those who are practicing the street-riot drills in Chicago. The ballot is worthless to the industrial slaves under these conditions. The palaces of the rich overshadow the homes or huts of the poor, and we say, with Victor Hugo, that the paradise of the rich is made out of the hells of the poor. The whole force of the organized power of the Government is thrown against the workers, whom the so-called better class denominate a mob. Now, when the workers of America refuse to starve according to ‘law and order,’ and when they begin to think and act, why, the street-riot drill begins. The enslavers of labor see the coming storm. They are determined, cost what it may, to drill these people and make them their slaves by holding in their possession the means of life as their property, and thus enslave the producers. Workingmen — we mean the women, too — arise! Prepare to make and determine successfully to establish the right to live and partake of the bounties to which all are equally entitled. Agitate, organize, prepare to defend your life, your liberty, your happiness against the murderers who are practicing the street-riot drill on Thanksgiving day."

'Tis the shame of the land that the earnings of toil
Should gorge the god Mammon, the tyrant, the spoiler.
Every foot has a logical right to the soil,
And the product of toil is the meed of the toiler.
The hands that disdain
Honest industry's stain
Have no share in its honor, no right to its gain,
And the falsehood of wealth or worth shall not be
In "the home of the brave and the land of the free."

Short addresses were made by Comrades Fielden, Dr. Taylor, William Snyder, William Holmes, and others. This concluded the meeting after criticisms.

Now, I challenge your honor to find a sentence or an utterance in that meeting — and that is one of the fullest reported of the many meetings held by the American Group for public discussion of such matters as the Thanksgiving drill of the First Regiment — I challenge you to find a single word or utterance there that is unlawful,

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Suppose a case that occurs. The First Regiment is out with 1,000 men, armed with the latest improved Winchester rifles. Here are the mobs; here are the Knights of Labor and the trades unions, and all the organizations, without arms. They have no treasury, and a Winchester rifle costs $18. They cannot purchase those things. We cannot organize an army. It takes capital to organize an army. It takes as much money to organize an army as to organize industry, as to build railroads; therefore it is impossible for the working class to organize and buy Winchester rifles. What can they do? What must they do?

Your honor, the dynamite bomb, I am told, costs 6 cents. It can be made by anybody. The Winchester rifle costs $18. That is the difference. Am I to be blamed for that? Am I to be hanged for saying this? Am I to be destroyed for this? What have I done? Go dig up the ashes of the man who invented this thing. Find his ashes and scatter them to the winds because he gave this power to the world. It was not me. Gen. Sheridan — he is the commander-in-chief of the United States army, and in his report to the President and Congress two years ago he had occasion to speak of the possible labor troubles that may occur in the country, and what did he say? In his report he said that dynamite was a lately discovered article of tremendous power, and such was its nature that people could carry it around in the pockets of their clothing with perfect safety to themselves, and by means of it they could destroy whole cities and whole armies. This was Gen. Sheridan. That is

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I am called a dynamiter. Why? Did I ever use dynamite? No. Did I ever have any? No. Why, then, am I called a dynamiter? Listen, and I will tell you. Gunpowder in the fifteenth century marked an era in the world's history. It was the downfall of the mail armor of the knight, the freebooter, and the robber of that period. It enabled the victims of the highway robbers to stand off at a distance in a safe place and defend themselves by the use of gunpowder and make a ball enter and pierce into the flesh of their robbers and destroyer. Gunpowder came as a democratic instrument. It came as a republican institution, and the effect was that it immediately began to equalize and bring about an equilibrium of power. There was less power in the hands of the nobility after that; less power in the hands of the king; less power in the hands of those who would plunder and degrade and destroy the people after that.

So today dynamite comes as the emancipator of man from the domination and enslavement of his fellow man. [The Judge showed symptoms of impatience.] Bear with me now. Dynamite is the diffusion of power. It is democratic; it makes everybody equal. Gen. Sheridan says: "Arms are worthless." They are worthless in the presence of this instrument. Nothing can meet it. The Pinkertons, the police, the militia are absolutely worthless in the presence of dynamite. They can do nothing with the people at ill. It is the equilibrium. It is the annihilator. It is the disseminator of authority; it is the dawn of peace; it is the end of war, because war cannot exist unless there is somebody to make war upon, and dynamite makes that unsafe, is undesirable, and absolutely impossible. It is a peace-maker; it is man's best and last friend; it emancipates the world from the domineering and the few over the many, because all government, in the last resort, is violence; all law, in the last resort, is force. Force is the law of the universe; force is the law of nature, and this newly discovered force makes all men equal, and therefore free. It is idle to talk of rights when one does

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Now, I speak plainly. Does it follow, because I hold these views, that I committed or had anything to do with the commission of that act at the Haymarket? Does that follow? Why, you might just as consistently charge Gen. Phil Sheridan with the act, and for the same reason, for while he did not go into the matter perhaps as extensively in his encomium upon dynamite as I have done, yet he furnished me the text from which I have drawn my knowledge of this thing. But, you say, my speeches were sometimes extravagant, unlawful. During the discussion of the question of the extension of chattel slavery into the new Territories, into Kansas and the West, while Charles Sumner was yet a member of the United States Senate, and that gallant man stood as the champion of freedom upon that floor, he was expostulated with on one occasion and reprimanded by a friend, who said to him: "Sumner, you are not expedient; you must have more policy about what you say; you should not express yourself in this manner; you should not be so denunciatory and fanatical against slavery, this enslavement. I know it is wrong; I know it should be denounced, but keep inside of the law; keep inside of the constitution."

Your honor, I quote from the speech of Charles Sumner, that great American, in answer and in reply to that remark. Said he:

Anything for human rights is constitutional. No learning in books, no skill acquired in Courts, no sharpness of forensic dealings, no cunning in splitting hairs can impair the vigor thereof. This is the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

I have never said anything that could equal that in lawlessness. I never was as lawless in my expression as that. Go, gentlemen of

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What are the facts about the Haymarket meeting? The meeting at 107 Fifth avenue had already been called, and at half-past 7 o'clock I left home with my wife, Mrs. Holmes, and the children. We got to Halsted street. Two reporters seeing me thought there was a chance to get an item and came over to me — the Times man and the Tribune man, I forget their names.

"Hello, Parsons, what is the news?" says one.

"I don't know anything."

"Going to be a meeting here to-night?"

"Yes, I guess so."

"Going to speak?"

"No."

"Where are you going?"

"I have got another meeting on hand tonight."

And some playful remark was made. I slapped one of them on the back. I was quite well acquainted with the men and we made one or two brief remarks, and — as they testified on the stand — I got on the car right then and there with my wife and two children, in company with Mrs. Holmes. I took the car, and they saw that. I went down to Fifth avenue. When I got down there I found four or five other ladies there, and about — well, probably, twelve or fifteen men. It was about 8:30 o'clock when we opened — I guess it was. We staid there about half an hour. We settled the business. About the time we were through with it a committee came from the Haymarket saying: "Nobody is over there but Spies. There is an awful big crowd, 3,000 or 4,000 people. For God's sake send somebody over. Come over, Parsons; come over, Fielden." Well, we went there. The meeting was adjourned and we all went over there together — all of us; my wife, Mrs. Holmes, two her ladies, and my two little children, went over to the Haymarket

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Your honor, is it possible that a man would go into the dynamite-bomb business under those conditions and those circumstances? It is incredible. It is beyond human nature to believe such a thing possible, absolutely.

The verdict was against Socialism, as said by the Chicago Times the day after the verdict.

"In the opinion of many thoughtful men, the labor question has reached a point where blood-letting has become necessary," says the Chicago Iron-Monger.

"The execution of the death penalty upon the Socialist male-factors in Chicago will be in its effect the execution of the death penalty upon the Socialistic propaganda in this country. The verdict of death pronounced by a Chicago jury and court against these Socialist malefactors in Chicago is the verdict of the American people against the crime called Socialism," says the Chicago Times. By the American people the Times means the monopolists.

In more familiar words, as used heretofore by the Times, "other workingmen will take warning from their fate, and learn a valuable lesson." The Times in 1878 advised that "handgrenades (bombs) should be thrown among the striking sailors," who were striving to obtain higher wages, "as by such treatment they would be taught a valuable lesson, and other strikers would take warning from their fate." So it seems, "handgrenades for strikers," and "the gallows for Socialists," are recommended by the organ of monopoly as a terror to both.

The jury was a packed one; the jury was composed of men who arrogate to themselves the right to dictate to and rob the wage-workers, whom they regard as their hired men; they regard working-men as their inferiors and not "gentlemen." Thus a jury was obtained, whose business it was to convict us of Anarchy whether they

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When I saw the day fixed for the opening of this trial, knowing I was an innocent man, and also feeling that it was my duty to come forward and share whatever fate had in store for my comrades, and also stand, if need be, on the scaffold, and vindicate the rights of labor, the cause of liberty, and the relief of the oppressed, I returned. How did I return? It is interesting, but it will take time to relate it, and I will not state it. I ran the gauntlet. I went from Waukesha to Milwaukee. I took the St. Paul train in the morning at the Milwaukee depot and came to Chicago; arrived here at 8:30, I suppose, in the morning. Went to the house of my friend, Mrs. Ames, on Morgan street. Sent for my wife and had a talk with her. I sent word to Capt. Black that I was here and prepared to surrender. He sent word back to me that he was ready to receive me. I met him at the threshold of this building and we came up here together. I stood in the presence of this Court. I have nothing, even now, to regret.

[NOTE. — Mr. Parsons' speech was eight hours in delivery, to-wit: two hours on Friday and six hours on Saturday. There are only given here extracts from Mr. Parsons' able speech before Judge Gary as to why sentence of death should not be pronounced against him. The speech is in print and can be had.]

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Mr. Parsons had just been in Cincinnati and returned to Chicago on May 4. [A. 313, Vol. N., 109.] He caused a notice calling a meeting at 107 Fifth avenue on the South Side, on Monday evening, May 4, to be inserted in the Daily News. He left home in company with his wife, Mrs. Holmes, a lady friend, and his two little children. On his way to that meeting he met Mr. Owen, a witness for the State, who says [A. 124, Vol. K., 200, 201]: "I saw Parsons at the corner of Randolph and Halsted streets shortly before 8 o'clock. I asked him where the meeting was to be held; he said he did not know anything about the meeting. I asked him whether he was going to speak and he said no, he was going to the South Side. Mrs. Parsons and some children came up just then and Mr. Parsons stopped an Indiana street car, slapped me familiarly on the back, and asked me if I was armed. I said: ‘No; have you any dynamite about you?’ He laughed, and Mrs. Parsons said: ‘He is a very dangerous looking man, isn't he?’ and they got on a car and went east. I believe Mr. Heineman was with me." [A. 126, Vol. K., 233.] A request for speakers at the Haymarket meeting was sent over to the meeting on the South Side. That request found Parsons. He went from there to the Haymarket, on the West Side, to speak.

Mr. Parsons spoke three-quarters of an hour. Mr. English, the Tribune reporter, was instructed by his employers to take only the most inflammatory utterances and consequently was on the watch for such. His account of Mr. Parsons' speech occupies but a single page of the record.

Mayor Harrison, who heard Parsons' speech and attended the meeting for the purpose of dispersing it if anything should occur to require interference, left the meeting at the end of that speech and told Capt. Bonfield, at the station, that "nothing had occurred yet,

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After Mr. Parsons, Mr. Fielden spoke twenty minutes. After Mr. Fielden had been speaking some ten minutes it is admitted by all the witnesses that a cloud, accompanied by a cold wind, swept over the northern sky, and thereupon Parsons interrupted Fielden, suggesting an adjournment of the meeting to Zepf's hall, a building situated at the northeast corner of Lake and Desplaines streets and a block north from the Haymarket meeting. To this somebody in the audience replied that the hall was occupied by a meeting of the Furniture Workers' Union, and thereupon Fielden suggested that he would be through in a few minutes and then they would all go home. [A. 314, Vol. N., 113.]

This evidence is established by witnesses for the State and the defence.

About one-half of the audience dispersed upon Mr. Parsons' motion and Mr. Fielden's suggestion. Mr. Parsons got down from the wagon and went a few feet north, where his family and Mrs. Holmes were seated, assisted them down, and they went together to Zepf's hall, and were there when the bomb exploded. [A. 224, 238, Vol. M., 125.]

This is all the testimony connecting Mr. Parsons in any way with the Haymarket meeting.

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Part VII.

Chapter I. — What is an Accessory? — Leonard Sweet Quotes From "Wharton's Criminal Law and Clearly Points Out What Must be Proven to Secure A Conviction as Accessory Before the Fact — "What Human Judge Can Determine that there is Such a Necessary Connection Between One Man's Advice and Another Man's Action as to Make the Former the Cause of the Latter?"

The conviction of these defendants was had without any proof of a corpus delicti. What is a corpus delicti? Simply the body or essence of the wrong. What is the corpus delicti or body of the wrong in the case of a principal charged with homicide? It is that the defendant did the criminal act. What is the corpus delicti in reference to an accessory? It is that he aided and abetted in the killing. Wharton's Crim. Ev., 3,325, and note as follows:

The corpus delicti, the proof which is essential to sustain a conviction, consists of a criminal act, and to sustain a conviction there must be proof of the defendant's guilty agency in the production of such act.

The latter feature, namely, criminal agency, is often lost sight of, but is as essential as the object itself of the crime.

Acts in some shape are essential to the corpus delicti, so far as concerns the guilt of the party accused. A. may have designed the death of the deceased, yet if that death has been caused by another A., no matter how morally guilty, is not amenable to the penalties of the law, if he has done and advised nothing in respect to the death.

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In this case there is not the slightest evidence of corpus delicti as to any of the defendants, except in the testimony of Gilmer, which is completely overthrown.

Wharton, in his Criminal Law, ninth edition, Vol. I., section 226, note entitled "Modes of Instigation," says:

Counseling, to come up to the definition, must be special. Mere general counsel, for instance, that all property should be regarded and held as common, will not constitute the party offering it accessory before the fact to a larceny; free-love publications will not constitute their authors technically parties to sexual offenses which these publications may have stimulated. Several youthful highway robbers have said they were led into crime by reading "Jack Sheppard," but the author of Jack Sheppard was not an accessory before the fact to the robberies to which he thus added impulse. What human Judge can determine that there is such a necessary connection between one man's advice and another man's action as to make the former the cause of the latter?

I know of no more appropriate illustration of the legal status and liability of the defendants in relation to their intemperate utterances, or in relation to their liability under all the evidence, than to recall the history of the formation of the Republican party. It was a party which had for its object the reformation of the civil society and the civil institutions in this country. The most radical of its leaders characterized the constitution of the United States as "a league with hell." Underground railroads were everywhere established leading from Mason's and Dixon's line to Canada, and people conspired to do the act, contrary to the constitution and the laws of the United States, of aiding and abetting the slave in his escape. If he were arrested by the officers of the law, whose duty it was to arrest him, people were guilty of a conspiracy to rescue him, and they often committed the overt act of such unlawful conspiracy by actually rescuing him and aiding him in his escape. The storm finally culminated, and by and by old John Brown, caught by the inspiration of the occasion, committed an offense against the laws of Virginia at Harper's Ferry.

The question arising is: Was everybody who made speeches for this party guilty of the offense of which John Brown was convicted? The distinction exists in that case as in this. Everybody who knew

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The other side of this question, and the side taken by the prosecution and the Court, is to say that John Brown's raid was a natural outgrowth of the Republican party. If there had been no Republican party there would have been no John Brown's raid, and, therefore, that all Republicans who made speeches and believed in the Utopian idea of a change in society for the benefit of a class were like the Anarchists and were particeps criminis with old John Brown and ought to be hung.

The days come and go and this brief must be filed to-morrow, but it is not done. "The little foxes that spoil the vines" have got their work in every day and have rendered greater progress impossible. Therefore, I must refer your honors to the able brief prepared by Mr. William P. Black and Messrs. Salomon & Zeisler upon the two questions of the empanelment of the jury and the instructions of the Court.

The considerate portions of the country want the plowshare of justice held with firm but intelligent hand, and that it plow straight through — that the defendants should be hanged if guilty of murder, but not hanged if not guilty of murder. The man at his business, over-anxious and over-worked, sees in the movement of these people simply an interruption, and he wants them all hanged to get rid of the question; the timid lady shivers with fear, and says: "Why, they will, if released, throw bombs through our windows and blow up our houses." The hard-hearted and exacting want to continue their oppressions and exactions, and they want them all hanged. All these want them hanged — not for the reason that it is known they have been guilty of murder, but because the fixed order of things by these agitators is disturbed.

Don't Carnegie's men at Pittsburg get more a day than Krupp's men in Europe? Yes, and Krupp's men in Europe get more than men in Central Africa. All mankind are moving to a higher plane,

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The labor that moves the world may not, as a class, be the most intelligent. It may not know how. Like a man fastened face downward and stretched out to stakes on the grass of the western plains by Indians, he bears it until his nervous system gives way, when he will shriek and struggle, knowing there is a sore place somewhere.

Virginia wanted John Brown hanged that she might fold her arms and sleep in peace. She did hang him and his companions. But she did not sleep in peace.

I have never before seen the hard hand of toil respond with its quarters of a dollar and little gifts here, there, and everywhere, and with such wide-spread sympathy, until the poverty-stricken defendants have larger and readier means of defense than any persons I have ever defended or known. Criminals, under such circumstances, would have shared the fate of the neglected and the poor. What does this mean?

We all remember the celebrated controversy between the wind and the sun, told by old Aesop, in which they two entered into a debate as to which was the stronger, and it was to be decided by an attack upon a traveler upon whom they were looking down, and the victor should be he who could make him take off a great coat he was wearing first. The wind tried it, and blew about him and made him shiver and his coat-tails flutter, but he only hugged it the closer. The sun finally took its turn. It came out with its warm and peaceful rays. It warmed the globe and the man, and very soon he began to wipe the sweat from his brow and pulled off his coat. May be we can learn something from this simple story, which has come down the ages from a period in the world's history in which labor was at complete rest.

The truth is, a man wants more than he used, to want. He may labor, he may live in a hut, but whenever he sees other people

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The truth is, the peoples of the world are inseparably linked together. Mankind are brothers, and they are held together as the world itself is held; you cannot, without breaking things, produce the elevation of the mountain without lifting up the country adjoining. The rich hold in exclusiveness, by a doubtful tenure, all the delights and honors and excitements of life so long as the millions enjoy only a heritage of unenlightened labor and unrewarded toil. We must either all go back to barbarism, where equality and contentment reign, or the rich must lift up the poor in proportion as they themselves are lifted up. Let, therefore, the man of wealth, instead of barricading the doors of his home, and seeking shelter in bars and bolts and iron gates, take his basket of overflowing plenty upon his arm and seek out the homes of squalor and want and find his safety and the safety of his home in the universal brotherhood of man.

LEONARD SWETT, Counsel for the Defendants.
CHICAGO, March 1, 1887.

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Chapter II. — Mr. Parsons in Court.

Arch-Conspirator A. R. Parsons amazed the crowd, and even dazed the placid Presiding Judge Gary, by marching into the courtroom beside Lawyer Black, chief counsel for the Anarchists. The much-sought-after dynamiter walked quietly into Court and took a chair. He made no more ado than if he had come in as an interested spectator. The idea of being a hunted fugitive did not seem to possess him in the least.

Capt. Black introduced him to the Court as one of the defendants in the case at bar, and asked that he be arraigned. Not a word of explanation was vouchsafed, nor was there any attempt by the police officers present to interfere. Where he came from, or where he had spent the time he has been so sadly missed, was not known. No one ventured to inquire while the prisoner was being-arraigned.

Parsons looked as he always has since Chicagoans have known him — thin. He was dressed in a quiet suit of blue. He was led to where the other prisoners were sitting, and where the defendants' counsel had retained a seat for him. It was a carefully arranged surprise, dramatically carried out.

"Parsons," said Lawyer Black, "has not at any time been over 100 miles from the city, yet all the 200 officers looking for him would never have unearthed him. He was not brought forward before simply because the methods of the Chicago police are brutal and utterly above and regardless of the law. I proposed to have my client treated legally and not bullyragged and tortured as prisoners are not even in Russia."

A police officer said that there was but one theory that he had as to the hiding-place of the prisoner, and that was that he was secreted in Capt. Black's own household.

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After the flutter following his entrance was over, Parsons was formally arraigned. This took but a few minutes, the prisoner pleading not guilty. He then took his seat, and the examination of the jurors was proceeded with, just as if the police had had no such terrible humiliation put upon them, and just as if the Judge and audience had had no great surprise given them.

On being seen by the reporter after he was locked up, in reply to a question as to where he had been, he laughingly remarked:

"Oh, only rusticating at a fashionable western summer resort."

"Well, what was your object in surrendering to the authorities, at this time of such public excitement?"

"I have simply returned to bear my share with my comrades here whatever fate may have in store for them and me."

Another capitalistic paper says, in commenting upon his surrender: "The voluntary surrender of A. R. Parsons in Court makes him the central figure in the greatest criminal trial of modern times."

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Chapter III. — The Immolation to Authority. — Albert R. Parsons as Capt. W. P. Black Knew Him — Parsons Surrenders Himself to Stand Trial with His Comrades — His Connection with the Haymarket Meeting — Some Points of the Defense — The Verdict Calmly Received By the Prisoners — Parsons Refuses to Sign a Petition For Clemency — Heroic Effort to Save His Companions — Martyrs to Their Convictions.

In the period elapsing between the 4th of May, 1886, and the 21st of June, when the trial of the indictment against Spies, et al., was begun in the Criminal Court of Cook county, and while the attorneys engaged for the defendants were busy with their preparations for the struggle, the question was several times presented as to whether or not Albert R. Parsons could safely come to the bar and submit to a trial under the indictment along with those who were then in prison. This question was first brought to our attention by Mrs. Parsons, who told us that her husband had written to her desiring to know our views upon the subject. She stated to us that her husband was perfectly willing to act in the matter as we should advise; that knowing that he had neither participation in nor responsibility for the throwing of the bomb at the Haymarket meeting, and that in fact he had no knowledge of the meeting itself until about the time he was called to speak at it, he was himself confident that a trial of the indictment as against him could only result in his acquittal, if there was any hope of securing an impartial jury; and that if it was judged that his presence during the trial would be likely to be in any measure helpful to those who were accused with him, he was ready to come to the bar.

When this question was first presented it was met with the suggestion that there would be time enough to consider the matter later on, as it would be sufficient if he appeared in court at any time

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We knew enough of Mr. Parsons to believe that if he came to the bar of the Court voluntarily, submitted himself to its jurisdiction, and braved its judgment upon the accusation preferred against him, he would be a party to no deception, he would yield to no paltering, he would consent to no lowering of his standard of opinion merely in the hope of personal advantage or of placating the bitter feeling that had been aroused against these labor leaders. It was a serious matter, therefore, when we were asked to advise Mr. Parsons upon the question submitted to us; but our advice was asked, and under such circumstances that we felt it a duty to speak. We

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In obedience to the request of his wife I wrote a letter to Mr. Parsons upon the subject of his inquiry, in which I tried to set before him fully the danger which confronted him in the event of his return, and the possibilities of awful consequences, but in which I expressed the personal belief that we could satisfactorily establish his innocence, and therefore could secure his acquittal; that I believed the effect of his return and presence in the trial could not but be advantageous to his co-defendants. But I told him in effect that the responsibility of advising his return was one that I could not and would not take — I could only lay the case fully before him, and leave it to him to determine what action he would take.

Albert R. Parsons came of his own volition, and prompted by his own sense of right and of loyalty to his comrades in labor, from a place of absolute security, walked, unrecognized, to the very bar of the Court, and there submitted himself to the imprisonment from which he was liberated on the scaffold.

Did he ever regret that step? I can only say that never, in all the weeks and months that followed, did he express to me, nor for a single instant manifest, the slightest regret. He constantly protested that he would do the same again; and when he stood up before the Court in answer to its question to show cause why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him, the closing words of his memorable speech were, that, despite all that had followed his return, he had nothing to regret; while as he said it, as if to give deeper significance to his statement, he came to where I sat at placed his arm upon my shoulder, as if speaking the words to me. He knew that I had carried a certain burden, in connection with the untoward ending of his trial, because of the part I had taken in connection with his return. It was of me that he thought in that moment, and for my comfort that the spoke the words.

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For Albert R. Parsons was comparatively a young man; and notwithstanding the arduous service he had been called upon to render in his espousal and advocacy of the cause of the wage classes of society, and despite his scanty means, and oftentimes actual privation resulting therefrom, he had yet much to make life bright to him, much to make him happy in life. He had a wife whose devotion to him has since become proverbial, and two beautiful children to whom he was as tenderly attached as any father to his young I have ever known. He knew, too, far better than I knew, the intensity of the hostile feeling existing between the property-owners ordinarily dominating the opinion of society and the agitators, who, as it seemed to them, were constantly threatening their possessions and repose. He appreciated, far more than I did at the time, the actual hazard of the step he took. That he should, in the retirement and seclusion of his retreat, and after weeks of consideration, during which his own personal safety was demonstrated, have ached and acted upon the fixed resolve to offer his own life in what he believed to be the cause of the wage class, and for the possible advantage of his fellow-agitators, was heroic. I believe that the day

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It was shown without contradiction that on Sunday, May 2, 1886, Albert R. Parsons was in the city of Cincinnati, O., returning to Chicago on the morning of Tuesday, May 4; that immediately upon his return he caused a notice, calling for a meeting of the American Group of the International at 107 Fifth avenue for the evening of May 4, to be inserted in the Daily News of that afternoon; that in the evening he left his house in company with his wife, Mrs. Holmes, a lady friend, and his two little children, aged 5 and 7 years, respectively; that they walked from their home on the West Side as far as to the corner of Randolph and Halsted streets, where they met two reporters — namely: Mr. Heineman and Mr. Owen. There Mr. Parsons and his party took a car and rode direct to 107 Fifth avenue, where they arrived about half past 8 o'clock, and remained about half an hour. Concerning this meeting at the corner of Halsted and Randolph streets, Mr. Owen, who was called as one of the witnesses for the prosecution, testified as follows:

"I saw Parsons at the corner of Randolph and Halsted streets shortly before 8 o'clock; I asked him where the meeting was going to be held; he said he did not know anything about the meeting, I asked him whether he was going to speak. He said: No, he was going over to the South Side. Mrs. Parsons and some children came up just then, and Mr. Parsons, before entering the street car, slapped me familiarly upon the back and asked me if I was armed, and I said no. I asked him: ‘Have you any dynamite about you?’ He laughed, and Mrs. Parsons said: ‘He is a very dangerous-looking man, isn't he?’ And they got on the car and went east. I believe Mr. Heineman was with me."

Mr. Heineman was also called as a witness for the prosecution, and while his testimony as to this meeting was not quite as full as that of Mr. Owen, it was in substantial harmony therewith.

At the meeting of the American Group, as was shown by an abundance of uncontradicted testimony, there were present, all told,

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Parsons reached the Haymarket some time shortly after 9 o'clock, while Spies was speaking, and directly afterward Spies stopped and introduced Parsons to the audience. Parsons spoke from three-quarters of an hour to an hour. It was concurred in by all of the witnesses who testified in reference to Parsons' speech that it was largely statistical in its nature, and devoted to a review of the disturbed condition of the labor world; and it was conceded by all the witnesses for the prosecution that when, in the course of his remarks, he mentioned the name of Jay Gould, in connection with the Southwestern railway troubles, and some one in the audience proposed the hanging of the railway magnate, Parsons immediately replied deprecating such utterance, saying in effect: "No! This is not a conflict between individuals, but for a change of system, and Socialism aims to remove the causes which produce the pauper and the millionaire, but does not aim at the life of the individual." He said further in substance: "Kill Jay Gould, and like a jack-in-a-box other or a hundred others like him will come up in his place under existing social conditions;" and he also used the figure that to the individual millionaire or capitalist would be like killing a flea upon a dog, whereas the purpose of Socialism was the destruction of the dog — the change of the existing system. That this was the substance and tenor of Parsons' response to the one suggestion

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Some of the witnesses for the State testified that at some point in his discourse Parsons used the expression: "To arms! To arms! To arms!" This was the only incendiary utterance that was claimed to have been made use of by him. But in reference to this expression, and the connection in which it was used by Mr. Parsons, the most convincing testimony offered on the part of the prosecution was that of Mr. English, a stenographic reporter for the Chicago Tribune who attended the meeting under instructions from the management of the paper which he represented, as testified by himself, to report only the most inflammatory utterances. Such utterances, however he repotted verbatim; and his stenographic report, read to the jury, as to this remark, was in the following words, given as spoken by Mr. Parsons:

"It behooves you, as you love your wife and children, if you do not want to see them perish with hunger, killed, or shot down like dogs in the street, Americans, in the interest of your liberty and independence, to arm, to arm yourselves. [Applause and cries of "We will do it," "We are ready now."] You are not."

Mr. English further stated positively in this connection that when Parsons said: "To arm, to arm yourselves!" he said it in the ordinary tone of voice in which he was then speaking. He stated also, that this expression was shortly following an utterance of Parsons in the following language: "I am not here for the purpose of inciting anybody, but to speak out, to tell the facts as they exist, even though it should cost my life before morning."

Mayor Harrison, who heard Parsons' speech, and attended the meeting for the purpose of dispersing it if anything should occur to require interference, upon the witness-stand testified that he heard nothing spoken by Parsons that in his judgment required any action upon his part; that his speech was largely statistical, and while he would denominate it as a violent political harangue, it was in fact unusually moderate in its tone as compared with what was habitual to speakers occupying Mr. Parsons' position upon such occasions. Certain it is, that Mr. Harrison, the chief executive officer of the city, having its welfare at heart, and charged with the responsibility of

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After speaking about an hour Parsons brought his address to a close, and was succeeded by Mr. Fielden.

Fielden spoke about ten minutes, when a cloud, accompanied by a cold wind and with some threatenings of rain, swept up in the northern sky; whereupon Mr. Parsons interrupted him and suggested an adjournment of the meeting to Zepf's hall, which was in a building situated on the northeast corner of Lake and Desplaines streets, about half a block from the location of the Haymarket meeting. To this some one in the crowd responded that the hall was already occupied by a meeting of the Furniture-Workers' Union, and thereupon Fielden suggested that he would be through in a few minutes and then they could all go home; after which Fielden proceeded with his remarks. But the suggestion made by Mr. Parsons, coupled with the threatening aspect of the sky and the cold change, as well as the fact that the hour was late and the crowd wearied with standing several hours in the open air, furnished the occasion for the scattering of the larger part of the audience; so that the conclusion of Fielden's speech was addressed to an assemblage estimated by the various witnesses who spoke on the point, at from 200 to 500 people, not a single witness worthy of belief placing the number higher than we last-named figure. Stepping from the speakers' wagon Mr.

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No effort was made by the prosecution, because none could be successfully made, unless by rank perjury, to convict Parsons of any knowledge whatever of any of the preliminaries of the Haymarket meeting. That meeting had been arranged for at a meeting held at Greif's hall, No. 54 West Lake street, on Monday night, May 3, 1886. The professed purpose of the Haymarket meeting was to consider and protest against the conduct of the police at the McCormick riot, following a meeting at the Black road held near McCormick's reaper works on the afternoon of Monday, May 3. The Haymarket meeting was called by a circular issued by direction of the Monday night meeting, at which meeting, as shown by the evidence, only two of the eight men who were upon trial were present — to-wit: Fischer and Engel. On the afternoon of Tuesday, May 4, two others of the accused — to-wit: Schwab and Spies — were apprised of the Monday night meeting and of the proceeding threat, which they at once denounced as foolish in the extreme, and as to which they took immediate steps and every possible precaution to prevent any action thereunder or rash consequences. It was admitted by all the witnesses for the prosecution, however, that when the Haymarket meeting was determined upon, at the Monday night meeting, it was distinctly talked and understood that there was to be no preparation whatever for violence at the Haymarket meeting nor was it expected that any collision with the police would occur then, but that the same was to be simply an agitation meeting, and for the purpose suggested. Parsons never heard of the Monday night meeting, nor of the proceedings thereof, until after the Haymarket meeting had come to its tragic termination.

A dispassionate consideration of the testimony in the record

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Beyond the testimony above outlined, the State was permitted to introduce, in its effort to make out a case against Parsons, evidence of a number of speeches made by Parsons during a long period of time preceding the Haymarket meeting, and extracts from the files of the Alarm, of which Parsons was the editor; not upon the theory that any of these things bore directly upon or had immediate reference to, the Haymarket meeting, or the act at that meeting of the bomb-thrower, but upon the theory that they furnished evidence proper to be considered by the jury as tending to establish a general conspiracy for the overthrow of the existing order of society, which contemplated such meetings as that at the Haymarket, and such acts as there committed, as among the things which might be done in furtherance of this purpose.

It was contended in behalf of the defense upon the trial that such testimony was not legally competent; that in the absence of testimony showing a conspiracy or agreement to do the particular thing, criminal responsibility for which was sought to be charged against the defendants, it was necessary to show by credible evidence that the act complained of was indubitably committed by

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1. That mere participation in an unlawful assembly or design does not make the accused responsible for the independent and unadvised crime of some other participant in that assembly or design.

2. That to hold the accused as accessories on the ground of conspiracy it must be shown by credible testimony, beyond reasonable doubt, that the man committing the crime was one of the conspirators.

3. That it must further be shown that the act of violence committed was within the purview of the conspiracy; in other words, that the conspiracy provided for the commission of the particular act, by some one of the conspirators, at the time and place when and where it was done.

4. That the mere fact that various persons have a common object in view, or set before themselves a common purpose for their activity, does not make one of such parties responsible for the unadvised act of another party committed upon the independent volition and uninfluenced resolve of that other party.

5. That mere general advice, by speech or print, to revolutionary or violent acts, without evidence connecting the advice with the man committing the offense and showing that he was influenced thereby to his act, is not sufficient to warrant a contraction of the speaker as an accessory to the crime. That the law on this point is, as stated in I Wharton Criminal Law, § 226, note: "Counseling, to come up to the definition [of inciting to crime], must be special." * * * And in same volume, §179: "What human Judge can determine that there is such a necessary connection between one man's advice and another man's action as to make the former the cause of the latter?"

And as a corollary of these positions it was contended: That before the lives of men could be legally adjudged forfeited as the

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It is believed that prior to the trial of his case no intelligent lawyer could have been found anywhere who would have questioned the soundness of the above positions. It is substantially admitted now, the world over, that in order to bring about the conviction of Mr. Parsons and his associates the Court was asked to, and did, go much further, alike in the admission of evidence, upon the question of the qualification of jurors, in the matter of its instructions in laying down the law to the jury, and in the latitude generally allowed the prosecution in its effort to secure a conviction, that was ever before done in modern jurisprudence. In other words, it is now admitted generally that the law as established in this case was a modification of all prior adjudication to meet the exigencies of the prosecution! But it would be wholly foreign to the purpose of this sketch to go into any elaborate review of the legal aspects of the trial. I am the rather called upon to speak as to how Albert R. Parsons bore his part in these affairs.

The verdict of the jury was a profound and universal surprise. It was well known at the time that the prosecution had no expectation of securing the death penalty as to more than three or four of the accused — to-wit: Spies, Lingg, Fischer, and Engel. It was generally expected that Oscar Neebe would be acquitted, as it was conceded with substantial unanimity that the State had made out no case against him. And it was believed that Parsons, Fielden, and Schwab, if found guilty at all, would receive only a sentence of imprisonment. In fact, when Mr. Grinnell was closing for the prosecution, almost his last remarks to the jury were to the effect that he would not ask the death sentence as to Neebe, and lat as to the other defendants he believed that there were gradations in their responsibility and guilt; and that he would place the responsibility and guilt of the defendants in the following order:

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No one who was present in the Court-room on that August morning when this verdict was announced will ever forget the scene. The public was excluded from the room, only a very few persons being permitted to enter. The crowd outside were waiting for the news, thronging the street through the entire block. Not a man of the eight, who sat in the prisoner's chairs, blanched for an instant when the reading of the verdict took place. On the contrary, a smile that had in it something of the suggestion of pity for the overwrought violence of hatred that could make such a verdict possible, touched for a moment the calm and quiet faces of the men for whom this verdict had such dire import. Among them all none was calmer than Parsons, though no one was perhaps more surprised. Every man of them all rose to the emergency; and not even when the wild cheer of the crowd outside upon the announcement of the verdict, sounding like the snarling roar of a wild beast ravening as it clutched its prey, reached the ears of the accused, with all its horrid suggestions of implacable and blind fury and resentment, was there apparent in the face of any one of the eight anything betokening malice or a purpose of crime.

With the subsequent history of the case the readers of article are doubtless already familiar; but I feel that there is special

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It was then known that the only possible opportunity for a modification of the sentence of the accused was in an appeal for exercise of executive clemency. I knew personally that there were a great many people who, while upholding the general features of the judgment, yet felt that it was inexpressibly dreadful that this extreme penalty should be inflicted upon Parsons in view of his voluntarily coming to the bar of the Court. It was said by many that it had never been known that even by a drum-head Court Martial the death sentence was inflicted upon an enemy who voluntarily surrendered himself, coming from a retreat of safety to place his sword in the hand of the victor. I was personally advised that special effort would be made to secure the commutation of Parsons' sentence, owing to the peculiar circumstances of his case, and of course I was very anxious to save out of the wreck whatever of life was possible. But we found an unexpected obstacle in the matter of the attitude taken by Parsons himself as to any appeal in his behalf to the Governor. He positively refused to sign in any manner a petition for the exercise of executive clemency, which, under the constitution and the statutes of the State of Illinois, is prescribed as a condition of the exercise of the pardoning power. It became apparent very early, from the tone of the press and in various other ways, that unless Parsons would petition for himself nothing would be done in his case, but his attitude would be accepted as an excuse for charging to his own folly what else might be considered an act of inexcusable public brutality. Knowing the peril in which he was placing himself, I went personally to Parsons on the Tuesday before the 11th of November, and told him that I was going to Springfield with a deputation that night to have a public audience with the Governor the following day in support of our application for the exercise of clemency. I had a very long talk with him, the last of many preceding conversations of like purport,

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I told Parsons, in the course of our conversation, that his refusal to sign any petition was likely to be regarded, by those who held that his punishment was merited and was demanded for the welfare of society, but who might be disposed, because of his personal conduct, to favor interposition in his behalf, as an evidence of perverseness upon his part, and that thus the effort would be made to charge the result against himself. I urged him, for the sake of his wife and his babes, to sign the petition. I told him that I believed Gov. Oglesby was favorably disposed in his case; and that I thought in justice to the Governor he should at least sign the petition, so that Gov. Oglesby might have that technical compliance with the law which was so likely to be exacted by the public sentiment of the hour. I told Parsons plainly that I believed if he refused to sign any petition of any character the chances were that he would be executed; while, on the other hand, I felt assured that if I could lay a properly phrased petition before the executive, public opinion would justify Gov. Oglesby in commuting his sentence. I went still further and urged upon him, and this was the argument which seemed to impress him most, that from his own standpoint it was the one act that was certainly needed in order to complete his indictment against the system of law and order which was condemning him to death; that at least he should leave no legal excuse for the refusal to extend clemency to him. He listened patiently to all I said, and quietly replied in substance to me thus:

"Captain, I know that you are right. I know that if I should sign this application for pardon my sentence would be commuted. No longer ago than last Sunday night Melville E. Stone, the editor of the Daily News, spent nearly two hours in my cell, urging me to sign a petition, and assuring me that if I would do so I should have his influence and the influence of his paper in favor of the commutation of my sentence; and I know that that means that my sentence would be commuted. But I will not do it. My mind is firmly and irrevocably made up, and I beg you to urge me no

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I paused for a while, at a loss what to say. I know that my face showed something of the pain that I felt, for suddenly, a softened expression coming over his face, Parsons added words like these:

"I will tell you, Captain, what is the real secret of my position, but in confidence. I do not want anything said about it until after the 11th. I have a hope — mark you, it is a very faint hope — but yet I do hope that my attitude in reference to this matter may result in the saving of these other boys — Lingg, Engel, and Fischer. Spies, Fielden, and Schwab have already signed a petition for clemency, and their lives are safe. But the public are determined to have victims. And if I should now separate myself from Lingg, Engel, and Fischer, and sign a petition upon which the Governor could commute my sentence, I know that it would mean absolute doom to the others — that Lingg, Engel, and Fischer would inevitably be hung. So I have determined to make their cause and their fate my own. I know the chances are 999 in 1,000 that I will swing with them; that there isn't one chance in a thousand of my saving them; but if they can be saved at all it is by my standing with them, so that whatever action is taken in my case may with equal propriety be taken in theirs. I will not, therefore, do anything that will separate me from them. I expect that the result will be that I shall hang with them, but I am ready."

I could make no reply to such an argument — I never tried to. I knew that what Parsons said was true. I knew that if anything in the world could save the three who, like himself, had refused to apply for executive clemency, it would be the fact that Parsons

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It fell out as I had anticipated. When Gov. Oglesby's attention was called to the particular circumstances of Parsons' self-surrender, and to the evidence showing that he had absolutely no knowledge whatever of any violence arranged for or contemplated at the Haymarket meeting, and consequently no participation in nor legal responsibility for that act, under the theretofore established rules of law, the Governor asked if Parsons had signed a petition as required by the law. I knew what that meant; and when, on Thursday morning I had my last interview with Parsons and his companions, occupying but a few minutes in each case (for I went again to Springfield Thursday night, and was with Gov. Oglesby Friday morning, urging a vain plea for a reprieve of thirty clays, upon trustworthy assurances from New York, communicated to the Governor, that if such reprieve were granted the bomb-thrower would be produced, and it would be shown that he was a stranger to the accused, and that they had no complicity in nor responsibility for that act), I mentioned to Parsons the question of Gov. Oglesby, accompanying it with the suggestion that even yet if he would sign a petition I believed we could save his life; but I had no heart to press upon him that he should do violence to the noble purpose which he had formed; and when he said to me, as quietly and simply as he would have spoken in reference to some matter of no consequence to him: "I can't do it, Captain; I am ready for whatever may come!" I only shook his hand again and turned away.

It may be that there are many who will read this simple account, and will see in the attitude and sentiments of this man nothing to admire, nothing heroic; but there are others who, reading this narrative, will better understand why I loved this man and his comrades, who were all kindred spirits with himself. He was

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WILLIAM P. BLACK.
CHICAGO, January 24, 1889.

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Chapter IV. — Letter From Attorney W. A. Foster. — Some of the Principal Errors Connected With Trial Pointed Out — If the Object of the Trial Was to Obtain Justice, then Surely to Try the Eight at One and the Same Time Was a Grievous Mistake — The Admission in Evidence of Herr Most's Book Not Only a Mistake, But an Excuse for Other Mistakes.

Mrs. Lucy E. Parsons — Dear Madam:

In compliance with your request that I specify some of the errors connected with the late trial of the so-called Anarchists' case, I would say that I think Judge Mulkey did not mis-state the facts when, upon the decision of the Supreme Court on appeal being filed, he stated from the bench: "I do not wish to be understood as holding that the record is free from error, for I do not think it is;" but I do disagree with the learned Judge in his further statement when on the same occasion he said: "I am nevertheless of opinion that none of the errors complained of are of so serious a character as to require a reversal of the judgment."

I have long been impressed with the idea that the prosecution of criminal cases should be conducted with absolute fairness on the part of the people, by an absolutely impartial jury, uninfluenced by popular demands or prejudice; that no effort should be made to bring about a conviction not warranted by a full consideration of all the facts; and that under no circumstances should the trial take place during an inflamed state of the public mind.

The public, after due consideration of any matter of great interest to the people, is usually just in its conclusions; but immediately following the commission of a heinous crime it is frequently only necessary to point out the supposed culprit to cause the public, at

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It is further true that when a trial is had in the midst of a community excited by horror of the crime committed, and so soon after its commission that reason has not had time to resume its sway, the practical result is, not infrequently, to commit, under judicial sanction, the same wrong at other times perpetrated by mob violence.

I have always felt that the trial of the Anarchists' case was held far too soon after the Haymarket horror, and entirely too near the home of the families of its unfortunate victims.

Another mistake on the part of your husband was that he submitted himself to a trial in the midst of the greatest possible excitement, when he was at a safe place, and could as well have waited until public reason had reasserted itself. Had he done so he would to-day be a free man. No second trial could ever have been had. It was only those caught within the meshes of the net of the first trial that must suffer; but woe unto all those ensnared by that first terrible drag!

It has been urged that it was the duty of A. R. Parsons to stand by his friends in adversity, and that it was manly for him to return to the trial. I do not believe that manhood demands of any one that he submit himself to a decision warped by prejudice and wrought by passion. Rather should he bide his time, and, when the clouds of excitement and anger have rolled by, and then only, true bravery requires that an investigation of the charge against him be invited by the accused. Under the circumstances surrounding the trial, for a man to voluntarily place himself in the prisoners' dock was equivalent to saying, "I am willing to die for Anarchy," and, not being an Anarchist myself, I cannot but consider such an act an inexcusable mistake.

Where persons jointly accused of crime are in many respects disconnected with each other, and some of them almost entire strangers to others of their co-defendants, it very often occurs that much testimony is competent as against one or more with which the others have not the slightest connection. Such testimony is admitted as against one or more, but not as to the other, defendants; and so, during a long trial, there is evidence introduced as against each defendant,

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I have so far only referred to the mistakes committed previous to the trial. Were I to attempt to go through the record of the case and point out what I consider errors, I would go far beyond what you desire in this communication, which must necessarily be brief. One of the most flagrant errors connected with the trial was the introduction of Herr Host's book on Modern Warfare against each and all of the defendants. I regard Most's book as one of the most infamous publications I ever saw. To introduce this book and read it to the jury, as was done in this case, could not fail to create the strongest prejudice, not only against Most, who was not on trial (and he may thank Heaven he was not!), but against all who to any extent whatever shared his beliefs.

It will be remembered that Most's book was printed only in the German language, and no evidence was or could be produced to prove that it had ever been read by any of the defendants. It was advertised in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and sold at picnics. It was not sold by any of the defendants; it was not bought by them, so far as the evidence showed. If it had ever been read by them, no one seemed to have found it out; but it did appear that it had never been published in the English language, and as two, at least, of the defendants, Fielden and Parsons, could not read German, it is safe to conclude that they, at least, had never read the book, but they must suffer with the rest the effect of its introduction.

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Not only was the admission in evidence of Most's book a mistake, but it was an excuse for other mistakes. The book described a can or jar for spreading conflagrations, and it happened that some weeks after the defendants were arrested and safely lodged in jail, some boys found tin cans under a sidewalk about three miles from the Haymarket. The cans were brought into Court and offered in evidence as against all of the defendants — for what legitimate end could never understand. The Court, however, looked into Herr Most's book, and there found that something similar was described, and the cans were admitted and the jury required to handle and smell of them, to the great satisfaction of the prosecution. This seemed to me to be introducing immaterial evidence, and relying as a basis for so doing upon immaterial testimony already introduced.

I might go on, almost ad infinitum, pointing out what I regard mistakes of the trial, but to do so would take up by far too much ace in your proposed publication. As I have stated, I am not an Anarchist, nor in any degree in sympathy with the doctrines advocated by Anarchists. My denunciation of these doctrines, in my argument to the jury on the trial, cost me my connection with the case; yet I cannot help believing that the wholesale conviction and extreme punishment meted out to the eight accused men, who, for two months, were subjected to what should have been a "fair and partial trial," was, in truth, the result of an exaggerated and excited condition of public sentiment.

Very Respectfully Yours,
W. A. FOSTER.
CHICAGO, ILL., October 16, 1888.

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Chapter V. — The Trial of the Judgement. — The Trial of the Chicago Anarchists is Ended, But the Trial of the Judgement Under Which they Suffered is Only Just Begun — Odds Against the Prisoners — The Scales of Justice Poised Unevenly Between the Accused and the State — The Decision Open to Severe Criticism — Startling Affidavit of Otis Favor — The Chicago "Tribune's" Blood-fund — $100,000 Raised for the Jury — Judge Gary's Contributions — The Supreme Court's Arbitrary and Inconsistent Rulings — An Artful Plea of an Advocate — The Unfair Strategy and Tactics Employed by the State's Attorney — He Imitates Mark Anthony — Packed Jury — Thomas Jefferson and Albert R. Parsons.

On the 11th of November, 1887, four men were hanged in Chicago under the forms of law. They were tried by a jury, and judgment of death was pronounced against them. The judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Illinois and ratified by Governor. The public conscience is becoming uneasy under suspicion that this was a political trial and a class execution, some historic attainders which have left the imprint of bloody fingers upon the jurisprudence of England. It is averred by friends and believed by many enemies of the condemned men that their trial was unfair, the rulings of the Courts illegal, and the sentence unjust. The trial of the Chicago Anarchists is ended, but the trial

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There are state trials famous in history, not because of their dramatic character and surroundings, nor because of the magnitude of the crimes involved, but because in those trials the law itself was twisted out of moral symmetry to gratify public revenge; justice was violated in her own temple and the fountain of liberty polluted. This case will be memorable also, not for the enormity of the crime charged, but for the enormity of the trial. The methods of procedure practiced and allowed by the Judges of King James' time — Methods now obsolete in England — have been revived in Illinois. Trial by jury has been perverted, even to the shedding of innocent blood, and all the securities of liberty have been put in jeopardy.

Conspicuous among the accused in this indictment stands the Governor of Illinois. Appalled by the clamor of an angry populace, he executed vengeance with merciless decision. Panic-stricken by the noise outside, he shut his ears to the heart-broken prayers of children, mothers, and wives pleading at his knees for father, husband, son. He did this, although he knew that the frightened Courts, even when speaking the death sentence, had confessed that errors prevailed in the trial. He did this, when as a lawyer he knew that there were other errors in the trial which the Courts did not confess. He had an opportunity to show the highest quality of magnanimous power, and at the same time save the jurisprudence of Illinois from the stigma which must disfigure it for centuries to come. He lacked greatness of spirit, and his opportunity passed

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In the trial of the Anarchists the law itself was bent and strained to the breaking point. On the floor of the court-house they stood at a perilous disadvantage. The scales of justice were not poised evenly between the accused and the State. They were poor; the prosecution rich. The whole machinery of the city and county government was at the service of the prosecution. The treasury was reckless of cost. The police force, the detective force, and every official influence were active against the prisoners. They were beaten from the start. In the arena of life or death they fought against odds unfair and invincible. They played for a jury with dice loaded against them. The indictment was a bewildering contradiction of sixty-nine discordant counts, and every count was the horn of a dilemma.

The course pursued by the counsel for the State was unfair throughout the trial. A few examples of the strategy and tactics they employed will prove this accusation. They were permitted to imitate Mark Antony when he inflamed the passions of the populace by pointing them to "Cćsar's vesture wounded." They were permitted to show the jury not only the wounded vesture of Matthias Began, but also that of several other men whose names were not in the indictment at all. They were permitted to call the attention of the jury to the blood upon the vesture, after the style of Antony when he said:

The artful stump speech of Antony was perfectly legitimate. It was not made in a judicial proceeding, but in a political contest. He was of the opposite party to that of Brutus. The struggle between them was for the possession of the offices and the control of

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The articles in question were presented in the condition in which they were left after being exposed to the force of an exploding bomb, for the purpose of showing the power of dynamite as an explosive substance. While this kind of testimony may not have been very material, we cannot see that it was to such an extent incompetent as to justify a reversal.

No, it is not pretended that every error is enough of itself to justify a reversal, but when the errors are multitudinous, as they are in this case, a new trial ought to have been allowed. The power of dynamite as an explosive substance was not in issue. It was conceded that dynamite was an explosive substance, and that a dynamite bomb killed Degan. The jury knew that dynamite was an explosive substance. They knew it as well before the torn and Woody clothing was exhibited as they did afterward. Mark Antony could as pertinently say that he showed the rent vesture of Cćsar to convince the people that daggers had the power to cut. The excuse fails; the purpose of the exhibition is too plain.

The speeches to the jury were appeals for vengeance on the prisoners. They were Anarchy in legal robes, vindictive and crimson as the speeches for which the defendants themselves were tried. The moral discipline of the bar was broken, and the ethics of the Profession lowered when the State's Attorney condescended to pour

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"The evil that men do lives after them," and whenever a criminal trial becomes historic the wrongs done in its prosecution by either bench or bar, brand themselves in marks of shame upon the perpetrators. No subsequent greatness, not even the glory of judicial integrity nor the splendor of intellectual achievement, can erase the livid lines that tell of deep disgrace. They cling like a bar sinister to character, and remain visible so long as the names of the wrong-doers remain visible in history.

When Mr. Grinnell told the jury in the Anarchist case that the defendants were on trial for treason, he said what was not true. There was no such charge against them in the indictment. The jury, however, acted on the statement of Mr. Grinnell, believing that the State's Attorney would not mislead them as to the issues they were sworn to try. It is very likely that some of the jurymen still believe that the Anarchists were hanged for treason. This parallel may be continued farther. The fate of Raleigh and the Anarchists was the same. Commenting on the case Lord Campbell says:

Of course, there was a verdict of guilty, and the atrocity was perpetrated of ordering him to be executed on this illegal judgment.

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In training public opinion to the hanging point, the delusion has been spread among the people of Illinois that a judgment obtained on the verdict of a jury and affirmed by the Courts becomes ipso facto and de jure legal. But law is only a branch of moral science, and the Courts of righteousness have jurisdiction over all its judgments to reverse them or sustain them. Nay, tested by a lower standard, the merely human rules established for the protection of the citizen on trial for his life, the judgment against Raleigh was not only unjust, but illegal. This is the decision of Lord Campbell, himself a lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England. By the unanimous consent of the bar of England, the judgment against Raleigh is reversed. Already hundreds of Illinois lawyers admit that the judgment against the Anarchists was illegal. Before long it will be reversed as illegal by the unanimous opinion of the bar. Before the tribunal of enlightened conscience the trial of the Anarchists must itself be tried, and in that higher Court it will surely be condemned.

Never before, except in burlesque, was the meaning of words reversed as in the Anarchists' trial. Logic stood on its head and reasoned with its heels. Facts absent from the theory of the prosecution were solemnly claimed as evidence to establish it. It was averred that if certain events had happened which did not happen they would have shown that the conspiracy and the tragedy were cause and consequence, therefore the connection is proved. This is not meant for ridicule, and its grotesque appearance is merely the shadow of the Supreme Court tracing the crime back to the conspiracy. It is the language of the opinion itself that throws sarcasm upon the decision. Here is the claim of the Supreme Court:

The mode of attack as made corresponded with the mode of attack as planned.

And here is the inconsequent reasoning by which that claim is supported:

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The Desplaines Street station was in sight of the speakers' wagon, and only a short distance south of it. If a bomb had been thrown into the station itself, and if the policemen had been shot down while coming out, a part of the conspiracy would have been literally executed just as it was agreed upon.

By reasoning upside down in that fashion the tragedy in the Haymarket is connected with a conspiracy that was not carried out, and seven men vaguely and remotely identified with said "conspiracy" are connected with a bomb thrown by "a person unknown," and who is not shown to have had any association whatever with the seven men, nor any connection at all with the so-called conspiracy. The Supreme Court itself virtually rejects the theory that Schnaubelt threw the bomb, for the more comprehensive drag-net theory that it was thrown by "some person to the jurors unknown."

The conspiracy which the prosecution attempted to show on the trial, and which it is pretended they did show, was not carried into execution in any of its essential details. As illustrated and explained by the Supreme Court itself, it was a conspiracy that aimed at a social and political revolution. Hundreds, aye, thousands of men were engaged in it. It was to begin by the throwing of bombs into the North Avenue station and into other stations in the city. Well-drilled men, armed with rifles, were to be stationed outside to shoot the police as they came out; then the conspirators were to march inward, toward the heart of the city, destroying whatever should oppose them; the telegraph wires and the hose of the firemen would be cut, and the reign of Anarchy begin. Nothing of the kind occurred; nothing of it was attempted; nothing of it prepared for, except the making of bombs by Lingg.

According to the conspiracy relied on by the prosecution, many men should have been engaged in it, and many bombs thrown. In fact only one bomb was thrown, and that by an unknown man. This disproves that conspiracy, and tends to show that the bomb-throwing was the revengeful act of one man alone. There were no armed men with rifles anywhere, and the claim that pistols were fired by the mob is disputed by strong evidence. Every essential

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If a bomb had been thrown into the station, and if the policemen had been shot down while coming out, a part of the conspiracy would have been literally executed.

And therefore men must die for a conspiracy which was not executed, but which would have been executed if something which never happened had been done; a conspiracy of which, if it even existed, some of the condemned men could not possibly have had any knowledge. And thus the evidence in the case overwhelmingly proves that the mode of attack as made corresponded not with the mode of attack as planned.

Had the indictment been simply, for a conspiracy punishable by fine and imprisonment, the prosecution would have been held down to clear and definite allegations with which the evidence would have been compelled to correspond. As it was, the heavier crime of murder was permitted to rest upon an undefined and shadowy charge, composed of opposite and contradictory ingredients. The so-called conspiracy, instead of being a substantial accusation based on fact-averments on which issue might be taken, was nothing but a claim growing out of a mass of incoherent running testimony, and shifting day by day. The conspiracy was a remote cloud, changing its form continuously in obedience to the changing winds of evidence. One day it was like a weasel, the next it was backed like a camel, and at last it was "very like a whale."

Allowing the so-called conspiracy the exaggerated form given to it by the State's Attorney, the parts of it were so remote from each other, and from the defendants respectively, that no criminal relationship could ever be established between them. The details of it could never have been set forth by specific averments in an indictment. It was a huge pretense, composed of incoherent stories and contradictory evidence. It was a constructive conspiracy, which could not have stood alone in any civilized Court, and yet it was held good enough to sustain a charge of murder and the conviction

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The swift and eager verdict of the jury in the Anarchist case justified all the censure which has been cast upon the trial. They

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That the bailiff had the power to pack the jury is not denied by anybody; that he did pack the jury is disputed, but the evidence against him is very strong; that he said he would pack the jury is charged by affidavit of Otis Favor, a citizen of Chicago, personally acquainted with the bailiff. This affidavit has not yet been answered

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Otis Favor is a man of high character and standing, doing business in Chicago, and he was personally well acquainted with Ryce, the bailiff. After the trial was over Favor told Mr. E. A. Stevens that when Ryce was selecting the jury he said to Favor, in substance this: "I am managing this case, and I know what I am about. Those fellows will hang as certain as death. I am summoning as jurors such men as they will be compelled to challenge, and when they have exhausted their challenges they will have to take such a jury as is satisfactory to the State." Stevens made affidavit that Favor told him this in private conversation. Thereupon defendants, in their application for a new trial, asked that Favor be summoned and examined as to the alleged boast of Ryce. This application was refused, the judge deciding that the Court had no power to order the attendance at that time of Otis Favor. It should be stated here that Mr. Favor refused to appear and testify or to make any affidavit unless required to do so by an order of the Court. The order was refused. He made the affidavit afterward.

The plea of the Supreme Court that it does not appear that the defendants were harmed by the remark of Ryce to Favor, and that there is nothing to show that Ryce said anything to the jurors whom he summoned, is an ancient manoeuvre in sophistry. It is useful to divert the argument and send it in a wrong direction. In fox hunting times it was figuratively called "throwing the hounds off the scent." A fellow with a red herring in his pocket could trail the dogs away off to the north while the fox was running to the south It is the affectation of ignorance to pretend that the defendants claimed that harm was done to them by the remark of Ryce to Favor. The Supreme Court knew better. The complaint of the defendants was that they were harmed by the packing of the jury, of which the remark of Ryce to Favor was merely evidence, an

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The Supreme Court intimates that it was necessary to show that the defendants were actually harmed by the illegalities and errors they complained of in relation to the jury. The Court may make that ruling a precedent, but never can make it law. It is not anywhere in Christendom that man condemned to die shall show in his appeal that he was harmed by the selection of a partial, prejudiced, or illegal jury. The sentence of death runs through all the record, and is of itself an omnipresent showing of harm. The law presumes harm to every man sentenced to death by a vitiated or illegal jury. Suppose that Ryce had selected persons disqualified and incompetent by law, and that one of those persons had actually served upon the jury, will the Supreme Court pretend that a man condemned to death by a jury thus imperfect must show that he has been harmed by the wrongful selection before he can take advantage of the error? The error being shown, the law raises a conclusive presumption of harm to the defendant. There may be error without prejudice even in capital cases, but in the Anarchist case there was too much of it. It was grim sport to mock men on the steps of the gallows by telling them that they were not harmed by the errors and illegalities perpetrated at their trial. What greater harm can befall a man than to die upon the scaffold?

The Supreme Court pieced out the case for the prosecution by the following amendment:

In addition to this, it is not shown that the defendants served Favor with a subpoena, so as to lay a foundation for compelling his attendance.

This curious reason never presented itself either to the District Attorney or the Court below. Naturally it would not, because the defendants had no power to serve Favor with a subpoena. The trial was over; they had no case before the Court except a motion for a

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When, on the 9th of November, intercession was made to the Governor for a commutation of the sentence, this accusing affidavit was read to him by Capt. Black. He was evidently unprepared for it, and it startled him like a sting of electricity. He had steeled himself against everything but the clamor of the irrational crowd, and his heart was closed. With strong self-discipline he had nerved himself to show no sign of human feeling, but this affidavit stirred him beyond control, and in a moment of emotion he exclaimed, "Was that statement offered in Court?" Being assured that it was, he saw that he had betrayed himself into the hands of amnesty. He escaped again in a moment and showed no further symptoms of palpitation of the heart. He retired into his gloomy fortifications, and there he shut himself up until the end, deaf to reason, justice, law, mercy, and religion. That morning he offered a very good resemblance to King George IV. as he is described in the satire of Thomas Moore:

He dismissed the pleading delegations, and the next day he sent the death warrants to Chicago.

It is in the record and not to be denied that the State's Attorney, in his eager zeal for death, broke through the lines of professional etiquette, which the humane spirit of the law has thrown around his office. It is laid down in the books that the prosecuting attorney, like the Judge, shall stand absolutely impartial between the prisoner and the State. He must not revile the prisoner, nor insult him. He must not make fact-statements in his argument, nor offer to the jury his own opinion on the question of guilt or innocence,

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In selecting a jury to try the Anarchists the principle of impartiality was violated. The form of the statute may have been observed, but the spirit of the law was not. Whole classes of qualified persons were stricken from the jury lists, or at least they were not summoned in the case, which amounts to the same thing. Unfortunately these were what are known as the "working classes," the classes to which the defendants belonged, and of which, in part, they were supposed to be representative in Socialistic and political opinions. These were disqualified for jurymen as effectually as if they had been disfranchised altogether. The whole machinery of legal administration was in the hands of the prosecution; and a common bailiff, a subordinate part of the machinery, was made absolute dictator and autocrat of a jury. The honest safeguard known as "drawing" for a jury was not observed. The equal chance which the "drawing" of jurors from a list of disqualified voters gives to both sides was not given to the defendants. The jurors were not "drawn," but "summoned." They were summoned by a mere bailiff, man by man, at his own arbitrary will and pleasure. After he had strained and filtered the jury population of every man belonging to the same classes as the defendants, the prosecution was allowed to filter even his unfair selection by 120 peremptory challenges. Even of the twelve who tried the case, nine confessed themselves prejudiced against Socialists, Anarchists, and Communists, while some of them even admitted that they were prejudiced against the defendants. Yet this is the jury "whose province it was"

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Wherever the evidence is weak, false, contradictory, improbable, or impossible, redress is denied on the ground that it was "the province of the jury" to act upon it in their own way. The testimony is important if true, reasons the Supreme Court, unimportant if false; there is enough without it.

In that very dangerous way a jury manifestly unfriendly to the defendants is made sole critic of the evidence. It is in the appeal of the defendants that the jury itself was not "impartial," that it was a class jury, not fairly chosen from "the body of the county;" that care was taken, to select persons hostile to the accused even, from the classes drawn upon, and that the State was allowed a greater number of challenges than the law intended; a number which, whether legal or not, gave the prosecution an unfair advantage. Yet this jury is given absolute ownership of the evidence in the case, to use it at their own discretion for one side and against the other, even to the hanging of seven men. The Supreme Court abdicates its power to pass upon the character, quality, and sufficiency of evidence in the most important case ever tried in the State of Illinois. This in tiresome phraseology, repeated over and over again.

"The jury were warranted in believing that the bomb was made by Lingg;" "the jury were warranted in believing that the Haymarket meeting was not intended to be peaceable;" "the jury were warranted m believing that the bomb was thrown and the shots fired as a part of the execution of the conspiracy;" "it was for the jury to say whether the evidence for the defense was more worthy of belief;" "the jury had the right to look at it in the light of the principles advocated by the International organization;" "it was for the jury to say how far that fatal result may have been brought about through

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The State's Attorney, knowing that the Judge had made a mistake in ruling that the Court had no power to compel Otis Favor to appear and testify, deserted his friend and abandoned in the Supreme Court the erroneous ruling which he had taken advantage of in the Court below. He left it outside on the door-step, like an illegitimate waif, and substituted another reason for it. He said that it was a matter in the discretion of the Court and that—

The Court exercised the proper discretion in refusing to have anything to do with it, because no injury and no prejudice had resulted from the alleged conduct of said bailiff against any defendant.

He knew when he wrote that in his brief that the jury thus unfairly chosen by the bailiff had actually condemned seven men to death. A mere trifle, your honors, a mere trifle, from which no injury and no prejudice has resulted.

Still feeling insecure, the State's Attorney, with daring hardihood, confessed the accusation he was unable to deny. With a brazen effrontery that reminds us of the crown prosecutors of the olden time, he asserted that the bailiff acted well. Quoting the charge against Ryce, he said:

There is nothing objectionable in all this, if true, and it means simply that Ryce was endeavoring to summon intelligent and competent jurors, against whom no ground of objection and no cause of challenge could be laid. The statute says that he shall summon persons having the "qualifications of jurors," etc. Did counsel expect him to summon disqualified and incompetent jurors?

The boast of Ryce was that he was summoning such jurors as

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An opinion is prevalent in Illinois that Parsons was hanged for obstinacy; that he defied the commonwealth, and scorned to beg for his life, therefore the proud State strangled him in its rage. It is claimed that under the law the Governor could not reprieve him until he begged for mercy and a commutation of the sentence. This mistake has been petted by the newspapers in order to lighten the guilt of the November tragedy and transfer the sin of this man's death from the Governor to the victim. The excuse is false and ignominious. When the attorneys and friends of Parsons asked for his life, the law was complied with in the letter and the spirit.

A man may not lawfully commit suicide, neither can he make a present of his life to the State; and should he tender the gift, the commonwealth must not accept it. This is religion; and there is law for it also.

To hang Parsons and spare Fielden was illogical, and the reasons given for the anomaly change the execution of November 11 into a sacrifice, a punishment into a martyrdom. Judge Gary and Mr. Grinnell begged clemency for Fielden on the ground that the evidence did not justify the verdict and the sentence. The evidence that convicted Fielden convicted the others, and the argument for him applies to all.

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If Fielden is innocent of murder, why is he imprisoned in the penitentiary; and why was Parsons hanged? Truly, there must be guilt somewhere. The Supreme Court makes Parsons guilty on the ground that he was present at the Haymarket meeting and spoke. The Court acknowledged that he was in Cincinnati on Monday, and knew nothing at all about the pretended conspiracy claimed to have been formed that night. It was conceded that the speech of Parsons was moderate in tone; that he had his wife and children with him; that he left before the arrival of the police, did no pistol shooting, gave no signal, and was not present when the bomb was thrown.

But he was present at the meeting in company and association with Fielden, and thus adopted the "conspiracy" of Monday night, although he never knew a word about it. He was Fielden's accomplice, and for that he was hanged. After the acknowledgment made by Judge Gary and Mr. Grinnell, there is literally nothing left against either Fielden or Parsons. * * * Seditious writing and inflammatory speech are not murder, but capital punishment inflicted upon men for either offense is murder.

Had the Illinois rulings been good law in Jefferson's time he might have been hanged at any period in his active political career. He was an Anarchist. Not an amateur, speculative Anarchist, but a physical-force Anarchist, and an avowed enemy of Government. His biographers have tried to explain away the "no Government" theory of Jefferson, but that he cherished and advocated the theory cannot be denied. The following quotation is not from the Arbeiter-Zeitung nor the Alarm; it is from Jefferson's letter excusing the Massachusetts rebellion; not the rebellion against Great Britain, but the rebellion against the United States:

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. ***What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Did Fielden, Parsons, or Spies utter anything more sanguinary than that, or anything more Anarchical than this:

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I am convinced that those societies which live without Government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European Governments. Among the former public opinion is in the place of law, restraining morals as powerfully as law ever did anywhere. Societes exist in three forms:
1. Without Governments.
2. Under Governments wherein every one has a just influence.
3. Under Governments of force.
It is a problem not clear in my mind that the first condition is not the best.

The question is not whether those opinions were wise or foolish, wicked or charitable, but had Mr. Jefferson the right to express them? And having expressed them, could he have been hanged because riots followed them in which the "tree of liberty" was "refreshed with the blood" of some policeman or other agent of the Government?

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Part VIII.

Chapter I. — Reminiscences of Albert R. Parsons. — How as a Youth, he was Regarded in His Boyhood Home — An Expression From a Gentleman Who Knew Him in the Early Days — "When Death Comes He Will Face it Like a Thoroughbred" — A Picture of His Character Drawn By a Friend and Co-laborer of Later Years — A Brief Summary of His Part in the Haymarket Affair — His Easy Success in Eluding the Vigilant Detective Officials — His Sojourn at Waukesha — His Triumphant Return and Surrender in Open Court After Running the Gauntlet of Scores of Searching Detectives — "I Present Myself For Trial."

Taken from a Correspondence to the Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky., September 21, 1886.

In speaking of the career of Anarchist Parsons in Waco, a Memphis gentleman who was intimate with him there, says: "I knew him intimately when I lived in Waco in 1866. In fact, we have slept together more than once. He was a devilish good fellow, too, and I am sorry to know that he is in such a scrape."

"How was he regarded in Waco?"

"As a well-disposed, well-mannered young man, a little wild, as lots of us were in those days — in fact, as wild as a buck; but I never heard of his doing anything desperate. He moved in the best society the place afforded, and his pleasant ways made him welcome wherever he went. He was not at all reckless or quarrelsome, but

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I first met Albert R. Parsons in 1880, but for two or three years had few opportunities of becoming better acquainted. I first realized the natural power and vigor of his character at a mass-meeting of the Telegraphers' Union during their great strike in 1883. On the evening of August 3 he delivered a speech that stirred the large audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. His eloquent words put new strength and courage in the hearts of those who were struggling against a great monopoly for a chance to live, and started many a young thinker in the study of social and industrial science. It is to be regretted that this speech was not preserved; it was a most able arraignment of the present system, containing nothing which could be termed "incendiary," being full of logic and fair reasoning.

In the winter of 1883-4 I joined the American Group of the International, and for over two years missed no regular meetings held by that organization; most of these were attended by Mr. Parsons, and nearly always addressed by him. During this time he made frequent agitation trips, speaking wherever an opportunity occurred, and accepting every invitation his time and strength would permit of. He was at one time invited to present his views of Socialism to a society connected with Dr. Thomas' church; he there made a most remarkable speech, impressing his hearers in spite of themselves and astonishing the learned listeners that a "workingman" and a much-abused Socialist should speak to them so ably and so well. One who was not kindly disposed toward the speaker's theories, after hearing him on this occasion proposed in answer to John Swinton's published request for the coming orator,

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I was appointed by the Alarm Publishing Association as an assistant editor of the Alarm in January, 1885. I was associated with its able founder from that time until the appearance of the last number under his supervision, April 24, 1886.

Next to the last speech I heard from Mr. Parsons while free was in March, 1886, at 106 East Randolph street, on his return from his trip through the eastern coal mines. It was a clear, orderly, truthful array of facts, with conclusions most ably drawn and eloquently presented.

I saw him next on the 4th of May in the afternoon, at the Alarm office.

He had that morning returned from Cincinnati, and was inquiring about the meetings that were being arranged in the city. I went home with his wife and himself and took supper, and from there we, with their children, went to the Group meeting held in the alarm office. He was pleasant and talkative, giving us incidents of his journey, and speaking hopefully of the future of our cause. The story of that evening has often been told; how he, with Fielden

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But the little details and incidents of that eventful night are not so well known; some never will be. There were citizens lying dead with police bullets in their breasts, whose fate is still a mystery. There were men in the stations who were never heard of again, and much was endured that will probably never come to light. When the noise of the explosion broke on the air Mr. Parsons was standing near the window of Zepf's saloon looking out; Mrs. Parsons and I sat not far away. Fischer, with other comrades, was in the room. Parsons came up to us and said: "Don't be frightened! don't be frightened!"

"What is it?" I asked, as a perfect hailstorm of bullets rattled about our ears.

"I do not know; may be the Illinois regiments have brought up their Gatling gun."

Bullets whistled past us through the open door. Fugitives came running in, and every one started for a room in the back end of the building. Some one shut the door and for some time a number of us were shut up in total darkness, ignorant of what had happened or what our danger was. Presently the door was opened, and one after another we came out and stepped into the street. Everything seemed quiet; from where we stood no excitement could be noticed, no policemen were in sight. Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, and myself started up the Desplaines street viaduct to go home, and shortly afterward Thomas Brown joined us. I said to Mr. Parsons:

"I do not know what has happened, or whether there is any further danger, but we may be sure some kind of a conflict has occurred. Everybody knows you and they all know your influence. If any of our boys are in danger you are. Whatever has happened, leave the city for a few days at least. We can't spare you yet, and in the excited condition the people must be in we do not know what might happen to you."

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"I do not think I ought to go — do you?"

"Yes — go; there is no harm in going away for a few days until we see what is the matter and have time to collect our thoughts and determine what is best to do; you do not want to be taken unawares; be at a safe distance, and when you see you are needed come, as I know you always will."

Many other arguments I used to induce the brave, home-loving man to depart before he at last consented. He had not money enough with him to go far and Mr. Brown quickly tendered him $5. It was decided best for his wife not to accompany him, so there on the viaduct we separated, Brown going one way, Mrs. Parsons another, and we two toward the Northwestern depot.

Just before he turned away he said: "Kiss me, Lucy. We do not know when we will meet again," and there seemed a sad, almost prophetic, tone in his voice; so, hurriedly and with what unexpressed feelings none can ever know, their parting, the end of a long period of uninterrupted and happy companionship, took place. We walked to the depot, and I there purchased a ticket for Turner Junction, the nearest point to our home that he could reach that night. Mr. Parsons seemed very quiet, almost passive and indifferent, as though for the time being he was in other hands than his own. He said little, but asked me twice if I really thought it was best for him to go away. At the last he said: "You will be a good friend to my wife, will you not? I hope they will not suffer while I am gone — but I may be back soon." He made me take part of the money he had with him to his wife, and warmly shook my hand, standing on the platform as the train began to move.

Another hand will write of his experiences for the next few days; I will take up his story where he arrives in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

He arrived at the home of Daniel Hoan on the 10th of May. Mr. Hoan was a reader of the Alarm, had written to its editor, but had never met him. He is an earnest, whole-souled man, with some peculiar views of his own, which he very ably explains and defends; but without understanding precisely "what the Anarchists of Chicago Wanted, anyhow," his heart went out to them, and he was certain

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"When I heard his knock at the door I felt that some one out of the common was there. I went and opened it myself. ‘The dear little man’ stood there, looking at me with a smile, half sad, half merry. ‘Come in, and God bless you,’ I said. ‘The Lord sent you here — you've come to the right place.’ I knew who it was, and I knew it was all right. I took him to the shop, and we talked it over. I told him he would be as safe as a child of my own, and that the Lord would preserve him to do his work yet. We got out some old clothes, a big gray coat, and a wide-brimmed hat. Then I brought him in and introduced him to the family as ‘Mr. Jackson,’ and said he would stay and work for me awhile."

His hair and beard soon grew long, and, as Mr. Parsons was one of the neatest of dressers, arrayed thus he was well disguised. Some of the ladies of the village, on becoming somewhat acquainted, and noting his intelligent mind and interesting conversation (qualities that it was difficult to disguise), said, "What a nice man Mr. Jackson seems to be. What a pity he cannot dress better!" Another exclaimed: "But how neatly his shoes are always kept. He must have dressed well at some time in his life. Suppose we club together and buy him a nice coat, that old one is so shabby and big for him."

Little thinking how more than useless a well-fitting coat would have been to him, they actually talked up the project, which, but for subsequent events, might have been carried out.

"Mr. Jackson" assisted in Mr. Hoan's pump factory and did the carpenter work in the alteration of his dwelling house. The turret, porch, and lattice-work around them ornament the house today, and probably will remain until they fall away from decay, as a memento of the martyr's taste and handiwork. Whatever work Mr. Parsons undertook was well done, though he had previously known nothing of the technical details. He brought his keen, analytical mind to bear upon the processes of the work in hand and quickly solved them, were it a social problem or the forming of a complete steamer from a block of wood.

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They said he took great interest in his work. In trying different effects in the ornamental carpenter work he would climb down, step into the road in front of the house, and, with arms akimbo, exclaim, if satisfied: "Well, that's immense!"

Sometimes, when at work near the eaves, he would talk to the girls and children sitting on the porch beneath, telling stories of his boyhood days, scenes of slavery days, and sometimes giving vivid pictures of the lives of poverty and toil the people in the great cities endured, inculcating even there quiet lessons in the new economic philosophy. The girl who lived with them at the time said she always remembered one remark of "Mr. Jackson's"; it was new to her then, and impressed her deeply. It was that "men and women were always as good as their conditions allowed them to be."

Beautiful Waukesha, with its green hills and clear fountains, must forever be endeared to those who cherish the memory of our martyrs, for here the last free days of one, whose story we are, telling, were passed. One will always look on the winding paths, o'er-shadowed with trees, the rolling, velvety hills, the cozy nooks, the sheltered, sparkling springs with deepened interest, knowing that here and there his free feet pressed the earth and all around his eyes rested for the last time on the free, fair world. His favorite resort was a seat on Spence's hill, just above the Acme spring. From this point the whole village, nestled in softest foliage, with the low, misty hills beyond, is spread like a beautiful panorama before the eye. Above, the leafy branches wave in a slow, steady murmur, and the fresh, invigorating air sweeps through, breathing of health and strength and freedom as though slavery had no existence in the universe. Farther up the slope the trees grow thickly, like the depths of a forest, and beneath them spring up various species of ferns, grasses, and wild flowers.

Mr. Parsons every morning would hasten with that quick, springy tread of his, to the Acme spring, quaff its crystal waters, and on up through the trees for an hour's ramble. At breakfast he would come in, bright and animated, with his hands full of the ferns and flowers he loved so well. Toward evening he would go and recline on the rustic seat above mentioned, and, gazing dreamily on the lovely view

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One day, while at the desk writing, Annie, the girl before mentioned, came in quite suddenly and said:

"Say — they say you are Mr. Parsons — don't you think — "

Mr. Parsons never moved, but he said afterward he could feel his face grow cold and white.

"Is that so? Who says so?"

"Oh, a Mr. —, and Mr. —, and they say Mr. — told them."

In a few minutes Mr. Hoan came in. Parsons took him into the next room and said quickly: "I'll have to get out of this — right away too. They have it about town that I am Parsons. I am no longer safe here."

Hoan would sometimes use some religious swear-words who excited, and began to make vehement inquiries as to what had been said. When all was told that was known, he said:

"Just you keep quiet. I believe I can fix this all right yet. They know nothing yet — they are only surmising."

And so Mr. Parsons remained "quiet," while his honor and

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Some correspondence, after the first two weeks' absence, was accomplished between himself and his wife and the principal attorney, Capt. Black. Up to this time, I believe, but two persons in the world knew where Albert R. Parsons was, and they were Mr. Hoan and Mr. Holmes, of Geneva, Illinois. In his first letter he asked if they thought best he should return, and expressed his willingness to do so. A consultation of the attorneys and most interested comrades was called, in which opinions were about equally divided. Black, having faith in abstract justice, was for his return; Foster, from a professional standpoint, was against it. His wife could only say that he should do what he thought was wise and right. The result of the consultation was conveyed to him.

On the 19th of June, 1886, Mr. Parsons wrote a letter saying he would return; this letter Mr. Hoan himself conveyed to the city, and in a very adroit manner managed to make himself known to the right parties, consult with them, obtain their instructions, and depart for home without attracting the notice of a single one of the many detectives who were on the alert — "looking for Parsons."

Sunday morning it was decided that Mr. Parsons should start for Chicago that night. Through the day he was rather quiet, but pleasant and cheerful; and in the afternoon he proposed they should all make a last visit to Spence's hill. He sat on his favorite seat a long time in serious meditation, but finally began to talk cheerily with the others, and in a boyish mood lay at full length on the ground and rolled down the long hill. He climbed up, flushed and laughing, and lapsed no more into quiet reverie. The worst had been lived through. Afterward he said that when he wrote his name to the letter saying he would return, he felt that he was signing his death warrant. He had no hope in Courts; he was almost certain what his fate would be; he knew that he could be safe and free for years if he chose it. But his comrades were in peril; the cause he loved needed

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"I am going to take this gentleman to the train."

The officer peered curiously into the wagon.

"You seem to have come a good distance," and putting his hand on the horse's neck said:

"She's pretty warm!"

Mr. Parsons, to divert his attention, said laughingly: "It is not a ‘she,’ it is a ‘he.’"

The man laughed, and turned away; he had looked quite sharply at a basket in the wagon at their feet, which, contained Mr. Parsons' own clothes, as though he would like to explore its contents, but walked away, saying he "was looking for a man that had stolen something in the city."

The boy, wholly ignorant of whom he was carrying, said: "What was the officer looking for, I wonder. Did he think we had bombs in our basket?"

Another incident occurred when near home, which showed how near and yet how far the great Chicago police were to gaining their greatest desire. As the train neared Kinzie street, slowing up as usual at that point, Mr. Parsons thought best to alight there, rather than to go on to the depot. Morning was mistily dawning, and the great city lay in shrouded silence. He leaped from the train, which was gliding along at a swifter rate than he had calculated upon, and

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"Are yez hurt, now?" queried the servant of the law, feeling over him for broken bones.

"No, I thank ye," he answered awkwardly, as became the poor old farmer he looked to be, "only shaken up a bit, I'll be all right in a minit or two."

The policeman looked at the queer little man, with his half-grown iron-gray beard and long hair, his poorly fitting old clothes, big slouch-hat, and the market basket on his arm, and said: "What d'ye do thet fer, anyhow? Don't jump off any more trains when they're going loike that now. And d'ye know where yez be going?"

"Oh, yes; I've been there before, and only jumped off because 'twas nearer. I'll bid you good day, sir."

And the policeman allowed the little old farmer to walk away, never dreaming that he had put his hands on the much-wanted Parsons. Had he lost his presence of mind for a moment he might have been discovered. From this adventure he went on his way undisturbed until he reached the house of Mrs. Ames on Morgan street. The lady knew him at once, quickly drew him in, shut the door, and in the fullness of her heart and her joy that he was thus far safe from the hands of the detectives, she embraced, kissed, and cried over him, so she says, and as any good sister comrade would have done.

A brief and indirect note was sent to his wife. Though burning with impatience and anxiety, she sauntered carelessly along the streets until near the house, knowing that detectives were likely to be dogging every step; they missed it for once, as in a few minutes she was once more for a brief time united with her husband.

Swiftly and carefully the comrades worked that afternoon to complete the arrangements for his entrance into Court. At 2 o'clock Capt. Black was pacing impatiently up and down the front steps of the court-house; in a few minutes a hack drove swiftly up. A lady and two men alighted. Capt. Black shook hands silently but intensely with one of them, gave him his arm, and proceeded up the stairway. As they passed the first landing James Bonfield turned, looked after him, and said: "Who was that fellow with Black?"

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A reporter said:

"I believe it is Parsons."

"Not much," a detective near by exclaimed: "Say, we're looking for Parsons, and don't you forget it."

But Bonfield said: "I'll be d—d, if it ain't," and started after them.

Meanwhile Capt. Black and his strange companion, now neatly dressed, shaved, and barbered, were advancing slowly toward the Court. All eyes were fixed upon them in strained expectancy. Suddenly Grinnell, whose mean soul is incapable of appreciating a sublime act, sprang to his feet and cried out: "I see Albert Parsons in the room and demand his instant arrest."

But no officer made the arrest. Capt. Black in a dignified manner said: "This man is under my care and such a demand is an insult to me."

They stood before the Judge, whose ideas of justice were yet untried.

"I present myself for trial with my comrades, your Honor."

"You will take a seat with the prisoners, Mr. Parsons," and in a few minutes more the cry had gone down, had flown over the city, up into the press rooms, and away through the country, flashing over a thousand wires, that "Parsons had given himself up in Court!"

The sharp detectives — where were they?

He took his seat with his noble comrades, never to depart a free man. Voluntarily he gave up liberty for a cause he loved better than his life. That night the prison doors closed upon him never to open for him alive; the stone walls shut out the fair, free earth forever — and man repaid an act of unprecedented devotion with — death.
LIZZIE M. HOLMES.

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Chapter II. — Mr. Parsons at Geneva. — He is at the Residence of Mr. Holmes From Early Morning, on May 5, l886, Until the Afternoon of the Next Day — The Story of Those Two Days of Intense Excitement and Agonizing Uncertainty Graphically Told By Holmes — Believing That a General Massacre of All Socialists had Taken Place, Mr. Parsons Would Return to Chicago and Die with His Comrades — The Startling Rumors Which Gained Currency and Credence — His Unwavering Faith in the People and Confidence in the Ultimate Triumph of the Right.

Mrs. Lucy E. Parsons — Dear Comrade:
You ask me to write an account of the few memorable days during which I had the proud honor of offering the shelter of my home in Geneva, Illinois, to our dear comrade, your beloved husband. I am only too glad to enter upon this labor of love, and to pay my tribute of esteem to the worthy wife of such a grand man by narrating in detail the incidents of that exciting period.

The 5th of May, l886! Deep into my brain is burned the remembrance of that day. As I write every detail of every incident stands out prominently before me, and I seem to feel again the excitement, uncertainty, and apprehension of the time.

On the morning of the 4th of May we had received your urgent telegram requesting my wife's immediate presence in Chicago. We rightly conjectured that she was needed in the city to assist in organizing the working girls, particularly the cloak-makers. The excitement in Chicago, which had been increasing for several days, was then intense, and it was believed that advantage could be taken of the clubbing and shooting of workingmen at McCormick's reaper factory

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I arose late on the morning of the 5th, and, as was my usual custom, strolled leisurely down to the village to procure the morning paper, little dreaming of the startling sensation it would contain. Half an hour later I was sitting alone in my room, unconscious of aught save the exciting news I was devouring. My back was turned to the door, and I did not hear it open.

"Good morning! How do you do?" said a well-known voice in my ear.

Springing to my feet I caught the hand extended to me. For several moments we stood with our feet, our knees, almost our breasts, touching, and hands clasped in that strong embrace. For a long time we stood thus, our eyes riveted each upon the other's face. His look searched the recesses of my inmost soul; my gaze met his unflinchingly. At last I broke the silence.

"You are from Chicago?" I said.

He replied: "l am."

And then, our hands still tightly interlocked, he gave me a brief description of the fearful scenes and incidents of the previous night. Then he told me of his wonderful departure; how, accompanied by my wife, he walked to the depot of the Chicago & Northwestern railway, he taking the midnight train for Geneva; how he had left the train at Turner Junction and stayed at a hotel till morning, reaching Geneva about 9:30 o'clock on Wednesday morning.

We spent most of the forenoon in discussing the situation, and he gave me an account of the principal events which had transpired since the eight-hour agitation had reached its highest limit. Shortly after noon I went out to learn what I could of the situation in Chicago. All sorts of wild rumors were floating about. Some said the city had been set on fire and was already half consumed; others that the Anarchists had destroyed the City Hall, and in consequence a general massacre of all Socialists and their known sympathizers was in progress. I was met everywhere with scowling faces and looks of suspicion. Even those who had been the day before my warmest

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I hastened back and told Comrade Parsons what I had seen and heard. Meantime he had not been idle; but, as previously agreed between us, he had written a scorching editorial for the next number of the Alarm, denouncing in strong language the unprovoked and unlawful attack upon the Haymarket meeting by Bonfield and his uniformed ruffians. Neither of us at that time dreamed that the assistant editor of the Alarm (Mrs. Holmes), as well as the editors and compositors of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, had already been arrested, or that the Alarm had been entirely suppressed.

When I told him of the rumors in circulation in the village he became, for the first time, greatly excited. Never doubting, in the first moment, the authenticity of the rumors, his first impulse, very naturally, was to return to the city and die with his friends and his family. He did not doubt but that every Socialist in Chicago would be massacred, yet he hesitated not in making his choice — he would die with them. He soon, however, became calm again, and wisely determined to wait for the news of the next day. It was mutually agreed that if the morrow's tidings confirmed the current rumors, we would both immediately return to the city.

About 4 o'clock I again went to the telegraph office, and to other places where I could hear tidings from Chicago. The first man I met gravely informed me that he had just received a dispatch that a terrible conflict had taken place between the police and the workingmen; that over a score of dynamite bombs had been thrown, destroying much property and many lives. In the excitement of the moment I fully believed the report to be true, but by a great effort I succeeded in calming myself before reaching home, and told Comrade Parsons that there was no reliable news, carefully suppressing any mention of my informant's story. This I did because it seemed more reasonable to wait for reliable information, which would surely come by the newspapers and mails early the next morning. If the very worst should prove to be true, nothing would be lost by a few hours' delay, while the time spent in waiting could be profitably made use of in deciding upon a definite plan of action.

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I had a better opportunity that night to know our comrade than ever before. Like the true Revolutionist he was, he longed for the final conflict, and was ready to face any danger, to do any deed of daring, in order to strengthen the side of the right. He fully expected soon to fight and die for the cause he loved so dearly. He chafed and grew impatient at what seemed to him unnecessary delay. I fully believe, had I not used arguments and entreaties to dissuade him, that he would have hastened to Chicago that night. He already thought himself alone in the world. He never doubted for a moment that, if the occasion required it, his heroic wife would sacrifice her life in the struggle for economic liberty. He wanted to be on the field of action, and in the thickest of the fray.

As early as possible the next morning I procured copies of the city papers. There we learned the actual state of affairs; that Fielden, Spies, Fischer, Mrs. Holmes, and the entire working force of the Albeiter-Zeitung had been arrested, and that he (Parsons) was a hunted outlaw, against whom all the forces of Government and society were to be invoked. All our plans were, therefore, made for his immediate security. It was absolutely necessary that a safer retreat should be found, as it was only a matter of a short time — possibly of a few hours — when my house would be searched. He had already been seen, though not recognized, by one of the neighbors. Early in the morning, while working in my little garden patch, he had surprised me by boldly walking out of the house, and insisted upon helping me in my work. While thus engaged the occupant of the

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The evening papers gave us the information that detectives were already scouring the country in every direction in their search for Parsons. To delay longer was dangerous. Knowing that he had many friends in Kansas, I suggested his going there, disguised in the best manner possible. He had already shaved off his mustache, which altered his appearance amazingly. At length he declared his intention of going to Waukesha, and at once. He took off his collar and neck-scarf, tucked his pantaloons in his boots, and in other ways changed his appearance. At first he determined, if stopped, to sell his life dearly, but, after talking the matter over, decided it was better to go entirely unarmed. He entered my house trim, neat — a city gentleman; he left it looking like a respectable tramp.

I directed him how to proceed to Elgin, by way of St. Charles. At the former place he was to take train for his Wisconsin retreat. With hearts heavy with apprehension we watched him, as he walked carelessly along the dusty road, until he was out of sight. The next time I saw him he was behind prison bars, a martyr to his convictions of duty —a victim of those who knew neither mercy nor justice.

Yours fraternally,
WILLIAM HOLMES.

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Chapter III. — A Chapter of History. — An Analytical Student of Human Motives Tells Some Hitherto Unpublished Facts — Mr. Albert R. Parsons' Firmness in the Hour of Awful Temptation — He Scorned Life as the Price of Apostasy — The Influences Brought to Bear Upon Him to Secure His Recantation — The Appeal of the Citizins' Association Through Melville E. Stone — "That is Their Answer, They Shall Now Have Mine" — Dr. Aveling Listens to a Story With a Moral and an Application.

"If the State of Illinois can afford to hang an innocent man, I can afford to hang." — ALBERT R. PARSONS.

To have known Parsons was to love him. Some reminiscences of his later days may serve to bring out more clearly his sterling integrity and manly character. However much others may doubt the correctness of his views, none who knew him ever doubted his sincere earnestness and truthfulness. Short in stature, of slight physique and nervous temperament, even his friends did not realize the heroism which lay dormant in his breast. But when the occasion came to test his courage, to prove what manner of man he was, he rose to the height of manhood and coolly laughed death in the face rather than submit to a cowardly alternative.

After the verdict of the Supreme Court of Illinois, sustaining the sentence of death, I immediately returned from the East to Chicago. At my first interview with the prisoners Parsons asked me to try and ascertain the exact status, of affairs. He said friends were daily bringing in words of hope; that he realized the situation, and, knowing human nature, believed that, under similar circumstances, he might do the same thing. "But I want the cold facts; can you get them?"

I went to a friend who was in a position to know, and he got a gentleman who had business with Grinnell to incidentally ask what

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We knew that no matter how many petitions were presented, how many friends might intercede, the decision, as in all such cases, finally depended upon the signatures of the Judge and Prosecuting Attorney.

When I conveyed this information to Parsons his eyes glistened with that strange light so well known to his associates, and he replied:

"Ah! that is their answer. They shall now have mine."

Two days after appeared his letter to Gov. Oglesby, contemptuously refusing "mercy," and demanding liberty.

As the day of execution drew near the case of Parsons began to assume a more favorable appearance. His voluntary return, to court trial with his associates, and his fearless bearing, even aroused a feeling of sympathy. The Defence Committee and men of influence beseeched him to sign the paper which some of the others had consented to do. In my last interview with him he told me of the pressure brought to bear upon him to recant. He was a loving husband and a fond father. Probably no married life had ever been less clouded than his, for perfect felicity always reigned. He told me of promises made, and which seemed to be based upon good reasons. I

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"But Fischer and Engel say they will sign if I do; they leave the decision to me. Will they then die?"

I replied that for Lingg, Fischer, Engel, and Spies there was absolutely no hope; nothing could save them. He drew up his slight form, and, with a firmness which never after forsook him, replied:

"Then every night in Joliet upon retiring, and every morning on arising, I should be haunted with the thought that I had made cowards of them in vain. No; I shall die with them."

Two nights before his murder, when friends had been denied access, and even his beloved wife could not see him, one of the bailiffs came to his cell and said that Melville E. Stone, editor of the Daily News, desired to see him in the library. Mr. Parsons refused, saying that if Mr. Stone wished to see him he must come to his cell. Consequently, the great man of the press was ushered in behind the bars and took a seat before the cell door. Mr. Parsons still, refused conversation unless his visitor should come inside and sit with him. Stone complied. Then for three hours Stone, one of the principal members of the Citizens' Association, plead with Comrade Parsons to sign the retraction of his principles and live. With kindness, with sarcasm, with appeals to love for his wife and children — with all the arts he knew so well how to employ — he beseeched him to sign, guaranteeing life as reward. But Albert R. Parsons had already made the sign of obliteration over life and refused to sacrifice honor. At last, wearied with Stone's importunities, he arose, and, pointing his accusing finger at the great editor, said to him: "You, Mr. Stone, are responsible for my fate. No one has done more than you to compass the iniquity under which I stand here awaiting Friday's deliverance. I courted trial, knowing my innocence; your venomous attacks condemned us in advance. I shall die with less fear and less regret than you will feel in living, for my blood is upon your head. I am through! Go!" And the interview ended.

When Herr Liebknecht and Dr. Aveling were in Chicago they called at the County Jail to offer their distinguished sympathy to

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And this was the man the infamous conspiracy strangled and cowardly sprang the trap to choke off his dying words. Calm, unmoved, and fearless, the men whom so many had tried to humiliate, to dishonor, to apostatize, rose superior to their accusers and stepped upon the scaffold with a smile of pity for the hirelings who were selected to perform their brutal task. And among all names now so dear to working men, as having been borne by men who died in their cause, none will live and shine with greater lustre than that of Albert R. Parsons.

DYER D. LUM.

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Part IX.

Chapter I. — Echoes From His Prison Cell. — Letters Written From His Dungeon — The Verdict the Handwriting on the Wall — The Position of the Anarchists Defined — The Shadow of the Scaffold — Cheering Letters and Telegrams — Parsons' Religious Views — An Account of the Final Scenes Copied From the City Press — "Brave While Being Shrouded."

With this part is contained many of the letters and correspondence with friends, which gives the reader a clear insight into the thoughts and aspirations occupying the mind of a man sentenced to death, with the sun so far past the meridian of the nineteenth century, for opinion's sake, in what had hitherto been supposed to be the freest country in the world — a country the founders of which freely spilled their blood on battle-fields to secure to their descendants the right to freely think, speak, and act. And this in America! beneath the folds of the "stars and stripes" — that flag beneath whose protecting folds, when it floated on foreign seas, by foreign shores, every slave fleeing from despotism was supposed to find shelter! It was for this reason — and for this reason alone — that the star-spangled banner was first flung to the breeze. Yet, with this atrocious five-fold murder, America stands to-day in the vanguard as the most bloodthirsty of all the despotisms of so-called civilized Governments. She attempted to do the same thing that despots have done in the past and have failed — she erected a scaffold and attempted to murder thought.

That in this attempt she out-stripped even Russia is shown in a

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I am proud of our Government. Its beauty and power over all other Governments is demonstrated by the conviction of these Anarchist fiends. * * * Why, even Russia is left behind, for while she sends them to Siberian mines, or to the execution block, it is only as individuals. It was left for our glorious America to teach them all a lesson in how to exterminate this social vermin by chopping off its head, and thus kill the body of the movement.

Will our children be proud of "our" Government for this atrocity? Let us rather hope that the spirit of liberty and the detestation of privilege shall, have once more asserted itself on American soil, and that our children, instead of being "proud," will avert their faces in shame when they come to this page in history, written by the blood of the first martyrs who fell for opinion's sake in the battle for economic freedom.

COOK COUNTY BASTILE, CELL No. 29,
CHICAGO, August 20, 1886.
My Darling Wife:

Our verdict this morning cheers the hearts of tyrants throughout the world, and the result will be celebrated by King Capital in its drunken feast of flowing wine from Chicago to St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, our doom to death is the handwriting on the wall, foretelling the downfall of hate, malice, hypocrisy, judicial murder, oppression, and the domination of man over his fellow-man. The oppressed of earth are writhing in their legal chains. The giant Labor is awakening. The masses, aroused from their stupor, will snap their petty chains like reeds in the whirlwind.

We are all creatures of circumstance; we are what we have been made to be. This truth is becoming clearer day by day.

There was no evidence that any one of the eight doomed men knew of, or advised, or abetted the Haymarket tragedy. But what does that matter? The privileged class demands a victim, and we are offered a sacrifice to appease the hungry yells of an infuriated mob of millionaires, who will be contented with nothing less than our lives. Monopoly triumphs! Labor in chains ascends the scaffold for having dared to cry out for liberty and right!

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Well, my poor, dear wife, I, personally, feel sorry for you and the helpless little babes of our loins.

You I bequeath to the people, a woman of the people. I have one request to make of you: Commit no rash act to yourself when I am gone, but take up the great cause of Socialism where I am compelled to lay it down.

My children — well, their father had better die in the endeavor to secure their liberty and happiness than live contented in a society which condemns nine-tenths of its children to a life of wage-slavery and poverty. Bless them; I love them unspeakably, my poor helpless little ones.

Ah, wife, living or dead, we are as one. For you my affection is everlasting. For the people — humanity. I cry out again and again in the doomed victim's cell: Liberty — Justice — Equality.
ALBERT R. PARSONS.

COOK COUNTY BASTILE, CELL No. 29,
CHICAGO, August 12, 1886.
My Dear Friends at Waukesha:

Receiving no reply to my letter sent last Tuesday, I write again. I want to hear from you all. How are the children? Bless them. I know they are happy; how else could they be while surrounded by such generous, kind and honest people as you all are? Bless you. Ah, this Sabbath day my mind wanders back to the happy hours and pleasant scenes while with you in Waukesha. Do you remember that bright and sunny Sabbath morning of June last, when with songs and cheer we put out for a day at Pewaukee Lake? The trip, oh, that glorious ride over hill, through valley, amid winding dell, and across gurgling brooks and green fields; the singing birds, the shady groves, the air laden with nature's sweet breath, the perfume of wild roses, clover, cherry, apple, and many beautiful flowers in fragrant bloom lining the roadside all the way; and our hearts, yielding to the pure, the noble influences which nature inspires, gave response in merry laugh and joyous songs — oh, that blessed day! It is treasured in my memory as a bright oasis on life's dreary way. And I involuntarily ask, shall we ever see and feel them again? Perhaps not; very likely not.

Is my life at an end? Am I already buried and in my tomb? The law — man's law — has so decreed it. Nature — or God's law — revolts at the verdict. Which ought to —yea, which shall — prevail? I know not. But this I know: that millions of nature's noblest and best have their thoughts to-day with myself and loved comrades in prison and doomed to suffer unnatural death. Do not think that I am complaining, or that I am disheartened, or cast down. I am not; we are not. If we are called upon to die for Socialism, for liberty, fraternity, equality, for our oppressed and down-trodden fellow-men, we can

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do it calmly, quietly — yea, cheerfully. If the sacrifice is needed, then we make the offer. Can man do more for his fellow-men?

We eat, sleep, read, write, think; we — all of us — are cheerful, and bid our comrades everywhere stand for the right and falter not.

Kiss the little ones for papa and mamma. Love to all; bless you all.
A. R. PARSONS.

COOK COUNTY BASTILE, CELL No. 29,
CHICAGO, October 12, 1886.

My Dear Friends at Waukesha:
At the command of those in authority I and my comrades are to be put to death. The power by which they are enabled to murder us is given them by law — man's law — and is exercised in violation of their own law. They believe it necessary, in order to perpetuate their power and law — statute law — to violate both the constitution and the statute law. Liberty condemns all man-made laws, all authority, all rulership, all coercion or force.

Our crime — our only crime, our only offense — is that we declare, we defend the right of every human being to life and liberty. We seek the millennium of peace, of joy, of fraternal brotherhood. The penalty, or their punishment, is to put us to an ignominious death. Do we die in vain? We pay the price, but those who come after us will receive the reward of our efforts, viz.:

Liberty. Already the people — not the rulers, but the people — are greatly stirred. The day dawns!

The Court was filled with rich Christians, Board of Trade, railroad, real estate, and other millionaires.

In my defense to the Court and before the world, when explaining the working people's demonstration against the Board of Trade in Chicago last year, I read from the Bible which you sent me these words: When Christ "cast out all them that bought and sold"; also from Matthew xxi, 10-14, and St. Luke xi, 15-19. I quoted to the pulpits of Mammon where the pretended followers of Jesus cried: "Execute, execute!" I called these hypocrites' attention to the fact that we (the Anarchists) desired to neither buy nor sell anything whatsoever, while they (the capitalists) bought and sold everything — life, liberty, honor, everything. The hypocrites! If we MUST die, then we CAN.

Tell Miss Annie that the beautiful flowers she sent me, which had bloomed from the seed we planted around the porch last spring, are like the seeds of liberty which we now plant; they will blossom and fill with joy the hearts of our fellow-men. I kissed the precious flowers again and again, and watered them with my tears. Yours for Truth,
A. R. PARSONS.

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Chapter II. — Extracts From Mr. Parsons' "Appeal to the People of America."

Let the accused answer:

"Fellow Citizens: As all the world knows, I have been convicted and sentenced to die for the crime of murder; the most heinous offense that can be committed. Under the forms of law, two Courts, viz.: the Criminal and Supreme Courts of the State of Illinois, have sentenced me to death as an accessory before the fact, to the murder of Officer Degan on May 4, 1886. Nevertheless, I am innocent of the crime charged, and to a candid and unprejudiced world I submit the proof.

"The Supreme Court quotes articles from the Alarm, the paper edited by me, and from my speeches, running back three years before the Haymarket tragedy of May 4, 1886. Upon said articles and speeches the Court affirms the sentence of death as an accessory. The Court says: ‘The articles in the Alarm were most of them written by the defendant Parsons,’ and then proceeds to quote these articles.

"I refer to the record to prove that of all the articles quoted only one was shown to have been written by me. I, of course, wrote a great many articles for the Alarm, but the record will show that only one of the many quoted was written by me. And this article appeared in the Alarm December 6, 1884, one year and a half before the Haymarket meeting.

"Extracts from three speeches alleged to have been delivered by me more than one year prior to May 4, 1886, are given; two of these

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"But the honorable body, the Supreme Court of Illinois, has condemned me to death for speeches I never made and articles I never wrote. In the affirmation of the death sentence the Court has ‘guessed,’ ‘surmised,’ and ‘presumed’ that I said and did ‘so-and-so’ This the record fully proves. * * * Now I defy any one to show from the record that I wrote more than one of the many articles alleged to have been written by me. Yet the Supreme Court says I wrote and am responsible for all of them. Again, concerning the alleged speeches, they were reported by the Pinkerton detective, Johnson, who, as the record shows, was employed by Lyman J. Gage, Vice-President of the First National Bank, as agent of the Citizens' Association, composed of the millionaire employers of Chicago. I submit to a candid world if this hired spy would not make false reports to earn his blood money. Thus it is for speeches I did not make and articles I did not write I am sentenced to die, because the Court ‘assumes’ that these articles influenced some unknown and still unidentified person to throw the bomb that killed Degan. Is this law? Is this justice?"

"But," will inquire the reader, "didn't he belong to an armed organization which had for its objects the destruction of life and property?"

Hear Mr. Parsons again on this point:

The Court says:

"‘Among them (meaning the people at the Haymarket) were men who belonged to the International Rifles, an armed organization, in which he himself was an officer, and in which he had been drilling in preparation for the events then transpiring.’

"Now, I challenge the Supreme Court, or any other gentleman, to

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"I have been tried ostensibly for murder, but in reality for Anarchism. I have been proven guilty of being an Anarchist and condemned to die for that reason. The State's Attorney said in his statement before the Court and jury in the beginning of the trial: ‘THESE DEFENDANTS WERE PICKED OUT AND INDICTED BY THE GRAND JURY; THEY ARE NO MORE GUILTY THAN THE THOUSANDS WHO FOLLOW THEM. THEY ARE PICKED OUT BECAUSE THEY ARE LEADERS. CONVICT THEM AND OUR SOCIETY IS SAFE.’ And in their last appeal to the jury the prosecution said: ‘ANARCHY is ON TRIAL. HANG THESE EIGHT MEN AND SAVE OUR INSTITUTIONS. THESE ARE THE LEADERS; MAKE EXAMPLES OF THEM.’ This is a matter of record.

"My ancestors partook of all the hardships incident to the establishment of this Republic. They fought, bled, and some of them died that the declaration of independence might live and the American flag might wave in triumph over those who disclaim the divine right of kings to rule. Shall that flag now, after a century's triumph, trail in the mire of oppression, and protect the perpetration of outrages and oppressions that would put the older despotisms of Europe to shame?

"Knowing myself innocent of crime, I came forward and gave myself up for trial. I felt it was my duty to take my chances with the rest of my comrades. I sought a fair and impartial trial before a jury of my peers, and knew that before any fair-minded jury I could with but little difficulty be cleared. I preferred to be tried and take the chances of an acquittal to being hunted as a felon. Have I had a fair trial? * * * No, I am not guilty. I have not been proven guilty, I leave it to the people to decide from the record itself as to

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"‘Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains of slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may pursue, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.’

"ALBERT R. PARSONS.

"CHICAGO, ILL., September 21, 1887.
"Prison Cell No. 29."

These are extracts taken from Mr. Parsons' "Appeal to the People of America."

The appeal in full can be found in the book he wrote himself — "Anarchism." As also his letter to Oglesby regarding his case, under date of October 13, 1887.

Among the occupations of Mr. Parsons' idle moments he made two small steamers with his pocket-knife, one of which he sent to Justus H. Schwab, of New York, to be raffled for. In the box containing it was a piece of rope obtained from a deputy sheriff. The grim humor of the following note, accompanying the box, speaks for itself:

COOK COUNTY BASTILE, CELL NO. 29,
CHICAGO, September 21, 1887.
My Dear Comrade:

With this I express to you the tug boat which I cut and made with my pocket knife to while away the lonely hours in my cell. Also I send you a hangman's noose which is emblematic of our capitalistic, Christian civilization. The rope is official — the kind which it is proposed to strangle myself and comrades with. The knot was tied by myself, and is the regulation style. I give it to you as a memento of our time. Fraternally,
ALBERT R. PARSONS.

The boat was put up at raffle, and some doubts having arisen

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CHICAGO, November 3, 1887.
F. W. Sasse:
It was made in my cell by myself to be raffled for the benefit of my family, but I feel like presenting it to Comrade Schwab. Fraternally,
ALBERT R. PARSONS.

Address and Letter to Albert R. Parsons Jr. and Lulu Eda Parsons from their father, Albert R. Parsons.

Following are copies of the four dispatches received by Albert R. Parsons a short time before his execution:

NEW YORK, November 10, 1887.
Dear Albert: Another Gethsemane to-night. More than a legion of angels with pitying eyes survey the spectacle of man's inhumanity to man. Millions of hearts in Europe and America are now thrilling with sympathy for the men who died for humanity. I am proud of your sublimity, fortitude, and hereditary heroism.
YOUR BROTHER.

BOSTON, MASS., November 11, 1887.
Albert R. Parsons, Cook County Jail: Not good-bye, but hail brothers. From the gallow's trap the march will be taken up. I will listen for the beating of the drum. JOSEPHINE TILTON.

ST. Louis, Mo., November 11, 1887.
Albert R. Parsons, Prisoner: Glorious martyr, in the name of social progress bravely meet your fate. C. R. DAVIS.

SAN FRANCISCO, November 10, 1887.
Brave Parsons: Your name will live long after people will ask: "Who was Oglesby?" FOUR CITIZENS.

To the sender of the first telegram Parsons desired that his red silk handkerchief be sent.

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Up to 3 o'clock Parsons had not retired, but was talking to his guards, Bailiffs Hanks and Rooney. At 12:30 o'clock he sang in a low voice an Anarchist song named "Marching to Liberty," to the tune of the "Marseillaise," which he sang at several Anarchist meetings formerly. He also sang "Annie Laurie." Bailiff Hawkins suggested that he ought to try and get a little sleep. Parsons answered in a joking way:

"How can a fellow go to sleep with the music made by putting up the gallows?"

Albert R. Parsons yesterday sent the following letter to the Tribune:

COOK COUNTY BASTILE, CELL No. 29,
CHICAGO, November 3, 1887.
Editor of the Tribune:
In your issue of to-day on the "People's Page," and column headed "Voice of the People," a correspondent asks: "To settle a dispute please state what religion Anarchist Parsons has, or has he any religion?" To which you reply "No."

To settle a dispute concerning my religious belief, which will doubtless arise after my judicial assassination, when it will be beyond my power to speak, I desire to say to your inquirer, and to all others, that religion in the sense now understood and practiced by those who profess it is merely a blind faith of the honestly superstitious, or a cloak of designing knaves.

If there is a Supreme Being, or Almighty God, who rules the universe, the sphere as well as the actions of puny men, then why do these who profess allegiance to Him cast aside and violate His laws and impeach His integrity and insult His beneficency by erecting man-made governments and enacting man-made laws, and use the bloody weapons of war to prop up and maintain these man-made laws and Governments?

My religion — if it can be called such — is, viz.: Who so lives right dies right; there is but one God — Humanity. Any other kind of religion is a mockery, a delusion and a snare. Respectfully,
A. R. PARSONS.

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Chapter III. — Last Hours of Life.

The news of Governor Oglesby's refusal to commute the death sentence except as to Fielden and Schwab was received by all the prisoners with perfect composure.

The deputy sheriff who was with Parsons for three hours on the night of Nov. 10, undertook, when he was relieved at one o'clock A. M. to tell what the condemned man had said, but when he began to realize the enormity of the task, he cut his narrative short by saying:

"He was very cheerful and hopeful." Such was indeed the case. Parsons was never in better humor than he was that night. He seemed to forget entirely that he would have to die within twelve hours, so interested did he become in his own harangue to the death watch. He talked about socialism, about anarchy, the Haymarket, and his wife and children. It was not until he had reached this subject that he manifested any sorrow or regret, and the more he talked about it the more sorrowful he became. He said his wife was a brave woman, a true wife and a good mother.

During the early part of the night his rapt soul poured itself forth in song. He sang the old yet beautiful ballad: "Annie Laurie."

As the clear tenor voice rang through the gloomy corridors the other prisoners raised themselves on their elbows and listened. Doubtless to many the beautiful lines recalled tender memories of other days.

Early the morning of the 11th all the doomed men were awake. Parsons ate fried oysters and seemed to enjoy them. After breakfasting, he recited Marc Cook's beautiful poem, entitled "Waiting," with smiling features:

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Shortly afterward he said to Brainerd: "I am a Mason and have always tried to help my fellow-man all my life. I am going out of the world with a clear conscience. I die that others may live." He then gave Brainerd the Masonic grip and word to authenticate his statement.

Rev. Dr. Bolton was met by personal kindness, but with religious indifference. Parsons flattered the exhorter by listening to his proffered grace, mercy, and peace, but overturned the good impression when he answered: "Preachers are all Pharisees, and you know what Jesus Christ's opinion of the Pharisees was. He called them a generation of vipers and likened them to whited sepulchres. I don't desire to have anything to do with either."

When Dr. Bolton said farewell Parsons shook his hand and said: "Thank you," and added, "Don't forget, though, I didn't send for you." He referred to his wife as a "lion-hearted" woman, said his children would not feel his loss on account of their youth, and favored

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The moment his feet touched the scaffold. Parsons seemed to completely lose his identity and to feel that his spirit was no longer a part of his body. He stood like one transfigured. Only he — the one American — seemed to realize to the full that he must die in a manner to impress, if possible, on all future generations the thought that he was a martyr. No tragedian that has paced a stage in America ever made a more marvelous presentation of a self-chosen part, perfect in every detail. The upward turn of his eyes, his distant, far-away look and, above all the attitude of apparent complete resignation that every fold of the awkward shroud only served to make more distinct, was by far the most striking feature of the entire gallows picture.

CHICAGO, November 11, 1887, 9:10 a. m.
C. R. Matson, Sheriff Cook Co., Ill.:
I request you to deliver my dead body to my wife, Lucy E. Parsons, No. 785 Milwaukee avenue.
A. R. PARSONS.

The deputies who were with the four during the half-hour before the procession was formed were greatly impressed with their courage and fortitude.

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After reading the telegram sent from San Francisco and signed "Four Citizens," Parsons took a pencil from his pocket and indorsed it on the back, "A. R. Parsons, November 11, 1887," and handed it to Bailiff William B. Brainerd, saying: "I will make you a present of this as a relic."

A short time before the pinioning a deputy offered Parsons a glass of wine. He refused it, saying: "No, thanks. I would prefer a cup of coffee." A pot of coffee and a bowl of crackers were procured. He drank the coffee and ate a few of the crackers, afterwards thanking the deputy and exclaiming: "Now I feel all right. Let's finish the business."

During the reading of the death warrant his face was a study. His eyes were unnaturally brilliant, but whatever emotion he felt was firmly checked by the indomitable spirit which had hitherto sustained him. He toyed carelessly with his mustache and let his eyes rest easily upon the objects about him. As the men moved forward Parsons turned to the Jenkinses of the press, who were scrutinizing every action, and said sarcastically: "Won't you come inside?"

When the halter was placed about his neck he never faltered. He stood erect, looking earnestly yet reproachfully at the people before him. The nooses were quickly adjusted, the caps pulled down, and a hasty movement made for the traps. Then from beneath the hoods came these words:

Spies: "There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle to-day!"

Fischer: "Hurrah for anarchy — "

Engel: "Hurrah for anarchy!"

Fischer: "This is the happiest moment of my life!"

Parsons: "Will I be allowed to speak, O men of America? Let me speak, Sheriff Matson! Let the voice of the people be heard! O —" But the signal had been given, and the officers of the State performed their mission by strangling both speakers and speech.

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COOK COUNTY JAIL, Nov. 11, 1887. — My Dear Comrade Lum: Eight (8) o'clock A. M. The guard has just awakened me. I have washed face and drank cup of coffee. The doctor asked if I wanted stimulants. I said no. The dear "boys," Engel, Fischer and Spies, saluted me with firm voices.

Please see Sheriff Matson and take charge of my papers and letters. Among them find MS. letters from Gen. W. H. Parsons' book — return it to Norfolk, Va. Please have my book on "Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis" put into good shape, etc.

LATER. — Well, my dear old comrade, the fatal hour draws near Cćsar kept me awake till late at night with the noise (music) of hammer and saw, erecting his throne, my scaffold. Refinement! Civilization! Matson (sheriff) tells me he refused to agree to let Cćsar (State) secrete my body, and he has just got my wife's address from me to send her my remains. Magnanimous Cćsar! Alas, good-bye! Hail the social revolution! Salutations to all.
A. R. PARSONS.

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Chapter IV. — Arrest of Mrs. Parsons and Children.

Under the deep shadow of that awful tragedy, enacted on the eleventh day of November, many shameful deeds passed almost unnoticed; the gloom, so dense that the close of the century will scarcely see it lightened, veiled the blackness of injustices that would have appalled the hearts of the people if thrown up against the light of freedom in brighter days. Now, it is well that they be brought forth for investigation; the judgment of the people must be given on proceedings done in the name of "law and order," in this so-called free country.

It will be remembered that in the extras of Friday, Nov. 11, a casual notice of the arrest of Mrs. Parsons "for persistent disobedience of orders," and that of a lady friend for "haranguing the people" was given. The officers were reported as being "very courteous and gentle," and the ladies "were given arm-chairs in the registry office merely to keep them away from the crowd and prevent trouble."

This is the true story: On Thursday evening after Governor Oglesby's tardy decision had been given, Mrs. Parsons, accompanied by Mr. Holmes and myself, went to the jail to plead for a last sad interview. She was denied an entrance, but was told by the deputy-sheriff in charge that she would be admitted at half-past eight the following morning. At that time she, with her children and myself, was promptly as near to the gates as the police would permit. Every street for two blocks away leading towards the jail was crossed by a rope and guarded by a line of police armed with Winchester rifles. At the first corner Mrs. Parsons quietly made known her errand. The lieutenant said she could not go in there, but that she should pass on to the next corner, and the officer there would perhaps let her through.

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She did so with the same result. Another captain told her she must get an order from the sheriff; on inquiring where he could be found, she was told to go on to another corner where a message might be sent to him. At this corner no one knew anything about it and again we were sent on; and so, for more than an hour we were urged along in a veritable game of "Pussy wants a corner" that would have been ridiculous had it not been so tragical. Sometimes it was a deputy-sheriff who was to be found at a certain corner, sometimes it was the peculiarity of location that promised an entrance beyond the death-line; but it was always "not this corner but some other corner." Not once did an officer say, "You positively cannot see your husband. You are forbidden to enter his prison and bid him farewell," but always offered the inducement that if she passed quietly along, at some indefinite point she would be admitted. Meanwhile the precious moments were flying; sweet little Lulu's face was blue with cold, and her beautiful eyes were swimming with tears. Manly little Albert, too, was shivering in the raw atmosphere, as he patiently followed his grief-stricken mother from one warlike street to another.

Then Mrs. Parsons besought the officers only to take the children in for their father's last blessing and farewell; for one last interview that his memory might never be effaced from their young and impressible minds; one last look that the image of that noble father might dwell forever in their heart of hearts; one moment in which to listen to the last dear words that his loving and prophetic soul might dictate to the darling children left to live after, him. In vain. The one humble prayer the brave woman ever voiced to the authorities in power was denied her. They heeded her not except to hurry her along.

The last sad moments of her dear one's life were wasting so steadily, so relentlessly. Who can picture her agony? Who can wonder at her desperate protest against the "regulations of the law" which were killing her husband and forbidding her approach. She determinedly crossed the death line and told them "to kill her as they were murdering her husband." No, they were not so merciful. They dragged her around to a quieter corner, with the promise of "seeing

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Pleaded dumbly with soft, tearful eyes for their father. What was my crime? Faithfulness to a sorrowing sister.

Once when some one asked me if I could not "prevail on that woman to keep quiet and go home," I answered:

"I have no such influence over her and would not exert it if I had. Do you wonder that she is nearly distracted with grief at being driven from pillar to post like this, when in one short hour her husband will be dead? She has not seen him for five days, and now they deny her the sacred right of a last good-bye; why, the worst despotisms in Europe are not so bad as that."

At this a burly, brutal-looking detective in citizen's clothes said:

"See here, young woman! you shut up or we will send you off in the wagon!"

"Must I not even say this, much, in a free country?" I asked in surprise.

"No, you can't," he growled, with a fierce frown.

And this, I suppose, constituted "my harangue to the people on the streets."

And so, into the patrol we were hustled, a heart-broken wife and mother, two innocent tearful children, and the one friend near her. The "polite" officers did not perhaps go out of their way to be brutal or rough, but were about as "courteous" as so many wooden men moving about like machines. Far from being given arm chairs in a comfortable office, we were locked up in dark, dirty stone cells — Mrs. Parsons and her children in one, myself in another.

And there — shame be it to America that I have it to relate! there we were stripped to the skin and searched! even the children, crying with fright, were undressed and carefully searched.

No excuse could be offered that we were ignorant foreigners and did not understand the laws of the country, and that the safety of American institutions depended on our being totally unarmed; for the blood of revolutionary forefathers coursed in our veins, while the matron and officers who gave the order (if there be any merit in

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The woman ran her fingers through my hair, through the hems of my skirts, the gathers of my undergarments, even to my stockings; I asked her "what she expected to find."

"I don't know," she simpered, "this is my duty."

She clanged the doors behind her finally and we were left alone. We could hear each other's voices but could not see one another. And in those gloomy, underground cells we passed those terrible, anxious hours of Friday, Nov. 11, 1887.

God knows her lot would have been bitter enough in her own comfortable home, with loving, sympathizing friends at her side to support her in that awful time. But who dare dwell upon the reality — the picture of that devoted wife in such a place at such an hour?

At a few minutes past twelve the matron came and said coldly: "It is all over," and left us.

Not a soul came and asked the bereaved woman if they could help her to even a cup of cold water. And I, the one friend near her, could only sit shivering with my face pressed to the cruel iron bars, listening to her low, despairing moans, as helpless as herself.

Every friend who called to inquire after our whereabouts and welfare was sent away without any information and we were not told that anyone had been to see us.

Mr. Holmes came as early as he received word that we had been arrested, and was not only denied any information, but was roughly ordered away and threatened with arrest himself "if he hung around there."

At three o'clock Capt. Schaack came down and asked how long we had been there, hypocritically expressed sorrow that we had been locked up, and opened our prison doors. They had done their worst and Mrs. Parsons was permitted to go to her desolated home.

And thus it was that while organized authority was judicially murdering the husband and strangling "the voice of the people," the

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Chapter V. — Capt. Black's Eulogy at the Tomb.

Capt. Black ascended the platform where the mourning women stood. He motioned for silence, and said:
"If you will all be as quiet as possible many of you may be able to hear what may be said, although to make one's self heard by all this multitude, who have come hither to-day, the common people, to pay their tribute of love and affection, would be an impossibility. Let us keep silence while we are here together.

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"And what is truth? Not statements of lifeless dogma, not words here and there spoken, that echo through the corridors of time, but the life consecrated loyally to the conviction of duty, to the service of that which is apprehended as the highest, and noblest, and best; a life that is thrown into the service of humanity and not withheld even unto death — this is truth. Through eighteen centuries there has come down to us the answer of that lowly but glorious one of Nazareth, to the question: What is truth? in the words, I am the truth.

"No man knows the truth until it has entered into his being, until it has taken possession of him, until it has become the inspiration of his life and his crown in death. And these men, even their enemies being judges, have kept loyal to the conviction that entered into their lives and became the best part of themselves.

"Whatever their mistakes of judgment, their hearts were wrapped up in the cause of the common people, with that sublime infatuation of self-sacrifice which is the one thing that lifts our humanity up to heights where sits the Eternal Good.

"I am not here this afternoon, dear friends, to speak to you any special word concerning the cause for which these men lived, nor concerning the manner of their taking off; but to speak to you rather of themselves, to tell you their love for the cause which commanded their services, was sealed at last by their lives, not grudgingly, but given with unstinted measure for the sake of those they loved. You know, many of you, who have read the press, how grandly they passed out of this life that is seen into the perfect and glorious life that is beyond the reach of misjudgment, of resentment, or of pain.

"As the years go by, of whose record the story of their services will form a splendid part, they will come to be better known, to be loved, to be revered. I am not here to talk of their violent end as of an ignominious death. We are not beside the caskets of felons consigned to an inglorious tomb. We are here by the bodies of men who were sublime in their self-sacrifice, and for whom the gibbet assumed the glory of a cross. They moved to their appointed death slow-paced and strong — no faltering, no trembling, no turning back. Upon

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"To such men death had, and could have, no terrors, and their execution, which was self-immolation, could have no touch of shame. Whatever else may be said of these dead, it will not be denied that they were loyal and true to the convictions which had taken captive, years ago, their hearts, and to what they believed to be the welfare of the people, whom they loved.

"I must not keep you long, and yet there is one thing that I specially want to say, because doubtless in this great throng there stand many who misapprehended their position and their views. They were called Anarchists. They were painted and presented to the world as men loving violence, riot, and bloodshed for their own sake; as men full of an unextinguishable and causeless hatred against existing order. Nothing could be further from the truth. They were men who loved peace, men of gentle instincts, men of gracious tenderness of heart, loved by those who knew them, trusted by those who came to understand the loyalty and purity of their lives. And the Anarchy of which they spoke and taught — what was it, but an attempt to answer the question, ‘After the revolution, what?’ They believed — ah! I would that there were no grounds for this belief — that there was that of wrong and hardship in the existing order which pointed to conflict, because they believed that greed and selfishness would not surrender, of their own volition, unto righteousness. But their creed had to do with the to-morrow of the possible revolution, and the whole of their thought and their philosophy, as Anarchists,

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"I know that it is not practical now; but I know also that through the ages poets, philosophers, and Christians, under the inspiration of love and beneficence, have thought of the day to come when righteousness shall reign in the earth, and when sin and selfishness should come to an end. We look forward to that day, we hope for it, we wait for it; and with such a hope in our hearts can we not bring the judgment of charity to bear upon any mistakes of policy or action that may have been made by any of those who, acknowledging the sublime and glorious hope in their hearts, have rushed forward to meet it?

"We are not here this afternoon to weep, we are not here to mourn over our dead. We are here to pay, by our presence and our words, the tribute of our appreciation and the witness of our love. For I loved these men. I knew them not until I came to know them in the time of their sore travail and anguish. As months went by, and I found in the lives of these with whom I talked the witness of their love for the people, of their patience, gentleness, and courage, my heart was taken captive in their cause. If any of you feel that the tears are coming, listen to the last words spoken by one of these (Parsons), our dead, on that morning before their execution:

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"It has been said that these men knew no religion. I repel the charge. I know but one religion, the religion which seeks to manifest itself — its service of God or of the Supreme Good — by its service these, our dead, while within the very gloom of approaching death, gave us these words: ‘My religion is this, to live right; to do right is to live right, and the service of humanity is my worship of God.’

"I remember that back in the centuries it was written in words that shall never perish: ‘He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous,’

"There is no worthy conception possible to humanity of that which we call God, other than the conception which sets our life aflame in the service of our fellow-men.

"But I must not keep you. There is no need to multiply words in such a presence as this. There are times when silence is more terrible than speech. When men, moving to the supreme issue of life, can say, standing with one foot on earth and the other upon the shore of the unknown, in a sublime burst of enthusiasm: ‘This is the happiest moment of my life.’ When men, even in that hour, can cheer for the cause to which they have given their lives; when, forgetting themselves, they can speak of ‘the voice of the people,’ until utterance is silent forever. And what need is there, standing by the bodies of such men, to multiply words?

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"Yet let me read to you a poem handed to me on the train as I came hither, written by I know not whom, but by some one whose breast was full of love, and whose brain could catch the inspiration of such a death as was theirs in whose memory we are here. Give me your hearts as I read:

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Other speeches were made on this occasion by Robert Reitzel, of Detroit, Michigan, Paul Grottkau and T. J. Morgan.

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BOSTON, MASS., February 14, 1888.

My Dear Capt. Black:

I am very much obliged to you for your letter, and I am also thankful for the receipt of your argument to the jury in the case of Spieset al., or what will be known in the long history as the "Anarchist case."

Our pleasant acquaintance under the most unpleasant circumstances, the joint unsuccessful advocacy of life for men who were unlawfully convicted and unwisely executed, has given me an insight into your purpose and character, and will make our friendship a lasting one, at least on my side.

I had not believed it possible that palpable judicial murders could again prevail in this country. They once did, in what we have been accustomed to regard as the best and purest days of the colonies. It is less than two centuries since seven men of the highest standing, a majority of whom were reverend gentlemen, clergymen, as good and pious men as ever lived, as exemplary in every relation of life as it was possible for men to be, sat in a so-called Court of justice, each morning session whereof was opened with fervent prayer to the divine source of all knowledge, grace, and power, to direct the actions of his servants as the Judges of that Court; and in that Court were arraigned, day after day, poor, miserable, broken down, superstitious women and children, upon the accusation that they had commerce with the devil, and used his power as a means of inflicting torture, because thereof the devil had empowered these poor creatures to shoot common house pins from a distance into the flesh of their neighbors' children, by which they were greatly afflicted. Being put to the bar to be tried, they were not allowed counsel, and, thank God, our profession was not disgraced, because the Attorney-General was a merchant. The deluded creatures sometimes pleaded guilty, and sometimes not guilty, but in either event they were found guilty and

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And beyond all this that Court enforced, worse than the tortures of the Inquisition, dreadful wrongs upon a prisoner in order to accomplish his conviction. Giles Corey was an old man, 80 years of age. He had a daughter, some 40 years of age, simple-minded, not able to earn her own living, and a small farm, a piece of land and a house thereon, which he hoped to leave to his daughter at his then impending death. Giles was accused of being a wizard. His life had been blameless in everything except his supposed commerce with the devil. Upon ex parte testimony he was indicted for this too great intimacy with the evil one, and sent to the bar to be tried for his life.

Giles knew that if he pleaded not guilty he was sure to be convicted, because that was the doom of the Anarchists of that day; and if he pleaded guilty he would be sentenced to death, and in either case the farm would be forfeited to the King. But if he did not plead at all — such was the law — then he could not be tried at all, and his property could not be forfeited to the King and taken from his daughter. So Giles stood mute and put the Court at defiance.

And then that Court of pious clergymen resorted to a method to make him plead which had not been in practice in England for 200 years, and never here, and poor Giles was taken and laid on the ground by the side of the court-house, on his back, with the flashing sun burning in his eyes, and a single cup of water from the ditch of the jail, with a crust of bread, was given him every twenty-four hours, and weights were placed upon his body, until at last the life was crushed out of him, but not the father's love for his child. He died, but not until his parched tongue protruded from the old man's fevered mouth. It was thrust back by the Chief Justice with his cane. The cherished daughter inherited.

Being fully imbued with this knowledge of what good men will do when they are either frightened for their souls or their bodies, it has not been to me a source of so much wonder as it might otherwise have been, how the law was administered in frenzy in Chicago. Years hence, when you and I have passed away, the case of Giles

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I hope you will live to be present when one of the Judges before whom you argued will find it his duty to take a like step; but I fear that, while he has had the incredible folly of Judge Sewall in the treatment of his prisoners, he won't have the piety of Sewall in publicly appealing to his God for mercy, as an example against all others offending in a like manner.

A learned and upright Judge, writing the judicial history of witchcraft in this country, sums up as follows:

If the popular cry is to be the standard of what is right, the security of property is at an end, personal liberty is no longer safe, and the blood of the innocent will often seal the triumph of a popular administration of justice in the triumph of popular vengeance.

Some later writer on judicial proceedings, comparing the judicial murder of the witches with the trial of the Anarchists, will close by saying: "Alas! how surely, from age to age, doth history repeat herself."

One further fact, which I send to you for your comfort: The determined action of a single member of our profession, standing up against this witchcraft craze, brought it to an end. I look for like fruits to come from what you have done.

Renewing my assurance of kindest regard, I am, very truly, your friend and servant,

BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.

END.

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Appendix.

Autobiography of August Spies.

"— Barbarians, savages, illiterate, ignorant Anarchists from Central Europe, men who cannot comprehend the spirit of our free American institutions," of these I am one. My name is August Vincent Theodore Spies, (pronounced Spees). I was born within the ruins of the old robbers' castle Landeck, upon a high mountain's peak (Landeckerberg), Central Germany, December 10, '55. My father was a forester (a government administrator of a forest district); the forest house was a government building, and served — only in a different form — the same purposes the old castle had served several centuries before. The noble Knighthood of highway robbery, the traces of which were still discernible in the remnants of the old castle, had passed away to make room for more genteel and less dangerous forms of plunder and robbery, such as are carried on in the modern dwelling under the present government. But while the people from old custom designate this and similar ruins in the vicinity as "old Robber Castles," they speak with great deference of the present government buildings, in which they themselves are daily and hourly fleeced; they would even, I believe, fight for the maintenance of these lawful institutions.

How greatly these "Barbarians" differ from the intelligent American people! Tell the Americans to fight for the maintenance of our commercial robbing posts and fleecing institutions — tell them to fight for the protection of the lawful enterprises of our Board of Trade men, Merchant princes, Railroad kings, and Factory lords — would they do it? Deplorable as the fact must seem: — they would! even more readily, I fear, than those "barbarians from Central Europe." The American people in their vast majority are ignorant of the great truth that is embodied in these words of a celebrated philosopher and poet:

"What from your fathers came to you as an inheritance — You, must acquire it, if you would possess it!" —

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Viewed from a historic standpoint my birthplace is quite an interesting spot. And this is the only excuse I can offer for the selection of the place for said purpose. I admit I ought not have made the mistake, ought not have been born a foreigner. Probably, I might have avoided the fatal mistake had I prior to my entry upon the stage of life possessed the requisite power of divination. I might then have known that I was about to commit a monstrous crime — a crime, punishable by death 30 years hence in Chicago. I should then have known that the Christian God in his sublime wisdom had under a recent enactment arranged matters so, that all good people were now born in America under the protective tariff of the "United Monopolies" — But unaware and unconscious of the dangerous enterprise I was about to enter upon, "I popped up serenely" and unsuspectingly, as it were. I do not offer this as a mitigating circumstance, and find no fault with such wise and intelligent men as Mr. Grinnell and His jury, for hanging miscreants who have so little judgment in the selection of their birthplace. Society must protect itself against offenses of this kind.

But speaking of castle Landeck. Follow me there, reader, on a bright and clear day. We make our way up the old tower. Take care, or you will stumble over the debris. That? Oh, that is a piece of an old torture rack; we found it in one of the subterranean walks, together with several pieces of old ugly weapons, once used to maintain order among the victims — but why do you shudder? The policeman's outfit of to-day is not quite so blunt and barbaric, it is true, but it is as effective and serves the same purpose—. So, now, take my hand, I'll help you on top of the ruin. Look out for the bats. These winged lovers of darkness have great resemblance with kings, priests and masters in general; they dwell in the ruins of the "good old times," and become quite noisy when you disturb them or expose them to the light; adders, too, made this place their favorable habitation in former years and rendered it very dangerous for any one to place his sacrilegious foot upon this feudal monument; we killed them. They were the companions of the bats and owls; their fate has given the latter much uneasiness, and fears were entertained that something terrible would happen — that the ghosts of the old "noble knights" and "noble dames" would come back and avenge the ruthless annihilation of the venerable reptiles, but nothing of the kind has transpired. I need hardly add that the work of renovation was greatly impeded by these venomous creatures; since their extermination we have made remarkable progress —. You smile! Oh, no, I am not speaking of those other reptiles you think of. No, no! But here, we have reached the top. Great view, is it not? Over there, about thirty minutes' walk from here (west) you see another ruin like this; that is castle Dreieck, and over there, an equal distance (southwest), you see another one, Wildeck. And now look

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Many of the peasants were put-to an ignominous death. Some of them would persist in their folly that it could not be the object of society nor the intention of Providence to have a thousand good people kill themselves in a laborious life for the glory, enrichment and grandeur of a few ungrateful, vicious wretches. Such dangerous teachings were a menace to society, and their promulgators were unceremoniously stamped out.

Not more than 200 feet from where we stand there is a perpendicular hole (chasm) of volcanic origin; it is about 8 feet in length and 3 feet in breadth; its depth has never been ascertained. The saying goes that scores of girls were cast into this terrible abyss by the valiant Knights during their reign of peace and good order! It is said that these benevolent "respectables" of ancient times kidnapped the pretty girls of the villages, carried them like birds of prey to their lofty abodes, and then when they got tired of them, or found something better, disposed of them in this way.

Oh, I see, you shake your head incredulously! Have you never seen the dumping grounds of the modern Knighthood in our large cities — a similar abyss? No? It is more frightful than the one I have told you about; its name is prostitution.

You don't believe the people would have borne all these outrages —? My friend, your rebellious spirit carries you away. The "orderly and good" people suffered these atrocities just as silently as our "law and order abiding workingmen" abide them to-day. I told you what happened to those who showed resistance!

My words make you sad, turn you pessimistic? Let me show you something else. Look through between these two mounts; can you see a tower in the dim distance — yes? At the side of this tower are yet to be seen the ruins

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These two ruins, once sacred as the pedestals of social order, are prophetic monuments. Man will so stand upon the ruins of the present order and will say as you say now — "was it possible —!"

But now turn around — along this mountain chain, northeast, there, where the earth dips mistily into the horizon, the periphery of our view — do you see yonder gray spot, it looks like a small cloud? Yes? That's the Wartburg, you have heard of the Wartburg. It was here, where Dr. Martinus Luther lived and worked, an instrument of the revolutionary forces; the revolutionary forces, my friend, that gradually had developed in these villages.

It is our custom to attribute great movements to single individuals, as being their merit. This is always wrong, and it was so with Luther. The Germanic race could not digest the Byzantinian philosophy, as embodied in the Judaic and Christian teachings. The idea that this world was calculated to be simply a purgatory and our life a martyrdom was repulsive to the common sense of the merry Germans, and what made it still more repulsive to them was; that servitude and despotism were growing from the seed of the new religion and developing, where once had been the habitation of liberty; developing at such a rate, that patience ceased to be a virtue. The rebellious spirit of the people, their animosity to the doctrine of self-abnegation, imposed upon them by the church, had been successfully calmed and suppressed by the priests for several centuries. But as the iniquities of the "nobility" and the domestic burdens of the people grew unbearable, this spirit burst out in flames and in Luther found a crystallization point. From the Wartburg then the mighty wave of the reformation rolled forth. It was the Occident struggling

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Of course, the people were conspirators and incendiaries. Hear what Thomas Muenzer said: "Look you, the sediment of the soup of usury, theft and robbery are the Great, the masters; they take all creatures as their property — the fish in the water, the birds in the air, and the vegetation of the earth. And then they preach God's commandment to the poor: ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ But this is not for themselves. They bone and scrape the poor farmer and mechanic until these have nothing left; then, when the latter put their hands on the sacred things, they are hanged. And Doctor Liar says Amen! The masters do it themselves, that the poor man hates them. The cause of the rebellion they won't abolish, how then can things change to the better. As I say this, I am an incendiary — let it be so!"

No, these words were not spoken in Judge Gary's court! You make a mistake, reader, the language is not modern, it's 400 years old — . And the man who used it was in the right. He interpreted the Gospel, saying that it did not merely promise blessings in heaven, but that it also commanded the equality and brotherhood among men on earth. The champions of law and order and Christendom chopped his head off.

The rebels were victorious at first, but against the united vassals of their oppressors they could not stand. At the foot of this mount they were defeated, down there, where you see that big rock, surrounded by magnificent oaks, the battle for freedom was fought and, alas, lost —. No, it was not lost, it was merely interceded by a temporary victory of the enemy.

The spirit of the Reformation was the "eternal spirit of the chainless

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These ruins still bear evidence of its tremendous force! The most momentous thing accomplished by this rebellious and lawless spirit, however, was the opening of the new world. The reformation gave birth to the young giant, America; it gave England a Cromwell and France a Richelieu, Its fermenting forces drove the Huguenots from France and the Puritans from England. But for the reformation and the persecution of its adherents, these early settlers of the western hemisphere would have remained in France and England as good and law-abiding citizens. As dangerous elements, society had to protect itself against them, and they fled over the Atlantic rather than to suffer martyrdom at home for their "advanced ideas."

The reformation, my friends, which started right here, in the country where four centuries later the "Barbarian Anarchists" come from, "who cannot comprehend the spirit of the American institutions" etc. — broke down the feudal barriers which impeded human progress. It was asserted in a thirty years' war, a war which laid the continent desolate, that the exercise of free thought and opinion and that scientific investigation should no longer be suppressed because they conflicted with religious superstition and dogma generally believed in and sanctified by custom. The "good and law-abiding" people were fanatically opposed to those in favor of the imperative change, and oceans of blood had to be shed in consequence. The ruins you see here wherever you turn your eyes bear witness of the terrible war that has not yet ended — the war for human emancipation and freedom: economic, political and religious. Every one of these ruins is a milestone on the path of social progress. At our feet lies the historic chaussee upon which Napoleon's victorious armies, much against the intention of the grand empereur, carried the seed of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" to the far east, and there opened a new perspective to the purblind eyes of the oppressed and down-trodden millions of our race. Aye, even now that seed is bringing forth good fruit. Russian dungeons, gibbets and Siberia bear witness.

Now friends, before we retire from this retrospective view, look once wore in the mirror of the past 1,000 years, observe closely the traces that lead from yonder chapel to this castle, from here to the Wartburg, from the Wartburg to the battlefield below here and to these ruins, and then follow them to England, France and America; follow them up to this day and tell me if you do not see the contours of the future reflected —. You do!

I have dwelt at great length in describing my (barbarian) birthplace but in so doing I have traversed in a general way over the history of 1,000 years. The present status of society is but the result of the struggle of human kind during this and preceding periods — yes, struggle! "You cannot reform

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My years of childhood were pleasant. I played and studied — how different from the childhood of the offsprings of the average workingman in this "glorious, civilized and — according to Grinnell — enlightened country." The children of the proletaire have no youth; the spring of life has no sunshine, no blossoms, no flowers for them! If there is a discernible object in their existence it is that of serving to make life happy and pleasant for those who tread upon them.

In my native land children must attend school daily from the age of 6 to that of 14; every child in that "Barbarian country" is thus compelled to attend school for 8 years, and cannot therefore be "utilized and made to pay" by either their parents or factory lords.

In this enlightened country the children of the wage-workers do not attend school in the average more than two years; they learn just enough to serve as a piece of organic machinery, and as such they are "let out" to benevolent and Christian employers in their tenderest years. Their vitality, which is needed for their own bodily and intellectual development, is in such wise tapped from the innocents and turned into gold for our "law and order" loving, respectable citizens. They die from consumption before they attain their maturity, or resort to whisky, thinking thereby to restore their lost vigor. If they escape early destruction, their life is generally terminated in one of those charitable or reformatory institutes known as the insane asylum, the penitentiary, or poorhouse.

But woe to the wretch who condemns this order of things! He is an "enemy of civilization," and "society must protect itself against such criminals." — There comes the star-spangled Mephisto, Bonfield, with his noble guards of "Liberty"; there comes the savior of the State, Grinnell, with the visage of a Sicilian brigand; there comes the hireling juror, and there comes the vast horde of social vultures: Unisono is the anathema! Unisono is the cry — "To the gallows!"

"Society" is saved, and "Liberty and order" — of the policeman's club — triumph! Selah!

I do not intend to say that the condition of the wage-workers in Germany is better than in this country, but I will say that I never saw there such real suffering from want as I have seen in this country. And there is more protection for women and children in Germany than here.

I was educated for a career in the government service (forest branch). As a child I had private tutors, and later visited the Polyfechnicum in Cassel. At the age of seventeen my father died suddenly, leaving a large family in

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When I arrived in this country I knew nothing of Socialism, except what I had seen in the newspapers, the "public teachers" (?) and from what I'd read I concluded that the Socialists were a lot of ignorant and lazy vagabonds "who wanted to divide up everything," Having come but very little in contact with people who earned their living by honest labor in the old country; I was amazed and was shocked when I became acquainted with the condition of the wage-workers in the new world.

The factory with its ignominous regulations: the surveillance, the spy system, then the servility and lack of manhood among the workers and the arrogant arbitrary behavior of the boss and his mamelukes — all this made an impression upon me that I have never been able to divest myself of. At first I could not understand why the workers, among them many old men with bent backs, silently and without a sign of protest bore every insult the caprice of the foreman or boss would heap upon them. I was not then aware of the fact that the opportunity to work was a privilege, a favor, and that it was in the power of those who were in the possession of the factories and instruments of labor to deny or grant this privilege. I did not then understand how difficult it was to find a purchaser for one's labor. I did not know then that there were thousands and thousands of idle human bodies in the market, ready to hire out upon most any conditions, actually begging for employment. I became conscious of this very soon, however, and I knew then why these people were so servile, why they suffered the humiliating dictates and capricious whims of their employers. Personally I had no great difficulty in "getting along." I had so many advantages over my co-workers. I would most likely have succeeded in becoming a respectable business man myself, if I had been possessed of that unscrupulous egotism which characterizes the successful business man, and if my aspirations had been that of the avaricious hamster (the latter belongs to the family of rats, and his "pursuit in life" is to steal and accumulate; in some of their depositories the contents of whole graneries have often been found; their greatest delight seems to be possession, for they

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My philosophy has always been that the object of life can consist in the enjoyment of life only, and that the rational application of this principle is true morality.

I held that asceticism, as taught by the Church, was a crime against nature.

Now observing that the vast mass of the people were wasting their lives in drudgery, accompanied with want and misery, it was but natural for me to inquire into the causes. (I had up to that time never read a book, or even an impartial essay on Modern Socialism.) Was this self-abnegation, this self-crucifixion of the people voluntary, or was it forced upon them; and if so, by whom?

About this time, while looking over my books in search of something, my attention was attracted by this passage from Aristotle: "When, at some future age, every tool upon command, or by predestination, will perform its work as the art works of Daedalus did, who moved by themselves, or like the feet of Hephaestos, who went to their sacred work spontaneously, when thus the weaver shuttles will weave by themselves, then we will no longer require masters and slaves."

Had this time, long ago anticipated by the great thinker, not come? Yes, it had. There were the machines. But master and slave still existed. The question arose in my mind, is their existence still necessary?

Antiporas, a Greek poet, who lived at the time of Cicero, had in like manner greeted the inventions of the water-mill (water power) as the emancipator of male and female slaves. "Oh, these heathens!" writes Karl Marx, after quoting the above; "they knew nothing of Political Economy and Christendom! They failed to conceive how nicely the machines could be employed to lengthen the hours of toil and to intensify the burdens of the slaves. They (the heathens) excused the slavery of one on the ground that it would afford the opportunity of human development to another. But to preach the slavery of the masses in order that a few rude and arrogant parvenus might become ‘eminent spinners,’ ‘extensive sausage-makers’ and ‘influential shoe black dealers’ — to do this they lacked that specific Christian organ."

I think it was in 1875, at the time the "Workingmen's Party of Illinois" was organized, when, upon the invitation of a friend, I visited the first meeting in which a lecture on Socialism was delivered. Viewed from a rhetorical standpoint this lecture, delivered by a young mechanic, was not very impressive, but the substance — . I will simply say that this lecture gave me the passepartout to the many interrogation marks which had worried me for a number of years. I procured every piece of literature I could get on the subject; whether it ^as adverse or friendly to Socialism made no difference. In the beginning I

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But nothing could discourage me. The study of French, German and English economist and social scientists soon made me view things differently than I had seen them in my first enthusiasm. Buckles' "History of Civilization," Karl Marx's "Kapital," and Morgan's "Ancient Society" have probably had the greatest influence over me of any. I now became an attentive observer of the various social phenomena myself. The last ten years have been very favorable for such investigation as I sought. I found my favorite teachers corroborated everywhere.

I think it was in 1877 when I first became a member of the Socialistic Labor Party. The events of that year, the brute force with which the whining and confiding wage-slaves were met on all sides, impressed upon me the necessity of like resistance. The latter required organization. Shortly afterwards I joined the "Lehr und Wehr Verein," an armed organization of the workingmen, numbering about 1,500 well drilled members. As soon as our patricians saw that the canaille was arming for defense to repel such scandalous attacks in the future as had been made upon them in 1877, they at once commanded their law agents in Springfield to prohibit workingmen from bearing arms. The command was obeyed.

The workingmen also went into politics, independent politics. I served as a nominal candidate myself several times, but when the noble patricians and the political augurs saw that they (the workingmen) were successful in electing a number of their candidates, a conspiracy was organized to disfranchise them by fraudulent count and like methods. The workingmen thereupon left the ballot with disgust.

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Autobiography of Adolph Fischer.

On the banks of the Weser, in Germany, about seven miles above where its waters lose themselves in the North Sea, lies the old city, Bremen. In the middle ages Bremen was one of the free cities which formed the Hanseatonic Union — a combination famous because of its constant wars against the freebooters and for its wealth and power. These cities monopolized the trade of the world in those days. Bremen is still one of the most important commercial centers of the European continent, and has to-day a population of about 140,000. This is the place of my birth. It will be of little interest to the reader were I to extensively describe the history of my childhood. It is the same as that of the average child. Therefore I may only state that I attended school eight years and a half and that I sailed for the United States when a lad of fifteen years. Soon after my arrival on these shores I entered apprenticeship as compositor in the printing office of my brother, William B. Fischer, at Little Rock, Ark., at which place he published a weekly German journal. Since the termination of my apprenticeship I have been working at my trade in different cities of this country. In June, 1883, destiny landed me in Chicago, where I have resided with my family since, occupying a situation as compositor in the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung until my arrest on the 5th day of May for alleged participation in the Haymarket affair. I am a member of the German Typographical Union, which organization I joined in 1879 in St. Louis, Mo. At the latter place, in 1881, I also entered into a matrimonial engagement, the result being three children — one girl and two boys — who are with my wife in this city.

Being familiar with the doctrines of Socialism from my earliest youth, I have held it my duty to spread these principles so dear to me, whenever and wherever I could. What induced me to become a Socialist, you may ask? I will relate in a few words.

It happened during the last of my school days that our tutor of historical science one day chanced to refer to Socialism, which was at that time beginning to flourish in Germany, saying it meant "division of property." I am inclined now to believe that it was a general instruction given by the Government to the patriotic pedagogues to periodically describe Socialism to their elder pupils as a most horrible thing. It is a customary policy on the part of the respective monarchial Governments of the Old World to prejudice

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"Dear Adolph," he said, "if Socialism is what your teacher explained it to be why the very institutions which prevail now would be Socialistic." And my father went on to show me how, in fact, there are so many idlers and indolent people under the existing form of society who were residing in palatial houses and living luxuriously at the expense of sober and industrious working people, and that Socialism had a mission to abolish such unjust division. After this day I accompanied my father to Socialist gatherings, and soon became convinced of the truth of what he had said. I began to study. Wandering about the streets, I often saw groups of hardfisted men working in quarries and other places of toil and handling heavy picks and clumsy shovels from early morning until late at night. I would notice standing a little aside an elegantly dressed individual smoking a Havana, and seemingly interested in the work of the toilers. The hands of the idler were covered with kid gloves; in the bosom of his snow-white shirt glittered a diamond, and from his vest dangled a valuable gold watch chain. You can guess who this gentleman was — the "employer." The busy toilers, notwithstanding

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But now after coming to this conclusion, I wondered whether the workingmen were conscious of their real situation. I found that the overwhelming majority were not. Instead of hating those who enslaved them, they looked upon their masters as their benefactors. I remember visiting a cousin of mine one Sunday, who worked in a gigantic sugar refinery together with thousands of other men and women, the owner of said factory being a well-known millionaire. My cousin could not help at every occasion speaking in high terms of his "benefactor," as he styled his employer. On this day he specially endeavored to make the generosity of his employer plain to me. "Why," my enthusiastic cousin explained, "besides employing so many people who would otherwise starve, he donates annually an enormous sum of money

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ADOLPH FISCHER.

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Autobiography of George Engel.

I was born the 15th of April, 1836, in the city of Casel, Germany, at that the capital of Kurhessen. My father, Conrad Engel, a mason and brick-layer, died when I was eighteen months old, and left my mother, a very poor widow, with four little children. When I was twelve years old my mother died and left me to the mercies of the cruel world. Two of my brothers were taken to an orphan asylum, I and another child were given to two poor families that took care of us for 20 thalers ($15) a year. I already knew what hunger meant; then I learned what starvation was. When I was fourteen the city quit paying for my sustenance and I was told that it was time for me to learn a trade. And so it was. In Germany a common school education is compulsory and every child must go to school twelve months in the year, excepting the usual vacations, from the age of seven to fourteen. At fourteen the boy begins to learn a trade and goes to the Sunday school. There he is further educated in reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, etc. Nobody caring for me, I went around and at last found a shoemaker who was willing to teach me the mysteries of shoemaking in four years if somebody would furnish me with clothing and washing during that time. Nobody was inclined to do me that favor, and having been apprenticed for two weeks, the shoemaker turned me into the street. For some time I searched in vain for a master, and then gave it up. In Germany to a great extent, even to this day, an apprentice must pay to his master a certain sum for learning a trade, so it is difficult for a poor boy to get apprenticed at all. I had lost all hope when I heard that certain of my schoolmates had emigrated to America. I heard a good deal of the United States, which left on my mind the impression that there was a better chance for me in that country. But before I could leave I must earn some money, and I therefore went to Frankfort-on-the-Main to try my luck after having failed in Cassel. As I had no money I traveled on foot. Tired and footsore after several days, I reached Frankfort, and wandered in the streets of the city during the day, not knowing what to do. Night came and hunger and cold drove me into a saloon. I asked the saloonkeeper for something to eat, saying I would work for it. He arose and angrily told me to get out. A citizen in the room pitied me, for I was only fourteen, and offered to learn the trade of painting, if I was willing to go with him. Very thankful and glad, I said yes. I went with him after

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The newspapers in Bremen had much to say about the oppression of the inhabitants of Schleswig-Holstein by Denmark. A movement was going on to free these German brothers from the yoke of the Danish king, as it was put I considered the struggle of my countrymen something great and joined a regiment of volunteers. We were drilled and marched to Altona in Schleswig-Holstein. But when the regular militia of Prussia and Austria came there our regiment dissolved. The war between the German federation and Denmark then broke out. The German brothers were freed from the Danish, only to come under the Prussian yoke.

I worked in many different cities. The years 1868 found me in Retina, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, where I married. There I started a business for myself. The development of the factory system in Germany swept most of the small manufacturers out of existence. The struggle for life increased and it became harder to make a decent living. My intention to emigrate to America, which I had when a boy, came back to me. To make it short, the 8th day of January, 1873, found me in Philadelphia. I took work in a sugar refinery, and in May worked again as a painter. In this city, for the first time in my life, I heard something about serious labor troubles. The militia marched along the streets, coming from the coal mines, where they had "subjugated" some troublesome, starving miners. I watched them, when a bystander says: "These scoundrels ought to be hung on the spot." The remark surprised me, for at that time, being an "ignorant foreigner," I sang the praises of this "free and glorious country." Scornfully looking at the man, I asked the reason of his unpatriotic remark. He gave me his reasons; having been a manufacturer myself, though on a small scale, and knowing nothing of the labor question. I could not comprehend him; in answer I reiterated the well-known trash of the capitalist newspaper. It is true, I earned what was called good wages by ten hours' daily work and laid by a little money for a rainy day. Well, the rainy day came soon enough; I became sick and my eyes suffered. Doctors and medicine were dear; my family had to be supported and my savings were soon gone. For a year we had a very hard time and then I began to get well and able to work again. As soon as I earned money enough I came to Chicago, and here I learned something of Socialism for the first time in my life. In the year 1874 I worked in Tembruth's wagon factory. There I got acquainted with a Socialist. One day he showed me a paper, Der Vorbote,

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On May 2 and 3, 1886, I was present at meetings in which it was proposed to give aid to any strikers if the police or Pinkertons should attack them. On the evening of May 4 I was at home playing cards, when Waller entered and told us of the tragedy on the Haymarket. I told him to go home, and very soon after went to bed myself.

And now a few words as to the bomb-throwing. It is my belief to-day that if the bomb had not been thrown by the unknown, at least 300 working

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Speech of Louis Lingg.

Louis Lingg was born in Germany; was a carpenter by trade, and worked steadily at his trade after coming to America; was never arrested before the Haymarket trouble. He was only 22 years old at the time of his death.

Following are extracts from his speech in remonstrance to the death sentence:

COURT OF JUSTICE! With the same irony with which you have regarded my efforts to win in this "free land of America" a livelihood such as humankind is worthy to enjoy, do you now, after condemning me to death, concede me the liberty of making a final speech.

I accept your concession; but it is only for the purpose of exposing the injustice, the calumnies and the outrages which have been heaped upon me.

You have accused me of murder and convicted me; what proof have you brought that I am guilty?

It is not murder, however, of which you have convicted me. The judge has stated that much only this morning in his resume of the case, and Grinnell has repeatedly asserted that we were being tried, not for murder, but for Anarchy, so that the condemnation is — that I am an Anarchist!

You have charged me with despising "law and order." What does your "law and order" amount to? Its representatives are the police, and they have thieves in their ranks. Here sits Captain Schaack. He has himself admitted to me that my hat and books have been stolen from him in his office —stolen by policemen. These are your defenders of property rights!

The detectives, again, who arrested me forced their way into my room like house breakers, under false pretences, giving the name of a carpenter, Lorenz, of Burlington street. They have sworn that I was alone in my room, therein perjuring themselves. You have not subpoenaed this lady, Mrs. Klein, who was present, and could have sworn that the aforesaid detectives broke into my room under false pretences, and that their testimonies are perjured.

But let us go further. In Schaack we have a captain of the police, and he also has perjured himself. He has sworn that I admitted to him being present at the Monday night's meeting, whereas I distinctly informed him that I was at a carpenter's meeting at Zepf's Hall. He has sworn again that I told him that I had learned how to make bombs from Herr Most's book. That also is perjury.

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Let us go still a step higher among these representatives of "law and order." Grinnell and his associates have permitted perjury, and I say that they have done it knowingly. The proof has been adduced by my counsel and with my own eyes I have seen Grinnell point out to Gilmer, eight days before he came upon the stand, the persons of the men whom he was to swear against.

While I, as I have stated above, believe in force for the sake of winning for myself and fellow workmen a livelihood such as men ought to have, Grinnell, on the other hand, through his police and other rogues, has suborned perjury in order to murder seven men, of whom I am one.

Grinnell had the pitiful courage, here in this court room, where I could not defend myself, to call me a coward! The scoundrel! A fellow who has leagued himself with a parcel of base hireling knaves to bring me to the gallows. Why? For no earthly reason save a contemptible selfishness — a desire to "rise in the world" — to "make money," forsooth!

This wretch — who, by means of the perjuries of other wretches is going to murder seven men — is the fellow who calls me "coward!" And yet you blame me for despising such "defenders of the law" — such unspeakable hypocrites!

The judge himself was forced to admit that the State's attorney had not been able to connect me with the bomb throwing. The latter knows how to get around it, however. He charges me with being a "conspirator." How does he prove it? Simply by declaring the International Workingmen's Association to be a "conspiracy." I was a member of that body, so he has the charge securely fastened on me. Excellent! Nothing is too difficult for the genius of a State's attorney!

It is hardly incumbent upon me to review the relations which I occupy to my companions in misfortune. My friend Spies has already explained how we became acquainted with each other. I can say truly and openly that I am not as intimate with my fellow prisoners as I am with Captain Schaack.

The universal misery, the ravages of the capitalistic hyena have brought us together in our agitation, not as persons, but as workers in the same cause. Such is the "conspiracy" of which you have convicted me.

I protest against the conviction, against the decision of the court. I do not recognize your law, jumbled together as it is by the nobodies of by-gone centuries, and I do not recognize the decision of the court. My own counsel have conclusively proven from the decisions of equally high courts that a new trial must be granted us. The State's attorney quotes three times as many decisions from perhaps still higher courts to prove the opposite, and I am convinced that if, in another trial, these decisions should be supported by twenty-five volumes, they will adduce one hundred in support of the contrary, if it is Anarchists who are to be tried. And not even under such a law, a

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I tell you frankly and openly I am for force. I have already told Captain Schaack, "If they use cannons against us, we shall use dynamite against them."

I repeat that I am the enemy of the "order" of to-day, and I repeat that, with all my powers, so long as breath remains in me, I shall combat it. I declare again, frankly and openly, that I am in favor of using force. I have told Captain Schaack, and I stand by it, "If you cannonade us, we shall dynamite you." You laugh. Perhaps you think, "You'll throw no more bombs;" but let me assure you that I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words; and when you shall have hanged me, then, mark my words, they will do the bomb throwing! In this hope I say to you: I despise you. I despise your order, your laws, your force-propped authority. Hang me for it!

LOUIS LINGG.

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Altgeld's Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab.

On the night of May 4, 1886, a public meeting was held on Haymarket Square in Chicago; there were from 800 to 1,000 people present, nearly all being laboring men. There had been trouble, growing out of the effort to introduce an eight-hour day, resulting in some collisions with the police, in one of which several laboring people were killed, and this meeting was called as a protest against alleged police brutality.

The meeting was orderly and was attended by the mayor, who remained until the crowd began to disperse, and then went away. As soon as Capt. John Bonfield, of the police department, learned that the mayor had gone, he took a detachment of police and hurried to the meeting for the purpose of dispersing the few that remained, and as the police approached the place of meeting a bomb was thrown by some unknown person, which exploded and wounded many and killed several policemen, among the latter being one Mathias Degan. A number of people were arrested, and after a time August Spies, Albert R. Parsons, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Oscar Neebe were indicted for the murder of Mathias Degan. The prosecution could not discover who had thrown the bomb and could not bring the really guilty man to justice, and, as some of the men indicted were not at the Haymarket meeting and had nothing to do with it, the prosecution was forced to proceed on the theory that the men indicted were guilty of murder because it was claimed they had at various times in the past uttered and printed incendiary and seditious language, practically advising the killing of policemen, of Pinkerton men and others acting in that capacity, and that they were therefore responsible for the murder of Mathias Degan. The public was greatly excited, and after a prolonged trial all the defendants were found guilty; Oscar Neebe was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment and all of the other defendants were sentenced to be hanged. The case was carried to the Supreme Court and was there affirmed in the fall of 1887. Soon thereafter Lingg committed suicide. The sentence of Fielden and Schwab was commuted to imprisonment for life, and Parsons, Fischer, Engel and Spies were hanged, and the petitioners now ask to have Neebe, Fielden and Schwab set at liberty.

The several thousand merchants, bankers, judges, lawyers and other prominent citizens of Chicago who have by petition, by letter and in other

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First — That the jury which tried the case was a packed jury selected to convict.

Second — That, according to the law as laid down by the Supreme Court, both prior to and again since the trial of this ease, the jurors, according to their own answers, were not competent jurors, and the trial was therefore not a legal trial.

Third — That the defendants were not proven to be guilty of the crime charged in the indictment.

Fourth — That as to the defendant Neebe, the State's attorney had declared at the close of the evidence that there was no case against him, and yet he has been kept in prison all these years.

Fifth — That the trial judge was either so prejudiced against the defendants, or else so determined to win the applause of a certain class in the community, that he could not and did not grant a fair trial.

Upon the question of having been punished enough, I will simply say that if the defendants had a fair trial, and nothing has developed since to show that they were not guilty of the crime charged in the indictment, then there ought to be no executive interference, for no punishment under our laws could then be too severe. Government must defend itself; life and property must be protected, and law and order must be maintained; murder must be punished, and if the defendants are guilty of murder, either committed by their own hands or by some one else acting on their advice, then, if they have had a fair trial, there should be in this case no executive interference. The soil of America is not adopted to the growth of Anarchy. While our institutions are not free from injustice, they are still the best that have yet been devised, and therefore must be maintained.

The record of the trial shows that the jury in this case was not drawn in the manner that juries usually are drawn: that is, instead of having a number of names drawn out of a box that contained many hundred names, as the law contemplates shall be done in order to insure a fair jury and give neither side the advantage, the trial judge appointed one Henry L. Ryce as a special bailiff, to go out and summon such men as he (Ryce) might select to act as jurors. While this practice has been sustained in cases in which it did not appear that either side had been prejudiced thereby, it is always a dangerous practice, for it gives the bailiff absolute power to select a jury that will be favorable to one side or the other. Counsel for the State, in their printed

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"Mr. Grinnell (the State's attorney) suggested Mr. Ryce as special bailiff, and he was accepted and appointed." But it makes no difference on whose motion he was appointed if he did not select a fair jury. It is shown that he boasted while selecting jurors that he was managing this case; that these fellows would hang as certain as death; that he was calling such men as the defendants would have to challenge peremptorily and waste their challenges on, and that when their challenges were exhausted they would have to take such men as the prosecution wanted. It appears from the record of the trial that the defendants were obliged to exhaust all of their peremptory challenges, and they had to take a jury, almost every member of which stated, frankly that he was prejudiced against them. On page 133 of volume I of the record it appears that when the panel, was about two-thirds full, counsel for defendants called attention of the court to the fact that Ryce was summoning only prejudiced men, as shown by their examinations. Further: That he was confining himself to particular classes; i. e., clerks, merchants, manufacturers etc. Counsel for defendants then moved the court to stop this and direct Ryce to summon the jurors from the body of the people; that is, from the community at large, and not from particular classes; but the court refused to take any notice of the matter.

For the purpose of still further showing the misconduct of Bailiff Ryce reference is made to the affidavit of Otis S. Favor. Mr. Favor is one of the most reputable and honorable business men in Chicago; he was himself summoned by Ryce as a juror, but was so prejudiced against the defendants that he had to be excused, and he abstained from making any affidavit before sentence because the State's attorney had requested him not to make it, although he stood ready, to go into court and tell what he knew if the court wished him to do so, and he naturally supposed he would be sent for. But after the Supreme Court had passed on the case and some of the defendants were about to be hanged he felt that an injustice was being done and he made the following affidavit:

STATE OF ILLINOIS, COOK COUNTY. — SS.:

Otis S. Favor, being duly sworn, on oath says that he is a citizen of the United States and of the State of Illinois, residing in Chicago, and a merchant doing business at Nos. 6 and 8 Wabash avenue, in the city of Chicago, in said county. That he is very well acquainted with Henry L. Ryce, of Cook county, Illinois, who acted as special bailiff in summoning jurors in the case of The People, etc., vs. Spies et al., indictment for murder, tried in the Criminal Court of Cook county, in the summer of 1886. That affiant was himself summoned by said Ryce for a juror in said cause, but was challenged and excused

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Affiant further says that about the beginning of October, 1886, when the motion for a new trial was being argued in said cases before Judge Gary, and when, as he was informed, application was made before Judge Gary for leave to examine affiant in open court, touching the matters above stated, this affiant went, upon request of State's Attorney Grinnell, to his office during the noon recess of the court and there held an interview with said Grinnell, Mr. Ingham and said Ryce, in the presence of several other persons, including some police officers, where affiant repeated substantially the matters above stated, and the said Ryce did not deny affiant's statements, and affiant said he would have to testify thereto if summoned as a witness, but had refused to make an affidavit thereto, and affiant was then and there asked and urged to persist in his refusal and to make no affidavit. And affiant further saith not. OTIS S. FAVOR,

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 7th day of November, A. D. 1887.
JULIUS STERN, Notary Public in and for said County.

So far as shown no one connected with the State's attorney's office has ever denied the statements of Mr. Favor as to what took place in that office, although his affidavit was made in November, 1887.

As to Bailiff Ryce, it appears that he has made an affidavit in which he denies that he made the statements sworn to by Mr. Favor, but unfortunately for him, the record of the trial is against him, for it shows conclusively that

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William Neil, a manufacturer, was examined at length; stated that he had heard and read about the Haymarket trouble, and believed enough of what he had so heard and read to form an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, which he still entertained; that he had expressed said opinion and then he added: "It would take pretty strong evidence to remove the impression that I now have. I could not dismiss it from my mind; could not lay it altogether aside during the trial. I believe my present opinion, based upon what he had so heard and read to form an opinion as to the guilt of the dewould influence me in determining and getting at a verdict."

He was challenged by the defendants on the ground of being prejudiced, but the court then got him to say that he believed he could give a fair verdict on whatever evidence he should hear, and thereupon the challenge was overruled.

H. F. Chandler, in the stationery business with Skeen, Stuart & Co.; said: "I was pointed out to the deputy sheriff by my employer to be summoned as a juror." He then stated that he had read and talked about the Haymarket trouble, and had formed and frequently expressed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, and that he believed the statements he had read and heard. He was asked:

Q. Is that a decided opinion as to the guilt of the defendants?

A. It is a decided opinion; yes, sir.

Q. Your mind is pretty well made up now as to their guilt or innocence?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Would it be hard to change your opinion.

A. It might be hard; I cannot say. I don't Know whether it would be hard or not.

He was challenged by the defendants on the ground of being prejudiced. Then the court took him in hand and examined him at some length, and got him to state that he believed he could try the case fairly. Then the challenge was overruled.

F. L. Wilson: Am a manufacturer. Am prejudiced and have formed and expressed an opinion; that opinion would influence me in rendering a verdict.

He was challenged for cause, but was then examined by the court.

Q. Are you conscious in your own mind of any wish or desire that there

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A. Well, I think I have.

Being further pressed by the court, he said that the only feeling he had against the defendants was based upon having taken it for granted that what he read about them was, in the main, true; that he believed that sitting as a juror the effect of the evidence either for or against the defendants would be increased or diminished by what he had heard or read about the case. Then on being still further pressed by the court, he finally said: "Well, I feel that I hope that the guilty one will be discovered or punished — not necessarily these men."

Q. Are you conscious of any other wish or desire about the matter than that the actual truth may be discovered?

A. I don't think I am.

Thereupon the challenge was overruled.

George N. Porter, grocer, testified that he had formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, and that this opinion he thought, would bias his judgment; he would try to go by the evidence, but what he had read would have a great deal to do with his verdict; his mind, he said, was certainly biased now, and that it would take a great deal of evidence to change it. He was challenged for cause by the defendants; was examined by the court and said:

"I think what I have heard and read before I came into court would have some influence with me." But the court finally got him to say he believed he could fairly and impartially try the case and render a verdict according to law and evidence, and that he would try to do so. Thereupon the court overruled the challenge for cause. Then he was asked some more questions by defendants' counsel, and among other things said:

"Why, we have talked about it there a great many times and I have always expressed my opinion. I believe what I have read in the papers; believe that the parties are guilty. I would try to go by the evidence, but in this case it would be awful hard work for me to do it."

He was challenged a second time on the ground of being prejudiced; was then again taken in hand by the court and examined at length, and finally again said he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence, when the challenge for cause was overruled for the second time.

H. N. Smith, hardware merchant, stated among other things that he was prejudiced and had quite a decided opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants; that he had expressed his opinion and still entertained it, and candidly stated that he was afraid he would listen a little more attentively to the testimony which concurred with his opinion than the testimony on the other side; that some of the policemen injured were personal friends of his. He was asked these questions:

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Q. That is, you would be willing to have your opinion strengthened, and hate very much to have it dissolved?

A. I would.

Q. Under these circumstances do you think that you could render a fair and impartial verdict?

A. I don't think I could.

Q. You think you would be prejudiced?

A. I think I would be, because my feelings are very bitter.

Q. Would your prejudice in any way influence you in coming at an opinion, in arriving at a verdict?

A. I think it would.

He was challenged on the ground of being prejudiced, was interrogated at length by the court, and was brought to say he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence produced in court. Then the challenge was overruled.

Leonard Gould, wholesale grocer, was examined at length; said he had a decided prejudice against the defendants. Among other things, he said: "I really don't know that I could do the case justice; if I was to sit on the case I should just give my undivided attention to the evidence and calculate to be governed by that." He was challenged for cause and the challenge overruled. He was then asked the question over again, whether he could render an impartial verdict based upon the evidence alone, that would be produced in court, and he answered: "Well, I answered that, as far as I could answer it."

Q. You say you don't know that you can answer that, either yes or no?

A. No, I don't know that I can.

Thereupon the court proceeded to examine him, endeavoring to get him to state that he believed he could try the case fairly, upon the evidence that was produced in court, part of the examination being as follows:

Q. Now, do you believe that you can — that you have sufficiently reflected upon it — so as to examine your own mind, that you can fairly and impartially determine the guilt or innocence of the defendants?

A. That is a difficult question for me to answer.

Q. Well, make up your mind as to whether you can render, fairly and impartially render, a verdict in accordance with the law and the evidence. Most men in business possibly have not gone through a metaphysical examination so as to be prepared to answer a question of this kind.

A. Judge, I don't believe I can answer that question.

Q. Can you answer whether you believe you know?

A. If I had to do that I should do the best I could.

Q. The question is whether you believe you could or not. I suppose, Mr. Gould, that you know the law is that no man is to be convicted of any offense with which he is charged, unless the evidence proves that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

A. That is true.

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Q. The evidence heard in this case in court?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you believe that you can render a verdict in accordance with the law?

A. Well, I don't know that I could.

Q. Do you believe that you can't — if you don't know of any reason why you cannot, do you believe that you can't?

A. I cannot answer that question.

Q. Have you a belief one way or other as to whether you can or cannot? Not whether you are going to do it, but do you believe you cannot? That is the only thing. You are not required to state what is going to happen next week or week after, but what do you believe about yourself, whether you can or can't.

A. I am about where I was when I started.

Some more questions were asked and Mr. Gould answered:

Well, I believe I have gone just as far as I can in reply to that question.

Q. This question, naked and simple in itself is, do you believe that you can fairly and impartially render a verdict in the case in accordance with the law and evidence?

A. I believe I could.

Having finally badgered the juror into giving this last answer, the court desisted. The defendants' counsel asked:

Do you believe you can do so, uninfluenced by any prejudice or opinion which you now have?

A. You bring it at a point that I object to and I do not feel competent to answer.

Thereupon the juror was challenged a second time for cause, and the challenge was overruled.

James H. Walker, dry goods merchant, stated that he had formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt of defendants; that he was prejudiced, and that his prejudice would handicap him.

Q. Considering all prejudice and all opinions you have, if the testimony was equally balanced, would you decide one way or the other in, accordance with that opinion or your prejudice?

A. If the testimony was equally balanced I should hold my present opinion, sir.

Q. Assuming that your present opinion is, that you believe the defendants guilty, would you believe your present opinion would warrant you in convicting them?

A. I presume it would.

Q. Well, you believe it would; that is your present belief, is it?

A. Yes, sir.

He was challenged on the ground of prejudice.

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The court then examined him at length, and finally asked:

Q. Do you believe that you can sit here and fairly and impartially make up your mind, from the evidence, whether that evidence proves that they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or not?

A. I think I could, but I should believe that I was a little handicapped in my judgment, sir.

Thereupon the court, in the presence of the jurors not yet examined, remarked:

Well, that is a sufficient qualification for a juror in the case; of course, the more a man feels that he is handicapped the more he will be guarded against it.

W. B. Allen, wholesale rubber business, stated among other things:

Q. I will ask you whether what you have formed from what you have read and heard is a slight impression, or an opinion, or a conviction.

A. It is a decided conviction.

Q. You have made up your mind as to whether these men are guilty or innocent?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. It would be difficult to change that Conviction, or impossible, perhaps?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. It would be impossible to change your conviction?

A. It would be hard to change my conviction.

He was challenged for cause by defendants. Then he was examined by the court at length and finally brought to the point of saying that he could try the case fairly and impartially, and would do so. Then the challenge for cause was overruled.

H. L. Anderson was examined at length, and stated that he had formed and expressed an opinion, still held it, was prejudiced, but that he could lay aside his prejudices and grant a fair trial upon the evidence. On being further examined, he said that some of the policemen injured were friends of his and he had talked with them fully. He had formed an unqualified opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants, which he regarded as deep-seated, a firm conviction that these defendants, or some of them, were guilty. He was challenged on the ground of prejudice, but the challenge was overruled.

M. D. Flavin, in the marble business. He had read and talked about the Haymarket trouble, and had formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants, which he still held and which was very strong; further, that one of the officers killed at the Haymarket was a relative of his, although the relationship was distant, but on account of this relationship his feelings were perhaps different from what they would have been, and occasioned a very strong opinion as to the guilt of the defendants, and that he had stated to others that he believed what he had heard and read about the matter. He was challenged on the ground of prejudice, and then stated, in answer

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The twelve jurors whom the defendants were finally forced to accept, after the challenges were exhausted, were of the same general character as the others, and a number of them stated candidly that they were so prejudiced that they could not try the case fairly, but each, when examined by the court, was finally induced to say that he believed he could try the case fairly upon the evidences that was produced in court alone. For example:

Theodore Denker, one of the twelve: "Am shipping clerk for Henry W. King & Co. I have read and talked about the Haymarket tragedy, and have formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants of the crime charged in the indictment. I believe what I read and heard, and still entertain that opinion."

Q. Is that opinion such as to prevent you from rendering an impartial verdict in the case, sitting as a juror, under the testimony and the law?

A. I think it is.

He was challenged for cause on the ground of prejudice. Then the State's attorney and the court examined him and finally got him to say that he believed he could try the case fairly on the law and the evidence, and the challenge was overruled. He was then asked further questions by the defendants counsel, and said:

"I have formed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants and have expressed it. We conversed about the matter in the business house and I expressed my opinion there; expressed my opinion quite frequently. My mind was made up from what I read and I did not hesitate to speak about it."

Q. Would you feel yourself in any way governed or bound in listening to the testimony and determining it upon the pre-judgment of the case that you had expressed to others before?

A. Well, that is a pretty hard question to answer.

He then stated to the court that he had not expressed an opinion as to the truth of the reports he had read, and finally stated that he believed he could try the case fairly on the evidence.

John B. Greiner, another one of the twelve: "Am a clerk for the Northwestern railroad. I have heard and read about the killing of Degan, at the Haymarket, on May 4, last, and have formed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants now on trial for that crime. It is evident that the defendants are connected with that affair from their being there."

Q. You regard that as evidence?

A. Well, I don't know exactly. Of course I would expect that it connoted them or they would not be here.

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Q. So, then, the opinion that you now have has reference to the guilt or innocence of some of these men, or all of them?

A. Certainly.

Q. Now, is that opinion one that would influence your verdict if you should be selected as a juror to try the case?

A. I certainly think it would affect if to some extent; I don't see how it could be otherwise.

He further stated that there had been a strike in the freight department of the Northwestern road, which affected the department he was in. After some further examination he stated that he thought he could try the case fairly on the evidence, and was then held to be competent.

G. W. Adams, also one of the twelve: "Am a traveling salesman; have been an employer of painters. I read and talked about the Haymarket trouble and formed an opinion as to the nature and character of the crime committed there. I conversed freely with my friends about the matter."

Q. Did you form an opinion at the time that the defendants were connected with or responsible for the commission of that crime?

A. I thought some of them were interested in it; yes.

Q. And you still think so?

A. Yes.

Q. Nothing has transpired in the interval to change your mind at all, I suppose.

A. No, sir.

Q. You say some of them; that is, in the newspaper accounts that you read, the names, of some of the defendants were referred to?

A. Yes, sir.

After further examination he testified that he thought he could try the case fairly on the evidence.

H. T. Sanford, another one of the twelve; Clerk for the Northwestern railroad, in the freight auditor's office:

Q. Have you an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants of the murder of Mathias J. Began?

A. I have.

Q. From all that you have heard and that you have read, have you an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants of throwing the bomb?

A. Yes, sir; I have.

Q. Have you a prejudice against Socialists and Communists?

A. Yes, sir; a decided prejudice.

Q. Do you believe that that prejudice would influence your verdict in this case?

A. Well, as I know so little about it, it is a pretty hard question to answer. I have an opinion in my own mind that the defendants encourage the throwing of that bomb.

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Challenged on the ground of prejudice.

On further examination, stated he believed he could try the case fairly upon the evidence, and the challenge for cause was overruled.

Upon the whole, therefore, considering the facts brought to light since the trial, as well as the record of the trial and the answers of the jurors as given therein, it is clearly shown that, while the counsel for defendants agreed to it, Ryce was appointed special bailiff at the suggestion of the State's attorney, and that he did summon a prejudiced jury which he believed would hang the defendants; and further, that the fact that Ryce was summoning only that kind of men was brought to the attention of the court before the panel was full, and it was asked to stop it, but refused to pay any attention to the matter, but permitted Ryce to go on, and then forced the defendants to go to trial before this jury.

While no collusion is proven between the judge and the State's attorney, it is clearly shown that after the verdict and while a motion for a new trial was pending, a charge was filed in court that Ryce had packed the jury, and that the attorney for the State got Mr. Favor to refuse to make an affidavit bearing on this point, which the defendants could use, and then the court refused to take any notice of it unless the affidavit was obtained, although it was informed that Mr. Favor would not make an affidavit, but stood ready to come into court and make a full statement if the court desired him to do so.

These facts alone would call for executive interference, especially as Mr. Favor's affidavit was hot before the Supreme Court at the time it considered the case.

The second point argued seems to me to be equally conclusive. In the case of the People vs. Coughlin, known as the Cronin case, recently-decided, the Supreme Court, in a remarkably able and comprehensive review of the law on this subject, says, among other things:

"The holdings of this and other courts is substantially uniform, that where it is once clearly shown that there exists in the mind of the juror, at the time he is called to the jury box, a fixed and positive opinion as to the merits of the case, or as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant he is called to try, his statement that, notwithstanding such opinion, he can render a fair and impartial verdict according to the law and evidence, has little, if any, tendency to establish his impartiality. This is so because the juror who has sworn to have in his mind a fixed and positive opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, is not impartial, as a matter of fact. * * *

"It is difficult to see how, after a juror has avowed a fixed and settled opinion as to the prisoner's guilt, a court can be legally satisfied of the truth of his

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"Under such circumstances, it is idle to inquire of the jurors whether they can return just and impartial verdicts. The more clear and positive were their impressions of guilt, the more certain they may be that they can act impartially in condemning the guilty party. They go into the box in a state of mind that is well calculated to give a color of guilt to all evidence, and if the accused escapes conviction, it will not be because the evidence has not established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but because an accused party condemned in advance, and called upon to exculpate himself before a prejudiced tribunal, has succeeded in doing so. * * *

"To try a cause by such a jury is to authorize men, who state that they will lean in their finding against one of the parties, unjustly to determine the rights of others, and it will be no difficult task to predict, even before the evidence was heard, the verdict that would be rendered. Nor can it be said that instructions from the court would correct the bias of the jurors who swear they incline in favor of one of the litigants. * * *

"Bontecou (one of the jurors in the Cronin case), it is true, was brought to make answer that he could render a fair and impartial verdict in accordance with the law and the evidence, but that result was reached only after a singularly argumentative and persuasive cross-examination by the court, in which the right of every person accused of crime to an impartial trial and to the presumption of innocence until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the duty of every citizen, when summoned as a juror, to lay aside all opinions and prejudices and accord the accused such a trial, was set forth and descanted upon at length, and in which the intimation was very clearly made that a juror who could not do this was recreant to his duty as a man and a citizen. Under pressure of this sort of cross-examination, Bontecou seems to have been finally brought to make answer in such a way as to profess an ability to sit as an impartial juror, and on his so answering he was pronounced competent and the challenge as to him was overruled. Whatever may be the weight ordinarily due to statements of this character of jurors, their value as evidence is in no small degree impaired in this case by the mode in which they were, in a certain sense, forced from the mouth of the juror. The theory seemed to be, that if a juror could in any way be brought to answer that he could sit as an impartial juror, that declaration of itself rendered him competent. Such a view, if it was entertained, was a total misconception of the law. * * *

"It requires no profound knowledge of human nature to know that with ordinary men opinions and prejudices are not amenable to the power of the will, however honest the intention of the party may be to put them aside. They are likely to remain in the mind of the juror in spite of all his efforts to get rid of them, warping and giving direction to his judgment, coloring the fact as they are developed by the evidence, and exerting an influence more or less

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Applying the law as here laid down in the Cronin case to the answers of the jurors above given in the present case, it is very apparent that most of the jurors were incompetent because they were not impartial, for nearly all of them candidly stated that they were prejudiced against the defendants, and believed them guilty before hearing the evidence, and the mere fact that the judge succeeded, by a singularly suggestive examination, in getting them to state that they believed they could try the case fairly fair on the evidence, did not make them competent.

It is true that this case was before the Supreme Court, and that court allowed the verdict to stand; and it is also true that in the opinion of the majority of the court in the Cronin case, an effort is made to distinguish that case from this one; but it is evident that the court did not have the record of this case before it when it tried to make the distinction, and the opinion of the minority of the court in the Cronin case expressly refers to this case as being exactly like that one, so far as relates to the competency of the jurors. The answers of the jurors were almost identical and the examinations were the same. The very things which the Supreme Court held to be fatal errors in the Cronin case, constituted the entire fabric of this case, so far as relates to the competency of the jury. In fact, the trial judge in the Cronin case was guided by the rule laid down in this case, yet the Supreme Court reversed the Cronin case because two of the jurors were held to be incompetent, each having testified that he had read and talked about the case, and had formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt of the defendants; that he was prejudiced; that he believed what he had read, and that his prejudice might influence his verdict; that his prejudice amounted to a conviction on the subject of the guilt or innocence of the defendants; but each finally said that he could and would try the case fairly on the evidence alone, etc.

A careful comparison of the examination of these two jurors with that of many of the jurors in this case shows that a number of the jurors expressed themselves, if anything, more strongly against the defendants than these two did; and what is still more, one of those summoned, Mr. M. D. Flavin, in this case, testified not only that he had read and talked about the case, and had formed and expressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendants,

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No matter what the defendants were charged with they were entitled to fair trial, and no greater danger could possibly threaten our institutions than to have the courts of justice run wild or give way to popular clamor; and when the trial judge in this case ruled that a relative of one of the men who was killed was a competent juror, and this after the man had candidly stated that he was deeply prejudiced, and that his relationship caused him to feel more strongly than he otherwise might; and when, in scores of instances, he ruled that men who candidly declared that they believed the defendants to be guilty, that this was a deep conviction and would influence their verdict, and that it would require strong evidence to convince them that the defendants were innocent; when in all these instances the trial judge ruled that these men were competent jurors, simply because they had, under his adroit manipulation, been led to say that they believed they could try the case fairly on the evidence then the proceedings lost all semblance of a fair trial.

The State has never discovered who it was that threw the bomb which killed the policeman, and the evidence does not show any connection whatever between the defendants and the man who did throw it. The trial judge, in overruling the motion for a new hearing, and again, recently in a magazine article, used this language:

"The conviction has not gone on the ground that they did have actually any personal participation in the particular act which caused the death of Degan, but the conviction proceeds upon the ground that they had generally, by speech and print, advised large classes of the people, not particular individuals, but large classes, to commit murder, and had left the commission, the time and place and when, to the individual will and whim or caprice, or whatever it may be, of each individual man who listened to their advice, and that in consequence of that advice, in pursuance of that advice, and influenced by that advice, somebody not known did throw the bomb that caused Degan's death. Now, if this is not a correct principle of the law, then the defendants of course are entitled to a new trial. This case is without a precedent; there is no example in the law books of a case of this sort."

The judge certainly told the truth when he stated that this case was without a precedent, and that no example could be found in the law books to sustain the law as above laid down. For, in all the centuries during which government has been maintained among men, and crime has been punished, no judge in a civilized country has ever laid down such a rule before. The petitioners claim that it was laid down in this case simply because the prosecution,

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It is further shown that the mass of matter contained in the record and quoted at length in the judge's magazine article, showing the use of seditious and incendiary language, amounts to but little when its source is considered. The two papers in which articles appeared at intervals during years, were obscure little sheets, having scarcely any circulation, and the articles themselves were written at times of great public excitement, when an element in the community claimed to have been outraged; and the same is true of the speeches made by the defendants and others; the apparently seditious utterances were such as are always heard when men imagine that they have been wronged, or are excited or partially intoxicated; and the talk of a gigantic Anarchistic conspiracy is not believed by the then chief of police, as will be shown hereafter, and it is not entitled to serious notice, in view of the fact that, while Chicago had nearly a million inhabitants, the meetings held on the lake front on Sundays during the summer, by these agitators, rarely had fifty people present, and the most of these went from mere curiosity, while the meetings held indoors, during the winter, were still smaller. The meetings held from time to time by the masses of the laboring people, must not be confounded with the meetings above named, although in times of excitement and trouble much violent talk was indulged in by irresponsible parties; which was forgotten when the excitement was over.

Again, it is shown here that the bomb was, in all probability, thrown by some one seeking personal revenge; that a course had been pursued by the authorities which would naturally cause this; that for a number of years prior to the Haymarket affair there had been labor troubles, and in several cases a number of laboring people, guilty of no offense, had been shot down in cold blood by Pinkerton men, and none of the murderers were brought to justice. The evidence taken at coroners' inquests and presented here, shows that in at

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"The facts established by a large number of witnesses, and without any opposing evidence, are, that this society, having leased Turner Hall, on West Twelfth street, for the purpose, held a meeting in the forenoon of said day, in said hall, composed of from 200 to 300 individuals, most of whom were journeymen cabinet-makers engaged in the several branches of the manufacture of furniture in Chicago, but some of those in attendance were the proprietors in that business, or the delegates sent by them. The object of the meeting was to obtain a conference of the journeymen with such proprietors, or their authorized delegates, with the view of endeavoring to secure an increase of the price or diminution of the hours of labor. The attendants were wholly unarmed, and the meeting was perfectly peaceable and orderly, and while the people were sitting quietly, with their backs toward the entrance hall, with a few persons on the stage in front of them, and all engaged merely in the business for which they had assembled, a force of from fifteen to twenty policemen came suddenly into the hall, having a policeman's club in one hand and a revolver in the other, and making no pause to determine the actual character of the meeting, they immediately shouted: ‘Get out of here, you damned sons-of-bitches,’ and began beating the people with their clubs, and some of them actually firing their revolvers. One young man was shot through the back of the head and killed. But to complete the atrocity of the affair on the part of the officers engaged in it, when the people hastened to make their escape from the assembly room, they found policemen stationed on either side of the stairway leading from the hall down to the street, who applied their clubs to them as they passed, seemingly with all the violence practicable under the circumstances.

"Mr. Jacob Beiersdorf, who was a manufacturer of furniture, employing some 200 men, had been invited to the meeting and came, but as he was about to enter the place where it was held, an inoffensive old man, doing nothing unlawful, was stricken down at his feet by a policeman's club.

"These general facts were established by an overwhelming mass of testimony, and for the purpose of the questions in the case, it is needless to go farther into detail.

"The chief political right of the citizen in our government, based upon

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"First: The right of free speech and of a free press.

"Second: The right of the people to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for the common good.

"These are among the fundamental principles of government and guaranteed by our constitution. Section 17, article 2, of the bill of rights, declares: ‘The people have a right to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for the common good, to make known their opinions to their representatives, and apply for redress of grievances.’ Jurists do not regard these declarations of the bill of rights as creating or conferring the rights, but as a guarantee against their deprivation or infringement by any of the powers or agencies of the government. The rights themselves are regarded as the natural and inalienable rights belonging to every individual, or as political, and based upon or arising from principles inherent in the very nature of a system, of free government.

"The right of the people to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for the common good, being a constitutional right, it can be exercised and enjoyed within the scope and the spirit of that provision of the constitution, independently of every other power of the State government.

"Judge Cooley, in his excellent work on ‘Torts,’ speaking (p. 296) of remedies for the invasion of political rights, says: ‘When a meeting for any lawful purpose is actually called and held, one who goes there with the purpose to disturb and break it up, and commits disorder to that end, is a trespasser upon the rights of those who, for a time, have control of the place of meeting. If several unite in the disorder it may be a criminal riot.’"

So much for Judge McAllister.

Now, it is shown that no attention was paid to the judge's decision; that peaceable meetings were invaded and broken up, and inoffensive people were clubbed; that in 1885 there was a strike at the McCormick Reaper Factory, on account of a reduction of wages, and some Pinkerton men, while on their way there, were hooted at by some people on the street, when they fired into the crowd and fatally wounded several people who had taken no part in any disturbance; that four of the Pinkerton men were indicted for this murder by the grand jury, but that the prosecuting officers apparently took no interest in the case, and allowed it to be continued a number of times, until the witnesses were sworn out, and in the end the murderers went free.

It is shown that various attempts were made to bring to justice the men who wore the uniform of the law while violating it, but all to no avail; that the laboring people found the prisons always open to receive them, but the courts of justice were practically closed to them; that the prosecuting officers vied with each other in hunting them down, but were deaf to their appeals; that in the spring of 1886 there were more labor disturbances in the city, and particularly at the McCormick factory; that under the leadership of Capt. Bonfield

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While some men may tamely submit to being clubbed and seeing their brothers shot down, there are some who will resent it, and will nurture a spirit of hatred and seek revenge for themselves, and the occurrences that preceded the Haymarket tragedy indicate that the bomb was thrown by some one who, instead of acting on the advice of anybody, was simply seeking personal revenge for having been clubbed, and that Capt. Bonfield is the man who is really responsible for the death of the police officers.

It is also shown that the character of the Haymarket meeting sustains this view. The evidence shows there were only 800 to 1,000 people present, and that it was a peaceable and orderly meeting; that the mayor of the city was present and saw nothing out of the way, and that he remained until the crowd began to disperse, the meeting being practically over, and the crowd engaged in dispersing when he left; that had the police remained away for twenty minutes more there would have been nobody left there, but as soon as Bonfield had learned that the mayor had left, he could not resist the temptation to have some more people clubbed, and went up with a detachment of police to disperse the meeting; and that on the appearance of the police the bomb was thrown by some unknown person, and several, innocent and faithful officers, who were simply obeying an uncalled for order of their superior, were killed. All of these facts tend to show the improbability of the theory of the prosecution that the bomb was thrown as a result of a conspiracy on the part of the defendants to commit murder; if the theory of the prosecution were correct, there would have been many more bombs thrown; and the fact that only one was thrown shows that it was an act of personal revenge.

It is further shown here, that much of the evidence given at the trial was a pure fabrication; that some of the prominent police officials, in their zeal, not only terrorized ignorant men by throwing them into prison and threatening them with torture if they refused to swear to anything desired, but that they

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First, an interview with Capt. Ebersold, published in the Chicago Daily News, May 10, 1889.

Ebersold was chief of the police of Chicago at the time of the Haymarket trouble, and for a long time before and thereafter, so that he was in a position to know what was going on, and his utterances upon this point are therefore important. Among other things he says:

"It was my policy to quiet matters down as soon as possible after the 4th of May. The general unsettled state of things was an injury to Chicago.

"On the other hand, Capt. Schaack wanted to keep things stirring. He wanted bombs to be found here, there, all around, everywhere. I thought people would lie down and sleep better if they were not afraid that their homes would be blown to pieces any minute. But this man Schaack, this little boy who must have glory or his heart would be broken, wanted none of that policy. Now, here is something the public does not know. After we got the Anarchist societies broken up, Schaack wanted to send out men to again organize new societies right away. You see what this would do. He wanted to keep the thing boiling — keep himself prominent before the public. Well, I sat down on that; I didn't believe in such work, and of course Schaack didn't like it.

"After I heard all that, I began to think there was, perhaps, not so much to all this Anarchist business as they claimed, and I believe I was right. Schaack thinks he knew all about those Anarchists. Why, I knew more at that time than he knows today about them. I was following them closely. As soon as Schaack began to get some notoriety, however, he was spoiled."

This is a most important statement, when a chief of police, who has been watching the Anarchists closely, says that he was convinced that there was not so much in all their Anarchist business as was claimed, and that a police captain wanted to send out men to have other conspiracies formed, in order to get the credit of discovering them, and keep the public excited; it throws a flood of light on the whole situation and destroys the force of much of the testimony introduced at the trial.

For, if there has been any such extensive conspiracy as the prosecution claims, the police would have soon discovered it. No chief of police could discover a determination on the part of an individual, or even a number of separate individuals, to have personal revenge for having been maltreated, nor could any chief discover a determination by any such individual to kill the next policeman

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I will simply say in conclusion, on this branch of the case, that the facts tend to show that the bomb was thrown as an act of personal revenge, and that the prosecution has never discovered who threw it, and the evidence utterly fails to show that the man who did throw it ever heard or read a word coming from the defendants; consequently it fails to show that he acted on any advice given by them. And if he did not act on or hear any advice coming from the defendants, either in speeches or through the press, then there was no case against them, even under the law as laid down by Judge Gary.

At the trial a number of detectives and members of the police swore that the defendant, Fielden, at the Haymarket meeting, made threats to kill, urging his hearers to do their duty as he would do his, just as the policemen were coming up; and one policeman swears that Fielden drew a revolver and fired at the police while he was standing on the wagon and before the bomb was thrown, while some of the others testified that he first climbed down off the wagon and fired while standing by a wheel. On the other hand, it was proven by a number of witnesses, and by facts and circumstances, that this evidence must be absolutely untrue. A number of newspaper reporters, who testified on the part of the State, said that they were standing near Fielden — much nearer than the police were — and heard all that was said and saw what was done; that they had been sent there for that purpose, and that Fielden did not make any such threats as the police swore to, and that he did not use a revolver. A number of other men who were near, too, and some of them on the wagon on which Fielden stood at the time, swear to the same thing. Fielden himself swears that he did not make any such threats as the police swore to, and further, that he never had or used a revolver in his life. But if there were any doubt about the fact that the evidence charging Fielden with having used a revolver as unworthy of credit, it is removed by Judge Gary and State's Attorney Grinnell. On November 8, 1887, when the question of commuting the death sentence as to Fielden was before the governor, Judge Gary wrote a long letter in regard to the case in which, in speaking of Fielden, he, among other things, says: "There is in the nature and private character of the man a love of justice, an impatience at undeserved sufferings. * * * In his own private life he was the honest, industrious and peaceful laboring man. In what he said in court before sentence he was respectful and decorous. His language and conduct since have been irreproachable. As there is no evidence that he knew of any preparation to do the specific act of throwing the bomb that killed

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The State's attorney appended the foregoing letter, beginning as follows:
"While endorsing and approving the foregoing statement by Judge Gary, I wish to add thereto the suggestion, * * * that Schwab's conduct during the trial, and when addressing the court before sentence, like Fielden's, was decorous, respectful to the law and commendable. * * * It is further my desire to say that I believe that Schwab was the pliant, weak tool of a stronger will and more designing persons. Schwab seems to be friendless."

If what Judge Gary says about Fielden is true; if Fielden has "a natural love of justice and in his private life was the honest, industrious and peaceable laboring man," then Fielden's testimony is entitled to credit, and when he says that he did not do the things the police charge him with doing, and that he never had or used a revolver in his life, it is probably true, especially as he was corroborated by a number of creditable and disinterested witnesses.

Again, if Fielden did the things the police charged him with doing, if he fired on them as they swear, then he was not a mere misguided enthusiast, who was to be held only for the consequences of his teachings; and if either Judge Gary or State's Attorney Grinnell had placed any reliance on the evidence of the police on this point, they would have written a different kind of a letter to the then executive.

In the fall of 1887, a number of the most prominent business men of Chicago met to consult whether or not to ask executive clemency for any of the condemned men. Mr. Grinnell was present and made a speech, in which, in referring to this evidence, he said that he had serious doubts whether Fielden had a revolver on that occasion, or whether indeed Fielden ever had one.

Yet, in arguing the case before the Supreme Court, the previous spring, much stress was placed by the State on the evidence relating to what Fielden did at the Haymarket meeting, and that court was misled into attaching great importance to it.

It is now clear that there is no case made out against Fielden for anything he did on that night, and, as heretofore shown, in order to hold him and the other defendants for the consequences and effects of having given pernicious and criminal advice to large masses to commit violence, whether orally, in speeches, or in print, it must be shown that the person committing the violence had read or heard the advice: for, until he had heard or read it, he did not receive it and if he never received the advice, it cannot be said that he acted on it.

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At the conclusion of the evidence for the State, the Hon. Carter H. Hamson, then mayor of Chicago, and F. S. Winston, then corporation counsel for Chicago, were in the court room and had a conversation with Mr. Grinnell, the State's attorney, in regard to the evidence against Neebe, in which conversation, according to Mr. Harrison and Mr. Winston, the State's attorney said that he did not think he had a case against Neebe, and that he wanted to dismiss him, but was dissuaded from doing so by his associate attorneys, who feared that such a step might influence the jury in favor of the other defendants.

Mr. Harrison, in a letter among other things, said: "I was present in the court room when the State closed its case. The attorney for Neebe moved his discharge on the ground that there was no evidence to hold him on. The State's attorney, Mr. Julius S. Grinnell, and Mr. Fred S. Winston, corporation counsel for the city, and myself, were in earnest conversation when the motion was made. Mr. Grinnell stated to us that he did not think there was sufficient testimony to convict Neebe. I thereupon earnestly advised him, as the representative of the State, to dismiss the case as to Neebe, and, if I remember rightly, he was seriously thinking of doing so, but, on consultation with his assistants, and on their advice, he determined not to do so, lest it would have an injurious effect on the case as against the other prisoners. **** I took the position that such discharge, being clearly justified by the testimony, would not prejudice the case as to the others."

Mr. Winston adds the following to Mr. Harrison's letter:
March 21, 1889.

I concur in the statement of Mr. Harrison; I never believed there was sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Neebe, and so stated during the trial.

F. S. WINSTON.

In January, 1890, Mr. Grinnell wrote a letter to Gov. Fifer, denying that he had ever made any such statement as that mentioned by Mr. Harrison and Mr. Winston; also that he did believe Neebe guilty; that Mr. Harrison suggested the dismissal of the case as to Neebe; and further, that he would not have been surprised if Mr. Harrison had made a similar suggestion as to others, and then he says: "I said to Mr. Harrison at that time, substantially, that I was afraid that the jury might not think the testimony presented in the case sufficient to convict Neebe, but that it was in their province to pass upon it."

Now, if the statement of Messrs. Harrison and Winston is true, then Grinnell should not have allowed Neebe to be sent to the penitentiary, and even if we assume that both Mr. Harrison and Mr. Winston are mistaken, and that Mr. Grinnell simply used the language he now says he used, then the case

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When the motion to dismiss the case as to Neebe was made, defendants counsel asked that the jury might be permitted to retire while the motion was being argued, but the court refused to permit this, and kept the jury present where it could hear all that the court had to say; then when the argument on the motion was begun by defendants' counsel, the court did not wait to hear from the attorneys for the State, but at once proceeded to argue the points itself with the attorneys for the defendants, so that while the attorney for the State made no argument on the motion, twenty-five pages of the record are filled with the colloquy or sparring that took place between the court and the ; counsel for the defendants, the court in the presence of the jury making insinuations as to what inference might be drawn by the jury from the fact that Neebe owned a little stock in a paper called the Arbeiter-Zeitung and had been seen there, although he took no part in the management until after the Haymarket troubles, it appearing that the Arbeiter-Zeitung had published some very seditious articles, with which, however, Neebe had nothing to do. Finally one of the counsel for the defendants said: "I expected that the representatives of the State might say something, but as your honor saves them that trouble, you will excuse me if I reply briefly to the suggestions you have made." Some other remarks were made by the court, seriously affecting the whole case and prejudicial to the defendants, and then referring to Neebe, the court said:

"Whether he had anything to do with the dissemination of advice to commit murder is, I think, a debatable question which the jury ought to pass on." Finally the motion was overruled. Now, with all the eagerness shown by the court to convict Neebe, it must have regarded the evidence against him as very weak, otherwise it would not have made this admission, for if it was a debatable question whether the evidence tended to show guilt, then that evidence must have been far from being conclusive upon the question as to whether he was actually guilty; this being so, the verdict should not have been allowed to stand, because the law requires that a man shall be proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before he can be convicted of criminal offense. I have examined all of the evidence against Neebe with care, and it utterly fails to prove even the shadow of a case against him. Some of the other defendants were guilty of using seditious language, but even this cannot be said of Neebe.

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It is further charged, with much bitterness, by those who speak for the prisoners, that the record of this case shows that the judge conducted the trial with malicious ferocity, and forced eight men to be tried together; that in cross-examining the State's witnesses, be confined counsel to the specific points touched on by the State, while in the cross-examination of the defendants' witnesses he permitted the State's Attorney to go into all manner of subjects entirely foreign to the matters on which the witnesses were examined in chief; also, that every ruling throughout the long trial on any contested point, was in favor of the State; and further, that page after page of the record contains insinuating remarks of the judge, made in the hearing of the jury, and with the evident intent of bringing the jury to his way of thinking; that these speeches, coming from the court, were much more damaging than any speeches from the State's Attorney could possibly have been; that the State's Attorney often took his cue from the judge's remarks; that the judge's magazine article recently published, although written nearly six years after the trial, is yet full of venom; that, pretending to simply review the case, he had to drag into his article a letter written by an excited woman to a newspaper after the trial was over, and which therefore had nothing to do with the case, and was put into the article simply to create a prejudice against the woman, as well as against the dead and the living; and that, not content with this, he, in the same article, makes an insinuating attack on one of the lawyers for the defense, not for anything done at the trial, but because more than a year after the trial, when some of the defendants had been hung, he ventured to express a few kind, if erroneous, sentiments over the graves of his dead clients, whom he at least believed to be innocent. It is urged that such ferocity of subserviency is without a parallel in all history; that even Jeffries in England, contented himself with hanging his victims, and did not stoop to berate them after death.

These charges are of a personal character, and while they seem to be sustained by the record of the trial and the papers before me, and tend to show the trial was not fair, I do not care to discuss this feature of the case any farther, because it is not necessary. I am convinced that it is clearly my duty to act in this case for the reasons already given, and I, therefore, grant an absolute pardon to Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, and Michael Schwab, this 26th day of June, 1893.
JOHN P. ALTGELD.
Governor of Illinois.

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Press Comments.

It will be difficult to get this book into circulation, and more difficult still to get it out of circulation. The "classes" will ignore it. It must depend for its existence on its own fascination as "a weird and wondrous tale." It will grow slowly, but it will live long. It is the prose epic of the great struggle for labor emancipation. Some day it will be the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of a new deliverance.

This "Life of Albert R. Parsons" will not be a welcome book, because it ruffles and disturbs the conscience of "society." It reviews the "Anarchist case," legally and officially settled on the 11th of November, 1887. This book will not be welcome, because it is a posthumous motion to reverse a judgment executed and done — a motion made by the spirit of Parsons, who was excluded from politics a year and a half ago. This book is a strange medley of biography, autobiography, history, opinions, letters and miscellaneous matter, by, of, and concerning Albert R. Parsons, and the "labor movement." Every chapter has an independent interest of its own, and some chapters weave a sympathetic spell around the reader's heart in spite of him. There is a charm in chivalry which excites our admiration; and there has not appeared of late a tale of chivalry told with such overpowering pathos as the story of Parsons is told in this book.

Of New England lineage, Albert R. Parsons was a Puritan fanatic in zeal, courage, and enthusiasm, spirituality, and tenacity of principle and purpose. Neither the gloom of the cell nor the shadow of the scaffold could break or bend him. His iron Puritanism had been hardened into steel by his Southern birth and education. He would not for his life tell a lie, even to himself. His life was offered him for the asking, but he said he could not ask for that which he had not forfeited. From that resolution neither friends nor foes could move him. Never did Scott or Shakespeare imagine a deed of chivalry more splendid than that actually done by Parsons when he walked into the court-room and offered himself for trial. Neither could novelist nor dramatist describe that heroic incident so vividly as it is presented in this biography. Self-devotion compels praise, and we cannot withhold it. This life-offering will take its place among the brave deeds told in story for the emulation of mankind.

The tragedies of May and November combine to give this biography dramatic interest. They make it a theatrical attraction, and the story magnetizes

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The Non-Conformist concludes a flattering review of the book thus:

"Talk of your Robert Emmet, your Saul of Tarsus, the heroes of the French Revolution, our own honored John Brown; but gaze at the awfully sublime heroism of this man, who, with an instinct born only of true manhood, comes of his own free will to the bar of (in-) justice and, to satisfy the hungry yells of an infuriated aristocracy, gives himself up to be tried; he is incarcerated, listens to the perjured testimony of the paid assassins, to the pleading before the court, and then, after proving himself clear of any connection whatever, to stand up and be condemned to death — for what? For holding opinions regarding a system of society that he believed to be an improvement over the systems that now tyrannize the people of the earth."

One of the most remarkable books of this century has just been issued from the press at Chicago. It is the "Life of Albert R. Parsons," and it is one which will attract unusual attention. Men may be divided in their opinions as to the final outcome of the great labor agitation, which in one form or another is now shaking the thrones and governments of the world, * * * but no one can comprehend the political economy of the industrial system of the nineteenth century without first understanding, the poverty, the misery, the degrading of mankind to the level of the brute. * * * * Mrs. Parsons has done her work well. The motive that has prompted her to attempt the task appeals to every wife-heart. — Mt. Vernon Progressive Farmer.

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MINNNEAPOLIS, MINN., April 9, 1889.

MY DEAR MRS. PARSONS: I have read your "Life of Albert R. Parsons" with an interest that increased from the beginning to the end of the volume. It has corrected some false impressions that I had in regard to Mr. Parsons supposed responsibility for the throwing of that fatal bomb. I had never thought that that occurrence was the result of an actual conspiracy on the part of those who called the Haymarket meeting, deliberately planned as a part of the demonstration should circumstance favor it but I confess that I did think until the reading of this book that it was a natural consequence of your husband's teachings. I am glad to acknowledge that I now believe I was mistaken. At a public meeting in Minneapolis, on November 11th last, I thought it my duty to protest against a resolution denouncing the execution of your husband and his fellow-sufferers as a "judicial murder." Should such a resolution be again offered in my presence you may depend that I shall not make the same mistake, but shall, instead, give it my support. It seems to me that every one with the same prejudices that I had, who reads your book, must reach the same conclusion, and on this account, if for no other reason, I earnestly hope that it will be widely read by all persons who are honest enough to wish to be just. But, although I have erroneously thought Albert R. Parsons criminally responsible for public utterances calculated and intended to incite to deeds of violence simple-minded men engaged in strikes and thereby already excited by their sufferings and wrongs, I have never doubted his honesty of purpose or his loyalty to his own convictions of duty. Therefore I have revered him as a martyr; and his voluntary surrender in order to share the fate of his comrades, his dignified conduct during the memorable trial, and the sublime heroism of his death, place him, in my mind, among the noblest of that highest aristocracy of human nature — the "noble army of martyrs." This is irrespective altogether of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of the cause for which he died. His children need never be ashamed of their father's life, and they ought to be proud of his glorious death. And as for you, his wife, his companion, and comrade, I do not wonder at your devotion to his memory and to the cause he so earnestly and ably espoused.

Respectfully yours,
W. G. H. SMART,

The "Life of Albert R. Parsons," published by Mrs. Lucy E. Parsons, his widow, is just from the press, and furnishes the reading world a volume full of interesting narrative, and material matter for thought. The mere story of Parsons' life is a stirring tale, and the problems presented in his sayings and doings, and especially in his death, are worthy any man's considerations. * * *

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"In preparing the ‘Life of Albert R. Parsons’ for publication I have been actuated by one desire alone, viz.: that I might demonstrate to every one the most prejudiced as well as the most liberal minds: First, that my husband was no aider, nor abettor, nor counsellor, of crime in any sense. Second that he knew nothing of nor had anything to do with the preparation for the Haymarket meeting, and that the Haymarket meeting was intended to be peaceable and was peaceable until interfered with by the police. Third, that Mr. Parsons' connection with the labor movement was purely and simply for the purpose of bettering the condition of his fellow-men; that he gave his time, talents, and at last his life to this cause.

"In order to make these facts undeniable I obtained articles from persons holding avowedly adverse views to his, but who were nevertheless willing to testify to his innocence of the crime for which he suffered death and to his sterling integrity as a man.

"It has been the endeavor of the author to make the present work not only biographical but historical — a work which might be relied upon as an authority by all future writers upon the matters contained in it. Hence nothing has been admitted to its pages that is not absolutely correct, so far as it was possible for me to verify it by close scrutiny of all matters treated. And for this reason I ask the public to read its pages carefully, for in this way they will become acquainted with the inmost thoughts of one of the noblest characters of which history bears record."

The book is well illustrated, handsomely printed, and nicely bound. — Chicago Times.

There is comparatively little that is trashy in the book, and such as believe Anarchism a living issue in America will undoubtedly find in it considerable of interest. — Chicago Tribune.

Mrs. Parsons' work has been mainly that of a compiler; but she has performed her task carefully and intelligently. — Chicago News.

The typographical appearance of the book is fine. — Chicago Herald.

Much that is best in the volume is selected from Mr. Parsons' own letters and editorials. The "Statesman" can commend the book to those who are familiar with only the other side of this great tragedy, as a fair presentation of the side yet unexamined by them. — Statesman (Magazine), Chicago.

More than half of the book is justly occupied with the details of the Haymarket incident, from the beginning of the eight-hour movement in the spring of 1886 to the death of the subject of the biography, in the fall of 1887. This includes the Haymarket meeting and Parsons' speech in remonstrance to the sentence of death. The methods of the authorities in collecting the evidence is bitterly denounced, and every argument is adduced to fix the stigma of corruption

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This is one of the most remarkable books ever printed in America; it is a labor of love and memoir, compiled and published in poverty and privation, by the devoted wife of a martyr * * * in a cause which both husband and wife believed the cause of humanity. — Woman's Journal, Boston.

"Have I one more wish?" said Parsons, with that familiar flash in his eyes, when, a few days before that black Friday, I called to bid him farewell. "Oh, yes, I have more than one. Never tire in advocating our high principles, in the warfare between cowardice and tyranny; never cease until the American people know why we are murdered, and the class fanaticism characterising our condemnation is understood." — (Extract from Editorial in Alarm.)

Front View and Back View of Monument Erected in Waldheim Cemetery to Our Martyred Comrades. Albert Richard Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, and Louis Lingg.

nts

Notes.

1. This is the "Uncle Jonathan" whom America makes its patron saint.

2. This was being done at that time in the Territories.

3. The grand jury's indictment alleged, among other things, that Mr. Parsons was only in the movement for the money which he could make of his dupes.

4. The jury in an interview spoke of themselves as a jury of "gentlemen."

5. Sample report of capitalistic papers of Mr. Parsons' voluntary surrender in Court for trial when the case was called, June 21, 1886.

6. The book here referred to is almost exclusively compiled from the records of the police department of Vienna.

7. Twenty-four hours before the jury retired to consider their verdict, the Chicago Tribune opened its columns for the solicitation of voluntary contributions to pay the jury for the verdict! It was suggested that a sum of $100,000 be raised for this purpose. This was done editorially. Several good Christian gentlemen sent their names to the paper, stating the sum they were willing to contribute to the blood-fund. Possibly this may have had something to do with the "swift" verdict. A brother-in-law of one of the jurors was in constant attendance upon them; brothers-in-law have been known to let their kinsmen know when there was a good thing in prospect for them. The following are a fair sample of letters from some of those good Christian gentlemen:

"A FUND FOR THE JURY. Chicago, August 20, 1886. — Editor of the Tribune: In view of the long and close confinement endured by the jury in the Anarchist trial and the display of manly courage evidenced by their prompt and fearless verdict. I beg to suggest the propriety of starting a subscription for the purpose of raising at least $1,000 for the benefit of each juryman. I am far from being rich, but would gladly give $25 for this purpose, and will deliver same at your office the day you may start the subscription. W. C. E."

"Chicago, August 20, 1886. — Editor of the Tribune: The long agony is over. Law has triumphed. Anarchy is defeated. The conspirators have been promptly convicted. Let them be as promptly punished. The ‘twelve good men and true,’ whose honesty and fearlessness; made a conviction possible should not be forgotten. They have performed their unpleasant duty without flinching. Let them be generously remembered. Raise a fund — say $100,000 — to be presented with the thanks of a grateful people. E. A. MULFORD."

"Mr, N. B. Ream, in speaking to a Tribune reporter, thought it would be eminently proper to start a fund for the purpose of indemnifying the jurors who so patiently sat for eight weeks at the trial, thereby losing in business and time and endangering their health, for which they were so meagerly paid by the County and then in vouchers which will be cashed nobody knows when. Mr. Ream thought it was not proper to mention this while the trial was in progress, but now that it is over he is willing to head the list with the sum of $500. Thus will the school-master who so nobly sacrificed his vacation be in a measure repaid, and so will the others who, being mostly if not all business men, were greatly inconvenienced by their selection as jurors."

"Gentlemen of the Jury: You have finished this long and very arduous trial, which has required a considerable sacrifice of time and some hardship. I hope that everything has been done that could possibly be done to make those sacrifices and hardships as mild as might be permitted. It does not become me to say anything in regard to the case that you have tried or verdict you have rendered, but men compulsorily serving as jurors, as you have done, deserve some recognition of the service you have performed besides the meager compensation you have received."

8. The General here gives a decision from the Supreme Court of the State of New York, sustaining this position.

9. The author was told by an attorney on the morning of the rendering of the verdict that Grinnell had just expressed the regret to him that he had forgotten to mention to the jury that, in view of the fact that Parsons had voluntarily surrendered, he ought to be entitled to some consideration. This proves what kind of a "fair" trial it was.

10. The above letter was handed to me by Mr. Parsons in the afternoon of August 20, 1886, the first time I had seen him after the verdict was rendered.
LUCY E. PARSONS.

11. His children, Albert and Lulu, were at this time stopping at Waukesha, Wis.

12. The article is given in full, and is simply a comment upon General-in-Chief U. S. A. Sheridan's annual reports.

13. For a detailed and faithful account of the last sad hours of his life, when the shadows of the scaffold were thickening and casting their gloom upon the prison cell, read his own graphic account of his thoughts and feelings when on that last night he heard them. erecting the gallows upon which he was to die in a few fleeting hours, in his book on "Anarchism," which he wrote thirty days before his judicial murder. These, together with a great deal of interesting matter, will be found, in the Appendix of the book.

14. It will be observed that Mr. Parsons was compelled to sign an order turning his body over to his wife. This was unprecedented in this State. The reason for it was this: The Citizens' Association and other capitalists tried to persuade Sheriff Matson to secret the bodies and not turn them over to the families; but be refused to do it. In order to prevent them from stealing the bodies he, on his own responsibility, caused each one to sign an order requesting of him to deliver their bodies to their families, and these orders were placed in the bands of undertakers, who waited in the jail yard until the murder was committed, with these orders, to prevent the bodies from being stolen by the ghouls.

15. This extract is from one of the city dailies which was most bitter in urging the officials and jury to "discharge their duty to society," and, coming from this source, could hardly be called a favorable prejudiced account.

16. Quotation from Grinnell's speech to the jury.

17. Mr. Grinnell's principal argument upon which he demanded a conviction for murder was that the accused were "foreigners."