CHICAGO, August 12th, 1886 -- Mr. Walker's speech in the Anarchists' trial yesterday made it evident that while the prosecution will insist that the witness Gilmer told the truth about the throwing of the bomb by Schnaubolt and the lighting of the fuse by Spies, they will claim that even though Gilmer's testimony and that of Thompson's should not be taken into account there is simple evidence to show that the defendants are guilty of the crime as charged in the indictment. Having made a comprehensive statement as to the law in the case, and having quoted freely to sustain the claim that when a number of persons agree to commit murder, or advise others to do so, the time and place not being definitely dermined on, the adviser or conspirators are guilty of the offense when committed equally with the principal. Mr. Walker proceeded to show from the writings and speeches of the principal defendants that they had organized a conspiracy of murder in this city, and that they counseled and preached the overthrow of the existing social system by force. He pointed out with greateffect that the defense had made no effort to disprove this charge of general conspiracy as laid down in the opening speech of the State's Attorney. On the contrary, Mr. Salomon's opening speech for the defense was a virtual plea of guilty on this general charge. Mr. Walker held there was an abundance of uncontradicted testimony, some of which was supplied by the defendants' witnesses, to prove an organized conspiracy for the murder of the police the night of the 4th of May (1886). The appeals of Parsons and Fielden to the working-men to arm themselves were skillfully used in support of Mr. Walker's position.
CHICAGO, August 18th, 1886 -- Mr. Walker closed his speech for the prosecution in the Anarchists' case yesterday morning. He quoted freely from the evidence, the speeches and admissions of Spies, Fielden, Schwab and Parsons to prove that they were members of the band of conspirators who organized the massacre of the Haymarket Square; connected Lingg, Engle and Fischer with the arch-Anarchists; and ridiculed the efforts of the defense to prove alibis.
Mr. Zeisler's speech, following that of Mr. Walker, showed that the defense, as was anticipated, relies on convincing one or more of the jurors that Gilmer's story about Schnaubelt's throwing the bomb is untrue. He characterized the police as a body cowardly knaves, and denounced Gilmer as a professional tramp and a constitutional liar. Mr. Zeisler maintained that unless the identity of the principal in the murder of Officer Degan was established the prisoners could not be held as accessories. It should be shown that the person who threw the bomb was a member of the conspiracy to which the prisoners belonged in order to connect the latter with the murders. He denied that there was a general conspiracy to bring about a social revolution. The advocacy of force was open and public. It was permitted by the municipal authorities, therefore it must have been harmless. No time was fixed for the revolution to occur. The social revolution was to come, but no one could fix the date--the time was as indefinite to propagandists of Socialism as the coming of the Messiah was to the Jews.
Referring to the testimony as to Spies' utterances at Grand Rapids, Mich., and his interview with Reporter Wilkinson respecting the inaugeration of the social revolution on May 1st (1886), Mr. Zeisler endeavored to show that Spies was jesting about these things, and that he referred to some indefinite revolution which time would bring about. The advice given by Spies, Parsons and Fielden to working-men to arm themselves meant nothing but that they should organize and stand together, and Fielden's speech in which he urged his hearers to visit several leading business houses and help themselves only meant that the system was unjust which allowed so unequal a distribution of property. These men were talking to men who were ignorant of the aims of Socialism, and these utterances were used merely as logical deductions to illustrate the problems as a teacher would use illustrations to explain intricate problems to his scholars.
After referring to the meeting at 54 Lake Street on the night before the tragedy, at which the alleged conspiracy was concocted, Mr. Zeisler said that Walter, who was the arch-conspirator, having been chariman of that meeting, told much in his evidence for the prosecution that was untrue. His testimony was for the greater part manufactured, and he received payment therefore in cold cash from Captain Schaack.
Court adjourned at five o'clock, and Mr. Zeisler will finish his address to-day.
CHICAGO, August 14th, 1886 -- Mr. Zeisler concluded his argument for the defense in the Anarchists' trial yesterday morning with a bitter denunciation of the police and the witness Gilmer, and an appeal to any member of the jury who might have a reasonable doubt to hold out until doomsday rather than convict, and not to be starved into an agreement on a verdict.
Mr. Ingham followed for the prosecution in the afternoon. Dwellin gfirst on the evidence as a whole, he showed that each proven fact was not as a link in a chain of guilt but as the strand of a cable which spanned the whole tide of criminality. The theory of the State was that for two or more years there had existed an organized conspiracy to overthrow the law and that every man in that conspiracy threw the bomb that killed Officer Degan. The defendants had sought the destruction of the law, but that law was strong enough to secure the punishment of those who sought to throttle it. Mr. Ingham then proceeded with an analysis of the general conspiracy, tracing its history, and ingeniously weaving into his narrative every important fact of the testimony.
He dwelt on the fact that in the so-called "American group" there wer enot more than a score of Americans, and more than half of these were women and cranks, many of them, as in the case of Lingg, not being residents here for more than a twelvemonth. He compared Spies' writings during the first days of May with those of the Commune that flooded Paris with gore and substituted for the Vrigin Mother a brazen prostitute who personated the Goddess of Liberty.
Mr. Ingham traced the development of the Haymarket conspiracy, and made a strong argument to prove its careful planning, the utilization of the labor difficulties by Spies, the summoning of the armed sections to prepare for the attack, the careful selection of the place for slaughter, the incitements to violence by Spies and his confederates Parsons and Fielden, and the subordinate but important parts which Engel, Lingg, Fischer and Schwab played in arranging the plan of attack and in providing the materials therefore. Mr. Ingham had not concluded when the court adjourned.
CHICAGO, August 16th, 1886 -- In the trial of the Anarchists Saturday morning, Mr. Ingham resumed his argument for the State. He said that the right of free speech did not give the right to incite to murder, and quoted Lord Justice Coleridge's decision in Johann Most's case to show what constituted incendiary language, and held that Fielden's speech at the Haymarket came under this characterization and gave ample grounds for the interference of the police. The Haymarket meeting, he said, was a trap artfully laid for the police. The chemists had shown that the bomb was of the same materials as those made by Lingg, and there was no doubt but that Lingg made the one that was thrown at the riot. All the prisoners had been connected with the hurling of the fatal missile. It mattered little from what exact spot it had been thrown. The fact that it was thrown by a fellow-conspirator of the defendants was sufficient, and all the prisoners were equally guilty with the thrower.
As far as Gilmer was concerned Mr. Ingham thought the jury would prefer to believe the man, who, under the Stars and Stripes, had bared his breast to the bullets of the enemies of his country rather than the enemies of all government, who marched under the black flag that meant for men death, children mutilation, and women rape. Mr. Ingham's peroration was an eloquent appeal to the jury to be courageous enough to see that the law was vindicated.
Mr. Foster followed for the defense. He made an eloquent plea to the jury to case aside all prejudice arising from hatred of the principals of the Anarchists, love of and loyalty to the land, inherent patriotism, and the teachings of the popular press. He had no defense to make for Socialism--it is dangerous. Communism is pernicious, and Anarchism is damnable. Lingg had manufactured bombs and he ought to be punished therefore; but he was on trial for throwing, not manufacturing, bombs. Spies, Schwab and Fischer had no business to preach social revolution in America. If they were not satisfied with the state of things here they ought to have gone back to Germany and tried to reform things there. Mr. Fielden might have found occupation in teaching his brother Englishmen to be just to Ireland. Parsons he rebuked in an eloquent passage for his lack of patriotism.
Mr. Foster proceeded to define the issue of the trial as he understood it and as he wished the jury to understand it. He admitted the more responsibility of some of the prisoners for the crime. He denied their legal responsibility. He made the point that the investigation should have been limited to the evidence directly bearing on the charge in the indictment--murder--and endeavored to impress upon the jury that they were on trial for that and not for the Anarchistic utterances and publications of Spies, Parsons and Schwab. He claimed that it should be proved, in order to convict, that the defendents threw or conspired to have thrown the bomb which killed Officer Degan, and that all other evidence in the case was not relevant to the question. He will close to-day.
CHICAGO, August 17th, 1886 -- Mr. Foster continued his arguments in defense of the Anarchists yesterday. He characterized the interviews with reporters and other mouthings of his client Spies as the barking of a dog which never bites. He devoted considerable time to the McCormick meeting, claiming that Spies spoke conservatively, and did not instigate the attack on the factory. The writing of the "Revenge" circular was perhaps unwise, but it was simply a declaration of outraged feeling, and was not written for the purpose of inflaming the populace. Speaking of the claim of attorneys for the prosecution that the meeting at Grief's Hall, on the night of May 8th (1886), was held in order to concoct a scheme for the overthrow of law, Mr. Foster said there were not over fifty persons at the meeting, and the idea advanced by the State that this handful of men were to attempt to overthrow the Government was ridiculous. It reminded him of the three London tailors who centuries ago passed resolutions headed: "We the people of England." Mr. Foster again denounced the evidence of Seliger, Gilmer and Thompson as unworthy of belief, and said that the attack of the police on the meeting at the Haymarket Square was in pursuance of Captain Bonfield's policy, outlined in his remarks to witness Simonson, tha tif he could only get a chance at a body of Socialists without the presence of the women and children he would fix them. He paid the police a high compliment, and said they were not to blame for the unhappy events of that ominous night. The blame and responsibility rested with the man who ordered them to go there and who led them in their onslaught (meaning Bonfield). The jury was asked by counsel for the prosecution not to believe the stories of witnesses for the defense because they were Socialists, Communists and Anarchists. What, then, would the State's lawyers have the jury do with the evidence of Seliger and others of their leading witnesses who were self-armed believers in the same doctrines! Lingg could not be held guilty of this murder simply because he made bombs. In conclusion Mr. Foster made an eloquent appeal to jury in behalf of his clients, and when he had finished the court adjourned.
Post-Script (added by GwI)
Transcript of the text on the Haymarket Square Massacre Memorial Monument on Lake Street in Chicago, Illinois:
On the evening of May 4th, 1886, a tragedy of International significance unfoled on this site in Chicago's Haymarket produce district. An outdoor meeting had been hastily organized by anarchist activists to protest the violent death of workers during a labor lockout the previous day in another area of the city. Spectators gathered in the street as speakers addressed political, social, and labor issues from atop a wagon that stood at the location of this monument. When approximately 175 policemen approached with an order to disperse the meeting, a dynamite bomb was thrown into their ranks.
The identity and affiliation of the person who threw the bomb have never been determined, but this anonymous act had many victims. From the blast and panic that followed, seven policemen and at least four civilian bystanders lost their lives, but victims of the incident were not limited to those who died as a direct result of the bombing. In the aftermath, the people who organized and spoke at the meeting and others who held unpopular political viewpoints were arrested and unfairly tried, even though none could be tied to the bombing itself.
Meeting organizers George Engel and Adolph Fischer, along with speakers August Spies and Albert Parsons were put to death by hanging. Activist Louis Lingg died violently in jail prior to his scheduled execution. Meeting speaker Samuel Fielden and activists Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab were sentenced to prison, but later pardoned in 1893 by Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, citing the injustices of their trial.
Over the years, the site of the Haymarket bombing has become a powerful symbol for a diverse cross-section of people, ideals, and movements. Its significance touches on the issues of free speech, the right of public assembly, organized labor, the fight for the eight-hour workday, law enforcement, justice, anarchy, and the right of every human being to pursue an equitable and propserous life. For all, it is a poignant lesson in the rewards and consequences inherent in such human pursuits.
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