The Century Magazine. 
 
 Vol. XLV. 
 
 APRIL, 1893. 
 
 N<5. 6. 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886: 
 
 THE CRIME, THE TRIAL, AND THE PUNISHMENT. 
 
 V,Y THK jrDOK WHO I'RESIDEl 
 
 Ami the la-fj is com in on sense. 
 
 X ^jfiY \C \ 
 
 ORAWN BY A CASTAJGNE I 
 
 The Monument to the Martyred Police. 
 
 ON the morning of Friday, the twentieth 
 da}' of August, in the year of our Lord 
 one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six, 
 twelve men, ranging in age from fifty-three 
 years downward to early manhood, walked 
 two by two from the Revere House, a hotel in 
 Copyright, 1S93, by The Cent 
 
 the city of Chicago, to the building in which 
 the criminal court of Cook County held its 
 sessions. The hotel is on the southeast corner 
 of Clark and Michigan streets, and the court- 
 house was (it has been torn down to be replaced 
 by a better) on the north side of Michigan 
 street, a little east of the hotel. The men were 
 guarded from all communication with any per- 
 son by a bailiff" of that court at each end of the 
 short procession which their ranks composed. 
 
 The case of the anarchists was on trial, and 
 these — Frank S. Osborne, James H. Cole, 
 Charles B. Todd, Alanson H. Reed, James 
 H. Brayton, Theodore E. Denker, George W . 
 Adams, Charles H. Ludwig, John B. Greiner, 
 Andrew Hamilton, Harry S. Sandford, and Scott 
 G.Randall — were thejurors selected and sworn 
 to try the issue between the people of the State 
 of Illinois and August Spies, Michael Schwab, 
 Samuel Fielden, Albert R. Parsons, Adolph 
 Fischer, Cieorge Engel, Louis Lingg, and Os- 
 car W. Neebe, indicted for the murder of 
 Mathias J. Degan, on the fourth day of May. 
 1886, in Chicago. Upon that trial the State 
 was represented by Juhus S. Grinnell, State's 
 Attorney, Francis W. Walker and Edmund 
 Furthman, Assistant State's Attorneys, and 
 George C. Ingham of counsel ; the accused 
 were attended by William P. Black, Wilham 
 A. Foster, Sigmund Zeisler, and Moses Salo- 
 mon as counsel; and I, as judge, presided. 
 
 The short journey that these jurors were then 
 
 URY Co. All rights reserved. 
 
 803 
 
8o4 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 making was the last one of the many they made 
 over the same route ; every day, except Sun- 
 days, from the fourteenth day of July preceding, 
 they had, several times each day, under like 
 restraint by the watchfulness of bailiifs, paced 
 to and fro between the hotel and the court- 
 house ; and some of them had done so from 
 the twenty-first day of the month before, on 
 which day the trial began. Twenty-one days 
 passed away in selecting the jury; 981 men 
 were called to the chairs where the jury sat, 
 and were sworn and questioned, before the 
 dozen who tried the case were accepted. At 
 
 left, he avoided all recognition of any acquain- 
 tance who might be in the multitude that 
 filled the street. The time for the court to con- 
 vene was nearly an hour off; yet Michigan 
 street was thronged, so that vehicles went 
 around another way, and the people pressed 
 upon one another to make a path for the jury. 
 
 Upon those jurors, and the case pending be- 
 fore them, the attention of the civilized world 
 had been fixed for weeks, and now that world 
 awaited their verdict with painful anxiety. 
 
 We who participated in the trial did not know 
 until it was ended with what interest we were 
 
 all times the dozen chairs were kept full, and 
 when a man went into one of them he became 
 a close prisoner, not to be released until he was 
 rejected as unfit to serve on the jury ; or, if he 
 became one of the chosen twelve, not until he 
 and his fellows gave the final verdict. 
 
 On all former occasions when the jurors were 
 on the street, they had conversed with one an- 
 other, had looked about them, at the people, 
 at the buildings, at the trifling incidents of street 
 life. On this morning each man walked in si- 
 lence ; turning his eyes neither to the right nor 
 
 watched by all Christendom. The jurors had 
 no access, either by newspapers or conversation, 
 to any source of information, being at all times 
 either in court, in a room set apart for them 
 in the court-house, in a suite of rooms at the 
 hotel, or in a body taking exercise on the 
 streets; and always, when not in court, guarded 
 by bailiffs. The counsel engaged in the case 
 were fully occupied, when out of court, pre- 
 paring for the work of the next session. I read 
 the papers very little, and declined all conver- 
 sation upon the subject that occupied my busi- 
 
 G 030^0 
 
ness hours. But we did know that 
 the immense court-room — much 
 too large for the easy and orderly 
 conduct of an exciting trial — 
 was constantly crowded. The room 
 was a hundred feet long, and the 
 width and height were proportioned 
 to the length. Across each end ex- 
 tended a gallery. These galleries, 
 with the exception of one afternoon 
 when the expediency of the usual 
 rule was shown by the disorder that 
 broke out in one of them, were kept 
 closed and empty. At the begin- 
 ning of each session of the court 
 I announced that no person would 
 be permitted to stand in the court- 
 room, except in the way of duty ; 
 that no one could lounge on rail- 
 ings, or on the arms of seats, but that 
 every spectator must be down in a 
 seat, or leave the room ; and this 
 rule was strictly enforced. Also, that 
 there must be no talking, whisper- 
 ing, or laughing, and that any token 
 of approval or censure of any of the 
 proceedings would cause the im- 
 mediate expulsion of the offender 
 from the room. I had been in- 
 formed that upon one noted trial 
 in that room there had been great 
 disorder, and I determined to pre- 
 vent a repetition of that disgrace. 
 With one considerable and one very slight ex- 
 ception, there was no audible expression of feel- 
 ing by any of the audience throughout the trial. 
 Reluctantly, when Mr. Grinnell was about to 
 begin his closing argument to the jury, at the 
 solicitation, without his knowledge, of many 
 of the baihffs in attendance, and upon their 
 assurances that they could prevent all disor- 
 der, I permitted the galleries to be opened. As 
 soon as people began to enter them, I re- 
 ceived a note from Mrs. Black, wife of the 
 leading counsel for the defense, — shebeingcon- 
 stantly in attend ance, — stating that many per- 
 sons had desired to hear his speech, and had 
 been prevented, as they could not get into the 
 court-room, and asking if I thought it was fair 
 to open the galleries for an audience that had 
 been excluded when her husband spoke. I 
 recognized the justness of her complaint, and, 
 calling Mr. Black to the bench, showed him 
 the note of his wife, and offered to clear the 
 galleries and to shut them up again, if he pre- 
 ferred that it should be done. He thought it 
 not worth while, but the event showed how 
 unwise it was to open them. During his speech 
 Mr. Grinnell made some impassioned excla- 
 mation (I do not recall the words) to the ef- 
 fect that nobody feared anarchists, at which a 
 
 ENGRAVED BY 
 
 JULIUS S. GRINNELL. 
 
 Storm of applause broke out in the east gal- 
 lery. A futile attempt was made to discover 
 who began it, and after some delay Mr. Grin- 
 nell proceeded without further interruption. 
 The other exception, earlier, was in this wise. 
 Doing what Lord Coleridge has since been se- 
 verely criticized by the English papers for do- 
 ing in the famous Baccarat trial, I permitted 
 the bench to be filled with spectators, mostly 
 ladies. My own wife was usually there. It 
 was the best place for hearing the speeches to 
 the jury, who sat in a double row immediately 
 below the bench. I use the word " bench " 
 technically for the space occupied by a large 
 desk with many chairs behind it. When Mr. 
 Foster addressed the jury for the defense, his 
 wife was there. The lady forgot herself, in her 
 admiration for the really splendid effort her hus- 
 band was making, and very slightly, by a little 
 touch of her palms, showed her pardonable 
 pride in her husband ; a quick gesture and a 
 warning look from me recalled her to the ne- 
 cessities of the place. 
 
 But I must go back to the morning of that 
 Friday with which I began. 
 
 The evidence closed on Tuesday, the tenth 
 day of August. The argument to the jury be- 
 gan the next morning, and continued until 
 
AlansonH Keed 
 
 ENGRAVED BY T. A. BUTLER. 
 
 THE JURY. 
 
 ROM PHOTOGRAPHS BELONGING TO INSPECTOR 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 507 
 
 Thursday of the following week, the jury be- 
 ing addressed by Messrs. Grinnell, Walker, and 
 Ingham for the State, and Messrs. Black, Fos- 
 ter, and Zeisler for the defense. Immediately 
 after the midday recess of the court on Thurs- 
 day, the charge of the court to the jurors (or, as 
 called in Illinois, the " instructions ") was read, 
 and about four o'clock the jurors retired to the 
 room in the court-house set apart for their de- 
 liberations. It was generally known that they 
 would not be allowed to leave that room until 
 they had agreed upon a verdict, or should, for 
 some cause which would make a verdict im- 
 possible, be discharged by the court. 
 
 When, therefore, the morning papers of Fri- 
 day announced that the jury had returned to 
 the hotel at half-past seven o'clock of the even- 
 ing before, the reading public jumped to the 
 conclusion that a verdict had l)een agreed upon, 
 and thousands flocked towartl the court-house. 
 But they coukl only see the jury pass. Very 
 few persons, other than representatives of the 
 press, and the relatives or especial friends of 
 the defendants, were admitted to the court- 
 room, or even into the court-house, by the ofti- 
 cers on guard. Mingled with these relatives and 
 friends were numerous policemen, who watched 
 their every motion. This was probably an un- 
 necessary precaution, but everybody felt that 
 there was a possibility of some desperate deed 
 being attempted. The court convened at the 
 usual hour, ten o'clock. The defendants filled 
 the chairs which they had occupied for nearly 
 nine weeks. The jurors, led and followed as 
 ever by bailiffs, filed into the court-room, and 
 each took his accustomed seat. The roll was 
 called, and each juror answered to his name. 
 In Illinois the measure of punishment on a 
 verdict of guilty of murder, whether it shall be 
 death, or imprisonment in the penitentiary for 
 life, or some term not less than fourteen years, 
 is fixed by the jury. The awe upon each juror's 
 face, the almost colorless solemnity, unlike the 
 gravity betokening wisdom in which judicial 
 dignity masks itself, had already told to each 
 observer that the verdict was guilty. But what 
 was the penalty ? The State's Attorney had said, 
 in closing his speech to the jury, that he did not 
 think that Neebe ought to die. It could hardly 
 be expected that the jury would award a heavier 
 punishment than the representative of the State 
 thought adequate. But if the jury were le- 
 nient to Neebe, would they be severe to the 
 others ? I asked the jury if they had agreed 
 upon a verdict. Their foreman, Mr. Osborne, 
 replied, " We have," and handed to the clerk 
 two papers, from which he read: 
 
 " We, the jury, find the defendants August 
 Spies, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Al- 
 bert R. Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George En- 
 gel, and Louis Lingg guilty of murder in 
 
 manner and form as charged in the indictment, 
 and fix the penalty at death. We find the de- 
 fendant Oscar W. Neebe guilty of murder in 
 manner and form as charged in the intlictment, 
 and fix the penalty at imprisonment in the 
 penitentiary for fifteen years." 
 
 As the sound of the voice of the clerk died 
 away in the court-room, a tall and graceful 
 woman of a pure pink-and-white complexion, 
 the young wife of Schwab and sister of Rudolph 
 Schnaubelt (of whom more will be said here- 
 after), fell screaming into the arms of the women 
 around her. 
 
 The counsel for the defendants demanded 
 that the jury be polled. The clerk called them 
 separately by name; as called, each stood up, 
 and to the question, "Was this, and is this 
 now, your verdict?" each replie(l in tlie affir- 
 mative. 
 
 That verdict was received by the friends of 
 social order, wherever lightning could carry it, 
 with a roar of almost universal approval. And 
 yet there is ground for the charge made by 
 those who deny that justice was done to Spies 
 and his companions, — and who claim them as 
 martyrs for free speech, — that that approval 
 was l)ased upon no intelligent understanding 
 of the conduct of the convicted anarchists, — no 
 definite knowledge of what acts, if any, they 
 had done worthy of death, — but was the out- 
 come of fear that anarchy and anarchists 
 threatened the foundations of society; and that 
 from this fear sprung approval of anything 
 which tended to the extirpation of anarchists. 
 
 The immense volume of the evidence; the 
 demands which business and industry made 
 upon the time of those who might have fol- 
 lowed it through the papers that attempted 
 to report the trial; the omission from even 
 those reports of the most conclusive kind of 
 evidence as to the plans and purposes of the 
 anarchists, being their own publications, vo- 
 luminous and reiterated; the impossibility of 
 spreading the evidence at large before the 
 world — all make that approval of the convic- 
 tion of the anarchists of the specific crime of 
 the murder of Mathias J. Degan of no more 
 value as a sanction of the verdict than is the 
 acquiescence of the public in any verdict of 
 guilty a sanction of it. The names of the in- 
 dicted were not known to the great mass; they 
 might remember Spies or Parsons, but ver)- 
 few persons could go farther in the roll. Poor 
 Degan nobody thought of. At large it was 
 only known that there had been a terrible 
 slaughter at night, in Chicago, by a bomb 
 thrown into the ranks of policemen on duty 
 under command, and that the throwing of that 
 bomb was the result, or believed to be the re- 
 sult, of the ravings of the anarchists. For this 
 the friends of order everywhere cried out for 
 
r" 
 
 THE LAST DAY OF THE TRIAL. (THE JURY GOING TO THE GOURT-HOUSE.) 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 809 
 
 vengeance, — punishment for the past as secur- 
 ity for the future. 
 
 Mixed with all of the approval of my own 
 part in the conviction of the anarchists that 
 has come to my eyes and ears, the amount of 
 which is beyond my summing up, there has 
 been an undertone, like a minor strain in music, 
 that the anarchists deserved their fate; that 
 society has the right to enforce the lirst law of 
 nature — self-preservation ; and therefore if I 
 had a little strained the law, or administered 
 it with great rigor against them, I was to be 
 commended for my courage in so doing. I 
 protest against any such commendation, and 
 deny utterly that I have done anything that 
 should subject me to it. No man, no body of 
 men, has or have any right to inflict punish- 
 ment only because it is deserved. My neigh- 
 bor maltreats his wife; I may not horsewhip 
 him for that, though public opinion might ap- 
 prove the act if done by her father or brother. A 
 man flees to Ilhnois to escape the consequences 
 of crime committed elsewhere; unless extra- 
 dited under some law, he has the right to dwell 
 in Illinois in peace, if he break no law there. 
 
 1 do agree that society has the right to pre- 
 serve itself — the right of self-defense. I will 
 not deny, I will readily admit, that there may 
 be exigencies which will justify the exercise of 
 that right by communities, by neighborhoods, 
 even by individuals, in cases and under cir- 
 cumstances for which the law has made no 
 provision. Suppose a man about to bring into 
 a village infected clothing for sale, the mere 
 unpacking of which may spread disease. If 
 he breaks no law in so doing, no court has the 
 right to sit in judgment upon him; but that 
 the villagers might drive him away with such 
 force as might be necessary, and stand justified 
 morally, if not legally, hardly any one will deny. 
 But no judicial act can be justified unless per- 
 formed in pursuance of some preexisting law. 
 The justification of the State, or of the people 
 of the State, for such laws as define, and pre- 
 scribe the punishment of, crime, is self-defense ; 
 to preserve order in the State. The justification 
 of the court, the jury, and the sheriff" who ad- 
 minister and execute the law, is that they are 
 obeying the law. If, therefore, I have strained 
 the law, — gone beyond its intent and mean- 
 ing, — I am not to be commended, but blamed 
 for so doing. The end, however desirable its 
 attainment, excuses no irregular means in the 
 administration of justice. 
 
 The motive, then, or at least the principal 
 motive, of this paper is to demonstrate to my 
 fluni profession, and to inake plain to all fair- 
 minded, intelligent people, that the verdict of the 
 jury in the case of the anarchists was right; 
 that the anarchists were guilty of murder; that 
 they were not the victims of prejudice, nor mar- 
 VoL. XLV.— 106. 
 
 tyrs for free speech, but iu morals, as well as 
 in law, were guilty of murder. 
 
 I concede that there was prejudice against 
 them; under the circumstances that was in- 
 evitable. If any class of evil-doers, by news- 
 papers, pamphlets, speeches, processions, flags 
 and banners, and whatever other means ingenu- 
 ity can suggest, may make public and inform 
 everybody what they intend to do, and then, 
 when they have done it, screen themselves from 
 punishment on the plea that there is prejudice 
 against them, then the only hindrance to their 
 success — leaving out of view a possible prose- 
 cution for conspiracy before the criminal act 
 is done — would be the danger to themselves 
 while engaged in the commission of the crime. 
 Then anarchists might kill and go free. But 
 that injustice was done to them, because of that 
 prejudice, is not true, I shall affect no judicial 
 indifference, but shall write as a citizen of the 
 State of Illinois, repelling the imputation that 
 injustice was done in the administration and 
 execution of her laws. 
 
 Another motive of this paper is to show to the 
 laborijig people, of whom the anarchists claijned 
 to be the especial friends, that that claim was a 
 sham and pretejise, adopted only as a means to 
 bring manual laborers i?ito their otun ranks ; 
 and that the counsel and advice of the anar- 
 chists, iffolloivedby the working-men, tuould ex- 
 pose them to the danger of becoming, in law, 
 murderers. I shall show that the real passions 
 at the bottom of the hearts of the anarchists 
 were envy and hatred of all people whose con- 
 dition in life was better than their own, who 
 were more prosperous than themselves. 
 
 There seems to be prevailing, hardly a theory, 
 but a vague, unexpressed feeling or sentiment 
 which no demagogue dares run counter to, that 
 in all disputes between employers and employ- 
 ees, regardless of the "why and wherefore," — es- 
 pecially if the latter class are very numerous, — 
 they, if not justifiable, are excusable in taking 
 control of the property of the employers, so far 
 at least as may be necessary to prevent the aid 
 of other employees in making such property 
 of use or profit; that to that end force may be 
 used, and that if, in the exercise of force (if it 
 be only such as the moment may show to be 
 necessary to make the prevention effectual), 
 the employees kill anybody, — much more if 
 the slain had been called in by the employers to 
 keep the control of their property from the em- 
 ployees, and to resist their anticipated attacks, — 
 such killing is, on the whole, rather a useful 
 lesson to somebody, and should be a warning 
 for the future. It was this feeling or sentiment 
 which the anarchists formulated into a princi- 
 ple, and urged all wage- workers to adopt and en- 
 force in practice, calculating, as they declared 
 (as will be shown later), that the disturbances to 
 
8io 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 follow tended to the destruction of all govern- 
 ment, the dissolution of all bonds by which 
 society is held together, and the introduction 
 of that condition, or chaos and absence of all 
 condition, which they called anarchy. 
 
 It may be that showing this sham and pre- 
 tense of the anarchists will have no practical 
 effect. I have before, as will be seen toward 
 the close of this paper, expressed the faintness 
 of my hope of producing any effect by any 
 warning that I could utter; I have as little hope 
 now of any that I can write. 
 
 Brought up myself to manual labor, it never 
 ceases to seem strange to me that there are not 
 virtue and strength enough vested anywhere 
 to protect from mob violence and assault a 
 humble, peaceable citizen, obedient to all law 
 and blameless in his life, in his efforts to earn 
 for himself and those dependent upon him a 
 hvehhood by honest industry; or if he be 
 wronged through a loophole in that protec- 
 tion, to avenge his wrongs. I spent the sum- 
 mer of 1840 at a carpenter's bench by day and 
 singing campaign songs by night, though not 
 yet a voter, and I think now that I would as 
 readily have fought for the right to do the 
 one as the other. Hopeless as it may be to 
 write the warning, yet it should be made so 
 clear that nobody could be ignorant that the 
 law is, that if men enter into a combination 
 which contemplates, for the success of its pur- 
 pose, the exercise of unlawful force against 
 the property or the persons of other men, and 
 killing is done by any of the men in the combi- 
 nation, in pursuance of the plan upon which, 
 and in effecting the purpose for which, the 
 combination was formed, then murder by the 
 hand of one is murder by all. This is the law, 
 though the combination was entered into not 
 with the intention of killing anybody, but only 
 to assault and beat, or mob, or destroy prop- 
 erty. 
 
 In discussing the question of the guilt of the 
 convicted anarchists, I shall take the most 
 pains as to Spies and Parsons. They were the 
 two most noted. Their fate has been most 
 loudly bewailed. If any are to be canonized, 
 they are the "slaughtered saints whose bones" 
 are the bones of martyrs. To go through the 
 list of the convicted anarchists, and to show 
 in detail how each was proved guilty, would 
 require more space than could be given to a 
 magazine article. ^ 
 
 I can only say, in short, that they were 
 all members of a revolutionary organization 
 called the " International," the object of which 
 was to introduce anarchy. To this end they 
 proposed to subdue by ten'or, or to exterminate 
 
 1 The case as to the whole eight is reported in the 
 I22d Illinois Reports, i, and 12 Northeastern Reports, 
 865. 
 
 by violent deaths, all who favored law and 
 order. 
 
 For more than a year — how much more does 
 not appear in the evidence presented on the 
 trial — before a general strike for eight hours 
 as a day's work was in contemplation, they 
 had endeavored to bring the class they called 
 " proletariat " into their ranks, and had urged 
 that class to arm themselves, especially with 
 dynamite bombs. 
 
 In the fall of 1885 it became probable that 
 such a strike could be brought about on the 
 first day of the following May. 
 
 They encouraged it to the utmost of their 
 abihties ; not for the purpose, as they were 
 frank enough to say, of obtaining for laborers 
 fewer hours of toil, but with the hope that in 
 the disorder to follow all working for wages 
 would be stopped, and that anarchy would be 
 the next step. Armed strikers beating workers 
 would bring the police and mihtia, and if they 
 could be overcome in battles, no force being left 
 to give vigor to the law, anarchy must follow. 
 
 Had the anarchists not miscalculated in 
 comparing their utmost possible strength with 
 the actual strength of society, they might rea- 
 sonably have anticipated a temporary success. 
 
 The first day of May came, and great ex- 
 citement prevailed. Many struck. New men 
 were to some extent taken on in their places. 
 On the third day of May a very serious riot, in 
 which Spies, by his own account, participated, 
 took place at the McCormick Harvesting Ma- 
 chine Works, where the police protected men 
 at work. Some of the rioters were hurt, but 
 probably none killed. 
 
 The anarchists called a meeting to denounce 
 the police. It was held near a poUce station 
 at which they knew a large force was concen- 
 trated. The situation was critical. The scent 
 of danger was in the air. They so conducted 
 the meeting as to make it the duty of the po- 
 hce to disperse it. The language of the speak- 
 ers was of a very violent character, and was 
 loudly applauded. 
 
 The police marched to the meeting, halted, 
 and a captain commanded the people to dis- 
 perse. It was then half-past ten o'clock at night. 
 A dynamite bomb was thrown into the ranks of 
 the policemen, killing Began, mortally wound- 
 ing six others, and wounding threescore more 
 not mortally. 
 
 The indictment was for the murder of Be- 
 gan, the first victim. For this murder law and 
 reason charge the whole body of conspiring 
 members of the International, but want of 
 space, and theii prominence, limit me mainly 
 to Spies and Parsons. 
 
 Before going into the evidence of the conduct 
 of the anarchists, I must quote a little law. I 
 cannot rely jpon the verdict of the jury, or the 
 
pots{0K«i3 Justifiable, because itistlieoalx meani> but lUcjr tliomaolTOS 
 Lave set the !inin«u.>ri:il t-xniupUv 
 
 By force our a"«"^^tor> litn-rritM Htpmsolvf* from ^loUtical iniprx'ssinti, 
 by furct their chilJien »iU lun.- to libcmlc tlii'mseUes fiimi i^conoinlc 
 bondage '"U is, tlierefore, jour right, il is your ihily " savs .Iclld.sciu— "to 
 arm'" 
 
 tVbatwe would achieve is, thereXore, plaiij\ and simply 
 
 >liis<.-D«9tniction of the existiiiR class rule, by all means, i. e. byener- 
 fttlc, r<'l<'nlless, revoluti.inary and international action. 
 
 Second — Est.iblishmenl of a free society baaed upon co-operative organ- 
 ization ol I'H^ductiOli. 
 
 Ti'ird — Kree c\clianse of equi\;i!pnt prodncts bv and bctwcin the pro- 
 ■ ' I proI'it-nioni;tM 
 
 -Organization of edn 
 
 . scientilic and equal 
 
 TO THE 
 
 Workinpen of America. 
 
 1 (independent) communes and associations. Testing on a federal 
 
 llH*ver agrees nitli this ideal let hiin gra'-p our outstretched brother 
 
 rolptariaiis of all cnnntries, uifite ' 
 
 'elloiv-wnrkinen, all we need for the achievement of thre great end js 
 
 ANI/..\TION and I'MTV I 
 
 'liiie (vists now no great obstacle to that unity The wort of peace- 
 
 duiMtioii and reviilnUonary conspiracy well can and ought to run in 
 
 lei linis 
 
 111' il»\ luis come for solidarity Join our ranks! Let the drum beat 
 
 iillv li.e 11.11 of battle. -Workmen of all countries unite! Vou have 
 
 'iiiiihlo, i.|.(.u's.«ir3 of the world ' Xot far beyond your purblind sight 
 ilavv lis the M lulrl and sable lights of the Judo.mknt Day ! 
 
 " International 
 
 Issued by the I'ittabuizh Congn 
 ~-'~-' *.S90Ciatr™*' 
 
 1 of Infoin 
 
 International Working Peoples' Association, 
 
 107 Fifth Avenue, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 
 
 wm' Stib>.oiibe for "THE ALARM," ai?erato- 
 tionary Socialistic J^etvxpaper. devoted to the propa- 
 ganda of ANARCHY. Published weekly at No. 107 
 Fifth Ave., Chicago, Ills. S^ample cony free. 
 
 FELLOW-WORKMEN:— The DECLjLaAnoN of 
 Independence says: 
 
 Uut when along train of ataises and usurpations, 
 pui-suing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce the in, 
 (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is ()uir nj*t, it is their durj 
 to throw oft such government and pro>ide new guards {or tbeir future 
 security " 
 
 Tliis thought of Thomas Jefferson was the Justification for armwi re- 
 sistance by our forefathers, which gave birth to our Republic, and do not 
 the necessities of our present time compel us to re-assert their ded.iration? 
 
 Jellow- Workmen, we aakyou. to give, us your attention for a few nio- 
 "^UHLv^.® -^^H. 5'^", tp^^nd'-lly reaa the foHowin- manifesto issued in 
 -your behalf; in the behalf of your wives .and cliildrcn in beliaU of humanity 
 and progress ' 
 
 .i-.r'l' P'f ™t wciety is founded on the expolmtlon of the.urorerTyless 
 class by the propertied. This expoliation 5s such ikit tl e i- opcVticI 
 (capitalists) buy the worlung force body and soulof the properlyle.s loMbe 
 price of the mere cost of existence («age.^ luid take lov thenisjves i e 
 steal the amnnnt of newvalues (products) which exceeds tlie price wiieivbv 
 wa^eOabSrTr ^eP-^e"' ^^^ necessities instead of the ea!^of"be 
 
 sail'^{|;;;;fr^i;^,^^,-?^;!^i,^;fj]-;[,r-nr^ 
 
 on a pand .scale enforces technical development witl inime^« iSpMi v ^ 
 that By the application of an always decreA.siurnumbeTo? lu^l^^?o,l"■,^. 
 
 srofVo'^ir-'^f^j^c^'r,^ '''""""' »f >^''^»"'» ^'"^^^^^^^ 
 inte,.s;irinA^m,;^;::4s^?^Si^if^^?'^--nM><^^ 
 
 PART OF AN ANARCHIST HANDBILL ISSUED FROM "THE ALARM 
 
 judgment of the Supreme Court; for the tribunal 
 which I am addressing is to be convinced by 
 facts and reason, not borne down by author- 
 ity. But I am entitled to rely upon the stat- 
 utes of the State, and upon earlier decisions 
 of the Supreme Court, for they constituted 
 the preexisting law of the State, In charging 
 members of a conspiracy Avith a crime com- 
 mitted in furtherance of the object and in carry- 
 ing out the design of the conspiracy, and for 
 which all the members are therefore respon- 
 sible, " it is not necessary to prove that the 
 defendants came together and actually agreed 
 in terms to have that design, and to pursue it 
 by common means. If it be proved that the 
 defendants pursued by their acts the same ob- 
 ject, often by the same means, one performing 
 one part and another another part of the same, 
 so as to complete it with a view to the attain- 
 ment of that same object, the jury will be jus- 
 tified in the conclusion that they were engaged 
 in a conspiracy to effect that object," and "by 
 the act of conspiring together, the conspirators 
 have jointly assumed to themselves, as a body, 
 the attribute of individuality, so far as regards 
 the prosecution of the common design ; thus 
 rendering whatever is done or said by any one 
 in furtherance of that design a part of the res 
 gestce, and therefore the act of all" (3d Green- 
 leaf, Evidence, Sees. 93, 94) ; and " when, there- 
 fore, persons combine to do an unlawful thing, 
 if the act of one, proceeding according to the 
 common plan, terminates in a criminal result. 
 
 though not the particular result meant, all are 
 liable" (i Bishop, Criminal Law, Sec. 636). 
 
 In the case of Brennan vs. The People (15 
 Illinois Reports, 5 1 1 ), th e Supreme Court of Illi- 
 nois, in deciding the case, said : "There is a fatal 
 objection to the eighteenth, twenty-first, and 
 twenty-second instructions asked by the pris- 
 oners. These instructions required the jury to 
 acquit the prisoners, unless they actually par- 
 ticipated in the killing of Story, or unless the 
 killing happened in pursuance of a common 
 design on the part of the prisoners to take his 
 life. Such is not the law. The prisoners may 
 be guilty of murder, although they neither took 
 part in the killing, nor assented to any arrange- 
 ment having for its object the death of Story. 
 It is sutKicient that they combined with those 
 committing the deed to do an unlawful act, 
 such as to beat or rob Story; and that he was 
 killed in the attempt to execute the common 
 purpose. If several persons conspire to do an 
 unlawful act, and death happens in the prose- 
 cution of the common object, all are alike 
 guilty of the homicide. The act of one of them, 
 done in furtherance of the original design, is, 
 in consideration of law, the act of all, and he 
 Avho advises or encourages another to do an 
 illegal act is responsible for all the natural and 
 probable consequences that may arise from its 
 perpetration," 
 
 These quotations show what is the common 
 law upon the subject to which they relate; and 
 what Spies and Parsons published in newspa- 
 
8l2 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 pers and shouted in speeches is enough for 
 their condemnation and for the condemnation 
 of all their co-conspirators, being published and 
 spoken for the purpose of carrying out the de- 
 sign of the conspiracy, and followed by the 
 murder instigated by such publications and 
 speeches. They incited, advised, encouraged, 
 the throwing of the bomb that killed the police- 
 men, not by addressing the bomb-thrower spe- 
 cially, and telling him to throw a bomb at that 
 or any specified time or occasion, but by gen- 
 eral addresses to readers and hearers; by every 
 argument which they could frame; by every ap- 
 peal to passion which they could make; advis- 
 ing, encouraging, urging, and instructing how 
 to perform acts within which the act of throw- 
 ing the bomb was embraced. 
 
 The common law, said Lord Coke, *' is the 
 perfection of reason." In less stilted phrase, 
 and, as I think, in words more significant to 
 plain people, I have said, " and the law is com- 
 mon sense." 
 
 That all of the defendants belonged to 
 " groups " of the International; that the design 
 and purpose of the organization of the Ifiter- 
 national was to bring about a destruction of 
 the existing order of society by rebelUon and 
 revolution; that the newspapers edited by Spies 
 and Parsons were the organs of the Interna- 
 tional — all this was conclusively proved on 
 the trial, and no denial attempted. And if by 
 the law of the State of Illinois, preexisting and 
 known, the anarchists residing in Illinois were 
 guilty of murder by engaging in a conspiracy 
 the natural and probable result of which could 
 be anticipated, and that result murder, it is 
 childish whimpering for their adherents to com- 
 plain that the law defied by the anarchists was 
 upon their defeat enforced against them. No ar- 
 gument can convince those who are determined 
 not to be convinced, and words are thrown 
 away upon such as, though unable to deny 
 that thus runs the law, yet let their sympathy 
 either for doctrines approaching those preached 
 by the anarchists, or for the unhappy fate of 
 the anarchists, control their judgments. The 
 sincerity of the anarchists in their belief of the 
 benefits to accrue from anarchy (if they were 
 sincere) is not to be considered when the ques- 
 tion is whether they were murderers. The East 
 Indian thugs were religious and sincere. 
 
 It will come within my task to show that 
 if the anarchists could have carried out their 
 plans, the horrors of the French revolution in 
 the last century were the pattern which they 
 proposed, not to copy, but to exceed, in atro- 
 city. People who are not anarchists, and yet 
 who sentimentally pity and sigh over their 
 fate,, do not appreciate their plans and pur- 
 poses; such people either have not read the 
 anarchists' addresses, or else the wildness and 
 
 idiotic absurdity of their plans — the utter non- 
 sense of supposing that a very small percen- 
 tage of the total population of the United 
 States, and they mostly foreigners to whom 
 the English language was a strange tongue, 
 could coerce or terrorize the great nation — 
 present those addresses in such a ridiculous 
 light that their malignity is lost sight of by 
 the reader. 
 
 In all the United States that were colo- 
 nized by the English, or from the original thir- 
 teen States, the common law of England is at 
 the foundation of all law. In Illinois it has 
 long been a part of the statutes " that the com- 
 mon law of England, so far as the same is 
 applicable and of a general nature, . . . shall 
 be the rule of decision, and shall be considered 
 as of full force until repealed by legislative au- 
 thority " (Chap. 28, Revised Statutes). " All 
 trials for criminal offenses shall be conducted 
 according to the course of the common law, 
 except when this act points out a difterent mode, 
 and the rules of evidence of the common law 
 shall also be binding upon all courts and juries 
 in criminal cases except as otherwise provided 
 by law" (Sec. 428, Chap. 38). " Murder is the 
 unlawful killing of a human being, in the peace 
 of the people, with malice aforethought, express 
 or implied " (Sec. 140, Chap. 38). " An acces- 
 sory is he who stands by, and aids, abets, assists, 
 or who, not being present, aiding, abetting or 
 assisting, hath advised, encouraged, aided or 
 abetted the perpetration of the crime. He who 
 thus aids, abets, assists, advises or encourages, 
 shall be considered as principal, and punished 
 accordingly" (Sec. 274, Chap. 38). 
 
 Construing this last section, the Supreme 
 Court of the State held, forty years before the 
 anarchists' trial, that "the acts of the principal 
 are made the acts of the accessory, he thereby 
 becomes the principal, and may be charged as 
 having done the act himself" (Baxter's case, 3 
 Oilman's Reports, 368). In Brennan's case, al- 
 ready cited, in 1854 that court held that " the 
 advice or encouragement that may make one 
 an accessory to crime need not be by words, 
 but by any word or act, sign or motion, done 
 or made for the purpose of encouraging the 
 commission of a crime." 
 
 I have been very slow in reaching the facts. 
 In order that the pertinency of what Spies and 
 Parsons published and said may be apparent,- 
 a brief description of the situation in Chicago 
 is necessary. For some time — how long is un- 
 certain — there had been in various cities in the 
 United States "groups," as they were called, 
 of the " International Association of Working- 
 men," or " International Arbeiter Association," 
 generally called the "International" or, for brev- 
 ity, "LA. A." For some time — months, if not 
 years — before May i, 1886, there had been 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 ii3 
 
 eight of these groups in Chicago. Scliwab, 
 Neebe, and Lingg belonged to one of these 
 groups, Engel and Fischer to another, and 
 Spies, Parsons, and Fielden to another. At one 
 time Spies had belonged to the same group of 
 which Engel and Fischer were members. To 
 some of these groups were attached "armed 
 sections." 
 
 The International had in Chicago two or- 
 gans, the " Arbeiter Zeitung," a newspaper in 
 German, issuing every afternoon an edition of 
 about thirty-six hundred; and "The Alarm," 
 in English, issuing twice a month an edition of 
 about two thousand. Si)ies and Schwab were 
 editors of the "Arbeiter," and Parsons was edi- 
 tor of" The Alarm." Each of these papers pub- 
 lished " The Platform of the International," 
 "The Alarm" on the first day of November, 
 1 884, and the " Arbeiter " in all its issues during 
 February, March^ and April, 1886. From this 
 platform I make extracts. Itwill be understood 
 that in all quotations that I shall make from 
 the "Arbeiter," they are translations from the 
 German, and I shall make none from either 
 paper that was not read in evidence on the trial 
 in the words here presented. 
 
 The following are extracts from the platform : 
 " The Declaration of Independence declares 
 when a long train of abuses and usurpation, 
 pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a 
 design to reduce them (the people) under ab- 
 solute despotism, it is their right, it is their 
 duty, to throw off such government and to 
 provide new guards for 
 their future security. Are 
 we not too much governed, 
 and is it not time to prac- 
 tice this thought of Jeffer- 
 son ? Is our government 
 anything but a conspiracy 
 of the privileged classes 
 against the people ? Fel- 
 low-laborers, read the fol- 
 lowing declaration, which 
 we issue in your interest, 
 for humanity and progress. 
 The present order of so- 
 ciety is based upon the 
 spoliation of the non-prop- 
 erty by the property 
 owners, the capitalists buy 
 the labor of the poor for 
 wages, at the mere cost of 
 living, taking all the sur- 
 plus of labor. . . . Thus 
 while the poor are increas- 
 ingly deprived the oppor- 
 tunities of advancement, 
 the rich grow richer 
 through increasing rob- 
 LARGE GAS-PIPE BOMB. bcry. . . . This system is 
 
 SMALL GAS-PIPE BOMBS. 
 
 unjust, insane, and 
 murderous. There- 
 fore those who suffer 
 under it, and do not 
 wish to be respon- 
 sible for its continue 
 ance, oughtto strive 
 for its destruction 
 by all means and 
 with their utmost 
 energy. , . . The 
 laborers can look 
 for aid from no out- 
 side source in their 
 fight against the ex- 
 isting system, but 
 must achieve de- 
 liverance through 
 their own exertions. 
 Hitherto, no privi- 
 leged class have re- 
 linquished tyranny, 
 nor will the capital- 
 ists of to-day forego 
 their privilege and 
 authority without compulsion. . . . It is there- 
 fore self-evident that the fight of proletarianism 
 against the bourgeoisie must have a violent 
 revolutionary character; that wage conflicts 
 cannot lead to the goal. . . . Under all these 
 circumstances, there is only one remedy left — 
 force. Our ancestors of 1776 have taught us 
 that resistance to tyrants is justifiable, and 
 have left us an immortal example. By force, 
 they freed themselves from foreign oppression, 
 and through force their descendants must free 
 themselves from domestic oppression. . . . 
 Agitation to organize, organizations for the 
 purpose of rebellion, this is the course if the 
 workingmen would rid themselves of their 
 chains." 
 
 Note the words, " it is therefore self-evi- 
 dent that the fight . . . must have a violent 
 revolutionary character; that wage conflicts 
 cannot lead to the goal," and then look for 
 the meaning that Spies and Parsons intended 
 that their readers should understand by them. 
 
 From the "Arbeiter," March 16, 1885: 
 "About revolutionary deeds. ... In all 
 revolutionary action three different epochs of 
 time are to be distinguished : first, the portion 
 of preparation for an action, then the moment 
 of the action itself, and finally that portion of 
 time which follows the deed. ... In the first 
 place a revolutionary action should succeed. 
 Then as little as possible ought to be sacri- 
 ficed, — that is, in other words, the danger of 
 discovery ought to be weakened as much as 
 possible, and, if it can be, reduced to naught. 
 . . . Mention was made of the danger of dis- 
 covery. . . . It is easily comprehensible for 
 
;i4 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 LINGG S BOMB. (CLOSED.) 
 
 everybody, that the danger of discovery is the 
 greater the more numerous the mass of people 
 or the group which contemplates a deed, and 
 vice versa. On the other hand, the threatening 
 danger aj^proaches the closer the better the 
 acting persons are known to the authorities of 
 the place of action, and vice versa. . . . Who- 
 ever is willing to execute a deed, has, in the 
 first place, to put the question to himself, 
 whether he is able or not to carry out the ac- 
 tion by himself. If the former is the case, let 
 him absolutely initiate no one into the matter, 
 and let him act alone. But if that is not the 
 case, then let him look, with the greatest care, 
 for just as many fellows as he must have ab- 
 solutely. Not one more nor less ; with these 
 let him unite himself to a fighting group. . , . 
 Has the deed been completed ? Then the group 
 of action dissolves at once, without further 
 parley, according to an understanding which 
 must be had beforehand, 
 leaves the place of action, 
 and scatters to all direc- 
 tions." 
 
 From "The Alarm," 
 December 26, 1885: "(A 
 free translation from the 
 German.) ' Bakunin's 
 groundwork for the 
 social revolution. a 
 revolutionist's duty 
 TO HIMSELF.' The revo- 
 lutionist is a self-offered 
 man. . . . Everything 
 in him is consumed by 
 one single interest, by one 
 single thought, one single 
 passion : the Revolution. 
 
 ... He lives in this world for the purpose to 
 more surely destroy it. He leaves the re-or- 
 ganization of society to the future generations. 
 He knows only one science : the science of de- 
 struction. . . . The revolutionist is a consecrated 
 being (who does not belong to himself) ; he 
 would not spare the State in general and the 
 entire class society, and at the same time does 
 not expect mercy for himself. Between him 
 and society reigns the war of death or life, pub- 
 licly and secretly, but always steady and un- 
 pardoning. . . . Day and night dare he have 
 only one thought, one aim : the unmerciful 
 destruction. While he, cold-blooded, and 
 without rest, follows that aim, he himself 
 must be ready to die at any time, and ready 
 to kill with his own hands any one who 
 seeks to thwart his aim. ... In executing a re- 
 solved-upon case, everybody must as much 
 as possible depend upon himself. In case 
 where a lot of destructive deeds is to be done, 
 everybody must be self-operating, and request 
 help and counsel of his comrades only in 
 cases where it is absolutely necessary for suc- 
 cess. . . . Equally must he hate everything 
 that is anti-revolutionary. So much the worse 
 for him if he has in the present world ties of 
 relation, friendship, or love. He is no revolu- 
 tionist if these ties are able to arrest his arm. 
 . . . The entire filthy society of our time should 
 be divided into different categories. The first 
 consists of those who are immediately sentenced 
 to death. ... In the first place those persons 
 are to be destroyed who are most harmful to 
 the revolutionary organization, and whose vio- 
 lent and sudden death is able to terrify the 
 governments and shake their might the most, 
 in so far as it will rob the powers that be of 
 their most energetic and intelHgent agents." 
 
 A book called "Science of Revolutionary 
 Warfare. Manual for instruction in the use 
 and preparation of nitro-glycerine and dyna- 
 mite, gun cotton, fulminating mercury, bombs, 
 
 %.-. 
 
 "^^-iaa^ 
 
 "aist^^^ 
 
 LINGG S BOME 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 815 
 
 fuse, poisons, etc., etc. By Johann Most," 
 was sold at picnics and mass-meetings of the 
 Internationals. 1 1 contains about sixteen thou- 
 sand words of minute instructions, but I will 
 not repeat any of them. The knowledge is of 
 a kind not useful. I extract only two sentences. 
 " What tears solid rocks into splinters may 
 not have a bad effect in a court or nrionopo- 
 lists' ball-room." *' If somebody wants to exe- 
 cute a revolutionary deed, he should not speak 
 about it with others, but should go to work 
 silently." Of this book the "Arbeiter" of 
 March 2, 15, 18, and 25, 1886, published, not 
 as an advertisement, but gratuitously, this 
 notice : " ' Revolutionary Warfare ' has arrived, 
 and is to be had through the librarian at 107 
 5th Avenue, at the price of ten cents." Both 
 the "Arbeiter" and "The 
 Alarm " were published 
 at that place, and the 
 library room was in the 
 rear of the newspaper of- 
 fice. November 27, 1885, 
 the "Arbeiter" pubhshed : 
 "Steel and iron are not 
 on hand, but tin, two or 
 three inches in diameter; 
 the price is cheap. It does 
 not amount to fifty cents 
 apiece." There is no pos- 
 sible explanation of this 
 to mean anything else 
 than bombs, to be found 
 by applying at the office 
 of the "Arbeiter." 
 
 " The Alarm," Octo- 
 ber 18, 1884: "The Anarchist. The 'Daily 
 Inter-Ocean' closes a lengthy article thus: 
 [quoting]. The * Inter-Ocean' man has over- 
 looked the fact that one man with a dynamite 
 bomb is equal to a regiment of militia." 
 
 "The Alarm," October 25, 1884: "The 
 Socialists are accused of being bloodthirsty. 
 This is not true. They, like all other thinking 
 people, know that a revolution must come. . . . 
 Whether the stopping and uprooting of a bad 
 principle will require bloodshed depends, first, 
 on how old it is, and how much the people are 
 receiving it as a second nature, and how much 
 its supporters are interested in keeping it a-go- 
 ing. And, secondly, how strong, clear, and 
 determined the opposition is when it begins 
 to oppose. This is why the communist and 
 anarchist urges the people to study their school- 
 books on chemistry, and read the dictionaries 
 and cyclopedias on the composition of all kinds 
 of explosives, and make themselves too strong 
 to be opposed with deadly weapons. This 
 alone can insure against bloodshed. Every 
 person can get that knowledge inside of a week, 
 and a majority now have one or more books 
 
 containing all this information right in their 
 own homes. And every man who is master of 
 these explosives cannot be even approached 
 by an army of men. Therefore, bloodshed 
 being useless, and injustice being defenseless, 
 people will be forced to deal justly and gener- 
 ously with each other." 
 
 "The Alarm," November i, 1884: "Thk 
 USELESS CLASSES. . . . How Can all this be 
 done ? Simj)ly by making ourselves masters 
 of the use of dynamite, then declaring we will 
 make no further claim to ownership in any- 
 thing, and deny every other person's right to 
 be the owner of anything, and administer in- 
 stant death, by any and all means, to any and 
 every person who attempts to continue to claim 
 personal ownership in anything. This method, 
 
 l-OISONED BOMBS. 
 
 and this alone, can relieve the world of this 
 infernal monster called the ' right of property.' 
 Let us try and not strike too soon, when our 
 numbers are too small, or before more of us 
 understand the use and manufacture of the 
 weapons. To avoid unnecessary bloodshed, 
 confusion, and discouragement, we must be 
 prepared, know why we strike, and for just 
 what we strike, and then strike in unison and 
 with all our might. Our war is not against 
 men, but against systems; yet we must pre- 
 pare to kill men Avho try to defeat our cause, 
 or we will strive in vain. The rich are only 
 worse than the poor because they have more 
 powder to wield this infernal 'property right,' 
 and because they have more power to reform, 
 and take less interest in doing so. Therefore 
 it is easy to see where the bloodiest blows 
 must be dealt." 
 
 This last extract indicates that Parsons 
 thought that his previous instructions might 
 have made some of his deluded disciples too 
 impatient, and that they might be too hasty, 
 and therefore he says, " Let us try and not strike 
 too soon, when our numbers are too small, or 
 
;i6 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 EXPLOSIVE CAN FILLED WITH COMBUSTIBLES. 
 
 before more of us understand the use and manu- 
 facture of the weapons." 
 
 "The Alarm," November 22, 1884: "This 
 PAPER. This paper is owned by the Interna- 
 tional Working People's Association. ... It 
 is published by the public spirit of working 
 people for public good." 
 
 "The Alarm," March 7, 1885 : " Our agi- 
 tators. The agitation trips of comrades Gor- 
 such, Fielden, and Griffin, during the past two 
 weeks, were prohfic of good results. Twelve 
 American groups were organized in different 
 cities, and those united with the International 
 are working to bring into the ranks of the revo- 
 lutionary army the proletariats of the contig- 
 uous districts. The Working People's Interna- 
 tional Association now embraces eighty groups, 
 scattered all over the United States, mainly in 
 centers of industry, from which the propa- 
 gandism radiates everywhere, the membership 
 being many thousands. In Chicago, with thou- 
 sands of members, five newspapers, with in- 
 creasing circulation, are published. The good 
 work goes bravely on ; and exertions should be 
 redoubled. Agitation for the purpose of or- 
 ganization, organization for the purpose of re- 
 belhon against wage slavery, is the duty of the 
 hour." 
 
 In " The Alarm " of November 29, 1884, the 
 reward of rebellion is thus indicated : " No- 
 thing but an uprising of the people, and burst- 
 ing open of all stores and warehouses to the 
 free access of the public, and a free application 
 of dynamite to every one who opposes, will 
 relieve the world of this infernal nightmare of 
 property and wages. Down with such wretched 
 
 nonsense ! No rascality or stupidity is sacred 
 because it is old. Down with it ! " 
 
 " The Alarm," January 13, 1885 : " Force 
 
 THE ONLY DEFENSE AGAINST INJUSTICE AND 
 
 OPPRESSION. . . . We are told that force is 
 cruel. But this is only true when opposition is 
 less cruel. If the opposition is a relentless 
 power, that is starving, freezing, exposing, and 
 depriving tens of thousands, and the application 
 of force would require less suffering while re- 
 moving the old cause, then the force is hu- 
 mane. Seeing the amount of needless suffering 
 all about us, we say a vigorous use of dynamite 
 is both humane and economical. It will at the 
 expense of less suffering prevent more. It is not 
 humane to compel ten persons to starve to death 
 when the execution of five persons would pre- 
 vent it. It is upon this theory that we advo- 
 cate the use of dynamite. It is clearly more 
 humane to blow ten men into eternity than to 
 make ten men starve to death." 
 
 "The Alarm," February 21, 1885: " Dyna- 
 mite ! Of all the good stuff, this is the stuff. 
 Stuff several pounds of this sublime stuff into 
 an inch pipe (gas or water pipe), plug up both 
 ends, insert a cap with a fuse attached, place 
 this in the immediate neighborhood of a lot 
 of rich loafers who live by the sweat of other 
 people's brows, and light the fuse. A most 
 cheerful and gratifying result will follow. In 
 giving dynamite to the downtrodden millions 
 of the globe, science has done its best work. 
 
 ENGEL S FURNACE. 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 817 
 
 The dear stuff can be carried around in the 
 pocket without danger, while it is a formidable 
 weapon against any force of militia, poHce, or 
 detectives that may want to stifle the cry for 
 justice that goes forth from the plundered 
 slaves. It is something not very ornamental, 
 but exceedingly useful. It can be used against 
 persons and things. It is better to use it against 
 the former than against bricks and masonry. 
 It is a genuine boon for the disinherited, while 
 it brings terror and fear to the robbers. . . . 
 Dynamite is hke Bancjuo's ghost, it keeps on 
 fooling around, somewhere or other, in sjnte 
 of his Satanic majesty. A pound of this good 
 stuff beats a bushel of ballots all hollow, and 
 don't you forget it. . . . If workingmen would 
 be truly free, they must learn to know why they 
 are slaves. They must rise above petty preju- 
 dice and learn to think. From thought to ac- 
 tion is not far, and when the worker has seen 
 the chain, he need but look a little closer to 
 find near at hand the sledge with which to 
 shatter every link. The sledge is dynamite." 
 
 "The Alarm," April 18, 1885 : "Assassina- 
 tion. . . . The moment the abolition of a 
 government is suggested, the mind pictures the 
 uprising of a hundred little despotic govern- 
 ments on every hand, quarreling among them- 
 selves, and domineering over the unorganized 
 people. This fact suggests the idea that the 
 present governments must be destroyed, only 
 in a manner that will prevent the organization 
 or rise of any and all other governments, whe- 
 ther it be a government of three men or three 
 hundred million. No government can exist 
 without a head, and by assassinating the head 
 just as fast as a government head appears, the 
 government can be destroyed, and by this same 
 process all other governments can be kept out 
 of existence. This is the policy of the nihilist 
 in Russia, and the moment it gets any popular 
 support throughout civilization all governments 
 will disappear forever. Those governments least 
 offensive to the people should be destroyed last. 
 All governments exist by the abridgment of 
 human liberty, and the more government the 
 less liberty. He alone is free who submits 
 to no government. All governments are domi- 
 neering powers, and any domineering power 
 is a natural enemy to all mankind, and ought 
 to be treated as such. Assassination will remove 
 the evil from the face of the earth. Man will 
 always have and always need advisers, teach- 
 ers, and leaders in all departments of life, but 
 bosses, jailers, and drivers are unnecessary. 
 Man's leader is his friend. His driver is his 
 enemy. This distinction should be understood, 
 and the parties should be dealt with accord- 
 ingly. Assassination properly applied is wise, 
 just, humane, and brave. For freedom, all 
 things are just." 
 Vol. XLV.— 107. 
 
 From August 17, 1885, to its last issue "The 
 Alarm " kept standing this notice : " The 
 armed section of the American group meets 
 every Monday night, at 54 West Lake Street." 
 
 In his address to me before sentence was 
 pronounced. Parsons said: "These articles that 
 appear in 'The Alarm,' for some of them I am 
 not resjjonsible any more than is the editor of 
 any other paper. And I did not write every- 
 thing in 'The Alarm,' and it might be possible 
 
 ENGRAVED BY I 
 INSPECTOR JOHN EONFIELD. 
 
 that there were some things in that paper which 
 I am not ready to indorse. I am frank to ad- 
 mit that such is the case." 
 
 The statute of Illinois permits defendants in 
 criminal cases to be witnesses on their own be- 
 half. He had availed himself of that permis- 
 sion, but as a witness had not expressed any 
 disapproval of the sentiment of any of the ex- 
 tracts from "The Alarm," all of which (much 
 more than are here reproduced) were read be- 
 fore he testified. Read now, from the paper 
 that he edited, the report of a speech that he 
 made, and then select from the foregoing ex- 
 tracts any which he would not have been 
 "ready to indorse" before the tragedy of 
 May 4, 1886. 
 
 On April 28, 1885, the Board of Trade of 
 Chicago dedicated a magnificent new building 
 which they had erected as a place for their 
 business. The dedication was at night. The 
 same night a large gathering of people was 
 addressed by Parsons and others on Mar- 
 ket Square, some six squares distant from the 
 
8i8 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 Board of Trade building. Then a procession 
 was formed, which marched toward the build- 
 ing, but cordons of police met the people at 
 different streets, and prevented them from get- 
 ting nearer than a block to the building. They 
 halted at one place and sang the " Marseillaise," 
 
 ENGRAVED BY R. G. TIET2E. 
 INSPECTOR MICHAEL J. SCHAACK.' 
 
 and then marched to the " Arbeiter" building, 
 where more speeches were made. 
 
 "The Alarm" of May 2, 1885, reported 
 Parsons as follows :".... The present social 
 system makes private property of the means of 
 labor, and the resources of life — capital — and 
 thereby creates classes and inequalities, con- 
 ferring upon the holders of property the power 
 to live upon the labor product of the proper- 
 tyless. Whoever owns our bread owns our bal- 
 lots, for a man who must sell his labor or starve 
 must sell his vote when the same alternative is 
 presented. The inequalities of our social system, 
 its classes, its privileges, its enforced poverty 
 and misery, arises out of the institution of pri- 
 vate property, and so long as this system prevails 
 our wives and children will be driven to toil, 
 while their fathers and brothers are thrown into 
 enforced idleness, and the men of the Board of 
 Trade and all other profit-mongers and legal- 
 ized gamblers who live by fleecing the people 
 will continue to accumulate milhons at the 
 expense of their helpless victims. This grand 
 
 conspiracy against our liberty and lives is main- 
 tained and upheld by statute law and the con- 
 stitution, and enforced by the military arms of 
 the State. If we would achieve our liberation 
 from economic bondage, and acquire our nat- 
 ural right to life and liberty, every man must 
 lay by a part of his wages, buy a Colt's navy 
 revolver [cheers, and ' that 's what we want '], 
 a Winchester rifle [a voice : ' and ten pounds 
 of dynamite; we will make it ourselves'], and 
 learn how to make and use dynamite [cheers]. 
 Then raise the flag of rebellion [cries of' Bravo' 
 and cheers], the scarlet banner of liberty, frater- 
 nity, equality, and strike down to the earth 
 every tyrant that lives upon this globe. [Cheers, 
 and cries of ' Vive la Commune ! '] Tyrants 
 have no right which we should respect. Until 
 this is done you will continue to be robbed, to be 
 plundered, to be at the mercy of the privileged 
 few; therefore agitate for the purpose of organ- 
 ization, organize for the purpose of rebellion, 
 for wage-slaves have nothing to lose but their 
 chains; they have a world of freedom and hap- 
 piness to win. [Cheers.] " 
 
 I fear these quotations will prove very tire- 
 some to readers, but to accomplish my task 
 of showing the guilt of the anarchists, I must 
 make a great many more. 
 
 The "Arbeiter," February 23, 1885 : "Thicker 
 and thicker the clouds gather around the po- 
 litical and social horizon of the world, more 
 and more the darkness increases. Without 
 laying claim to the reputation of a prophet, 
 one can say with certainty that this cannot 
 end without a mighty storm, bringing terror 
 and blessing, destruction and freedom. Discon- 
 tent and hatred of all that is corrupt and rotten 
 that is existing grows and prospers everywhere. 
 The struggle between the parties is tapering, 
 the diplomatic machinations of the so-called 
 statesmen have reached their culminating point. 
 The already approaching revolution promises 
 to be much grander and more terrible than 
 that at the close of the last century, which only 
 broke out in one country. The coming revo- 
 lution will be general, for it makes itself already 
 felt everywhere and generally. It will demand 
 more sacrifices, for the number of those over 
 whom we have to sit in judgment is now much 
 greater than that of the last century." 
 
 Referring to Philadelphia labor troubles, the 
 "Arbeiter "of March 2,1885, says: "That much 
 is sure, that thing could not have happened in 
 Chicago without placing for exhibition on the 
 telegraph-wires and cornices of houses a dozen 
 cadavers of policemen in pieces for each broken 
 skull of a workingman. And this is due solely 
 
 1 The originals (photographs) of the bombs, cir- his investigations in the capacity of chief detective em- 
 
 culars, and portraits of the members of the jury are ployed on the case, and who used them later in his 
 
 from the collection of Inspector Michael J. Schaack of book, "Anarchy and Anarchists : a History of the Red 
 
 the Chicago police, who collected them in the course of Terror and the Social Revolution." 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 819 
 
 and purely to the revolutionary propaganda 
 carried on here. We wonder whether the work- 
 ingmen in other cities will take a lesson from 
 this occurrence and will at last supply them- 
 selves with weapons, dynamite, and prussic acid 
 as far as that has not been done yet." 
 
 The "Arbeiter," March 1 1, 1885 : "The com- 
 munity will soon have to decide whether to be or 
 not to be \ either the police must be and then the 
 community cannot be, or the community must 
 be and then the police cannot be; one only of 
 the two is possible." 
 
 The " Arbeiter," March 23, 1885 : " Yet one 
 thing more. Although every day brings the 
 news of collisions between armed murder-serfs 
 of the bourgeoisie with unarmed crowds of peo- 
 ple (strikers and the like), we must ever and again 
 read in the so-called workingmen's papers : Dis- 
 cussions of the question of arming ought to be 
 avoided in the associations of the proletarian. 
 We characterize such pacifying efforts as crim- 
 inal. Each workingman ought to have been 
 armed long ago. We leave it an open ques- 
 tion whether whole corporations are able to 
 completely fit themselves out in a military point 
 of view with all their numbers ; but we say that 
 each single one, if he has the necessary serious- 
 ness and the good will, can arm himself little 
 by little very easily. Daggers and revolvers 
 are easily to be gotten. Hand-grenades are 
 cheaply to be produced ; explosives, too, can 
 be obtained, and finally possibihties are also 
 given to buy arms on instalments. To give 
 an impulse in that direction one should never 
 tire of. For not only the revolution proper, 
 approaching with gigantic steps, commands to 
 prepare for it, but also the wage contests of 
 to-day demand of us not to enter into it with 
 empty hands. Let us understand the signs of 
 the times. Let us have a care for the present, 
 that we will not be surprised by the future 
 unprepared." 
 
 The " Arbeiter," May 5, 1885: "When any- 
 where a small party of workingmen dare to 
 speak of rights and privileges, then the ' order' 
 draw together all the murdering scoundrels of 
 the whole city, and if necessary from the whole 
 country, to put their sovereignty the more clear- 
 ly before the sovereigns. In short, the whole 
 power of the capital — that is, the entire gov- 
 ernment — is ever ready to suppress the petty 
 demonstrations of the workingmen by force 
 of arms one after another, now here, then 
 there. This would be quite different if the 
 workingmen of the entire country could only 
 see that their class is in this wise subjected 
 part by part without condition and without 
 repartee. The workingmen ought to take aim 
 at every member of the militia, and do with 
 him as one would do with some one of whom 
 it is known that he is after taking one's Hfe. 
 
 It might then sooner be difficult to obtain 
 murdering tools." 
 
 The " Arbeiter," January 5, 1885, reporting 
 a speech by Spies on the ] previous afternoon 
 at 54 West Lake street: "When we resort to 
 murdering we only follow the law of necessity, 
 the force of self-preservation, we murder to 
 put an end to general murder, we put mur- 
 derers out of the way." 
 
 I must stop somewhere in these quotations 
 from articles published in the papers of which 
 Spies and Parsons were the editors. The con- 
 tents of newspapers through months and years 
 are not to be reproduced in a magazine article; 
 but if I made statements on my own authority 
 only, or on that of witnesses testifying at the 
 trial, the truth of such statements would be 
 denied by anarchists, and doubted by the sen- 
 timental humanitarians who think all punish- 
 ment is too much, and that criminals should 
 be coddled into reform by love. 
 
 As showing the extent to which the instruc- 
 tions of the two papers had been followed, 
 long before the murder of Degan, by the class 
 of people to whom they were addressed, "The 
 Alarm's" account of Thanksgiving Day, 1884, 
 and the "Arbeiter's" account of the Board of 
 
 ENGRAVED I 
 CAPTAIN WILLIAM WARIX 
 
 Trade demonstration of April 28, 1885, should 
 be given. 
 
 "The Alarm," November 29, 1884: On 
 "The day designated, Thursday, the 27th day 
 of November, opened with sleet and rain. . . . 
 The severity of the weather showed something 
 of the spirit that must be in the people who 
 
ENGRAVED By C. STATE. 
 
 TURNING BACK THE ANARCHISTS. (THE BOARD OF TRADE DEMONSTRATION.) 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 were not deterred by it. . . . Mr. Parsons then 
 called for the resolutions, which were then read 
 as follows: 
 
 " ' Whereas, ... as this system cannot be 
 introduced against existing ignorance, selfish- 
 ness, and distrust without the force of arms 
 and strong explosives, therefore be it 
 
 '■'■'■Resolved, that when all stores, storehouses, 
 vacant tenements, and transporting property 
 are thrown open and held open to the free ac- 
 cess of the general public, the good of man- 
 kind and the saving of blood requires that all 
 forcible opposition should be dealt with sum- 
 marily as fast as it may present itself. . . . 
 Therefore our policy is wise, humane, and 
 practical, and ought to be enforced at the 
 earliest possible moment, with a just regard 
 for numbers and implements.' , . . The audi- 
 ence fell into line by fours, forming a proces- 
 sion of over three thousand men, and then 
 moved off, headed by the band, which woke 
 the echoes of the lofty buildings around to 
 the strains of the Marseillaise. Two large 
 flags, one black and the other red, headed the 
 procession." 
 
 The "Arbeiter," April 29, 1885 : . . . "Now, 
 the march formed, headed by a company of the 
 Bohemian groups, the metal-workers, the North 
 side groups and the Lehr und Wehr Verein. 
 ' These fellows would do all credit to the guard 
 grenadier regiment,' remarked a German on 
 Madison street, pointing to the advance guard 
 of the procession. Next followed three female 
 comrades, who carried two red flags and one 
 black one. . . . Then followed the procession, 
 which could not be kept in good order, which 
 is to be regretted. Behind these marched a 
 strong company of well-armed comrades of 
 the various groups. Let us remark here that 
 with perhaps few exceptions they were all 
 well armed, and that also the nitro-glycerine 
 pills were not missing. They were prepared 
 for a probable attack, and if it had come to a 
 collision, there would have been pieces. The 
 cordons of the police could have been quite 
 excellently adapted for experiments with ex- 
 plosives. About twenty detectives were loiter- 
 ing about the Market Square at the beginning 
 and then disappeared. That explains the keep- 
 ing back of our otherwise impertinent order- 
 scoundrels. The procession, which was a i&\x 
 blocks long although the participants marched 
 in close order, moved down Madison street to 
 Clark, and from there south to Jackson, where 
 about one hundred policemen had blocked 
 the street. The procession, which was about 
 one hundred paces distant from the brightly 
 lighted palace, sang the Marseillaise, with the 
 accompaniment of the orchestrion,and marched 
 on La Salle street, then down La Salle street 
 to Van Buren street and up Clark street. 
 
 About five hundred policemen were stationed 
 around the Board of 'IVade. They suffered 
 everything. ' Ye miserable hounds. Ye are the 
 smaller thieves, and therefore must protect the 
 greater ones. Servile executioners ; gang of 
 murderers,' and other beautiful flatteries, the 
 bandits accepted as quietly as if it did ncjt 
 concern them at all. Here and there some 
 were pushed back, but not a one moved. 
 After a few jeers had been given to the thieves 
 and cutthroats, the procession returned to Fifth 
 Avenue, where Parsons, Spies, and Fielden 
 spoke from a window of the 'Arbeiter Zei- 
 tung.' " 
 
 Now I undertake to say that the mere ad- 
 vice to great masses of working people (of 
 whom Spies, in his testimony as a witness, said 
 that they were " stujnd and ignorant," among 
 whom there would of necessity be some vicious, 
 and to whom, being the least prosperous of the 
 community, envy of those in better condition 
 than themselves would be no unnatural pas- 
 sion), and especially advice to arm themselves 
 with pistols, daggers, and bombs, — weapons to 
 be concealed about the person, — was advice to 
 use such weapons at such times and places, and 
 against such persons, — at least such persons as 
 were of the classes so vehemently denounced 
 by the advisers, — as the whim or caprice of the 
 armed might dictate. But when added to that 
 advice was the instruction, in both the "Arbei- 
 ter" and "The Alarm," that each revolutionist 
 should, when possible, perform a revolutionary 
 act without assistance, and without communi- 
 cating his design to anybody, then every reader 
 following the advice to arm himself would — 
 must — understand that he must exercise his 
 own discretion in using his weapons. 
 
 On the trial it was urged by the defense that 
 the advice to arm was that working-men might 
 resist unlawful attacks of police and militia. It 
 is enough in reply to such an excuse to say that 
 no instance has ever occurred of calling upon 
 the police or militia, during labor troubles, to 
 compel anybody to work ; always they have 
 been called to protect men who wanted to 
 work, or property which was endangered by 
 those who had quitted work. Nor was there 
 any disguise about this among the anarchists. 
 I quote from " The Alarm," September 5 , 1 88 5 : 
 " Eight hours, our reply. Will the rich help 
 to bring it about ; or oppose it with starvation, 
 prisons, and cold steel ? . . . Shortening the 
 hours of labor is no real remedy. It still leaves 
 people in the condition of masters and servants. 
 . . . Private property makes competition neces- 
 sary, and monopoly must result. We can get 
 no real relief without striking at the root of 
 the evil ; namely, cutting off man's right to 
 convert anything into private property. . . . 
 ' The Alarm ' does not antagonize the eight- 
 
822 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 hour movement; viewing it from the stand- 
 point that it is an economic struggle, it simply 
 points out that it is a lost battle, and further 
 proves that though the eight-hour system 
 should be established, the wage-workers would 
 gain nothing. They would still remain slaves 
 to their capitahstic masters. ... If the strike 
 should turn out successful, the eight-hour sys- 
 tem woul^ result in the extermination of every 
 small manufacturer and small shop man. . . . 
 Now, in regard to the proposed strike next 
 spring, a few practical words to our comrades. 
 The number of organized wage-workers in the 
 country may be about 800,000 ; the number 
 of the unemployed about 2,000,000. Will the 
 manufacturing Kings grant the modest request 
 under such circumstances ? No, sir. The small 
 ones can not, and the big ones will not. They 
 will then draw from the army of the unem- 
 ployed ; the strikers will attempt to stop them. 
 Then comes the police and the militia. Say, 
 workingmen, are you prepared to meet the lat- 
 ter ; are you armed ? " 
 
 " The Alarm," Oct. 1 7, 1885 : " Eight hours. 
 . . . Mr. August Spies was introduced at this 
 point, and offered the following resolution : 
 
 " ' Whereas, a general movement has been 
 started among the organized wage-workers of 
 this country for the establishment of an eight- 
 hour work day to begin on May i, 1886 ; and 
 
 " '•Whereas, it is to be expected that the class 
 of professional idlers, the governing class, who 
 prey upon the bones and marrow of useful mem- 
 bers of society, will resist this attempt by call- 
 ing to their assistance the Pinkertons, the Po- 
 lice, and the Militia ; therefore be it 
 
 " ^Resolved, that we urge upon all wage- 
 workers the necessity of procuring arms before 
 this inauguration of the proposed eight-hour 
 strike, in order to be in a position of meeting 
 our foe with his own argument, force. 
 
 " ^Resolved, that while we are skeptical in re- 
 gard to the benefits that will accrue to the wage- 
 workers from the introduction of an eight-hour 
 work day, we nevertheless pledge ourselves to 
 aid and assist our brethren in this class struggle 
 with all that lies in our power as long as they 
 show an open and defiant front to our common 
 enemy, the labor-devouring class of aristocratic 
 vagabonds, the brutal murderers of our com- 
 rades in St. Louis, Lemont, Chicago, Phila- 
 delphia, and other places. Our war-cry may 
 be " death to the enemy of the human race, 
 our despoilers." ' 
 
 " August Spies supposed that Mr. Magie did 
 not like the terms in which the members of the 
 government were referred to. The reason of 
 this was that Mr. Magie was one of the politi- 
 cal vagabonds himself There were 9,000,000 
 of the people engaged in industrial trades in 
 this country. There were but 1,000,000 of them 
 
 as yet organized, while there were 2,000,000 
 of men unemployed. To make the movement 
 in which they were engaged a successful one, it 
 must be a revolutionary one. Don't let us, he 
 exclaimed, forget the most forcible argument 
 of all — the gun and dynamite." 
 
 "The Alarm," April 3, 1886: "American 
 Group. Mr. Parsons thought the organization 
 of the vast body of unskilled and unorganized 
 laboring men and women a necessity in order 
 that they might formulate their demands and 
 make an effective defense of their rights. He 
 thought the attempt to inaugurate the eight- 
 hour system would break down the capitalistic 
 system, and bring about such disorder and 
 hardship that the social revolution would be- 
 come a necessity. As all roads in ancient times 
 led to Rome, so now all labor movements of 
 whatever character lead to socialism." 
 
 The " Arbeiter," January 22, 1886: "The 
 eight-hour question is not, or at least should not 
 be, the final end of the present organization, but, 
 in comparison to the present state of things, a 
 progress not to be underrated. But now let 
 us consider the question in itself How is the 
 eight-hour day to be brought about ? Why, the 
 thinking workingman must see himself, under 
 the present power of capital in comparison to 
 labor, it is impossible to enforce the eight-hour 
 day in all branches of business otherwise than 
 with armed force. W^ith empty hands the work- 
 ingman will hardly be able to cope with the rep- 
 resentatives of the club in case after the first of 
 May of this year there should be a general 
 strike. Then the bosses will simply employ 
 other men, so-called 'scabs'; such will always 
 be found. The whole movement then would 
 be nothing but filling the places with new men; 
 but if the workingmen are prepared to eventu- 
 ally stop the working of the factories, to defend 
 himself with the aid of dynamite and bombs 
 against the militia, which will of course be em- 
 ployed, then and only then you can expect a 
 thorough success of the eight-hour movement. 
 Therefore, workingmen, I call upon you, arm 
 yourselves." 
 
 The "Arbeiter," April 26, 1886, reporting a 
 speech of Spies on Easter Sunday : "... Be 
 men now. Break down the doors of your extor- 
 tioners instead of timidly knocking on them. 
 Conquer the lost manhood. After you have 
 introduced the eight-hour day now, then let 
 there be no halt. Onward is the motto in the 
 march of triumph, until the last stone of the 
 robber bastile is removed and enslaved human- 
 ity is free." 
 
 It must be clear to every reader that the an- 
 archists contemplated no benefit to the hiborifig 
 poor, except through ajiarchy, and knew that 
 anarchy could be brought about only through 
 the subjugation or extirpation of the majority 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 823 
 
 by the minority through violence. How could 
 that violence be exerted but at the discretion 
 of individuals ? Revolutionary acts by single 
 men, or by the fewest possible assassination ; 
 escape from discovery by the authorities — for 
 these they published elaborate instructions in 
 their papers, and at their meedngs distributed 
 Most's book, containing instructions still more 
 elaborate. 
 
 From the columns of the " Arbeiter " I can 
 present the condition of Chicago as that fatal 
 fourth day of May approached better and more 
 conclusively than in words of my own. 
 
 " Die Fackel " (Sunday edition of the " Ar- 
 beiter"), May 2, 1886: "Now or nevkk. 
 The mortal enemies cross swords. . . . The 
 first twenty-four hours of the battle are passed. 
 . . . Everything depends upon quick and im- 
 mediate action. The tactics of the bosses are 
 to gain time; the tactics of the strikers must be 
 to grant them no time. By Monday or Tuesday 
 the conflict must have reached its highest in- 
 tensity, else the success will be doubtful. Within 
 a week the fire, the enthusiasm, will be gone, 
 and then the bosses will celebrate victories. It 
 is treacherous, moreover, when here and there 
 shop organizations and others enter into com- 
 promises. , . . They are worse than 'scabs'. . . . 
 The feeling among the radical labor organiza- 
 tions is an encouraging one, and the situation 
 is generally hopeful." 
 
 The "Arbeiter," May 3, 1886: "A hot con- 
 flict. The determination of the radical 
 elements brings the extortioners in nu- 
 MEROUS INSTANCES TO TERMS. ThE CAPITAL- 
 ISTIC PRESS HAS GOOD GROUNDS FOR ABUSING 
 
 THE Reds. Without them no agitation. 
 Numerous Meetings. 
 
 " The general situation at noon to-day was 
 encouraging. A considerable number of ex- 
 tortioners had capitulated this morning, and 
 further capitulations are looked for in the course 
 of the day. The freight-handlers were march- 
 ing in full force from depot to depot at noon 
 to-day. It was rumored that ' scabs ' had been 
 imported from Milwaukee. The railroad de- 
 pots are occupied by special policemen, while 
 the municipal minions of order, under the com- 
 mand of five lieutenants, have intrenched them- 
 selves in the armory. The arch-rascals have 
 made provisions for good victuals and drink. 
 The laborers in the stone-yards have formed 
 a union, and demand nine hours' pay for eight 
 hours' work, and as this was not granted (H. 
 First, Walters, and the 12th Street Company 
 are the only ones that have granted the de- 
 mands) they went on a strike. The stone-cut- 
 ters and masons are compelled to join in the 
 strike. A strike will probably take place in the 
 lumber districts. The brewers plan a strike if 
 their bosses do not fully accede to their de- 
 
 mand to-tlay. In the furniture business strike 
 and lockout respectively still continue. Many 
 manufacturers have already indicated a reach- 
 ness to grant ten per cent, increase of wages. 
 The Cabinet-makers' Union will make no com- 
 promise. The metal-workers are confident of 
 victory. The number of strikers to-day can- 
 not be determined, but will probably amount 
 to forty thousand. Courage ! Courage, is our 
 cry." 
 
 Readers would tire if I were to copy from 
 the "Arbeiter" for several days previous to 
 the publication of the last article, and show 
 how just was the boast : " The capitalistic 
 press has good grounds for abusing the Reds. 
 Without them no agitation." 
 
 On the afternoon of May 4, 1886, — the after- 
 noon preceding the night of slaughter, — the 
 " Arbeiter " published, with all the display of 
 head-lines, capital letters, and exclamation- 
 points known to the printers' art, this article 
 from a manuscript written by Spies : 
 
 "Blood! Lead and powder as a cure 
 
 for DISSATISFIED WORKMEN! AbOUT SIX LA- 
 BORERS MORTALLY, AND FOUR TIMES THAT 
 NUMBER SLIGHTLY, WOUNDED ! ThUS ARE THE 
 EIGHT-HOUR MEN TO BE INTIMIDATED. ThIS 
 IS LAW AND ORDER. BrAVE GIRLS PARAD- 
 ING THE CITY. The LAW-AND-ORDER BEAST 
 FRIGHTENS THE HUNGRY CHILDREN AWAY 
 
 WITH CLUBS. General News. 
 
 " Six months ago, when the eight-hour move- 
 ment began, there were speakers and journals 
 of the I. A. A. who proclaimed and wrote : 
 ' Workmen, if you want to see the eight-hour 
 system introduced, arm yourselves. If you do 
 not do this, you will be sent home with bloody 
 heads, and birds will sing May songs upon your 
 graves,' 'This is nonsense,' was the reply. ' If 
 the workmen are organized, they will gain the 
 eight hours in their Sunday clothes.' Well, what 
 do you say now ? Were we right or wrong ? 
 Would the occurrence of yesterday have been 
 possible if our advice had been taken. Wage- 
 workers, yesterday the police of this city mur- 
 dered at the McCormick factory, so far as it 
 can now be ascertained, four of your brothers, 
 and wounded, more or less seriously, some 
 twenty-five more. If brothers who defended 
 themselves with stones (a few of them had little 
 snappers in the shape of revolvers) had been 
 provided with good weapons, and one single 
 dynamite bomb, not one of the murderers would 
 have escaped his well-merited fate. As it was, 
 only four of them were disfigured. That is too 
 bad. The massacre of yesterday took place 
 in order to fill the forty thousand workmen 
 of this city with fear and terror — took place 
 in order to force back into the yoke of sla- 
 very the laborers who had become dissatisfied 
 and mutinous. Will they succeed in this? The 
 
DRAWN BY A. CASTAIGNE. 
 
 CAPTAIN WARD COMMANDS THE CROWD TO DISPERSE, "IN THE NAME OF THE 
 PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS." 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 825 
 
 near future will answer this question. We 
 will not anticipate the course of events with 
 surmises, 
 
 " The employees in the lumber-yards on the 
 South Side held a meeting yesterday afternoon 
 at the Black Road, about one quarter mile 
 north of McCormick's factory, for the purpose 
 of adopting resolutions in regard to their de- 
 mands, and to appoint a committee to wait 
 upon a committee of lumber-yard owners, and 
 I^resent the demands which had been agreed 
 upon. It was a gigantic mass that had gath- 
 ered. Several members of the Lumber- Yard 
 Union made short addresses in English, Bo- 
 hemian, German, and Polish. Mr. Fehling at- 
 tempted to speak, but when the crowd learned 
 that he was a socialist, he was stoned, and com- 
 pelled to leave the improvised speakers' stand 
 on a freight-car. Then, after a few more ad- 
 dresses were made, the president introduced 
 Mr. August Spies, who had been invited as a 
 speaker. A Pole or Bohemian cried out : ' That 
 is a socialist,' and again there arose a storm 
 of disapprobation, and a roaring noise, which 
 proved sufficiently that these ignorant people 
 had been incited against the socialists by their 
 priests. But the speaker did not lose his pres- 
 ence of mind. He continued speaking, and 
 very soon the utmost quiet prevailed. He told 
 them that they must realize their strength over 
 against a little handful of lumber-yard owners : 
 that theymustnotrecede from thedemandsonce 
 made by them. The issue lay in their hands. 
 All they needed was resolution, and the ' bosses ' 
 would be compelled to, and would give in. 
 
 " At this moment some persons in the back- 
 ground cried out (either in Polish or Bohemian), 
 ' Onto McCormick's. Let us drive off the scabs.' 
 About two hundred men left the crowd, and ran 
 toward McCormick's. The speaker did not 
 know what was the matter, and continued his 
 speech. When he had finished, he was ap- 
 pointed a member of a committee to notify the 
 * bosses ' that the strikers had no concessions to 
 make. Then a Pole spoke. While he spoke, a 
 patrol-wagon rushed up toward McCormick's. 
 The crowd began to break up. In about three 
 minutes several shots were heard near Mc- 
 Cormick's factory, and these were followed by 
 others. At the same time, about seventy-five 
 well-fed, large, and strong murderers, under 
 the command of a fat police lieutenant, were 
 marching toward the factory, and on their heels 
 folio wed threepatrol-wagons besides, full of law- 
 and-order beasts. Two hundred poHcemen were 
 on the spot in less than ten or fifteen minutes, 
 and the firing on fleeing workingmen and wo- 
 men resembled a promiscuous bush-hunt. The 
 writer of this hastened to the factory as soon 
 as the first shots were fired, and a comrade 
 urged the assembly to hasten to the rescue of 
 Vol, XLV.— 108-109. 
 
 their brothers who were being murdered, but 
 no one stirred. ' What do we care for that ? ' 
 was the stupid answer of poltroons brought 
 up in cowardice. The writer fell in with a 
 young Irishman who knew him. ' What mis- 
 erable are those ? ' he shouted to him, ' who 
 
 will not turn a hand while their brothers gre 
 being shot down in cold blood ? We have 
 dragged away two ; I think they are dead. If 
 you have any influence with the people, for 
 Heaven's sake, run back and urge them to fol- 
 low you.' The writer ran back. He implored 
 the people to come along, — those who had re- 
 volvers in their pockets, — but it was in vain. 
 With an cxasperatingindifference, they put their 
 hands in their pockets and marched home, 
 babbling as if the whole affair did not concern 
 them in the least. The revolvers were still crack- 
 ing, and fresh detachments of police, here and 
 there bombarded with stones, were hastening 
 to the battle-ground. The battle was lost. 
 
 " It was in the neighborhood of half-past 
 three o'clock when the little crowd of between 
 two and three hundred men reached McCor- 
 mick's factory. Policeman West tried to hold 
 them back with his revolver. A shower of stones 
 for an answer put him to flight. He was so 
 roughly handled that he was afterward found 
 about one hundred paces from the place, half 
 dead, and groaning fearfully. The small crowd 
 shouted, ' Get out, you d d scabs, you miser- 
 able traitors,' and bombarded the factory with 
 stones. The little guard-house was demolished. 
 The ' scabs ' were in mortal terror, when at this 
 moment the Hinman street patrol-wagon, sum- 
 moned by telephone, came rattling along with 
 thirteen murderers. When they were about to 
 make an immediate attack with their clubs, they 
 were received with a shower of stones. ' Back ! 
 disperse!' cried the lieutenant, and the next 
 minute there was a report. The gang had fired 
 on the strikers. They pretend, subsequently, 
 that they shot over their heads. But be that as 
 it may, a few of the strikers had litde snappers 
 of revolvers, and with these returned the fire. 
 In the mean time other detachments had ar- 
 rived, and the whole band of murderers now 
 opened fire on the little company, — 20,000 as 
 estimated by the police organ, the ' Herald,' — 
 while the whole assembly scarcely numbered 
 8000 ! Such lies are told. With their weapons, 
 mainly stones, the people fought with admira- 
 ble bravery. They laid out half a dozen blue- 
 coats; and their round bellies — developed to 
 extreme fatness in idleness and luxury — tum- 
 bled about, groaning on the ground. Four of 
 the fellows are said to be very dangerously 
 wounded ; many others, alas ! escaped with 
 lighter injuries (the gang, of course, conceals 
 this, just as in '77 they carefully concealed the 
 number of those who were made to bite the 
 
826 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 dust). But it looked worse 
 on the side of the defense- 
 less workmen. Dozens who 
 had received sHght shot- 
 wounds hastened away, 
 amid the bullets which were 
 sent after them. The gang, 
 as always, fired upon the 
 fleeing, while women and 
 men carried away the se- 
 verely wounded. How 
 many were really injured, 
 and how many were mor- 
 tally wounded, could not be 
 determined with certainty, 
 but we think we are not 
 mistaken when we place 
 the number of mortally 
 wounded at about six, and 
 those slightly injured at 
 two dozen. We know of 
 four; one of whom was 
 shot in the spleen, another 
 in the forehead, another in 
 the breast, and another 
 in the thigh. A dying 
 boy, Joseph Doedick, was 
 brought home on an ex- 
 press-wagon by two police- 
 men. The people did not 
 see the dying boy. They 
 only saw the two murder- 
 ers. ' Lynch the rascals,' 
 clamored the crowd. The 
 fellows wanted to break 
 and hide themselves, but 
 in vain. They had already 
 thrown a rope around the 
 neck of one of them, when 
 a patrol-wagon rattled into 
 the midst of the crowd, 
 and prevented the praise- 
 worthy deed. Joseph Hess,whohad put the rope 
 around his neck, was arrested. The 'scabs' 
 were afterward conducted, under the protection 
 of a strong escort, down Blue Island Avenue. 
 Women and children gave vent to their indig- 
 nation in angry shouts; rotten eggs whizzed 
 through the air. The men about took things 
 coolly, and smoked their pipes as on Kirmes 
 Day. McCormick's assistant, Superintendent 
 C. J. Benly, was also wounded, and, indeed, 
 quite severely. 
 
 "The following strikers were arrested: Ig- 
 natz Erban, Frank Kohling, Joseph Schuky, 
 Thomas Klafski, John Patolski, Anton Sevi- 
 eski, Albert Supitar, Hugh McWhiffer, Anton 
 Sternack, Nick Wolna, and Thomas O'Con- 
 nell. The ' pimp ' McCormick, when asked 
 what he thought of it, said: 'August Spies 
 made a speech to a few thousand anarchists. 
 
 Attention Workingmen! 
 
 :0-XlXlJ^Vs~ 
 
 MASS-MEETING 
 
 TO-NIGHT, at 7.30 o'clock, 
 
 HAmiET, Baiiii, Bet, jjai nes bdiI flalstel 
 
 Good Speakers will be present to denoiince the latest 
 
 atrocious act of the police, the shooting of our 
 
 feUow-workmen yesterday afternoon. 
 
 Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force! 
 
 TEE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 ^(But^ Stfbttrr toerbm bm neue^it ©(^urfenftrricb W ^Coliia 
 w»I^ f« seft^ 9j a4>tmtta9 unfere IBruScr crfd^oj ge iSeliV 
 
 AN ANARCHIST HANDBILL. 
 
 It occurred to one of these brilliant heads to 
 frighten our men away. He put himself at the 
 head of a crowd, which then made an attack 
 upon our works. Our workmen fled, and in 
 the mean time the police came, and sent a lot 
 of anarchists away with bleeding heads.' 
 
 " Last night thousands of copies of the fol- 
 lowing circular were distributed in all parts of 
 the city: 'Revenge! Revenge! Workmen, 
 TO Arms ! Men of labor, this afternoon the 
 bloodhounds of your oppressors murdered 
 six of your brothers at McCormick's ! Why 
 did they murder them ? Because they dared 
 to be dissatisfied with the lot which your op- 
 pressors have assigned to them. They de- 
 manded bread, and they gave them lead for 
 an answer, mindful of the fact that thus people 
 are most effectually silenced. You have for 
 many, many years endured every humiliation 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 827 
 
 without protest ; have drudged from early in 
 the morning till late at night; have suffered 
 all sorts of privations ; have even sacrificed 
 your children. You have done everything to 
 fill the coffers of your masters — everything 
 for them ; and now when you approach them, 
 and implore them to make your burden a 
 little lighter, as a reward for your sacrifices, 
 they send their bloodhounds, the police, at 
 you, in order to cure you with bullets of your 
 dissatisfaction. Slaves, we ask and conjure 
 you, by all that is sacred and dear to you, 
 avenge the atrocious murder which has been 
 committed upon your brothers to-day, and 
 which will likely be committed upon you to- 
 morrow. Laboring men, Hercules, you have 
 arrived at the crossway. Which way will you 
 decide ? For slavery and hunger, or for free- 
 dom and bread ? If you decide upon the lat- 
 ter, then do not delay a moment ; then people 
 to arms ! Annihilation to the beasts in human 
 form who call themselves rulers; uncompro- 
 mising annihilation to them ! This must be your 
 motto. Think of the heroes whose blood has 
 fertilized the road to progress, liberty and 
 humanity, and strive to become worthy of 
 them. 'Your Brothers.'" 
 
 The circular contained upon the same sheet 
 an English version, written (except the word 
 " revenge ") by Spies, as follows : 
 
 " Revenge ! Workingmen to Arms ! 
 The masters sent out their bloodhounds, the 
 police. They killed six of your brothers at 
 McCormick's this afternoon. They killed the 
 poor wretches because they, like you, had the 
 courage to disobey the supreme will of your 
 bosses. They killed them because they dared 
 ask for the shortening of the hours of toil. 
 They killed them to show you, ' free ' American 
 citizens, that you must be satisfied and con- 
 tented with whatever your bosses allow you, 
 or you will get killed. You have for years 
 endured the most abject humihation ; you 
 have for years suffered unmeasurable iniqui- 
 ties ; you have worked yourself to death ; you 
 have borne the pangs of want and hunger ; 
 your children you have sacrificed to the fac- 
 tory lord ; in short, you have been miserable 
 and obedient servants all these years. Why ? 
 To satisfy the insatiable greed, to fill the cof- 
 fers of your lazy, thieving masters. When you 
 ask them now to lessen your burdens, he 
 sends his bloodhounds out to shoot you — to 
 kill you ! If you are men, if you are the sons 
 of your grandsires, who have shed their blood 
 to free you, then you will rise in your might, 
 Hercules, and destroy the hideous monster 
 that seeks to destroy you. To arms ! We call 
 you to arms! "Your Brothers." 
 
 I must interrupt my narrative to call attention 
 to the fact that, even as Spies related the events 
 
 at McCormick's, the disturbances began by 
 rioters attacking peaceable laborers; that a sin- 
 gle policeman who endeavored to protect them 
 was overpowered, disabled, and seriously in- 
 jured, before any force came to his assistance or 
 rescue ; and that this resistance to rioters, and 
 protection of laborers, was the great wrong to 
 be avenged immediately. But it was no new 
 doctrine with him that " strikers " must not 
 be stopped in assaults upon any who took the 
 places they had left. 
 
 In the "Arbeiter" of March 2, 1886, was 
 the following : " The order scoundrels beamed 
 yesterday morning in their full glory. With 
 the help of pickpockets, the natural allies 
 of professional cutthroats, who otherwise call 
 themselves also detectives, they succeeded yes- 
 terday in taking seventy scabs to the factory, 
 accompanied also by scoundrels of the secret 
 service, to give a better appearance. This morn- 
 ing the number of scabs which went back to 
 work was materially increased. At this oppor- 
 tunity it was once again seen for what purpose 
 the police existed — to protect the workingman 
 if he works for starvation wages, and is an obe- 
 dient serf; to club him down when he rebels 
 against the capitalistic herd of robbers. Force 
 only gives way to force. Who wants to attack 
 capitalism in earnest must overthrow the body- 
 guards of it, the well-drilled and well-armed 
 ' men of order,' and kill them if he does not 
 want to be murdered himself" 
 
 If ever a time could come at which the revo- 
 lution could be started in Chicago, it would 
 seem that it was that fourth day of May. Forty 
 thousand men, as the " Arbeiter " estimated 
 the day before, were on strike. Fourteen months 
 before that time, as "The Alarm" stated, there 
 were eighty groups of Internationals in the 
 United States, and the efforts to increase the 
 number had been unremitting. If Spies's indig- 
 nation was real, — and I do not doubt the fa- 
 naticism of the man, nor that he had really 
 persuaded himself that the cause of which he 
 and his companions had so long been parti- 
 zans, and which had probably much increased 
 since the Thanksgiving Day and the Board of 
 Trade demonstrations, might succeed, — then 
 certainly the great body of equally fanadcal 
 and much less intelligent anarchists could 
 not be expected ever to be more ready than 
 then to inaugurate the revolution. " Now or 
 never " Avas Spies's cry two days before, and 
 the riot at McCormick's had heated all their 
 blood. 
 
 On that fourth day of May Fischer caused 
 to be distributed a circular, in both English 
 and German, as follows : 
 
 " Attention Workingmen ! Great Mass- 
 Meeting to-night at 7.30 o'clock, at the Hay- 
 market, Randolph St., bet. Desplaines and 
 
828 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 Halsted. Good speakers will be present to de- 
 nounce the latest atrocious act of the police, 
 the shooting of our fellow-workmen yesterday 
 afternoon. Workingmen arm yourselves and 
 appear in full force ! 
 
 "The Executive Committee." 
 
 After some of them (how many did not ap- 
 pear) had been printed, Spies caused the words, 
 " Workingmen arm yourselves and appear in 
 full force " to be stricken out, and the larger 
 number, some twenty thousand, of the circu- 
 lars actually distributed did not contain those 
 words. As a witness on the trial, Spies said in 
 relation to those words : " I objected to that 
 principally because I thought it was ridiculous 
 to put a phrase in which would prevent people 
 from attending the meeting : another reason 
 was that there was some excitement at that 
 time, and a call for arms like that might have 
 caused trouble between the police and the at- 
 tendants of that meeting." 
 
 I am not concerned with the truth of that 
 explanation. While there is abundant evidence 
 to warrant the conclusion — the irresistible con- 
 clusion, beyond all reasonable doubt — that 
 the act of throwing that bomb was the act of 
 some one of the many conspirators against so- 
 ciety and social order, done, in the language 
 of the Supreme Court in the Brennan case be- 
 fore cited, " in the prosecution of the common 
 object," and therefore all the conspirators "are 
 alike guilty of the homicide," yet I shall en- 
 deavor to show the guilt of the anarchists on 
 a still narrower ground. 
 
 That narrower ground is that the pubhca- 
 tions in the " Arbeiter " and "Alarm," and the 
 speeches of Spies, Parsons, Schwab, Fielden, 
 and Engel (whose speeches were proved at 
 great length on the trial, all of them advising 
 their hearers to arm themselves, among other 
 things, with dynamite), were acts in furtherance 
 of the design and piirpose of the conspiracy, by 
 conspirators, and therefore upon legal prijiciples 
 acts of the whole body and each individical of 
 the co-conspirators ; that the general advice given 
 to all readers and hearers was advice to each 
 and every individual of those readers and hear- 
 ers ; that advice to pursue a course of coJiduct 
 embracing or including a particular act is ad- 
 vice to do that act ; that it is inconceivable that 
 the man who threw a bomb made by Lingg, one 
 of the conspirators, was not by some of those 
 publications or speeches encouraged so to do, and 
 therefore the tuhole body of the conspirators 
 luere accessories to the act of throwing it, and re- 
 sponsible for it, whether it was thrown by one 
 who was himself a member of the conspiracy, or 
 who was some harebrained fool, or some crim- 
 inal who wished to avenge himself for some 
 grievance, real or fancied, that he had suffered 
 at the hands of the police. When I come to 
 
 what the counsel for the defense urged at the 
 trial, I shall recur to this point, and endeavor 
 to illustrate it. 
 
 The meeting came. It was held not in the 
 Haymarket proper, but in Desplaines street, 
 between Randolph street and Lake street, next 
 north of Randolph. Between three hundred 
 and four hundred feet south of a wagon that 
 was used as a stand for the speakers was a 
 police station, on Desplaines street, at which 
 a large force was concentrated. Spies spoke 
 first. In a shorthand report ofpart of his speech, 
 proved at the trial, is this : " It is said that I 
 inspired the attack on McCormick's. That is 
 a lie. The fight is going on ; now is the chance 
 to strike for the existence of the oppressed 
 classes. The oppressors want us to be content; 
 they will kill us. The thought of liberty which 
 inspired your sires to fight for their freedom 
 ought to animate you to-day. The day is not 
 far distant when we will resort to hanging these 
 men. [Applause, and cries of ' Hang them 
 now!'] McCormick is the man who created 
 the row Monday, and he must be held respon- 
 sible for the murder of our brothers. [Cries of 
 ' Hang him!'] Don't make any threats; they 
 are of no avail; when you get ready to do 
 something, do it and don't make any threats 
 beforehand." 
 
 Parsons spoke next. The following is from 
 the shorthand report ofpart of his speech : " It 
 behooves you, as you love your wife and chil- 
 dren — if you don't want to see them perish 
 with hunger, killed or cut down like dogs on 
 the street, — Americans, in the interest of your 
 liberty and your independence, to arm, arm 
 yourselves." 
 
 With some other context (but what it was 
 the witnesses could not tell), one witness for the 
 State and one for the defense testified that Par- 
 sons in the same speech also said, " To arms ! 
 To arms! To arms! " 
 
 The latter part of the speech of Fielden, 
 who spoke after Parsons, was reported in short- 
 hand as follows : " There are premonitions of 
 danger. All knew. The press say the anar- 
 chists Avill sneak away ; we are not going to. If 
 we continue to be robbed, it will not be long be- 
 fore we will be murdered. There is no security 
 for the working-classes under the present social 
 system. A few individuals control the means of 
 hving, and holding the workingmen in a vise. 
 Everybody does not know. Those who know it 
 are tired of it, and know the others will get tired 
 of it, too. They are determined to end it, and 
 will end it, and there is no power in the land that 
 will prevent them. Congressman Foran said: 
 ' The laborer can get nothing from legislation.' 
 He also said that the laborers can get some relief 
 from their present condition when the rich man 
 knew it was unsafe for him to live in a com- 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 829 
 
 munity where there were dissatisfied working- 
 men, for they would solve the labor problem. 
 I don't know whether you are Democrats 
 or Republicans, but whichever you are, you 
 worship at the shrine of rebels. John Brown, 
 Jefferson, Washington, Patrick Henry, and 
 Hopkins said to the people : ' The law is your 
 enemy. We are rebels against it.' The law is 
 only framed for those that are your enslavers. 
 [A voice : ' That is true.'] Men in their bhnd 
 rage attacked McCormick's factory, and were 
 shot down by the law in cold blood in the city 
 of Chicago, in the protection of property. 
 These men were going to do some damage to 
 a certain person's interest, who was a large 
 property- owner ; therefore the law came to his 
 defense. And when McCormick undertook to 
 do some injury to the interest of those who had 
 no property, the law also came to his defense, 
 and not to the workingman's defense, when 
 he, Mr. McCormick, attacked him and his liv- 
 ing. [Cries of ' No.'] There is the difterence. 
 The law makes no distinction. A miUion men 
 own all the property in this country The law 
 has no use for the other fifty-four million. [A 
 voice, '■ Right enough.'] You have nothing 
 more to do with the law except to lay hands 
 on it, and throttle it until it makes its last kick. 
 It turns your brothers out on the wayside, and 
 has degraded them until they have lost the last 
 vestige of humanity, and they are mere things 
 and animals. Keep your eye upon it. Throt- 
 tle it. Kill it. Stab it. Do everything you can to 
 wound it, to impede its progress. Remember, 
 before trusting them to do anything for your- 
 self, prepare to do it for yourself. Don't turn 
 over your business to anybody else. No man 
 deserves anything unless he is man enough to 
 make an eftbrt to lift himself from oppression. 
 Is it not a fact that we have no choice as to 
 our existence, for we can't dictate what our 
 labor is worth ? He that has to obey the will 
 of any is a slave. Can we do anything except 
 by the strong arm of resistance ? Socialists are 
 not going to declare war ; but I tell you, war 
 has been declared upon us, and I ask you to 
 get hold of anything that will help to resist 
 the onslaught of the enemy and the usurper. 
 The skirmish-lines have met. People have been 
 shot. Men, women, and children have not 
 been spared by the capitalists and minions of 
 private capital. It had no mercy, so ought 
 you. You are called upon to defend your- 
 selves, your lives, your future. What matters 
 it whether you kill yourselves with work to get 
 a little relief, or die on the battle-field resisting 
 the enemy ? What is the difference ? Any 
 animal, however loathsome, will resist when 
 stepped upon. Are men less than snails and 
 worms ? I have some resistance in me ; I 
 know that you have, too. You have been 
 
 robbed, and you will be starved into a worse 
 condition." 
 
 At this point a hundred and eighty police- 
 men, from the station before mentioned, march- 
 ing in platoons, led by Inspector John Bonfield 
 and Captain William Ward, halted a few feet 
 from the wagon from which the speeches were 
 made, and Captain Ward in a loud voice said : 
 " I command you, in the name of the People 
 of the State of Illinois, to immediately and 
 peaceably disperse." 
 
 This action of the police was in strict accor- 
 dance with the law of the State. Section 253, 
 Chapter 38, Revised Statutes, provides that 
 " when twelve or more persons, any of them 
 armed with clubs or dangerous weapons, or 
 thirty or more, armed or unarmed, are unlaw- 
 fully, riotously, or tumultuously assembled in 
 any city, ... it shall be the duty of each of 
 the municipal officers ... to go among the 
 persons so assembled . . . and in the name 
 of the State command them immediately to dis- 
 perse." A crowd of people, variously estimated 
 by different witnesses at from eight hundred 
 to two thousand, filled a public street of the 
 city after ten o'clock at night. They were listen- 
 ing to, and shouting their approval of, speeches 
 urging them, in language the most exciting, 
 and with arguments the most persuasive that 
 the speakers knew how to use, to violence and 
 bloodshed. It is utterly without foundation for 
 anarchists or their sympathizers to urge that 
 the throwing of that bomb was an act of self- 
 defense. No attack was made by the police. 
 The same section last cited makes the refusal 
 to obey the command to disperse punishable 
 by fine and imprisonment. 
 
 Fielden replied to Captain Ward, " We are 
 peaceable," and at once the bomb thrown from 
 a point on the east sidewalk near to, and a ht- 
 tle south of, the wagon, with the lighted fuse 
 making a shining trail in the night air, fell and 
 exploded among the policemen, and wounded 
 sixty-six of them, of whom seven died of their 
 wounds. Degan was the first who died. No 
 soldiers ever carried to a battle-field greater 
 courage or better discipline than that band of 
 policemen then displayed. The sound of the 
 explosion was deafening. One third of their 
 number was down. That other bombs were to 
 follow was to be expected. But to the com- 
 mand, " Fall in ; close up," every man of them 
 not disabled gave prompt obedience. 
 
 Pieces of the bomb were extracted from some 
 of the victims, and chemically analyzed. A nut 
 entered the person of a bystander. That nut, 
 and the shape of the pieces of the bomb, as well as 
 the analysis, so strictly conformed to " globu- 
 lar " bombs found in Lingg's room, and which it 
 was proved he made, that there is no reasonable 
 doubt that the exploded bomb was his produc- 
 
830 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 tion. All that afternoon, with several assistants, 
 all Internationals, he had been filling bombs, 
 most of which early in the evening were taken 
 to a beer-saloon, from which place they were 
 distributed. All the regular meeting-places of 
 the Internationals, except the office of the " Ar- 
 beiter," were beer-saloons or halls adjoining 
 them. 
 
 A few words only as to the defendants other 
 than Spies and Parsons. Schwab, as has been 
 said, was one of the editors of the " Arbeiter," 
 and made numerous speeches in the same spirit, 
 and to the same effect, as the extracts from the 
 paper which I have copied. Fielden was a small 
 stockholder in " The Alarm," and one of its com- 
 mittee of management; he traveled to organize 
 " groups," and made numerous speeches in Chi- 
 cago calling upon the working-men to arm, to 
 learn the use of dynamite. Fischer and Engel 
 first planned the Haymarket meeting, with 
 some loose talk of a committee to observe what 
 might happen there, and if a conflict came, to 
 report; but nothing very definite was arranged. 
 Fischer was a stockholder in the "Arbeiter," and 
 foreman of its press-room, and Engel assisted 
 in starting another paper called the "Anar- 
 chist," the reason for starting it, as he said, 
 being that the "Arbeiter" was not radical 
 enough. He also made speeches advocating 
 arming, and instructing how to make bombs. 
 Neebe was a stockholder in the "Arbeiter," and 
 took charge of the property on May 5, 1886, 
 after Spies and Schwab were arrested. He dis- 
 tributed some of the " Revenge " circulars. All 
 of the defendants were members of groups of the 
 Internationals, as has already been stated, and 
 took part in meetings of the groups, and in gen- 
 eral meetings of the Internationals. 
 
 The mere fact that the defendants were mem- 
 bers of the Internationals, more or less active 
 in the organization, even though their action 
 was confined to meetings of the groups, of itself 
 made them co-conspirators with the more active 
 members who worked publicly. The Interna- 
 tional was a combination (the technical legal 
 term for which is conspiracy) to overturn all 
 government by force. Whoever took part in 
 that combination was a conspirator. 
 
 In selecting from the great bulk of printed 
 matter issued or circulated by the anarchists, 
 and proved at the trial, I have been embar- 
 rassed in determining where to stop. If any 
 reader wishes to see more of it, he may turn to 
 the report of the case in the Supreme Court in 
 the volumes to which I have referred; and if not 
 then content, the history of the trial, prepared 
 by the counsel for the defendants, in order to 
 have the case reviewed by the Supreme Court, 
 is on file in the Criminal Court of Cook County, 
 and a copy thereof is among the records of the 
 Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, and he 
 
 can there read ten, twenty, fifty times as much 
 as I present, of the same sort. 
 
 I protest that in copying these fierce de- 
 nunciations, these recitals of alleged tyranny 
 and oppression, these seemingly pitying de- 
 scriptions of the hardships and wrongs of the 
 humble and the poor, written with apparent sin- 
 cerity and real intellectual ability, I have oc- 
 casionally almost lost sight of the atrocity of 
 the advice given by the anarchists, and felt a 
 sort of sympathy with the writers who would 
 have praised my assassination as a virtuous 
 act. And the active leaders were men who 
 fascinated, apparently^ those with whom they 
 came in contact. To some extent they im- 
 bued their counsel with the notion that they 
 had been engaged in a worthy cause. To show 
 this, I shall quote from speeches on the trial 
 and at their graves. Men and women of a high 
 order of intelligence, of pure lives, amiable in 
 their own dispositions, seemed under a spell to 
 them. And these denunciations, these recitals, 
 these descriptions, as well as almost countless 
 speeches of the same character, burning from 
 the lips of no mean orators, were addressed to 
 the people whose sufferings they professed to 
 depict; people who, in fact, did not share in the 
 luxuries, and were not able to participate in 
 many of the comforts, of life which they saw 
 around them ; people of whom Spies testified 
 that they were " stupid and ignorant "; all pre- 
 pared to believe that anarchy offered a heroic 
 remedy for the inequalities of life, the evils of 
 which, real or fancied, fell upon them. Who 
 can estimate the effect ? The wonder is that a 
 tragedy was so long delayed. 
 
 All lawyers, courts, text- writers, even the coun- 
 sel of the anarchists, as I will show later, agree 
 that the act of one conspirator is the act of each 
 of his co-conspirators, even when the particular 
 act has not been agreed upon by them, but is 
 done in the exercise of the actor's own discre- 
 tion, for the accomplishment of the common 
 purpose. When a conspiracy is mentioned, the 
 popular idea is of a midnight gathering, masked 
 faces, low voices, passwords, and the utmost 
 secrecy. To this idea Mr. Zeisler, in his argu- 
 ment to the jury, referred : " What is a con- 
 spiracy ? What were you used to understand 
 by the word conspiracy ? Is n't, in the first place, 
 secrecy the test of a conspiracy ? Was there 
 anything secret about the doings of these men, 
 or about their teachings and writings ? " 
 
 Secrecy is not essential to a conspiracy, which 
 is simply " a combination of two or more per- 
 sons, by some concerted action, to accomplish 
 some criminal or unlawful purpose ; or to ac- 
 complish some purpose, not in itself criminal 
 or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means " 
 (3 Greenleaf, Evidence, Sec. 89). 
 
 It is probably true that Rudolph Schnau- 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 831 
 
 belt threw the bomb. He was twice arrested, 
 but, having shaved off a full beard immedi- 
 ately after that fatal night, was discharged. 
 After the second arrest he disappeared, and 
 has gone to parts unknown. But whether 
 Schnaubelt or some other person threw the 
 bomb, is not an important question. The 
 great effort of the defendants' counsel on the 
 trial — and it began on the first day of the 
 putting in of the evidence — was to estabhsh 
 their position, that each separate meeting of 
 any of the defendants was, if there was any 
 conspiracy in the case, a separate conspiracy, 
 for which only those who participated know- 
 ingly in any illegal act at such meeting, or had 
 advised that particular act, were responsible. 
 For example, Mr. Grinnell,in his opening state- 
 ment to the jury of what the State expected to 
 prove, had referred to the contents of the " Ar- 
 beiter " and " The Alarm." A witness named 
 Waller, who had received a bomb from Fischer, 
 was on the stand. I now quote from the Chicago 
 "Tribune" of July 17, 1886, reporting the 
 proceedings of the trial on the day before : 
 "' Mr. Waller,' asked Mr. Ingham, 'did you 
 ever receive any bombs from anybody ? ' 
 This question was objected to by Mr. Foster, 
 who arose and made a speech in which he 
 claimed that this line of evidence was entirely 
 immaterial. He said that testimony could 
 have no possible bearing on the case unless 
 the prosecution intended to trace the deadly 
 bomb that was used on Haymarket Square 
 into the hands of the man who threw it. The 
 existence of a general conspiracy to kill the 
 police and destroy property had no connec- 
 tion with the case, unless it was shown that 
 there was a conspiracy to do the deed that 
 was done on Haymarket Square. The con- 
 spiracy might have existed. Then let the 
 grand jury indict the defendants for conspir- 
 acy. But there was no murder unless it was 
 shown that the defendants killed Officer Be- 
 gan. The commission of a crime by some- 
 body unknown to them, and without their 
 knowledge or sanction, could not be laid to 
 them. The connection of the defendants with 
 the specific act must be shown. 
 
 " Mr. Ingham replied : ' It is true that 
 eight Hves are at stake, but organized govern- 
 ment is also at stake. We propose to show 
 that for one, two, or three years, right in this 
 city, a gigantic conspiracy has been in force 
 and operation; a conspiracy of which these 
 eight men were the leaders. We expect to 
 show that these men have for months and 
 years preached a doctrine of open revolution 
 and recourse to arms. They intended to be 
 guilty of revolution May i. For weeks and 
 months previously they were preparing for 
 this revolution. We expect to bring into court 
 
 dynamite bombs by the dozen, and until the 
 dozens run up into barrels. No bomb which 
 we shall trace to these defendants could have 
 any possible legitimate purpose. We shall 
 show by men of science that dynamite bombs 
 cannot be used for anything else but for 
 cowardly and atrocious murder. If we can 
 show that this bomb-throwing was the result 
 of this general conspiracy, one of the most 
 powerful links in that chain of evidence is the 
 fact that these men at all times had in their 
 possession, and were distributing to others, 
 these bombs. We expect to show that this 
 man had in possession a number of bombs, 
 filled with dynamite, which he obtained from 
 the defendant Fischer, and that Fischer was 
 months ago arming himself for the purpose of 
 destroying property and for murder.' 
 
 " Mr. Foster : ' Suppose that somebody, 
 without their knowledge, consent, or appro- 
 val, threw the bomb ; are these men guilty of 
 murder ? ' 
 
 " Mr. Ingham : ' We can show that each 
 one of these men was part of the general con- 
 spiracy to overthrow pubhc authority, to an- 
 nihilate the police force, the banks and the 
 public offices. As a result of this general 
 conspiracy this bomb was thrown. They can- 
 not look the law in the face, and smile and 
 sneer at what their leader, Herr Most, called 
 the farce of the law. The law of the State of 
 Illinois is strong enough to hang every man 
 of them.' 
 
 " Mr. Foster : ' I have always failed to see 
 why editorials in the "Arbeiter Zeitung," 
 speeches at meetings, and newspaper reports 
 can be involved in this case. I object to a 
 conviction upon a general conspiracy, which 
 would be a conviction on general principles. 
 If I and the other counsel in this case con- 
 spire to rob Brother Ingham of his purse 
 when he goes home to-night, and the one 
 who was to grab him by the throat clutches 
 him too tightly and strangles him, then we are 
 guilty of murder. But if we embark in this 
 conspiracy, and somebody else, at another 
 place, murders somebody, are we to be held 
 responsible ? ' 
 
 "Judge Gary's decision was as follows: 
 ' If it is agreed to use violence for the de- 
 struction of human lives upon an occasion 
 which is not yet foreseen, but upon some 
 general principle on which the conspirators 
 substantially agree; for example, if a large 
 number of men agreed to kill the police if 
 they were found in conflict with the strikers, 
 leaving the date to the agencies of time to de- 
 termine; whenever the time and occasion do 
 come for the use of that violence, and when 
 that \aolence is used, are not the parties who 
 have agreed beforehand to use the means of 
 
832 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 destruction equally guilty ? Suppose that there 
 was a general agreement that weapons of 
 death should be used if the police got into a 
 conflict with the strikers ; that is, if the pohce 
 undertook to enforce the laws of the State 
 and prevent a breach of the peace and de- 
 struction of property — if the police under- 
 took to do so, that then they would attack 
 and kill the police, but the time and occasion 
 of the attack itself were not foreseen ; the 
 time and occasion being to be determined by 
 the parties who were to use the force when in 
 their judgment the time and occasion were to 
 come; and then, when the police were found at- 
 tempting to preserve the peace, some persons 
 who have been parties to this agreement 
 do kill them, are not all of these persons 
 equally guilty ? If there was a general com- 
 bination and agreement among a great num- 
 ber of individuals to kill policemen if they 
 came into conflict with parties with whom 
 they were friendly — meetings of workingmen, 
 and bodies of strikers; if it was the combina- 
 tion and agreement to kill the police in their 
 attempts to preserve the peace ; if there was 
 such a combination and agreement among a 
 great number of men, the object of which was 
 something beyond mere local disturbance, 
 whether it was the object to offer a new form 
 of civil society or not ; if there was such an 
 agreement to kill the police upon some occa- 
 sion that might occur in the future, whether the 
 proper time had arrived being left to their judg- 
 ment, then if that violence was used and re- 
 sulted in the death of the pohce, then those 
 who were party to the agreement are guilty 
 of the death. It is entirely competent for the 
 State to show that these several defendants 
 have had such missiles in their possession to 
 be used on occasions, that they might antici- 
 pate. There need not be an agreement that 
 they should be used on this specific occasion, 
 but on some occasion that might arise in the 
 future. Any one case where such violence was 
 used may involve the showing of the entire 
 conspiracy from beginning to end.' " 
 
 I shall make no apology for my disjointed 
 language and repetitions, as above quoted, but 
 take refuge in the reflection that the opinions 
 of Lord Eldon, a great, if not the greatest, 
 EngHsh chancellor, have been characterized as 
 exhibiting great lucidity of thought in great 
 turgidity of expression. I have quoted the de- 
 bate and my decision from the paper of the 
 day, that nobody may question the truth of 
 my statement as to the theory, cr doctrine of 
 law, on which the case was tried. The an- 
 archists tvere not tried for being anarchists, 
 but for procuring murder to be done, and being 
 therefore themselves guilty of tmirder. 
 
 When the evidence on the side of the prose- 
 
 cution closed, Mr. Salomon addressed the jury 
 upon the evidence already in, and upon what 
 the defense expected to prove. I quote a few 
 of his sentences: "The law says, no matter 
 whether these defendants advised generally 
 the use of dynamite in the purpose which they 
 claimed to carry out, and sought to carry out, 
 yet if none of these defendants advised the 
 throwing of that bomb at the Haymarket, they 
 cannot be held responsible for the action of 
 others at other times and other places. What 
 does the evidence introduced here tend to 
 show? It may occur to some of you, gentle- 
 men, to ask : 'What, then, can these defendants 
 preach the use of dynamite ? May they be al- 
 lowed to go on and urge people to overturn 
 the present government and the present con- 
 dition of society without being held responsi- 
 ble for it, and without punishment ? ' . . . Now, 
 what is the statute on conspiracy, of which 
 these defendants may be guilty, if they are 
 guilty of anything? . . . Now these defen- 
 dants are not criminals, they are not robbers, 
 they are not burglars, they are not common 
 thieves; they descend to no small criminal 
 act. On the contrary, this evidence shows con- 
 clusively that they are men of broad feelings 
 of humanity; that their only desire has been, 
 and their lives have been consecrated to, the 
 betterment of their fellow-men. . . . It is true 
 that they have adopted means, or wanted to 
 adopt means, that were not approved of by all 
 mankind. It is true that their methods were 
 dangerous, perhaps; but then they should 
 have been stopped at their inception." 
 
 It probably will occur to the reader that 
 the "Arbeiter" said "there would have been 
 pieces" if they had been stopped at the Board 
 of Trade demonstration, and that in fact the 
 police were murdered at the first real attempt 
 made to stop them ; but probably Mr. Salomon 
 meant " stopped " by an arrest on a warrant 
 for conspiracy. 
 
 That puts him in this dilemma. If they 
 were engaged in anything criminal, it was a 
 conspiracy to induce people to resort to vio- 
 lence; then if they succeeded, and that violence 
 ended in murder, who is guilty? There is 
 nothing criminal in a combination of few or 
 many to induce and persuade the people of 
 the United States to change our form of gov- 
 ernment to a monarchy, or to abandon all 
 government for anarchy; the criminality of 
 the anarchists was not in the ultimate end they 
 proposed, but in the means by which they 
 proposed to attain it. Those means — by vio- 
 lence and slaughter — changed what otherwise 
 might have been merely a faction in politics 
 into a band of criminals. They became con- 
 spirators, and for the consequences of their 
 acts as such responsible. 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 ^33 
 
 I remember, in greater detail than follows, a 
 part of Mr. Foster's speech to the jury, but 
 shall take from the Chicago " Tribune " of 
 Sunday, August 15, this report of what Mr. 
 Foster said the day before. It does not pur- 
 port to be verbatim, but I am content to leave 
 the fairness of it to Mr, Foster. " If Mr. Fos- 
 ter should advise a man who was hard up to go 
 down to the corner of Clark and Lake streets, 
 to knock down and rob the first likely looking 
 man that came along, Mr. Foster would not 
 be guilty of robbery ; but if he advised a man 
 to select Mr. Grinnell as the victim, and Mr. 
 Grinnell should be killed in the scuffle, then 
 Mr. Foster would be guilty ; and that was the 
 position of the defendants." The moral of 
 ^sop's fable of the " Trumpeter," " He that 
 provokes and incites mischief is the doer of 
 it," had not been before questioned for nearly 
 a hundred generations. 
 
 The same proposition was insisted upon in 
 the brief of the anarchists before the Supreme 
 Court, when Mr, Foster was no longer con- 
 nected with the case. I copy extracts : " The 
 instructions given for the people were errone- 
 ous in assuming that there is in law such a 
 thing as advice to commit murder, without 
 designating the victim, time, place, or occa- 
 sion ; in other words, that mere general advice 
 to the public at large to commit deeds of vio- 
 lence as contained in speeches or publica- 
 tions, without reference to the particular crime 
 charged, and without specifying object, man- 
 ner, time, or place, works responsibility as for 
 murder, , . . A man might cry out in the pub- 
 he streets : * Kill, kill; murder, murder,' by the 
 day and by the hour, and would not advise 
 murder in contemplation of law. Unless he 
 designated the victim, the means, the manner, 
 time, or place, he has not done sufficient by his 
 outcries alone to become amenable to the law 
 as an accessory before the fact to the crime of 
 murder." 
 
 Mr. Black, speaking of the approach of the 
 police, said to the jury : " In disregard of our 
 constitutional rights as citizens, it was proposed 
 to order the dispersal of a peaceable meeting. 
 Has it come to pass that under the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States and of this State, our 
 meetings for the discussion of grievances are sub- 
 ject to be scattered to the winds at the breath 
 of a petty police officer ? Can they take into their 
 hands the law ? If so, that is anarchy; the chaos 
 of constitutional right and legally guaranteed 
 liberty. I ask you again, charging no legal re- 
 sponsibility here, but looking at the man who 
 is morally at fault for the death-harvest of that 
 night, who brought it on ? Would it have been 
 but for the act of Bonfield ? " 
 
 The duty of the police to disperse a meet- 
 ing at which Fielden was telling the crowd to 
 
 throtde, kill, stab the law, I have shown. It 
 was the report, brought by a detective to the 
 pohce stadon, of this part of Fielden's speech 
 that started Bonfield, with the police under his 
 command. 
 
 Free speech ! Martyrs for free speech, 
 whose " constitutional right and legally guar- 
 anteed liberty " to hold in the public streets of 
 a great city, after ten o'clock at night, meet- 
 ings at which they might cry " Kill, kill ; mur- 
 der, murder " (and be guiltless of natural and 
 probable consequences of their advice and 
 persuasions), were ruthlessly invaded by " the 
 law-and-order beast " ! 
 
 After the verdict the defendants moved for 
 a new trial. By consent of counsel on both 
 sides, all nearly exhausted by their labors, the 
 discussion of that motion was postponed to the 
 October term. 
 
 I have said that "the active leaders were men 
 who fascinated, apparently, those with whom 
 they came in contact." For two reasons I 
 must copy part of a letter from Mrs. Black, 
 dated September 22, 1886, to the editor of the 
 Chicago " Daily News," and printed in that 
 paper the next day, — first as an instance of 
 that fascination, and second, because a part of 
 what I said to the defendants, all of which later I 
 shall copy, would lose its force to a reader igno- 
 rant of her letter. I should hke to copy the whole 
 letter, but can quote only extracts, as the whole 
 is more than two thousand words : " I had 
 never known an anarchist, did not know what 
 the term meant, until my husband became coun- 
 sel for the defense of the men accused of the 
 murder of Matt J. Degan, the policeman killed 
 at the Haymarket on the night of May 4. . . . 
 Like every one I knew, I felt a horror for the 
 tragic events of that eventful night. ... As 
 for pitying the men accused of these deaths, 
 my mind only revolted in horror ; and though, 
 by Christian sentiment and principle opposed 
 to capital punishment, I almost wondered that 
 lynch-law did not, with its barbaric and dis- 
 graceful savagery, bring a blush to our civic 
 cheeks. . . . But one day one came to speak 
 for that side which so long had been unheard, — 
 the accused, — and I found out that, as to 
 everytliing, there are two sides to this. When I 
 learned the facts I became assured in my own 
 mind that the wrong men had been arrested, 
 and thrown into cells, and subjected to the 
 most horrible treatment. ... I came to know 
 so many terrible secrets that I often questioned 
 whether I still trod this humanized earth, or 
 whether Satan's cohorts had, by some evil 
 chance, taken possession of man's habitation 
 and heart. . . . During all that long trial a 
 kind of soul crucifixion was imposed upon me. 
 Often, as I took up one or the other of the 
 daily papers, I would recall reverently those 
 
834 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 words of my divine Master : ' For which of my 
 good works do you stone me ? ' . . , The labor 
 party is about to appear simultaneously all over 
 the earth. These anarchists are the advance- 
 guard. Call them, if you choose, the forlorn 
 hope; but whatever you do, citizen of to-day, 
 cease your attacks upon these men. You can- 
 not afford to revenge yourselves upon them 
 at the price it will cost. ... I know that 
 capital says, ' We have the army, the militia, 
 artillery, and the most improved weapons for 
 disciplined men ' ; but oh, my God ! what is 
 that before even ten thousand men with dyna- 
 mite bombs ? your army would sigh no more 
 after but one volley of bombs, and there are 
 worse things in the knowledge of all the labor 
 party now. Let us then deal justly. . . . An- 
 archy is simply a human effort to bring about 
 the millennium. Why do we want to hang 
 men for that, when every pulpit has thundered 
 that the time is near at hand ? . . . I tell you 
 that if you hang these men it will precipitate a 
 civil war which, because of scientific discovery^ 
 will soon depopulate the earth. . . . Recollect, 
 I am not an anarchist. But I am an ardent 
 advocate of the rights of the workingmen, 
 in common with every other citizen, to meet 
 and make speeches, — ay, and to defend them- 
 selves against interference or interruption, as 
 guaranteed by the Constitution of the United 
 States, that grand old instrument now being 
 infringed upon and insulted." 
 
 It will be remembered that the motion for 
 a new trial was, at the time that letter ap- 
 peared, soon to come on before me. It did 
 come on, took a week, and was then denied. 
 A part of what I then said is as follows : " In 
 passing upon this motion for a new trial, the 
 case is so voluminous, and there is such a mass 
 of evidence, that it is impossible within any 
 reasonable limit to give a synopsis or epitome 
 of it. I do not understand that, either upon 
 the trial before the jury, or upon the argument 
 of the motion before me, there has been any 
 argument tending, or intended, to deny that 
 all of the defendants, except Neebe, were par- 
 ties to whatever purpose or object there was 
 in view ; that the other seven were combined 
 for some purpose. . . . What it is, is a matter 
 which the counsel have debated and argued 
 before the jury, and before me. Now it is im- 
 portant to know what that object was ; whether 
 it was, as counsel for the defendants have stated 
 here, merely to encourage workingmen to re- 
 sist if unlawful attacks were made upon them, 
 or whether it was something else. There is no 
 way of ascertaining so clearly what the object 
 was, as to read what the defendants themselves 
 have spoken and printed as to their objects 
 while the events were transpiring. Now, from 
 the files of the newspapers, which go back a 
 
 good ways, a great deal can be taken, which 
 must of necessity be taken as the truth of what 
 their object was." 
 
 Then I read from the " Arbeiter " and "The 
 Alarm " at considerable length, and proceeded : 
 " Now, in addition to all these papers, there is 
 the testimony of witnesses as to the various 
 speeches which were made, and the conclu- 
 sion is irresistible that the combination which, 
 so far as we see here, began in 1884, was a 
 combination which had for its purpose the 
 changing of the existing order of society, the 
 overthrow of the government, and the abolition 
 of all law. There can be no question in the 
 mind of any man who reads these articles, and 
 hears what speeches were made, that that was 
 the object long before any eight-hour move- 
 ment was talked about, and then that the 
 eight-hour movement which they advocated 
 was but a means in their estimation toward 
 the end which they sought, and that the eight- 
 hour movement was not the primary considera- 
 tion with them at all. The papers and the 
 speeches furnish the answer to the argument 
 of counsel that what they proposed was simply 
 that they should arm themselves so as to resist 
 any unlawful attacks which the police or militia 
 might make upon them, because these articles, 
 as well as Spies's own account of the McCor- 
 mick affair, all show that what they claimed 
 with reference to the eight-hour movement, or 
 in reference to strikes, was, that if employers 
 chose to employ other men in the place of 
 those who had struck for any cause — wages 
 or hours — that the employment of other men 
 must be prevented by force ; and if the pohce 
 then undertook to resist the force that was used 
 to prevent the employment of other men, that 
 was the ground upon which the police or mili- 
 tia, or whoever exercised that force, might be de- 
 stroyed. Now, there can be no claim that that 
 is a lawful object. There can be no claim but 
 that force used to the extent of taking human 
 life in carrying out that object is murder. It is 
 impossible for any man to argue that any set of 
 men have the right to dictate to other men 
 whether they shall work or not for a particular in- 
 dividual, and if they choose to work in defiance 
 of that dictation, to drive them off by force, and 
 if the police undertake to prevent the use of 
 that force, then they have the right to kill the 
 police. It is impossible to contend for any 
 such principle as that. They say constantly 
 that the majority must be overcome by force; 
 that they have no hope of overcoming the 
 majority by winning them over to their side, 
 but they must annihilate them by force. Now, 
 there is no doubt that is murder, and there 
 is no room for any argument that as to seven 
 of these defendants they were not in that com- 
 bination, whatever the object of it was." 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 835 
 
 After reviewing the evidence as to Neebe, 
 I continued : " Now, on the question of the 
 instructions, whether these defendants, any of 
 them, did anticipate or expect the throwing 
 of the bomb on the night of the fourth of May, 
 is not a question which I need to consider, 
 because the conviction cannot be sustained, 
 if that is necessary to a conviction, however 
 much evidence of it there may be, because 
 the instructions do not go upon that ground. 
 The jury were not instructed to find the de- 
 fendants guilty if they beheved that they par- 
 ticipated in the throwing of tljj^t bomb, or 
 encouraged or advised the throwing of that 
 bomb, or had knowledge that it was to be 
 thrown, or anything of that sort. The con- 
 viction has not gone upon the ground that 
 they did have actually any personal participa- 
 tion in the particular act which caused the 
 death of Degan ; but the conviction proceeds 
 upon the ground, under the instructions, that 
 they had generally by speech and print advised 
 large classes of the people, not particular in- 
 dividuals, but large classes, to commit murder, 
 and have 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 ad- 
 vice, 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 
 that is not a correct principle of law, then the 
 defendants, of course, are entitled to a new trial. 
 This case is without precedent. There is no 
 example in the law-books of a case of this sort. 
 No such occurrence has ever happened before 
 in the history of the world. I suppose that in 
 the Lord George Gordon riots we may, per- 
 haps, find something like this, but Lord George 
 Gordon was indicted for treason, and the gov- 
 ernment failed in its proofs upon the trial as to 
 what he had done. Very likely they did not 
 want to prove it very strongly against him. I 
 do not know; it is none of my business." 
 
 I then read the section of the statute as to 
 accessories, and proceeded : " Now, if it can 
 be ascertained that, in fact, the throwing of 
 the bomb was in pursuance of their advice, 
 and influenced by their advice, — when I say 
 their advice, of course the advice of one is 
 the advice of all, because if the conspiracy 
 is established, then whatever either did is the 
 act of each one, — if, in fact, it could be estab- 
 hshed that the throwing of the bomb was the 
 act of the person who did it, in pursuance of 
 their advice, and under the influence of their 
 advice, why, it seems to me that there would 
 be no room for question that w^hoever gave the 
 advice would be guilty of the consequences 
 which followed the giving of that advice. So 
 
 that if I am correct as to that, then the ques- 
 tion comes back, — whether it can be proved; 
 whether the thing itself is susceptible of such 
 proof, when the man himself who threw the 
 bomb cannot be identified ; whether in point 
 of law there is such an impossibility of proof 
 that that individual tlirew it in pursuance of 
 their advice, that the instruction cannot be 
 right." 
 
 I have already stated that the meetings of 
 the anarchists were mosdy held in beer-saloons 
 or halls adjacent. No. 54 West Lake street was 
 such a i)lace. This fact suggested my illustra- 
 tion as follows : " Perhaps I can make my view 
 upon that subject clearer by an illustration. 
 Suppose that the radical temperance men 
 should, for a long period of time, by speeches 
 and publications, declare that there was no hope 
 of stopping the evils of the liquor traffic, ex- 
 cept by blowing up saloons and killing saloon- 
 keepers; that it was u.seless to expect any 
 reform by legislation ; that no prohibition 
 laws, nor high-license laws, nor any other laws 
 would have any effect in their estimation, and 
 that therefore they must blow up the saloons 
 and kill the saloon-keepers, — and justify that 
 course ; suppose that, in addition to that, they 
 taught means by which saloons could be blown 
 up and saloon-keepers killed, and then called 
 a meeting in West Lake street, in front of No. 
 54 West Lake, and while some speakers were 
 denouncing the liquor traffic, and sa}dng to 
 an audience, 'If you are ready to do any- 
 thing, do it without making any idle threat,' 
 and another speaker says, ' Throtde, kill, stab 
 the saloon business, or it will kill, throttle, and 
 stab you,' and then, while that speaking is go- 
 ing on, some unknown man out of the crowd, 
 with a bomb of the manufacture of the tem- 
 perance men, explodes No. 54 Lake street, 
 and kills the occupants of the house, — I ap- 
 prehend that none of the parties who are ob- 
 jecting to the insufficiency of this proof in this 
 case would have any hesitation in saying that 
 the men who had advised that conduct were 
 guilty of it." 
 
 After reviewing at considerable length the 
 evidence, I continued : " If a thing can be 
 proved by circumstantial evidence, that is 
 true ; that the act of throwing that bomb was 
 in consequence of, in puKuance of, influenced 
 by, this teaching, this advice, by speech and 
 print for a course of two years, that a man 
 should thro\v a bomb; the disposition in him 
 to throw it, produced by the teachings of these 
 defendants, cannot be questioned. ... It is 
 the frequent boast of people who profess to 
 admire the common law that it adapts itself; 
 that its principles are so adapted to human 
 nature that as new events, new circumstances, 
 new combinations arise ; new inventions, new 
 
836 
 
 THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 forms of industry ; the common law, that the 
 common law has principles which may be ap- 
 plied to new events and circumstances; and 
 the principle here applies, that if it is proved, 
 so that a jury must, if they draw a reasonable 
 conclusion, beheve that the man who threw 
 that bomb was acting under the influence of 
 this advice, then the defendants are all guilty ; 
 and if so, if that is the law, then the instruc- 
 tions are all right." 
 
 I expect, if my article receives any attention 
 from anarchists or their sympathizers, that it 
 will be garbled, and that I shall be misrepre- 
 sented. It is for that reason that I quote, and 
 do not undertake to condense or poHsh, what 
 I said. There shall be no ground to say that 
 this paper contains, not the theories applied 
 at the trial, but afterthoughts. 
 
 On the trial Spies, Schwab, Fielden,and Par- 
 sons had taken the stand as witnesses. Engel, 
 Fischer, Lingg, and Neebe kept off; no doubt 
 their counsel acted wisely in not putting 
 them on. 
 
 After the motion for a new trial was denied, 
 I said : " Prisoners at the bar : For the first 
 time during this painful and protracted pro- 
 ceeding it is my duty to speak to you, and call 
 upon you, individually and separately, now to 
 say, whether you have anything to say why 
 sentence should not be passed upon you, ac- 
 cording to the verdict of the jury." And then 
 each of the defendants addressed me, occupy- 
 ing three days. 
 
 As Parsons, the last who spoke, sat down, I 
 said : " I am quite well aware that what you 
 have said, although addressed to me, has been 
 said to the world ; yet nothing has been said 
 which weakens the force of the proof, or the 
 conclusions therefrom upon which the verdict 
 is based. You are all men of intelligence, and 
 know that, if the verdict stands, it must be 
 executed. The reasons why it shall stand, I 
 have already sufficiently stated in deciding the 
 motion for a new trial. I am sorry, beyond any 
 power of expression, for your unhappy con- 
 dition, and for the terrible events that have 
 brought you to it. I shall address to you 
 neither reproaches nor exhortations. What I 
 shall say will be said in the faint hope that a 
 few words from a place where the people of 
 the State of Illinois have delegated the author- 
 ity to declare the penalty of a violation of 
 their laws, and spoken upon an occasion so 
 solemn and awful as this, may come to the 
 knowledge of, and be heeded by, the ignorant, 
 deluded, and misguided men who have lis- 
 tened to your counsels and followed your ad- 
 vice. I say in the faint hope ; for if men are 
 persuaded that because of business differences, 
 whether about labor or anything else, they may 
 destroy property, and assault and beat other 
 
 men, and kill the police, if they, in the dis- 
 charge of their duty, interfere to preserve the 
 peace, there is little ground to hope that they 
 will hsten to any warning. 
 
 " Not the least am.ong the hardships of the 
 peaceable, frugal, and laborious poor, it is to 
 endure the tyranny of mobs, who with lawless 
 force dictate to them, under penalty of peril to 
 limb and life, where, when, and upon what 
 terms they may earn a livelihood for themselves 
 and their families. Any government that is 
 worthy of the name will strenuously endeavor 
 to secure to^ll within its jurisdiction freedom 
 to follow their lawful avocations in safety for 
 their property and their persons while obeying 
 the law. 
 
 "And the law is common sense. 
 
 " It holds each man responsible for the nat- 
 ural and probable consequences of his own 
 acts. It holds that whoever advises murder, 
 is himself guilty of the murder that is com- 
 mitted pursuant to his advice; and if men 
 band together for forcible resistance to the 
 execution of the law, and advise murder as a 
 means of making such resistance effectual, 
 whether such advice be to one man to murder 
 another, or to a numerous class to murder men 
 of another class, all who are so banded to- 
 gether are guilty of any murder that is com- 
 mitted in pursuance of such advice. 
 
 " The people of this country love their in- 
 stitutions. They love their homes. They love 
 their property. They will never consent that 
 by violence and murder those institutions shall 
 be broken down, their homes despoiled, and 
 their property destroyed. And the people are 
 strong enough to protect and sustain their in- 
 stitutions, and to punish all offenders against 
 their laws ; and those who threaten danger to 
 civil society, if the law is enforced, are leading 
 to destruction whoever may attempt to exe- 
 cute such threats. 
 
 " The existing order of society can be 
 changed only by the will of the majority. 
 
 " Each man has the full right to entertain, 
 and advocate by speech and print, such opin- 
 ions as suit himself; and the great body of the 
 people will usually care little what he says; 
 iDut if he proposes murder as a means of en- 
 forcing them, he puts his own life at stake; 
 and no clamor about free speech, or evils to 
 be cured, or wrongs to be redressed, will shield 
 him from the consequences of his crime. His 
 liberty is not a license to destroy. The tolera- 
 tion that he enjoys he must extend to others, 
 and not arrogantly assume that the great ma- 
 jority are wrong, and may rightly be coerced 
 by terror or removed by dynamite. 
 
 "It only remains that for the crime you have 
 committed, and of which you have been con- 
 victed after a trial unexampled in the patience 
 
THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS OF 1886. 
 
 837 
 
 with which an outraged people have extended 
 to you every protection and privilege of the 
 law which you derided and defied, the sen- 
 tence of that law be now pronounced. In 
 form and detail that sentence will appear upon 
 the records of the court. In substance and 
 effect it is that the defendant Neebe be im- 
 prisoned in the State Penitentiary at Joliet at 
 hard labor for the term of fifteen years; and 
 that each of the other defendants, between the 
 hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and two 
 o'clock in the afternoon of the third day of 
 December next, in the manner provided by 
 the statute, be hung by the neck until he is 
 dead." 
 
 Then to the bailiffs : " Remove the pris- 
 oners." 
 
 Thus ended, on the ninth day of October, 
 1886, the trial of the anarchists. 
 
 The case went to the Supreme Court, where 
 the judgment of the Criminal Court was af- 
 firmed, and the opinion of the Supreme Court, 
 prepared by Mr. Justice Benjamin D. Magru- 
 der, was filed September 14, 1887. 
 
 Prophecy was fulfilled. Just a hundred 
 years before some one of the days on which 
 Judge Magruder was engaged in the prepara- 
 tion of that opinion, the citizens of Philadel- 
 phia, rejoicing over the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, by which a loose 
 confederacy was welded into a great nation, 
 carried in precession a banner on which Avere 
 these lines : 
 
 The crimes and frauds of Anarchy shall fail ; 
 Returning Justice lifts aloft her scale. 
 
 To state, without going into particulars, that 
 the sentences of Schwab and Fielden were com- 
 muted to imprisonment for life, that Lingg by 
 suicide, one day before, escaped hanging, is 
 enough. 
 
 The Supreme Court had, in pursuance of 
 the statute, fixed another day for the execu- 
 tion, the one first fixed having passed. On 
 the eleventh day of November, 1887, the other 
 defendants who had been sentenced to death 
 were executed; on the 13th, Mr. Black, who 
 had been called to speak over their graves, and 
 
 the grave of Lingg, said: "... 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 those 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. . . . I say that what- 
 ever of fault may have been in them, these, the 
 people whom they loved and in whose cause 
 they died, may well close the volume, and seal 
 up the record, and give our lips to the praise 
 of their heroic deeds, and their sublime self- 
 sacrifice." 
 
 If these words have any meaning, they re- 
 fer to the acts of the anarchists which I have, 
 in part, told ; " the people whom they loved" 
 they deceived, deluded, and endeavored to 
 convert into murderers ; the " cause they died 
 in " was rebellion, to prosecute which they 
 taught and instigated murder; their "heroic 
 deeds " were causeless, wanton murders done; 
 and the "sublime self-sacrifice" of the only 
 one to whom the words can apply was suicide, 
 to escape the impending penalty of the law 
 incurred by murder. 
 
 For nearly seven years the clamor, uncon- 
 tradicted, has gone round the world that the 
 anarchists were heroes and martyrs, victims 
 of prejudice and fear. Not a dozen persons 
 alive were prepared by familiarity with the de- 
 tails of their crime and trial, and present know- 
 ledge of the materials from which those details 
 could be shown, to present a succinct account 
 of them to the pubhc. It so happened that my 
 position was such that from me that account 
 would probably attract as much attention as 
 it would from any other source. Right-minded, 
 thoughtful people, who recognize the necessity 
 to civilization of the existence and enforcement 
 of laws for the protection of human life, and 
 who yet may have had misgivings as to the fate 
 of the anarchists, will, I trust, read what I have 
 written, and dismiss those misgivings, con- 
 vinced that in law and in morals the anar- 
 chists were rightly punished, not for opinions, 
 but for horrible deeds. 
 
 Joseph E. Gary. 
 
 
THE CASH CAPITAL OF SUNSET CITY. 
 
 HEN the long winter had 
 closed down around Sunset 
 City, stopping the railroad 
 trains, cutting it off from the 
 world, and leaving it like an 
 island in the great shifting 
 sea of snow, the available, 
 active,circulatingcash capi- 
 tal was estimated by Judge Longsby at $240. 
 True, there was more money than this in the 
 ambitious city of Sunset. Untold wealth was 
 said to nestle in the vaults of the Bank of the 
 Metropolis; H. R. Dodge, the proprietor of 
 the Red-Front Dry-Goods Emporium, was 
 reputed to have a safe bursting with money ; 
 Mrs. Stebbins of the Frontier Hotel was said 
 to have a tin coffee-pot full of the most genuine 
 and unmistakable money : but this capital was 
 tied up, — withdrawn from circulation, and in 
 the hands of capitalists and other dangerous 
 members of society, — and $240 remained, on 
 the closest estimates, as the actual amount of 
 the circulating medium available for business 
 purposes at the Two Orphans, the popular 
 liquor and gaming establishment conducted by 
 Mr. Mart Hawkins. Perhaps this amount was 
 not so discreditable to Sunset when we re- 
 member that the city, though lusty and am- 
 bitious, was scarcely six months old. 
 
 The winter shut down on Sunset City with 
 a snap. The people arose one dark December 
 morning, and found an east wind sifting down 
 great flakes of soft snow. The air was damp 
 and chilly, and the clouds hung only a little way 
 above the low buildings. There was a nameless, 
 homesick feehng in the air. The nearest town 
 by railroad, which, although thirty miles away, 
 had always seemed so close and neighborly, now 
 seemed to be far away, and to lose, as it were, 
 its personality. After a while people began to 
 speak of it in a vague, general way, as of a place 
 they had heard of and believed to exist, but had 
 never seen, like Pekin or Calcutta ; and in time 
 some found themselves wondering if, after all, 
 their nearest neighbors did not lie to the west, 
 across the two hundred miles of uninhabited 
 Indian reservation. 
 
 The first day of the snow wore away, but it 
 never ceased to fall, and quick, angry gusts 
 of wind, now more from the northeast, gradu- 
 ally began to dart around the comer, and to 
 toss up the snow in sullen little eddies. Every 
 inhabitant of Sunset knew in his heart that 
 the regular tri-weekly " mixed " train on the 
 Great Western road, due that afternoon at four 
 o'clock, would not come ; but nobody said so, 
 838 
 
 and many consoled themselves with the ob- 
 servation that they " guessed she 'd pull through 
 all right," or they " reckoned it was 'most too 
 early yet for sure-enough winter." So, when 
 four o'clock came, nine tenths of the men of 
 Sunset were at the railroad station, whereas 
 usually there were only three fourths of them 
 present. They sat about in the waiting-room 
 in easy attitudes for an hour, and lied on Avhat- 
 ever subject came up,butnobody said anything 
 about the train. Occasionally a man would 
 glance furtively out of the window at the snow 
 and the gathering darkness, and then he would 
 look unconcerned, asifhehadhadno particular 
 object in view. At five o'clock the telegraph 
 instrument in the next room began to click, 
 and a hush fell upon the little group around the 
 stove. In a moment it ceased, and the operator 
 was heard arranging papers and books. A few 
 of the weaker ones looked toward his window 
 with its sign of "Tickets," but nobody spoke. 
 Then the operator looked out and said, " Train 
 suspended," and shut down his window with 
 a bang. The men rose up, and started for the 
 door. Clay Morgan was the only one that said 
 anything. I take the liberty to soften consider- 
 ably the strength of his remark. ^ 
 
 " Sufferin' Moses!" said Mr. Clay Morgan, 
 with an emphasis which swept everything be- 
 fore it, " of course the train 's suspended. 
 We 're the blankest set of fools that ever looked 
 through a collar. We '11 see that 'ere train about 
 March; that 's when we '11 see /ler." 
 
 Two or three attempted to laugh feebly; 
 then they went out. It was dark now, and the 
 snow was still falling, but it was finer. It was 
 growing colder, and the wind pounced around 
 the corner upon the helpless snow with greater 
 frequency. The men waded along in single file 
 toward the cheerful lights of the Two Orphans. 
 They went in at the door, and in ten minutes 
 they were lost in the calm, restful game of 
 draw-poker, and the cash capital of Sunset 
 City had begun its local travels. 
 
 When the great, grim winter closed around 
 the httle defenseless city of Sunset, it impris- 
 oned all sorts and conditions of people — those 
 who had passed through Dakota winters be- 
 fore, and those who knew nothing about them ; 
 those who had roughed it on the frontier, and 
 slept in tents, and in covered wagons, and un- 
 der the stars, and those who had never known 
 anything except good beds and warm rooms. 
 Among others shut in by the winter was a 
 young woman with dark hair, with a touch of 
 premature gray about the temples, who was 
 
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