Opinion by Magruder
J.
Writ of error decision, 1887 Sept. 14.
Volume O, 172-389, 220 p.
This case comes before us by writ of
error to the
Plaintiffs in error were tried in the
summer of
1886 for the murder of Matthias J.Degan on May 4th, 1886 in the City of
About the first day of
May 1886
the working men of
As soon as the order was given, some one
threw
among the policemen a dynamite bomb, which struck Degan, who was one of
the
police officers, and killed him. As a result of the throwing of the
bomb and of
the firing of pistol shots, which immediately succeeded the throwing of
the
bomb, six policemen besides Degan were killed, and sixty more were
seriously
wounded.
It is undisputed that the bomb was
thrown, and
that it caused the death of Degan. It is conceded that no one of the
convicted
defendants threw the bomb with his own hands. Plaintiffs in error are
charged
with being accessories before the fact. There are sixty-nine counts in
the
indictment. Some of the counts charge, that the eight defendants above
named,
being present, aided, abetted and assisted in the throwing of the bomb;
others,
that, not being present, aiding, abetting or assisting, they advised,
encouraged, aided and abetted such throwing. Some of the counts charge
that
said defendants advised, encouraged, aided and abetted one Rudolph
Schnaubelt
in the perpetration of the crime; others, that they advised,
encouraged, aided
and abetted an unknown person in the perpetration thereof.
The Illinois Statute upon this subject
is as
follows: (Chap 38; Div.2; Secs 2 and 3)
"Sec.2. An accessory is he who stands
by, and
aids, abets, or 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. 3--Every such accessory, when a
crime
is committed within or without this State by his aid or procurement in
this
State, may be indicted and convicted at the same time as the principal
or
before, or after his conviction, and whether the principal is convicted
or
amenable to justice or not, and punished as principal."
This statute abolishes the distinction
between
accessories before the fact and principals; by it all accessories
before the
fact are made principals. As the acts of the principal are thus made
the acts
of the accessory, the latter may be charged as having done the acts
himself,
and may be indicted and punished accordingly. (Baxter vs People 3
Gilm.368;
Dempsey vs People 47 Ills 326.)
If therefore, the defendants advised,
encouraged,
aided or abetted the killing of Degan, they are as guilty as though
they took
his life with their own hands. If any of them stood by and aided,
abetted or
assisted in the throwing of the bomb, those of them who did so, are as
guilty
as though they threw it themselves
It is charged, that the defendants
formed a common
purpose, and were united in a common design to aid and encourage the
murder of
the policemen among whom the bomb was thrown. If they combined to
accomplish
such murder by concerted action, the ordinary law of conspiracy is
applicable,
and the acts and declarations of one of them, done in furtherance of
the common
design, are, in contemplation of law, the acts and declarations of all.
This
prosecution, however, is not for conspiracy as a substantive crime.
Proof of
conspiracy is only proper so far as it may tend to show a common design
to
encourage the murder charged against the prisoners. It may be
introduced for
the purpose of establishing the position of the members of the
combination as
accessories to the crime of murder.
The questions which thus present
themselves at the
threshold of the case, are these: Did the defendants have a common
purpose or
design to advise, encourage aid or abet the murder of the police? Did
they
combine together and with others with a view to carrying that purpose
or design
into effect? Did they or either or any of them do such acts or make
such
declarations in furtherance of the common purpose or design, as did
actually
have the effect of encouraging, aiding, or abetting the crime in
question?
The solution of these questions involves
an
examination of the evidence.
The first inquiry which naturally
suggests itself,
is: who made the bomb which killed Degan?
First, the bomb was round. Zeller, a
witness for
the defense, says of it, as he saw it going through the air: "it seems
to
me it was more round and about as big as a baseball." Taylor, another
witness for the defense, says:
"I saw the bomb enough
to
know it was a round bomb."
There is much evidence in the record as
to the
different kinds of bombs and as to the mode of their construction. The
simplest
and cheapest form is what is known as the gas-pipe bomb, the mode of
constructing which is hereafter explained.. The gas-pipe bomb is the
one which
the ordinary, unskilled laborer would be most apt to make, if he
desired to use
such a weapon.
The round bombs however, are more
expensive and
their construction is more difficult and more liable to discovery. Such
a bomb
consists of two semi-globes, which, if made of iron, must be obtained
at a
foundry, or if made of zinc or other material, require the use of brass
or clay
molds and facilities for melting the metals entering into their
composition.
The semi-globes must be fastened together by solder or by bolts. Holes
must be
drilled for the insertion of the bolts and also for the insertion of
the caps
and fuse. Care must be taken to fill in the dynamite properly and to
insert the
fulminating cap into the dynamite and the fuse into the cap. The
construction
of such bombs requires time and skill and involves considerable expense
in the
purchase of materials.
Second, the bomb thrown at the Haymarket
was
exploded by means of a projecting fuse, ignited before leaving the hand
by a
match or a lighted cigar. This abundantly appears from the evidence of
those
who saw it before it fell. One witness says it was like a fire-cracker
in the
air: another, that "it was like a burnt out match, that was lit yet",
another, that it was a "streak of fire" in the air; still another
calls it "a little tail of fire quivering in the air."
As we understand the evidence in regard
to the
mode of constructing a round bomb with a fuse, the method is as
follows: where
the two semi-globular shells are fastened together, and the dynamite is
filled
in through an opening made for that purpose, a fuse six or eight inches
long is
inserted in a detonating cap: the cap is pinched so as to hold the
fuse; the
cap is then inserted about two-thirds of its length into the dynamite
through
the opening, and five or six inches of fuse are left to project outside
of the
bomb.
There are bombs which do not have the
projecting
fuse. When explosion is desired from a distance, a wire and electric
battery
are used. A primer bomb has a percussion cap on each side, so that,
when it is
thrown, "whichever side strikes will explode the cap." Another sort
of bomb is described in the testimony as having the appearance of a
fruit-can,
containing a glass tube connected with the top by a screw and so fixed
as to
explode when thrown against a hard substance.
The bomb with a projecting fuse of six
or eight
inches is made to be thrown into a crowd of men and when "only a few
minutes are desired to get away", and "only so much fuse is required
as can burn in the interval of throwing." When the fuse projects in the
manner indicated it is necessary to apply a light externally to the end
of the
fuse before the bomb is thrown.
Third, the shell of the bomb, which
exploded, was
of composite manufacture. Pieces of the shell were taken by the
physicians from
the body of Degan and from the body of officer Murphy, who had fifteen
shell
wounds. These pieces were subjected to chemical examination and were
found to
be composed of tin and lead, with traces of antimony, iron and zinc.
The Degan
piece contained slightly more tin than the Murphy piece, but the
ingredients of
the two pieces were exactly the same.
The chemists, who made the analysis here
referred
to and who have given their testimony in relation to the same, swear,
that
there is no commercial substance which has the same composition as
these pieces
of shell. Commercial lead, they say, never contains tin. Solder is
composed of
tin and lead, but the proportion of tin in solder to the amount of lead
therein
is so different from the proportions of those ingredients in the pieces
of
shell so analyzed, that the latter could not have been made of solder.
Experiments also demonstrated that the exploded bomb could not have
been made
out of old lead pipe, that had been plugged or mended with solder. The
proportions of lead and tin in such case are vastly different from
their
proportions in the pieces of the bomb, which were subjected to
examination. In
the latter, lead was the basis of the preparation, but tin, or some
other metal
containing tin, was mixed with the lead.
Fourth, the bomb,
which exploded,
had upon it a small iron nut. One Michael Hahn was standing on the
The four characteristics of the exploded
bomb,
which have been thus indicated, were found to exist in the bombs, which
were
made by the defendant Louis Linng.
First, many of the bombs made by Linng
were round
or globular in form. The defendant Linng came to this country for the
first
time in the summer of 1885 from some place in Germany In August of that
year he
became acquainted with William Seliger, a German carpenter who had
resided in
Second, the bombs made by Linng had the
projecting
fuse so as to be exploded by the external application of fire.
On April 30th, 1886, being the Friday
before the
day of the Haymarket meeting, Linng brought to Seliger's house a large
wooden
box, about three feet long, from 16 to 18 inches high and from 16 to 18
inches
broad, inside of which was a tin box, containing dynamite. On the next
Tuesday,
May 4th 1886, he was occupied during the afternoon and until after
seven
o'clock in the evening, in filling this dynamite into gas-pipes and
globular
shells, using a flat piece of wood, which he had made for that purpose.
He was
assisted in his labors by a number of persons, and among these were
Seliger, Thielen
and Hermann, already mentioned, and two men named Huebner and
Hunsenberg or Muensenberger
the latter of whom was probably the blacksmith hereafter referred to.
Upwards
of fifty bombs were finished that afternoon, and the work on them would
appear
to have been continued up to or beyond the hour on that evening for
which the Haymarket
meeting had been called, as hereafter stated. The rooms in Seliger's
house,
which were used by Linng and his assistants for their work, are spoken
of as
the front room and the bed room. The witness Lehmann, visited these
rooms twice
on Tuesday afternoon in company with a countryman of his, a Prussian
named
Smideke, who went there with him to buy a revolver. His first visit was
made at
five o'clock in the afternoon, at which time he saw there Linng,
Seliger Huebner
and a person, of whom he speaks as follows: "one whose name I did not
know; it is said that he is a blacksmith." They were in the bed-room
and
each had a cloth tied around his face, but the witness "could not
precisely see what they were doing."
The second visit was made to the rooms
at seven
o'clock in the evening and lasted about ten minutes. At this time
Lehmann did
not get into the bed-room, but they were busy there as at the first
visit. He
saw Huebner working at some coil of fuse which looked like strings or
white
cord; he was cutting it into pieces; they were putting fuse into caps
in the
front room. During one of these visits Linng gave to Lehmann a small
leather
hand-satchel or trunk, which the latter took home and placed in his
woodshed,
and at three o'clock next morning after he had learned of the
destruction
wrought at the Haymarket, carried "away to the prairie there burying
its
contents. The satchel contained a tin box or can nearly full of
dynamite, and
three round bombs, some caps and two coils of fuse.
Another circumstance may be mentioned in
this
connection. After ten o'clock on Tuesday night when Linng and Seliger
were on
Third, the shells of the round bombs
made by Linng
were constructed of composite metal. Their correspondence in this
particular
with the shell of the exploded bomb tends very strongly to show, that
the same
hand which made them also made the exploded bomb.
Linng, Seliger,
Thielon and
Hermann were frequently engaged in "molting and casting" in Seliger's
kitchen during the six weeks before May 1st 1886, Linng melted lead or
some
other metal in a ladle on the kitchen stove. A pan is identified as one
which
was used by him in making the semi-globes, found in his round bombs. He
also
made use for such purpose of clay molds, constructed by himself. One of
these
clay molds could only be used twice.
Pieces of bomb shells proven to have
been made by Linng
in the manner and with the materials here indicated, were subjected to
chemical
analysis. They were composed of a certain percentage of tin, and the
remainder
was lead with traces of antimony, iron and zinc. Out of four bombs
examined the
percentage of tin in the different bombs varied slightly in three and
in the
fourth considerably more than in the other three. As a result of the
chemical
analysis, the piece of shell taken from Degan's body, and the pieces of
the
shells discovered in Linng's possession after his arrest, were shown to
be
composed of exactly the same ingredients.
After May 4th there were found in
Linng's room a
metal cap, a cold chisel, a file, shells, loaded cartridges, "metal and
also some lead", "some babbitt metal, some sheets of lead",
bolts, pieces of metal in a Japan dinner box with 4 dynamite gas-pipe
bombs, 2
loaded and 2 empty, a Remington Rifle, a round dynamite bomb loaded,
two pieces
of solder, a blast hammer and a smaller pointed hammer, a couple of
iron bits
and drills, a two-quart pail with saw-dust in the bottom, a tin quart
basin
with fuse and saw-dust or dynamite in it, two long cartridges of
dynamite and
some fuse already fixed, fuse about four inches long and caps, a big
coil of
fuse in the trunk, a piece of block tin, a piece of candle-stick.
Babbitt metal
is an alloy of copper, tin, and zinc. Many of the articles found were
chemically analyzed. The candle-stick or toy proved, upon analysis, to
contain
tin, lead, antimony zinc and a trace of copper. All the ingredients
necessary
to make up the composite material, out of which the exploded shell was
constructed, were thus discovered to be in Linng's possession.
The shell of the globular bomb, if
entirely of
lead, would be soft and yielding, and on this account would fail to
furnish
that degree of resistance to the dynamite, which appears from the
evidence to
be necessary, in order to make the explosion effective. It was
evidently for
this reason that some other substance, such as tin, was combined with
the lead
to give the shell a firmer consistence and make its effect more deadly.
With
the same end in view nails and wire, as will be hereafter seen, were
recommended by the defendant Engel to be put around the gas-pipe bombs.
It appears that of the bombs made by
Linng, which
were analyzed, each differed slightly from the others in the amount of
tin,
though all contained the same ingredients. It also appears that the two
halves
of the same bomb would differ somewhat in the proportions of the metal
present,
and this accounts for the fact, that the piece from Degan's body
contained a
very little more tin than the piece from Murphy's body, each evidently
coming
from a different half of the bomb.
These slight differences are such as
would
naturally be expected, when shells were made with the rude materials
with which
Linng worked, melting his metals in a small ladel on a kitchen stove,
casting
half a shell at a time, making use of clay molds made by himself each
one of
which could only be used twice.
Fourth the semi-globular halves of each
round bomb
made by Linng were fastened together by a bolt, upon one end of which
was
screwed a small iron nut showing a reasonable correspondence between
the Linng
bombs and the exploded bomb in the fourth peculiarity of the latter,
which has been
heretofore mentioned.
On the morning of Tuesday May 4th, Linng
left Seliger's
house to go to a meeting on the west side and did not return until one
o'clock
in the afternoon. Before leaving he instructed Seliger to go to work at
the
bombs, remarking that they would be taken away that day. He gave Selger
a bolt,
and said "that he had not enough of those bolts", and told him to go
to
About fifty of the
bolts were
procured in accordance with the directions thus given. Seliger was
engaged in
the forenoon in drilling holes in the shells already on hand for the
bolts to
pass through. He was chided by Linng, upon the latter’s return for
having
progressed so slowly with the work and was informed that they would
"have
to work very diligently during the afternoon"
The evidence shows that the bolt used by
Linng was
a metallic pin running through the bomb, that a head was formed on one
end of
this pin and on the other end there was cut a thread upon which was
screwed a
moveable piece called a nut, the head at one end and the nut at the
other
holding the two semi-globes together. These bolts were found in the
bombs
afterwards taken from the possession of Linng and proven by the
undisputed
testimony in the case to have been made by him.
The nut taken from the body of Hahn, and
which was
a part of the exploded bomb, was applied to the threaded end of one of
the
bolts taken from a bomb made by Linng and was found to fit it exactly.
This cannot
be regarded otherwise than as a circumstance of very grave significance.
In view of the considerations thus far
presented,
and of others which will suggest themselves as the examination proceeds
we
think the jury were warranted in believing from the evidence that the
bomb,
which killed Degan was one of the bombs made by the defendant Linng.
This conclusion receives endorsement
from the fact
that the making of such bombs as have been described is a new, unusual
and
dangerous occupation. There are no bomb manufactories. A bomb is not an
article
which can be bought in the market like a revolver. He who would use
such a
weapon must make it himself.
According to the evidence in this record
dynamite
is composed of nitro-glycerin and clay or saw-dust it must be handled
with
care; it will explode if subjected to too great a degree of heat; it
should not
be exposed to the rays of the sun, or placed too near the fire; if kept
for any
length of time it must be stored with caution, for instance it is
recommended that
it be wrapped in oil paper, placed in a box of saw dust and buried in
the
cellar; when in handling it it gets upon the skin headache is produced,
if its
dangerous gases are inhaled frightful pains in the head will be the
result.
Moreover information as to its peculiarities and as to the safest mode
of
handling it is limited and to some extent not accessible.
For these reasons so hazardous a
business as
filling bomb-shells with dynamite will rarely be engaged in. Hence when
a
murder is the result of the explosion of a dynamite bomb, and, about
the time
of the murder a man is found making such bombs near the scene of the
explosion,
his responsibility for the crime viewed in connection with other
criminating
circumstances which may exist will be a more natural inference than
where some
more common weapon of destruction has been used.
The next question to be considered is;
why did the
defendant Linng make the bomb which killed Degan?
In order to satisfactorily answer this
question it
becomes necessary to examine the character and purposes of an
association with
which all the defendants in this case were connected.
The record shows the
existence of
an organization known as the International Workingmen's Association, or
the
International Arbeiter Association, generally called the
"Internationals." and sometimes designated for brevity as the I.A.A.
The platform or declaration of
principles adopted
by this organization was published by a certain bureau of Information
and by
certain newspapers, called the "Alarm" and the "Arbeiter Zeitung"
which are more particularly referred to hereafter. It appeared in all
the
issues of the later paper during the months of February, March and
April, 1886.
It is too long for insertion here. It urges that the present system,
under which
property is owned by individuals, should be destroyed, and that all
capital,
which has been produced by labor should be transformed into common
property. It
says: "It is only when capital is made common and indivisible that all
can
be made to partake fully and freely of the fruits of common activity;
only by
the impossibility of acquiring individual (private) capital can every
one be
compelled to work who claims the right to live." It charges, that the
government, the law, the schools, the churches, the press, are in the
pay and
under the away of the property owning and capitalistic classes and that
the
laboring classes must achieve their deliverance through their own
strength.
This International platform thus
addresses the
workingmen: "As in former times no privileged class ever relinquished
its
tyranny, no more can we take it for granted, that the capitalists of
the
present day will forego their privileges and their authority without
compulsion. * * * It is therefore self evident, that the fight of
proletarianism
(the laboring classes) against the bourgeoisie (the middle classes)
must have a
violent revolutionary character and that more wage conflicts can never
lead to
the goal. We could show, by numerous illustrations, that all attempts
which
have been made in the past to do away with the existing monstrous
social system
through peaceable means, for example through the ballot box have been
entirely
useless and will be so in the future. * * *. We know, therefore that
the ruling
classes will not voluntarily relinquish their prerogatives and will
make no
concessions to us. Under all these circumstances there is only one
remedy
left-- force. * * * Therefore it is your right, it is your duty, says,
It is here admitted that the property of
each
individual in the community could not be taken away from him and put
into a
common fund to be divided among all the members of the community
without a
resort to revolution and force. The way to the result sought to be
reached by
the International platform here referred to, leads, through the crimes
of
robbery, theft and murder, to the destruction of the existing system of
social
order and of all the laws and institutions upon which that system is
based.
The association whose principles are
thus outlined
in its platform, was divided into groups, of which there were eighty in
the
The defendants Schwab, Neebe and Linng
belonged to
the north side group, the defendants Engel and Fischer to the northwest
side
group, and the defendants Spies, Parsons and Fielden to the American
group.
Spies had also belonged to the northwest side group.
The members of these groups were known
by numbers
and not by names. The members of the north side group began to be known
by
numbers in July 1884. The number of the witness Seliger, who belonged
to the
north side group, was 72. Certain members of these groups were armed
with
rifles and drilled regularly once a week at their respective places of
meeting,
taking their rifles home with them after drill. These armed members
were known
and designated as the "armed sections," of the groups. The north side
group met every Monday night at
There was also a certain armed
socialistic
organization called the Lehr und Wehr Verein whose members seem to have
been
members also of the International Groups but to have been of a higher
rank and
to have attained a higher grade in the perfection of their drill than
was the
case with the ordinary members of the "armed sections." The evidence
does not disclose the exact number of those, who belonged to the Lehr
und Wehr
Verein at the time of the trial, but in 1879 it had 1000 men. Its
members were
armed with
The Lehr und Wehr Verein had four
companies in
The "armed section" of the American
Group was called the "International Rifles" After one of its drills
on August 24th 1885 at No. 54 West Lake street, ten men, dressed in
blue
blouses and each armed with a Springfield rifle and who belonged to the
first
company of the Lehr und Wehr Verein, were introduced into the room and
drilled
for the benefit of the new members of the "International Rifles." It
was then and there stated, that, in case of a conflict with the
authorities,
the International Rifles were to act in concert with the Lehr und Wehr
Verein
and obey the orders of its officers. From this it would appear that the
Lehr
und Wehr Verein or its officers were to direct the movements of the
ordinary
"armed sections," when occasion should require.
In the spring of 1885 there were in the
city of
These groups were represented by a
general
committee composed of delegates from all the groups of the
International
Association in
The members of the general committee had
been in
the habit of meeting in this library room for a number of years,
certainly
since 1880. One Mieschberger was the librarian.
An exception should be made to the
statement that
all the groups appointed delegates to the general committee. The
northwest side
group did not do so, and the reason given for this by Fricke, who was
at one
time a member of that group and for two years book keeper of the
Arbeiter
Zeitung, was, that the principles of the northwest side group were more
strongly anarchistic than those of the other groups. It was called an
""autonomous" group..
A newspaper called the Arbeiter Zeitung
and
conducted in the interest of the German speaking groups of the
International
Arbeiter Association, was published in the building No. 107 Fifth
Avenue and
had its office and editorial rooms there. Its superintendent and chief
editor
was the defendant Spies. The defendant Schwab was co-editor and wrote
some of
the most important of the editorials. The defendant Fischer was a type
setter
in the office and about the first of May 1886 was the head foreman of
the
printing department. This paper was owned by a corporation in which
Spies, Schwab,
Fischer and Neebe were stockholders. It was printed in the German
language,
and, besides its daily issue, had a Sunday edition called the
"Fackel," and a weekly edition called the "Vorbote." Its circulation
was about 3600. Notices of the meetings of workingmen were inserted in
its
columns without charge.
Another newspaper by the name of the
"Alarm," owned by the International Arbeitur Association and
conducted in the English language in the interest of the English
speaking
groups, was also published at the same building, No. 107 Fifth Avenue.
Its
editor and manager from October, 1884 to May 1886 was the defendant
Parsons.
The defendant Fielden owned some of the stock in the corporation which
controlled
it. Its circulation was about 2000. It was first issued as a weekly and
afterwards as a semi-monthly paper. Still another newspaper called the
"Anarchist" was started in January or February 1886 by the northwest
side group and two of the south side groups. It was under the
management of the
defendant Engel. Its origin was announced as being due to the fact that
the
Arbeitur Zeitung was not outspoken enough in its anarchistic
principles. Its
efforts were directed to the same ends as those contemplated by the
other
papers mentioned.
All the bills for the printing of the
Arbeiter
Zeitung and the Alarm were made out to the Arbeiter Zeitung and were
paid by
the defendant Spies, occasionally by check, but generally in currency.
There was a bureau of information of the
Internationals. This also had its head quarters at the Arbeiter Zeitung
building. The bureau of Information designated to act for the years
1885 and
1886 consisted of the defendants Spies and Parsons, the librarian
Hirschberger,
one Belthazer Rau, an advertising agent of the Arbeiter Zeitung and one
Joseph
Bach a member of the north side group and afterwards a director of the
Arbeitur
Zeitung. Letters were always addressed to Spies, as a member of this
bureau, at
Besides the regular weekly meetings of
the groups
heretofore mentioned in their respective halls, there was occasionally
a
meeting of all the "armed sections" of the different groups at
These meetings of the armed sections
whose members
were located in the north, south and west divisions of the city, were
irregular. They were called by a signal given by the Arbeitur Zeitung.
This
signal was: "Y- Komme Montag Abende," or "Y- come Monday
night." Whenever these words appeared in the letter box column of the
Arbeitur Zeitung they were understood to be a summons to the "armed
sections" to meet on Monday night at Greif's Hall.
The evidence in the record shows that
there were
in the city of
It thus appears that the branch of the
International Workingmen Association which existed in
There can be no doubt that the
organization here
described was an unlawful conspiracy. First, its purpose was unlawful.
It
designed to bring about a "social revolution." "Social
revolution" meant the destruction of the right of private ownership of
property, or of the right of the individual to own property; it meant
the
bringing about of a state of society in which all property should be
held in
common. As a court, we are not concerned with the question, whether it
was
right or wrong to adopt and advocate an abstract theory in regard to
the
ownership of property, such as is here indicated. But this abstract
theory
assumed a concrete and practical form. The police and militia were
looked upon
as protectors and guardians of the form of ownership in property which
was
objected to. Hence, "social revolution" meant war upon the police and
militia. The destruction by force of the police and militia in the city
of
Second, its methods were unlawful. The
arming and
drilling of the groups was in violation of the militia law of the State
or
Illinois, which provides that, "it shall not be lawful for any body of
men
whatever, other than the regular organized volunteer militia of this
state, and
the troops of the United States, to associate themselves together as a
military
company or organization or to drill or parade with arms in any city or
town of
this state without the license of the governor, thereof" etc. It is not
pretended that any such license was ever issued to these groups by the
Governor
of the State.
The central or governing authority of
this
International organization had its headquarters in the Arbeitur Zeitung
building and in a room connected with the office of the Arbeitur
Zeitung
newspaper. From that place mainly its policy was dictated and the
orders which
controlled its movements, were issued. Among the principal persons who
shaped
its policy and outlined its course of action were the defendant. Spies,
Schwab,
Engel, Lingg Fielding, Parsons, Fischer and in a subordinate degree
Neebe.
These defendants sought to use the
organization
for the purpose of bringing about the "social revolution," and, to
that end, endeavored to increase its membership and perfect its
discipline so
as to hurl it against the police and militia, as the representatives of
law and
order. Among the means employed to accomplish this were, "agitation
with a
view to organization," and "organizations for the purpose of
rebellion." The object of "agitation" was to increase the ranks
of the "armed sections" of the International groups by recruits from
the "Labor Unions" and other associations of working men. The meaning
of "organization" was the arming of such recruits with dynamite and
revolvers.
During the years 1885 and 1886 the
defendants
Spies, Schwabth Parsons, Engel and Fielden by numerous speeches, and by
articles published in the newspaper organs above mentioned,
persistently
advised and encouraged the workingmen to arm themselves for a conflict
with
what were called the property owning classes and with the police and
militia,
who were regarded as the special protectors of those classes. These
speeches
were made at picnics in workingmen's halls, at gatherings of the
International
Groups, in Market square, from the windows of the Arbeitur Zeitung
building.
They denounced the police and militia. They inveighed against the
"private
right of property." They advised the purchase of rifles and dynamite.
Extracts from the "Alarm," "the
Arbeitur Zeitung" and the "Anarchist" and from speeches of Schwab,
Spies, Parsons, Fielden and Engel are set out in the statement which
precedes
this opinion and which is hereby referred to and made a part of the
opinion.
The articles in the "Alarm" were most of
them written by the defendant Parsons but some of them by the defendant
Spies.
The articles quoted from the "Arbeiter Zeitung" were written by the
defendants Schwab and Spies. The single extract from the "Anarchist"
was written by the defendant Engel.
The articles and speeches so collated
are of the
most violent and incendiary character. They seek to inspire a feeling
of hatred
among the working men against the police and militia and the property
owning
classes. They not only recommend the workingmen to arm themselves with
dynamite
and rifles but they give specific instructions how to handle and use
dynamite
and how to make bombs and how to procure weapons.
They recommend the
workingmen to
attend the meetings of the International Arbeiter Association and read
its
organs. They advise the formation of special groups for committing
deeds of
violence, which are called "revolutionary actions", and point out the
means of avoiding discovery after such deeds are committed. In the
Arbeiter
Zeitung articles will be found such expressions as these: "Each
working-man ought to have been armed long ago;" "Daggers and
revolvers are easily to be gotten, hand grenades are cheaply to be
produced;
explosives, too, can be obtained;" "The working men ought to take aim
at every member of the militia." "Your passport to it (Eden) is that
banner, which calls to you in flaming letters the word
"Anarchy""; "Therefore, workingmen, do arm yourselves with
the most effectual means;" "There is no other way than to become
immediately soldiers of the revolutionary army and establish conspiring
groups
and let the ruins fall on the homes of such;" "(We wonder) whether
the workingmen x x x will at last supply themselves with weapons
dynamite and
prussic acid;" "Workingmen arm yourselves;" "Enough is said
about the importance of being armed x x x. We are to go to work to
supply
ourselves as quickly as possible with these useful things. x x x
Dynamite bears
several names herein America, among others it is known in trade also
under the
names of Hercules powder and giant powder;" "There marched a strong
company of well-armed comrades of the various groups x x x the
nitroglycerine
pills were not missing;" "There exists to day an invisible network of
fighting groups;" "Every trades-union should make it obligatory to
every member to keep a good gun at home and ammunition;" "If we do
not bestir ourselves for a bloody revolution we cannot leave anything
to our children
but poverty and slavery. Therefore prepare ourselves in all quietness
for the
revolution."
"The following expressions will be found
among the extracts from the Alarm:
"One man armed with a dynamite bomb is
equal
to one regiment of militia &c;" "Every man, who is master of
these explosives, cannot be approached by an army of men;" "How can
all this be done? Simply by making ourselves masters of the use of
dynamite,
then x x x x x administer instant death, by any and all means, to any
and every
person, who attempts to continue to claim personal ownership in
anything x x x
x. Our war is not against men, but against systems, yet we must prepare
to kill
men who will try to defeat our cause x x x. The rich are only worse
than the
poor because they have more power to wield this infernal "property
right,"
"Dynamite is the emancipator; In the
hand of
the enslaved it cries aloud, `Justice or annihilation.' But, best of
all, the
working men are not only learning its use, they are going to use it.
They will
use it, and effectually, until personal ownership-property rights--are
destroyed & c x x x. Hail to the social revolution. Hail to the
deliverer
Dynamite;" Nothing but an uprising of the people and a bursting open of
all stores and store houses 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;" "Seeing the amount of
needless suffering all about us, we say a vigorous use of dynamite is
both
humane and economical x x x. It is upon this theory that we advocate
the use of
dynamite. It is clearly more humane to blow ten men into eternity than
to make
ten men starve to death;" "Dynamite; 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 peoples brows, and light the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying
result
will follow;" "The next issue of the Alarm will begin the publication
of a series of articles concerning revolutionary warfare, viz: `The
manufacture
of Dynamite made easy'. `Manufacturing bombs.' `How to use dynamite
properly
&c." "All governments are domineering powers &c x x x.
Assassination will remove the evil from the face of the earth. x x x
Assassination properly applied is wise, just, humane and brave. For
freedom,
all things are just;" "Though everybody nowadays speaks of dynamite x
x x x few have any knowledge of the general character and nature of
this
explosive. For those, who will sooner or later be forced to employ its
destructive qualities in defense of their rights as men and from a
sense of
preservation, a few hints may not be out of place.
Dynamite may be handled with perfect
safety, if
proper care is used &c:" (then follow a series of minute
directions).
During the months of
December
1885, January, February and March 1886 the following notice appeared in
the Arbeiter
Zeitung:
" `Exercise in Arms.' Working men, who
are
willing to exercise in the handling of arms, should call every Sunday
forenoon,
at half past nine, at No 58 Clybourne Avenue, where they will receive
instructions gratuitously."
In the Alarm from August 17, 1885 to
April 24th
1886 appeared the following notice:
The armed section of the American group
meets Monday
night at
One Herr Most had prepared a treatise or
book,
entitled "Revolutionary Warfare," containing instructions, that
entered into the minutest details, as to the best mode of preparing
dynamite
and other explosives and of making bombs and other weapons. From time
to time
in 1885 and 1886 the Alarm and the Arbeiter Zeitung published
translations and
extracts from this book, for the evident purpose of communicating the
information in it to the members of the groups and to their other
readers among
the workingmen. Specimen extracts from this treatise are set out in the
'Statement,' which prefaces this opinion.
In the extract from the "Anarchist" will
be found the following expressions: "All government we hate. x x x
Complaints should be sent to G. Engel. x x Working men and fellows: x x
x he,
who would war successfully must equip himself with all implements
adapted to
destroy his opponents x x x, We strive towards the overthrow of the
existing
order &C."
The defendant Schwab, in a speech
delivered on
April 26th 1886 about a week before the Haymarket meeting, said: "Every
where police and murderers are employed to grind down working men. For
every
working man, who has died through the pistol of a deputy sheriff let
ten of
those executioners fall. Arm yourselves."
The defendant Spies, in a speech made in
October
1885, said that "there were 9,000,000 of 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 them unemployed; to make a movement, in
which
they were engaged, a successful one it must be a revolutionary one;
don't let
us x x x forget the most forcible argument of all - the gun and
dynamite."
In speeches made by him, the defendant
Parsons
said in February 1885; "We need no President, no Congressmen, no
police,
no militia and no judges; they are all leeches sucking the blood of the
poor,
who have to support them by their labor; I say to you, rise, one and
all, and
let us exterminate then all. Woe to the police or the militia whom they
send
against us;" in April 1885 he said: "The only way to convince these
capitalists and robbers is to use the gun and dynamite;" Again he said
in
April 1885: "If we would achieve our liberation from economic bondage
and
acquire our natural right to life and liberty, every man must lay by a
part of
his wages, buy a Colt’s navy revolver a Winchester Rifle and learn how
to make
and to use dynamite. Then raise the flag of rebellion, the scarlet
banner of
liberty, fraternity, equality and strike down to the earth every tyrant
that
lives upon this globe. Tyrants have no rights 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
organization,
organize for the purpose of rebellion, for wage-slaves have nothing to
lose but
their chains;" and in August 1885 referring to the street-car strike,
he
said; "If but one shot had been fired and Bonfield had happened to be
shot, the whole city would have been deluged in blood and the social
revolution
would have been inaugurated."
The defendant Fielden, in speeches made
by him,
said in March 1885: "I want all to organize; every working man in
We care nothing either for the military
or police,
for these are in the pay of the capitalist;" again in March 1886 he
said:
"We are told that we must attain our
ends and
aims by obeying law and order. Damn law and order: We have obeyed law
and order
long enough. The time has come for you, men, to strangle the law, or
the law
will strangle you."
The defendant Engle made a speech in
German in
February 1886 to a crowded hall of working men, of which one witness
says:
"He advised everybody-- `every man wants
to
join them to save up three or our dollars to buy revolvers to shoot
every
policeman down;' he says he wants every working man whom he could get,
to join
them, and then advise every body you know-- you save up three or four
dollars
to buy a revolver that was good enough for shooting policemen down;"
and
again in the same month he made a speech to the north side workmen at
Neff’s
Hall, 58 Clybourne Avenue where the north side group met, as already
stated, in
which he said "that those who could not arm themselves and could not
buy
revolvers should buy dynamite, that it was very cheap and easily
handled; he
gave a general description how bombs could be made, how gas-pipes could
be
filled; that a gas pipe was to be taken and a wooden block put into the
end and
it was to be filled with dynamite; then the other end is also closed up
with a
wooden block and old nails are tied around the pipe by means of wire;
then a
hole is bored into one end of it and a fuse with a cap is put into that
hole;
that the nails should be tightened to the pipe, so that when it
explodes there
will be many pieces flying around; that gas-pipe could be found on the
west
side from the river, near the bridge."
The utterances by printed and spoken
words, of
which the quotations above made are specimens, were addressed to
workingmen, of
whom the defendant Spies says that they were "stupid and ignorant".
While the members of the International groups were reading and hearing
the
appeals thus made to their prejudices, they were discussing their
condition in
weekly meetings and very many of then participating in weekly drills
with arms.
The time, when the war against the
police was to
be inaugurated was not an indefinite period in the future. The evidence
shows
that the date fixed for the inauguration of the social revolution was
the first
of May 1886
Two years before May 1, 1886 the working
people
had "resolved that the eight hour system should be introduced in the
"Resolved, that, while we are skeptical
in
regard to the benefits that will accrue to the wage-workers in the
introduction
of an eight-hour work day &c." At a speech made at the same meeting
Fielden
said: "The eight hour law will be of no benefit to the workingman."
An article in the Alarm dated April 3rd 1886, in which the defendant
Parsons
gives an account of a speech made by him to the American groups, shows
that he
only valued "the attempt to inaugurate the eight hour system,
"because he thought it "would break down the capitalistic system and
bring about such disorder and hardship, that the "social revolution"
would become a necessity."
Engel said in the Anarchist: "We reject
reformatory measures as useless play x x x. All endeavors of the
working
classes not aiming at the over throw of existing conditions of
ownership x x
are to us reactionary &c."
The first of May was fixed upon as the
date for
the inauguration of the "social revolution" because of the strikes
and disturbances, which were then expected to grow out of the demand
for the
eight hour working day. It was anticipated, that many working men would
then be
out of employment and that their discontent and sufferings would drive
them
into an adoption of the revolutionary plans of the International groups.
The witness Johnson
says, that, at
the meetings of the armed section of the American group, "the first day
of
May was frequently mentioned as a good opportunity" for the revolution.
In
a speech in December 1885, at
The 1st of May will be our time to
strike the
blow, there are so many strikes and there will be 50000 men out of work.
Spies said that the conflict between the
police
and the "dynamiters" would probably occur, when there should be an
universal strike for the eight hour law.
The International groups and other
associations of
workingmen were frequently urged to prepare to demand the eight hour
law on the
first of May 1886 with arms in their hands. They were told that such
demand
would be the more readily acceded to, if made by armed men.
In an article published in the Arbeiter
Zeitung on
the afternoon of Tuesday May 4th, 1886, only a few hours before the Hay
market
meeting occurred, the defendant Spies said: Six months ago, when the
eight hour
movement 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 on your graves."
Looking into some of the statements made
by the
journals and speakers referred to we find the following:
The Arbeiter Zeitung
said on
January 22, 1886: "With empty hands the workingmen will hardly be able
to
cope with the representatives of the club, in case, after the first of
May of
this year, there should be a general strike, x x x x but if the working
men are
prepared to eventually stop the working of the factories, to defend
himself
with the aid of dynamite and bombs against the militia, which will of
course be
employed, then and only then can you expect a thorough success of the
eight
hour movement;" it is said on January 23, 1886: "Therefore comrades
armed to the teeth we want to demand our rights on the 1st of May in
the other
case there are only blows of the club for you;" it is said on March 2,
1886, "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 then, if he does not want to be murdered himself. But for this is
needed
an armed and systematically drilled organization", and on the same page
are these words: "The time up to the 1st of May is short. Look out."
The Alarm said on September-5th, 1885:
"Now
in regard to the proposed strike next spring, a few practical words to
our
comrades. x x x Will the manufacturing kings grant the modest request x
x? No,
sir, x x x The will then draw from the army of unemployed; the strikers
will
attempt to stop them. Then comes the police and the militia, x x Say,
workingmen, are you prepared to meet the latter; are you armed?"
The defendant Spies on
October 11,
1885 at the meeting at
A little over two months after this
resolution was
introduced to wit: on December 29th, 1885, the north side group to
which Schwab
Linng and Neebe belonged, held a meeting at 58 Clybourne Avenue and
adopted the
following resolution: This assembly declares that the north side group,
I.A.A.
pledges itself to work with all means for the introduction of the eight
hour
day, beginning on the first of May 1886. At the same time the north
side group
cautions the working men not to meet the enemy unarmed on the 1st of
May
etc."
Besides the publication of extracts from
Herr
Host's book in the Alarm and Arbeiter Zeitung, the book itself was
extensively
circulated among the groups and other working men. The Arbeiter Zeitung
inserted, without charge, on March 2, 15, 18 and 25, 1886 the following
notice:
'Revolutionary Warfare' has arrived and is to be had through the
librarian at
One of the witness essays he saw copies
of Herr
Most's book at meetings of the north side group and that "the north
side
group bought and sold them."
The effort of the
defendants to
prepare for the disturbances expected to grow out of the eight hour
movement on
or about May 1st, 1886 were not confined to speeches or newspaper
articles. Nor
was the circulation of Herr Most's book on 'Revolutionary Warfare' the
only
step taken towards the instruction of the groups in the mode of
preparing and
using dynamite. The record discloses the adoption by the defendants of
other
and more practical measures in the work of preparation.
In the fall of 1885 the defendant Engle
called on
a gunsmith and enquired what a hundred or possibly two hundred large
revolvers
could be purchased for, stating that they were wanted for some society.
He
bought and paid for one of the pistols for the purpose of presenting it
at a
meeting of the society. After the Hay-market meeting a machine, which
was
intended to be used for the purpose of making bombs, was found by the
police at
Engles house. The proof shows that in the late spring or early summer
of 1885,
a part of this machine was made by a tinner on
A witness engaged in the gun business,
swears,
that in February or March 1886 the defendant Parson called at his store
and
stated, that he wanted to buy 40 or 50 revolvers. Upon being shown the
samples
on hand, he declared that they were not what he desired, but that he
wanted
`old remodeled Remington revolvers'. The witness wrote for quotations
as to the
prices and gave them to Parsons upon his calling afterwards. He came in
again
once or twice but did not finally make the purchase.
The testimony shows,
that in the
summer of 1885 the defendants Fielder and Parsons participated in the
drilling
exercises, at 54 West Lake Street, of the armed section of the American
group,
to which they both belonged, and of which Fielden was the secretary and
treasurer.
A drill occurred at that place on August 24th 1885. Fielden and Parsons
were
present and took part. Suspected persons were ejected, the door a were
closed,
and the company was drilled for a half or three quarters of an hour by
a German
drill master, going through the regular manual drill, marching
counter-marching, turning, forming fours, wheeling &c. It was on
that
occasion that the ten members of the first company of the Lehr and Wehr
Verein
armed with
It furthermore appears from the
evidence, that the
defendants Spies, Schwab Fielden, Parsons and Fischer were engaged in
handling
bombs and experimenting with dynamite. Samples of bombs were kept at
the rooms
of the Arbeiter Zeitung. Improved kinds of bombs were several times
left there
for the inspection of the defendant Spies. At one time two bombs, whose
shells
were of iron, and which were so made as to be exploded by percussion,
were left
with the defendant Spies at his office in the building No. 107 Fifth
Avenue. At
another time two bombs, known as the Czar bombs, were brought to Spies
at the
same office and left there with him.
The defendant Spies admits in his
testimony that
he purchased bars of dynamite and caps and fuse for the purpose of
experimenting with them. On the morning after the Hay-market meeting
there were
found at the office aforesaid a coil of fuse two bars of dynamite and a
box
containing fulminating caps for the explosion of dynamite.
Three witnesses swear
that they
were at the office of the Arbeiter Zeitung in April 1885 on the evening
of what
is known as the Board of Trade demonstration and after the
demonstration had
ended; that Spies, Parsons, Fielden and Schwab were present; that a
dynamite
cartridge, a coil of fuse and a fulminating cap were taken by Spies
from a
drawer in a desk and handed to Parsons, by whom they were exhibited to
the
witnesses. On that occasion Parsons said, that they were preparing for
a
warfare against the police and militia with bombs and dynamite and
rifles and
revolvers; and Fielden, who was standing at the elbow of Parsons, said
"that the next time the police attempted to interfere with them they
would
be prepared for them," "and perhaps in the course of a year or
so."
In August 1885 Seliger was present at
the office
of the Arbeiter Zietung at a meeting of the general or central
committee of the
International Association. He was there as a delegate from the north
side
group. The committee met in the evening in the library room belonging
to the
International Workingmen’s Association. The defendant Spies was
present. Seliger
saw there two bombs one round one and one long one. They were below the
counter, Rau the advertising agent of the Arbeiter Zietung, was
exhibiting
them, while the delegates were present.
On Thanksgiving day in November 1885
there was a
meeting of workingmen on
Spies and other members of the
organization, to
which he belonged, were in the habit of going out into the country in
the
summer and practicing with bombs. their practice was directed to the
two-fold
objects of learning how to throw the bombs and also of learning how to
explode
them. An instance is referred to in the evidence, where one of them was
exploded in a grove and demolished some of the trees.
One of the witnesses testifies, that in
January
1886 at the Arbeiter Zeitung office he had an interview with the
defendant
Spies, at which one of the Czar bombs here to fore referred to, was
produced
and shown by Spies, and afterwards carried away by the witness. On that
occasion Spies stated, that bombs were sometimes distributed through
the Arbeiter
Zeitung office, and that the one then shown was one of the samples they
kept
there. He also then stated, that a fuse bomb with a detonating cap
inside, such
as was the Czar bomb, had been proven to be the best kind, and that
shells made
of compound metal were much better that shells made of all lead or all
metal.
He spoke of a body of tall strong men in their organization who could
throw
bombs, weighing five pounds, 150 paces.
He stated that the bombs in question
were to be
used in case of conflict with the police or militia.
Coming back to the defendant Linng, we
think it
quite apparent from the testimony, that his efforts in the matter of
constructing bombs, as heretofore narrated, were made under the
auspices of the
International Association and in furtherance of its objects and
purposes. What
he did was merely a part of that general preparation, which the other
defendants and the groups already described, were making for the
conflict
expected to take place in the early part of May 1886.
That this is so will appear from several
considerations.
First --- In March 1886 the Carpenters
union had a
ball at Florus Hall, NO 73 West Lake street. A profit was made on the
beer sold
at this ball, and it was there suggested, that the money representing
that
profit should be used to buy targets lead &c. for some shooting
practices,
that were expected to take place. The money, was however, turned over
to the
"armed section" of the Carpenters Union, that is to say, to those
members of the Carpenters Union, who belonged to the armed section of
the
different International groups. Several of these members came together
at a
subsequent meeting and resolved to buy dynamite and practice with that,
instead
of shooting at targets. The last named meeting also took place at
Florus' Hall,
and Linng and Lehman who both belonged to the "armed section" of the
North side group, were present. Lehman says: "It was unanimously
resolved,
that we were to buy dynamite with it and to experiment with it to find
out how
it was used, how it was handled. We were unanimous that some one should
take
the thing in hand, and Linng was entrusted with it, and he took the
money and
bought dynamite with it."
It was just about this time, to wit: the
middle of
March 1886 when Linng first brought a bomb and dynamite to Seliger's
house and
began to melt and cast and make shells, as heretofore set forth
It thus appears, that about two months
or six
weeks before the Haymarket meeting the defendant Linng was selected by
certain
members of the armed sections of the International groups as their
agent to buy
dynamite with their money and experiment with it and learn how to use
and
handle it.
The reason why Linng was selected for
this work,
is quite manifest. Although he was only 21 or 22 years old at the time
of the
trial, and prior thereto, had lived in this country only about nine or
ten
months, he seems to have taken an active interest in the movements of
the
International Association. He had been a Socialist in
Second. Thielen, Lehman, Seliger Herman
or Henman Huebner,
who were with Linng on Tuesday after-noon, while he was filling the
bombs, and
some of whom were assisting him in his work, were all prominent members
of the
"armed sections" of the International groups. Huebner was the Librarian
of the North side group and had charge of the distribution of Herr
Most's book.
Seliger, with whom Linng had boarded for months and who was his main
assistant
in making the bombs, was member of the general committee, which stood
at the
head of all the groups, and as has already been stated had been present
with
Spies at a session of that committee when Ran was exhibiting to its
members
samples of round and long bombs, such as Linng himself afterwards made.
Third, One of the Czar
bombs,
which was in the possession of Spies in January 1886, was produced upon
the
trial of this cause in the court below. It is similar in all respects
to the
bombs made by Linng and to the bomb which exploded at the Hay market.
We find
photographic views of it in the record. It consists of two
semi-globular shells
fastened together by a metallic bolt, with a head at one end and a nut
at the
other. It has a fuse and detonating cap, the latter pinched to hold the
fuse,
just as appears in the photographic representations, to be found in the
record,
of the bombs made by Linng.
The nut taken from the body of Hahn,
corresponded
as exactly with the nut upon the Czar bomb as with the nuts upon the
Linng
bombs.
A chemical analysis was made of the
material of
the shell of the Czar Bomb, and such material was found to be of the
same
composite manufacture, as that which characterized the Linng bombs and
the Haymarket
bomb. "The Spies bomb" or "Czar bomb" as found like the
others to consist also chiefly of lead with a small quantity of tin and
traces
of the same antimony, iron and Zinc. "This circumstance, taken in
connection with the declaration of Spies, that members of the
International
groups had, by practice and experiment, demonstrated the superiority of
compound metal in the construction of bomb shells, points very strongly
to the
conclusion, that the Czar bomb, retained by Spies in his possession in
January
1886, was used by Linng as a sample and was the same bomb, which
Seliger saw at
his house in Linngs hands more than six weeks before May 4th 1886.
Fourth. Another circumstance is worthy
of mention
in this connection. In a communication upon the subject of making
bombs,
published by Spies in the Alarm on June 27th 1885 he says; "When
filling
bombs - X- X--X tie a handkerchief over the mouth and nose, so that you
may not
inhale the dangerous gases. --X--X--X In filling bombs use a little
wooden
stick &c".
It has already been stated, that when
Linng and
Huebuer were filling bombs on the afternoon of Tuesday May 4th 1886,
each of
them had a cloth tied around his face, and Seliger and Linng used a
flat piece
of wood, made by Linng for the purpose of putting dynamite into the
shells.
Thus the instructions given Spies in the Alarm were literally complied
with by
the bomb makers on May 4th 1886.
We think the jury were
warranted
in believing from the evidence, that the home, which exploded at the
Haymarket,
was made by the defendant Linng in furtherance of the conspiracy
already
described.
The question, which next suggests
itself, is
whether the bomb, so made, was thrown at the Haymarket by a member of
said
conspiracy, or by someone acting under its direction and in pursuance
of its
designs.
In order to solve this question, it will
be
necessary to make a preliminary investigation as to the disposition,
which Lingg
and his assistants made of the bombs, constructed by them, after they
were
prepared for use.
The bombs, made and filled on Tuesday
afternoon
and evening, were carried by Linng and Seliger on that evening from
Seliger's
house over to no. 58 Clybourne Avenue, known as Neff’s hall. The trunk
or
satchel in which they had been placed, was carried a part of the way by
Linng
and Seliger by means of a stick drawn through the handle. They were met
on the
way, however by Muenzenberger who has been heretofore spoken of, and he
seems
to have then taken the trunk and carried it the rest of the way on his
shoulder. It was about ten minutes' walk from
At no. 58 Clybourne Avenue the front
room on the
first floor is a saloon. Back of the saloon is a hall or assembly room
between
the saloon and hall is a passage way, which can be entered by doors
leading
from the saloon and hall, and also by a door opening upon a walk that
leads
along the side of the building into the street. On this evening a
meeting of
painters was in session in the hall. Linng, Seliger and Muezenberger
first went
into the saloon, and Linng inquired of Neff if any one had been there
and asked
for him, to which he received a negative reply. Linng and Seliger,
accompanied
by Muenzenberger with the satchel or trunk, then went from the saloon
into the
passage-way above referred to. The trunk was placed upon the floor in
this
passage-way or hall-way and opened. Seliger says; "several persons came
and took bombs. There were different ones there, who took bombs out for
themselves." he saw three or four take then. He himself took two and
carried them in his pocket, until after the explosion that night, when
he
buried them under the sidewalk on
Linng and Seliger then went out of the
building,
no. 58 Clybourne Avenue, leaving the open satchel with the bombs in it
in the
passage-way, where it has been deposited.
Muenzenberger also disappeared. The
latter seemed
to be a stranger; Neff, the keeper of the saloon, never saw him, until
he
brought the satchel there that night; Lehmann did not know him, as has
already
been stated; although he was at Seliger's house that afternoon from 4
to 6
o'clock working at bombs. Seliger did not know his name and did not
learn it
until some time afterwards.
This circumstance
naturally calls
to mind the instructions in regard to revolutionary actions, published
in the Arbeiter
Zeitung on March 16th. 1885, and set forth in the `statement' hereto
prefixed,
one sentence of which is as follows: "in the commission of a deed a
comrade, who does not live at the place of action, that is, a comrade
of some
other place, ought, if possibility admits, to participate in the
action, or
formulated differently, a revolutionary deed ought to be enacted where
one is
not known".
In this narration in regard to the disposition of the bombs two
facts are
noticeable. First, they were carried to and left at
Second, the fact, that as soon as the
trunk was
opened and deposited in the hall-way, men came forward and took bombs
therefrom, indicates an expectation, that bombs would be found at that
place at
that time.
The prompt appearance of these men at 58
Clybourne
Avenue as soon as Linng arrived there and their immediate appropriation
of the bombs
placed before them, are circumstances which tend to establish the
existence of
some more specific plan for the use of the bombs than that which has
heretofore
been pointed out. To ascertain what this specific plan was will require
an
examination of the events immediately preceding the explosion of the
bomb at
the Haymarket. Up to the last days of April 1886 the conspiracy, in
which the
defendants were engaged, was general in its character. Its object was
the
destruction of the police and militia of
The preparations for the expected
conflict became
more definite, as the eight hour movement approached its culmination.
Inside of
the general conspiracy already described and growing naturally out of
it, a
more detailed plan for securing the ends sought to be attained was
originated,
adopted and partially executed.
Early in the evening of May 3rd. 1886,
xx
commander of the Lehr and Wehr Verein rented the basement of the
building,
known as no. 54 West Lake Street and also called Greif's Hall, for the
purpose
of holding there on that evening a meeting of the "armed sections" of
the international groups.
The meeting was held in pursuance of the
arrangement so made. It was secret. A guard was placed in front of the
building
and another was also stationed in the rear to prevent any entrance into
the
basement by outsiders.
Some seventy or eighty members of the
"armed
sections" from the north, south and west divisions of the city were
present. The session lasted from eight o'clock to eleven o'clock. The
members
present at this gathering discussed and adopted the plan hereafter set
forth.
On the day before, that is to say, on
the morning
of Sunday May 2nd. 1886 at ten o'clock, the members of the second
company of
the Lehr and Wehr Verein and of the northwest side group had met at
bohemian
hall on Emma Street in the northwestern part of the city. On that
occasion the
defendants Engel and Fischer were both present. Engel had there
submitted to
this Emma Street meeting "a plan of his own conception, according to
which,
whenever it would come to a conflict between the police and the
northwestern
groups, that bombs should be thrown into the police stations, and the
rifle men
of the Lehr and Wehr Verein should post themselves in line in a certain
distance and whoever would come out should be shot down, all those that
would
come out of the station or stations, he said; then it should proceed in
that
way until we would come to the heart of the city. Within the heart of
the city,
of course the fight should commence in earnest. It was also arranged,
that the
members of the northwest side groups should "mutually assist themselves
to
make an attack upon the police," and "if any one had any thing with
him he should use it."
This plan of Engel had been submitted by
him to
the
On the next evening, that is to say, on
the
evening of Monday May 3rd. 1886, Engel and Fischer were also present at
the
meeting in the basement of Grief's Hall and actively participated in
the
proceedings there taken. Among those assembled at this meeting there
had been
distributed a certain circular, written that afternoon by the defendant
Spies,
known as the "revenge circular" this circular will be hereafter more
particularly referred to. It alleged that six workingmen had been
killed by the
police on that very afternoon at a disturbance in the southwestern part
of the
city, and called upon the workmen to arm themselves and "avenge the
atrocious murder, which has been committed upon your brothers today and
which
will likely be committed upon you tomorrow".
The contents of the circular were
discussed and
suggestions were made as to what should be done within the
next few days. The defendant Engel then presented to the
representatives of all
the groups the plan, which had been accepted, at his suggestion, on the
day
before, by the northwest side group alone. There was some opposition to
it. One
member "thought that there was too few of us and it would be no better
if
we would place ourselves among the people and fight right in the midst
of them.
There was some opposition to that to be in the midst of the crowd, as
we could
not know, who would be our nearest neighbor of the crowd; there might
be a
detective right near us or some one else." The plan of Engel was,
however,
finally adopted.
The several features of the plan adopted
on Monday
evening deserve special consideration, in view of the occurrences at
the Haymarket
on the succeeding evening.
First, as to the attacks upon the police
and the
police stations. It was Engel's suggestion, that the members of the
armed
sections should come to the assistance of the workingmen, whenever a
collision
between them and the police should grow out of the eight-hour strike
then in
progress; that a bomb should be thrown into each police station in the
city,
beginning with that on North Avenue in the north division, and, the
policemen
as they rushed out of the station on account of the explosion of the
bomb so
thrown should be shot down by the rifle-men of the Lehr and Wehr
Verein,
stationed in line for that purpose; that the police would thus be
prevented
from coming from their respective stations to the scene of conflict,
when they
should be summoned by the authorities to do so; that the different
"International" bodies, after storming the stations and shooting
down the
police, should march inwards towards the center of the city, destroying
whatever should oppose them; that the telegraph wires, and the hose of
the
firemen should be cut; that the ranks of the internationals would gain
large accessions
from the workingmen, as soon as these attacks upon the police should be
begun.
Second, as to the signal for the
inauguration of
the attacks upon the police. The defendant Fischer suggested the German
word
"ruhe", the signification of which, in English, is "rest"
or "peace", as a signal word to be adopted by the meeting. His
proposition was agreed to. By the terms of it, whenever the word
"ruhe" should appear in the letter-box column of the Abbeiter
Zeitung, it was to be understood, that the "social revolution" had
begun; the publication of that word in the paper named was to be a
signal to
the members of the "armed sections" of the various groups, that they
were to arm themselves and repair to certain specified meeting places,
and, when
they should there be informed by report from a committee hereinafter
named,
that a collision or conflict had taken place between the police and the
workingmen, they were then to proceed to attack the stations and the
policemen
therein with bombs and rifles, as already stated.
Third, as to the Haymarket meeting. The
third
feature of the meeting of the armed sections on Monday night was the
arrangement made for a mass meeting on Tuesday evening at the
Fourth, the appointment by the armed
sections of a
committee. As a part of the plan adopted on Monday night, a committee
consisting of one or two from each group, was appointed, the business
of which
was to be present at the Haymarket and To "observe the movement not
only
on the Haymarket Square but in the different parts of the city, and if
a
conflict should happen," to report to the members of the armed sections
at
their various meeting places, as above indicated. The committee was
also
entrusted with the task of publishing the word "Ruhe" in the Arbeiter
Zeitung, when, in their judgment, the occasion for doing so should
arise. As we
understand the evidence, this same committee was to have the general
control of
the Haymarket meeting.
Fifth, a resolution was passed, that the
details
of the plan, adopted by those present on Monday night, should be
communicated
to absent members, who could be relied upon.
Rudolph Schnaubelt, who, a part of the
evidence
tends to identify as the thrower of the bomb on Tuesday night,
suggested that
the plan adopted should also be communicated to comrades living in
other
cities, so that the revolution should commence in other places as well
as in
Returning now to a consideration of the
appointment of the Haymarket meeting, considered as a part of the
Monday night
plan we think the jury were warranted in believing, from the evidence,
that
that meeting was not intended by those, who made the arrangements for
holding
it, to be a peaceable assemblage.
First the resolution, which provided for
calling
it was adopted be a secret gathering of the armed sections of the
International
groups. The record reveals many circumstances tending to show that a
conflict
was to be precipitated between the police and the twenty-five thousand
workingmen who were expected to be present at the Haymarket. As one of
the
witnesses expresses it, it was to be held "to cheer up the workingmen
so
that they should be prepared if a conflict should happen."
Second, The defendant Fischer, in the
discussion
on Monday night, assigned as a reason why the proposed mass meeting
should not
be held at
The Haymarket is a widening of
The speakers were not on the Haymarket
itself but
on
Between Crane's alley and the alley
north of and
parallel with it is the Manufacturing establishment of Crane Bros., a
large
building closed and unlighted at night and in the shadow of which stood
the
wagon of the speakers. Some boxes had been placed on the edge of the
east
sidewalk of
On
It will thus be seen, that all the
surroundings of
the wagon, in the way of streets, alleys, halls, buildings, sympathetic
crowds
etc. furnished easy means of approach, escape and concealment. As a
more strategical
point, no better position could have been selected for the occurrences,
which
actually took place on Tuesday night, than the spot, where the
speakers' wagon
was located.
Third, the language of the Hand-bill,
calling the Haymarket
meeting, which was issued in pursuance of instructions from the armed
sections
assembled in Greif's building on Monday night, shows that the meeting
was not
intended to be altogether peaceable. On Tuesday morning at quarter past
seven
o'clock, Fischer went to a printing office at the corner of
Attention, Workingmen:
Great
Mass-Meeting
tonight, at 7.30 o'clock,
at the
Haymarket,
Good speakers will be present to denounce 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.
The testimony is abundant, that many
copies of
this hand-bill, containing the words: "Workingmen, Arm yourselves and
appear in full force" were printed in German and English and
distributed
among the workingmen throughout the city on Tuesday, May 4th, 1886. Why
urge
men to come armed to an assemblage, if the assemblage is to be
peaceable,
especially where such arming is in violation of the law of the state?
It is true, that at a later hour in the
day on
Tuesday, a number of hand-bills were distributed, which were exactly
the same
as the above, with the exception that the words, "Arm yourselves and
appear in full force" were omitted. But the evidence shows, that the
objectionable words were only left out of the second set of hand-bills
through
fear that they might deter some of the workmen from attending the
meeting.
All the hand-bills, however, both those
with and
those without the objectionable words, declared the object of the
meeting to
be, not to discuss the eight-hour movement, but to "denounce the latest
atrocious act of the police, the shooting of our fellow-workmen
yesterday
afternoon." What was the act of the police on Monday afternoon for
which
they were to be denounced?
A manufacturing
company in the
southwestern part of the city had employed certain laborers, belonging
to
organizations styled "Unions" and hence called "Union
laborers"? These "Union" workmen had inaugurated a strike and
quit work. The company employed in their places, other workmen, not
connected
with the "Unions" and called "Non-union" workmen. The
striking "Union" laborers and certain "lumber shovers" had
made a most violent attack not only upon the non-union laborers, but
upon the
buildings and property of the company. The police had been an summoned
to quell
the riot, and, as the result of their efforts to do so, one person and
not six,
had died from the effect of wounds received on that occasion.
The city authorities did their duty,
when they
ordered the police to stop this unjustifiable attack of the union
workmen,
reinforced by striking lumber-shovers upon men, who were pursuing their
lawful
business. It follows, that the Haymarket meeting was called for the
purpose of
denouncing the officers of the law, because they had done their duty.
Fourth, the testimony of Waller and
Seliger shows,
that some trouble, not clearly defined in the language of unlearned
witnesses
speaking through an interpreter, was expected to take place at the
Haymarket
meeting. The discussions at the Monday night meeting indicated such an
expectation. What other construction can be placed upon such language
as this,
used at that meeting? "It would be no better if we would place
ourselves among
the people and fight right in the midst of them we could not know who
would be
our nearest neighbor of the crowd; there might be a detective right
near us
etc.
One of the witnesses says, that "it was
planned to attack the police stations to prevent the police from coming
to aid,
if there should be a fight in the city", and that those present Monday
night expected there would be a fight. That this fight was expected to
take
place at or near the Haymarket would appear from the fact, that, as
soon as the
stations were blown up, the armed men and the workmen joining them
should march
"to the heart of the city", where the fight would commence in
earnest. The Haymarket was in the heart of the city. Linng stated to
Seliger on
Tuesday night "That there should be made a disturbance everywhere on
the
north side to prevent the police from going over on the west side." If
the
place, to which the police were to be kept from going by the attacks
upon the
stations, was in the heart of the city and on the west side, it could
not have
been very far from the
Fifth, the same committee which had
charge of the Haymarket
meeting and had the power to call together the armed men at their
meeting-places by the insertion of the word "ruhe" in the Arbeiter
Zeitung was also instructed to attend at the Haymarket and from there
carry
early reports to these meeting places. The thing they were to report to
the
armed men was a conflict with the police. As they were to attend at the
Haymarket
and report from there, a conflict must have been expected there.
That the plan adopted on Monday night
with its
provisions for bomb-throwing, shooting, meeting-places, signal,
committee,
mass-meeting, communication with absent members &c was an unlawful
conspiracy, there can be no doubt.
The question now arises whether the
murder of
Degan was committed in pursuance of this conspiracy and as one of the
objects.
To be attained by it, and whether the murder occurred while the parties
to the
conspiracy were engaged in such prosecution of it that Degan's death is
to be
considered the natural and necessary outcome and consequence of that
prosecution. In other words, were the occurrences of Tuesday night the
result
of the conspiracy of Monday night? Was that which was done on Tuesday
night
done for the purpose of carrying out the plan of Monday night?
First, the main feature of the Monday
night plan
was the provision for throwing a bomb into each police station and then
shooting down the policemen, as they should come out. This provision
had two
parts; first, a bomb was to be thrown, creating destruction and
confusion;
second, in the midst of the confusion following upon the explosion of
the bomb,
the members of the armed sections and the Riflemen of the Lehr und Wehr
Verein were to fire
into the policemen and destroy them before they could recover from
their
surprise. Did this feature correspond with either or any of the events
of TTuesday
night? In order to determine whether it did or not, it is necessary to
notice
some of the occurrences, which took place at the Haymarket meeting.
The crowd in attendance there was in the
middle of
The station where the policemen had been
holding
themselves in readiness during the meeting, was located on the west
side of Des Plaines Street, 75 feet south of the Haymarket
and some 300 feet or more south of the wagon and between Randolph
Street on the
north and Washington Street on the south, the latter being the next
street
south of and parallel with Randolph Street. Some electric lights in
front of a
theatre on
The police formed in line on
The language in which the order was
uttered, is as
follows "I command you, in the name of the people of the state of
If the police officers had improperly
intruded
upon the meeting in question, such intrusion would have furnished no
justification for the attack hereinafter mentioned. Persons injuriously
affected by such improper intrusion or illegal dispersion had their
remedies at
law for damages sustained; or they could have demanded an investigation
before
the proper authorities and, upon proving their charges, could have
obtained the
dismissal of officers, guilty of infringement upon the rights of
citizens.
We cannot say, however, that in view of
all the
facts and circumstances surrounding the occasion, the police officers
were
justly chargeable with exceeding their authority in the premises. Much
disturbance and disorder existed in the city. Many strikes had recently
occurred among the laboring men, many of whom were out of employment
and
smarting under feelings of discontent. It had been reported to the
authorities,
that the riot already referred to of the preceding afternoon in
the southwestern part
of the city had been mainly incited by a speech delivered to some
"lumber
shovers" on the "black road" by the defendant Spies, who was
observed to be the most active spirit at the Haymarket meeting. Copies
of the
"revenge circular" and of the hand bill prepared by the defendant
Fischer, had fallen into the hands of the police. A rumor had also come
to
their headquarters, that it was the intention of parties at the
Haymarket meeting
to proceed to some neighboring railroad freight houses, where non-union
laborers were employed, and blow them up. In addition to all this, it
was
reported to the officer in command of the force at the
As soon as the order to disperse was
given, the
defendant Fielden descended from the wagon, making use of the words "we
are peaceable." whether or not these words were uttered as the English
equivalent of the German word "ruhe" which meant "peace"
the evidence does not conclusively show.
Certain it is, that no sooner had
Fielden said
"we are peaceable" than the bomb exploded and in a few seconds
thereafter a volley of shots were fired.
Whether the crowd, which, upon the
advance of the
police in the middle of the street had scattered to the
north of the wagon and to the sidewalks on the east and west sides of
Des Plaines
Street, fired into the police or not, is one of the disputed questions
in the
case. According to the testimony for the state, persons in the street
and upon
the sidewalks discharged their revolvers into the midst of the police,
some of
the witnesses estimating the number of shots at 75 or 100. On the other
hand,
witnesses for the defense swear, that the only shooting, which was
done, came
from the ranks of the police themselves. That the latter fired into the
crowd
after the explosion is an admitted fact, but the prosecution claims
that they
did not do so, until after they were fired into.
We think the weight of evidence is in
favor of the
position of the state upon this subject. If it be conceded, that the
witnesses
for the prosecution, who are, for the most part, policemen are
interested on
one side of the question, and that the witnesses for the defense, who
are, for
the most part, partisans of, or sympathizers with, the prisoners are
interested
on the other side of the question, there is, yet, other evidence, which
seems
to be decisive of the matter.
The testimony of the surgeons who are
entirely
disinterested, shows that two police officers died from the effects of
bullet
wounds and that many more, who did not die, received bullet wounds. As
the
policemen were a solid body of weel-drilled men standing together in
the street
in well-formed lines and orderly ranks, it is impossible that they
should have
shot into their own midst. This being so, the bullet wounds received by
them
must have been caused by shots from the crowd in their front and on
their side in addition to this, it has already appeared that
many of the persons around the wagon had been preparing for along time
for the
events expected to grow out of the eight hour movement on May 1, 1886,
by
exercises in drilling, by the purchase of arms, by experiments with
dynamite
and had been repeatedly urged in speeches, in newspaper articles and by
the
circulars already mentioned to meet those events in a state of armed
preparation.
Moreover, several of the newspaper
reporters, who
were present confirm the statements of the policemen, that shots were
fired
from the sidewalks into the police. One of the reporters saw several
men around
the wagon boldly exhibiting their revolvers while the speaking was
coming on. A
revolver was round on the sidewalk near the wagon, several barrels of
which had
been discharged.
It is apparent from this review of the
evidence,
that just such an attack was made at the Haymarket as was contemplated
and
arranged for by the conspiracy of Monday night. First, a bomb was
thrown among
the policemen; next shots were fired into their ranks by armed men,
belonging
to the organizations heretofore described and who had been gathered
around the
wagon during the evening. In the order
of time, the shooting occurred a few seconds after the bomb exploded.
This was
the order in which the onset with the two different kinds of weapons
was to be
made according to the terms of the conspiracy. The mode of attack, as
made,
corresponded with the mode of attack, as planned.
It is true, that the plan adopted
contemplated the
throwing of a bomb into each station and then shooting down the police
as they
should come out. This was to be done, however, not only at the
If a hires b to shoot c at the Sherman
house in
the city of Chicago on a certain night, but b, seeing c enters the
Tremont
house, on the same night, shoots him there, a is none the less guilty
of
aiding, abetting, advising and encouraging the murder of c. If there is
a
conspiracy to kill policemen at a station house, but the agents of the
conspiracy kill the policemen at a short distance away from the station
-
house, there is no such departure from the original as to relieve the
conspirators of responsibility.
A plan for the perpetration of a crime
or for the
accomplishment of any action, whether worthy or unworthy, cannot always
be
executed in exact accordance with the original conception. It must
suffer some
change or modification in order to meet emergencies and unforeseen
contingencies.
The international groups, as will be
seen
hereafter, had received information, that
the police intended to hold themselves
in readiness for the expected outbreak at their respective stations.
The
presence of 180 policemen at the
This appears from the language of Spies
in his
speech from the wagon, when he said: "it seems to have been the opinion
of
the authorities that this meeting has been called for the purpose of
raising a
little row and disturbance" &c and when he asked "what meant this
array of Gatling guns. Infantry ready to arm patrol wagons and
policemen?"
it appears from the excited demeanor of Schwab, who says that he went
from the Arbeiter
Zeitung office to the Haymarket passing through the tunnel and walking
on Washington
Street, and that he turned from Washington Street north on Des Plaines
Street.
This course would take him by the Des Plaines Street station where he
must have
seem the policemen forming on waldo place. Just after this, he is
described by
two witnesses as rushing along hurriedly and almost running into the
mayor; and
by one witness as engaged in a conversation a few moments later with
Spies, in
which the word "police" was used. Fischer and waller, also noticed
the mounting of patrol wagons on waldo place and indulged in some
conjectures
as to what it meant. Some change of programme would also seem to be
indicated by the delay in opening the
meeting. It was not called to order until half past eight or nine
o'clock,
although the hour stated in the hand-bills was half-past seven. It was
not
actually opened until Linng had deposited the bombs at no. 58 Clybourne
Avenue. He was evidently slow in his
preparations. Mrs. Seliger says that her husband and Linng and Huebner
and Thielen
and Herhann and some others, whose names she did not know, were at work
on the
bombs at her house until past seven o'clock. From the fact that Seliger
and Linng
were met on the way to Neff’s hall by Muensenberg, the blacksmith, it
would
appear that the latter had been sent forward to hasten their movements.
The various details here related tend to
show that
some occurrence had taken place which had not been expected or provided
for. But not withstanding the fact that the Monday
night conspiracy may have been varied somewhat to suit the new
conditions we
think the jury were warranted in believing that the bomb was thrown and
the
shots were fired as a part of the execution of that conspiracy.
Second., the second feature of the
Monday night
conspiracy was the publication of the signal-word "ruhe" in the
Arbeiter
Zeitung, an afternoon paper, issued every day at two oclock. The word
"ruhe" was published in the Arbeiter Zeiting on the after noon of
Tuesday
May 4 th, 1886, about five hours and a half before the hour for which
the
Haymarket meeting was called. It appeared in the letter box colume in
the heavy
type and heavily underscored. Its publication announced the arrival of
the
"social revolution" it was a call issued to the "armed
sections" to arm themselves and repair to their meeting place and await
orders. Here certainly was an execution of a part of the conspiracy
shortly
before the opening of the meeting, at which the murder of Degan took
place.
It is clear that the publication of the
word
"ruhe" in a German paper might not be notice to the armed members of
the American group, who presumanly could not speak or read German. The
alarm at
this time was only issued every half month. Accordingly on Tuesday
afternoon at
about the same time when the word "ruhe" appeared in the arbeiter
zeiting, there also appeared in one of the afternoon English papers of
the city
the following notice: "American group meets to-night, Tuesday,
The question, which here naturally
suggests
itself, is: was there a gathering of the armed men at their meeting-
plages in
obedience to the call, implied in the word "ruhe"?
The evidence does not disclose how many
meeting
plages there were nor the location of all of them.
The meeting place selected for the
members of the
north-west side group would appear to have been
According to the testimony of Seliger as
to the
declarations of Linng, Greif's Hall or
It was only two blocks east from
The meeting place for the American group
on that
evening was the Arbeiter Zeitung office at
At least six of those present, including
the
defendants Parsons and Fielden, belonged to the armed section.
They all left and came over to the Haymarket
meeting some time between half past eight and nine o,clock Tuesday
evening.
The meeting place of many of the armed
members of
the north side group on Tuesday evening was Neff’s hall. Linng,
Seliger, Lehman,
Smideke, Thielen and others were there on that evening between eight
and half
past nine o'clock.
Many went there to get bombs. Thielen
who had
received two loaded bombs, some cartridges and two cigar boxes full of
dynamite
from Linng on that after noon was there a considerable portion of the
evening,
and is spoken of by Neff as "hanging around out in front of the saloon
on
the sidewalk". We think the evidence warrants the conclusion, that
Some of the meeting places were to be at
certain
"corners" the armed men were to go from their meeting-plages to
attack the stations, they were to attack the stations, in order to
prevent the
policemen from getting out of them so as to go to the scene of
conflict, when
they should be summoned, hence, many of the meeting places would be
near the
stations.
One of the stations to be attacked and
which was
specifically named at the Monday night assemblage was the North Avenue
station
the evidence shows that Linng, Seliger, Lehhann, Smideke, Thielen and
two large
men, belonging to the Lehr und Wehr Verein, all of whom were armed with
bombs,
were seen standing and moving between eight and ten o'clock on Tuesday
night at corners
and on streets in the near neighborhood of the
Seliger and Linng were also that night
still
further north in the neighborhood of a police station near the corner
of Webster
and Lincoln avenues. Others who left 58 Clybourne Avenue just after the
bombs
had been deposited there "went ahead" of Seliger and Linng, so that
the course taken by them must have been still further northward and in
the
neighborhood of Deering where the defendant Schwab made a speech to
some
striking workingmen about ten o'clock on that night after he had left
the
Haymarket.
One or more of these meeting-places or
corners was
in the neighborhood of the
Thus it is proven, that armed men did
gather at
certain corners and meeting places on Tuesday night. There is evidence
which
would warrant the jury in believing, that such gatherings took place in
obedience to the call agreed upon at the Monday night meeting.
Third. The third feature of the Monday
night
conspiracy was the appointment of a mass-meeting at the Haymarket. The
meeting
was held and its general character has already been discussed.
Fourth, the fourth branch of the
conspiracy had
reference to the action of the committee that was charged with the
double duty
of publishing the signal word "ruhe" and reporting to the armed men
at their meeting-places any conflict or collision that might occur at
the
Haymarket or elsewhere. Did this committee attend at the Haymarket and
carry
reports the thence to those gathered at the "corners" and other
meeting places?
Upon the reception of these reports
attacks were
to be made upon the police. The thing to be reported was any collision
or
conflict, that might happen to occur
between the police and the workingmen. Such collisions ordinarily grew
out of
attempts to protect employers or non-union laborers against strikers
but that
an act of interference with a meeting of workingmen would be regarded
as coming
within the meaning of the word "conflict" or "collision" as
here understood, is apparent from Linngs statement, made to Seliger
when he
first brought a bomb to the latters house and showed him pipes
and shells, his statement was, that the bombs would be used not only on
occassions of strikes, but "where there were meetings of workingmen and
they should be disturbed by the police".
At the Haymarket the collision grew out
of an
attempt to disperse a meeting that appeared to have been called for an
illegal
purpose. The movement of the police upon the crowd for the purpose of
effecting
this dispersion was such a coming together of policemen and workingmen,
as
would very naturally be construed by many of the conspirators or their
unlearned agents to be within the meaning of the Monday night plan. To
regard
the advance of the police into the midst of those standing around the
wagon as
authorizing and justifying the attack contemplated by the terms of the
Monday
night conspiracy was a natural interpretation of those terms, in view
of all
the circumstances and of the character of the parties concerned.
As the march to the wagon and the order
to
dispurse did not occur, until the station had been left, the police
were out of
the station, before the occasion for the attack arose, and hence the
throwing
of the bomb into the station itself was an unnecessary act.
Even if it be true, that the committee
already
named, made no report to the armed men at their meeting places, as
contemplated
by their terms of the conspiracy, it may be said that such report was
unnecessary, so far as those posted near the Des Plaines Street station
were
concerned. The only object of such reports was to give information of a
conflict or
collision. The armed men at the Haymarket themselves saw the colision
and heard
the order to disperse, and were therefore informed of the arrival of
the
occasion for an attack without any report from the committee.
However this may be, the evidence tends
to show,
that certain parties did go from the Haymarket to one or more of the
meeting-places on Tuesday night, and that they so went, as bearers of
some
message or communication, whether the communication suggested by this
passage
of persons from point to point had any reperence to the large gathering
of
policemen at the Des Plaines Street station, does not appear.
Balthazar Rau the advertising agent of
the Arbeiter
Zeitung, was one of the most active men in the promotion of the schemes
of the
internationalists, as had already been stated, he exhibited a specimen
bomb in
august 1885 to the central committee in session at the Arbeiter Zeitung
office,
when Seliger was present as a deligate. The written copy of the words
"y komme
montag abend", published in the "die fackel" on sunday may 2 nd,
and calling the meeting of the armed men on Monday night was in his
hand
writing. We introduced Spies to the chairman of the meeting of the
lumber
shovers on Monday afternoon. He distributed the "revenge" circular
Monday evening at Zepf's Hall, he knew the meaning of the signal
"ruhe" and according to the testimony of Spies talked with the latter
about it on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday night he was seen moving
among the
crowd on the Haymarket.
On that evening he made two trips
between the Arbeiter
Zeitung office and the Haymarket, once in company with Schwab, and
again in company with Fielden, Parsons and Snyder,
he was seen at zepp's hall just after the explosion. He was in
consultation
with Spies, Schwab, fricke and others at the Arbeiter Zeitung office on
Tuesday
afternoon between five and seven o'clock and on Tuesday morning between
nine
and ten o'clock, he was present at the same place with fisher, Spies,
Schwab
and gruenhut at an interview in reference to the hand-bills heretfore
mentioned.
Gruenhut speaks of him as being on an
agitation
committee and on the committee for the internationalists; special
mention is
made of him by herr most in his letter to Spies.
This same Rau on Tuesday night went from
the
Haymarket to the meeting of the American group then in session at the
office of
the Arbeiter Zeitung, and in obedience to a notice from him, all those
gathered
there went over to the speakers wagon on
Parsons in speaking of what took place
at the Arbeiter
Zeitung office says; "some one, I understood it was a committee came
over
from the Haymarket they stated that they came from the Haymarket or
some one
told me they did". Fischer stated after his arrest, that he was at the
arbieter zeitung office that night. And he was a member of the
executive
committee, that called the Tuesday night meeting, as shown by the
signature to
the hand-bill.
Thus there is evidence from which the
jury were
warranted in believing, that Fielden and Parsons and their associates
were
called from the in meeting-place to the Haymarket by the summons of a
committee.
Furthermore about eight o'clock a little
before
that time on Tuesday evening, the defendant Schwab was at the office of
the Arbeiter
Zeitung and several telephone messages passed between him and a letter
carrier
of that paper in the north western part of the city. He went over to
the
Haymarket and leaving there later in the evening, took a Clybourne
Avenue car
at the court house and went to Deering at or near the corner of
Clybourne and Fullerton
avenues, when he arrived at his destination, he was standing on the
back
platform of the car, during his journey he passed by no. 58 Clybourne
Avenues
where men had just been helping themselves from the open satchel of
loaded
bombs, where Linng had just inquired of Neff, the saloon keeper, if
"some
one had been there asking for him". Where Thielen, who had been with
Linng
that afternoon while he was making bombs was "hanging around x x x out
in
front of the saloon on the sidewalk". During this journey he passed the
intersection of
There is no direct or positive evidence,
that he
passed by no
But there are circumstances, which taken
in
connection with all the other evidence in the case, point very strongly
in the
direction here indicated.
The evidence of the defence tends to
show that Schwab's
trip to Deering had no other object than an address to the workingmen,
that Raus'
visit to the Arbeiter Zeitung was for the sole purpose of getting
speakers for
the Haymarket, and that the American group met at the office of the
Arbeiter
Zeitung on that evening to effect an organization of the sewing girls,
it was
for the jury to say whether the evidence of the defense upon this
subject was
more worthy of belief than the various circumstances already detailed,
which,
we think the jury had a right to look at in the light of the principles
advocated
by the international organization, and in the light of the peculiar
methods
recommended by that organization for concealing its real designs. The
Arbeiter
Zeitung in its instuctions "about revolutionary deeds" as found in
its issue of March 16th, 1885 says that where a special group is formed
for the
purpose of action the public groups "have to serve as a covering, as a
shield behind which one of the most effective weapons of
revolution is bared". That "the danger of discovery ought to be
weakened as much as possible and if it can be should be reduced to
naught".
Fifth, the fifth feature of the plan
under
consideration was the resolution to communicate its details to absent
members.
The record furnishes no direct evidence
upon this
subject, but it shows that persons who were present at the meeting on
Monday
night were in the company of several of the defendants on Tuesday and
Tuesday
night. Rudolph Schnaubelt was in consultation with Schwab and Spies on
Tuesday
night and was on the wagon that evening with Fielden and Parsons.
During the day
on Tuesday Rau and Fischer were in the Arbeiter Zeitung building with
Spies and
Schwab and were there in the evening while Fielden and Parsons were in
attendance upon the gathering of the American Group.
We have thus reviewed somewhat in detail
a number of
the events of Tuesday night with a view of seeing whether they took
place in
accordance with and in pursuance of the provisions the of the Monday
night
plan. Viewed as evidence of a correspondence between what was done and
what was
planned some of the occurrences here noted may be important, but taking
all the
circumstances together, the jury were justified in finding that the
actors upon
the stage of Tuesday night's tragedy were playing the parts assigned to
them in
the conspiracy of the previous night, and that the death of Degan
occurred as a
part of the execution of that conspiracy, and while the parties to it
were
engaged in carrying it out.
The last and most important question to
be
considered is were the plaintiffs in error parties to the conspiracy
formed on
the evening of Monday, May 3d. 1886?
The jury were warranted in believing
from the
evidence, that the plaintiff in error, Louis Linng, was a party to the
Monday
night conspiracy.
According to the
testimony of the
Captain of the Police, Linng admitted after his arrest, that he was
present on
that evening in the basement of Greif's Hall. If he was, then his
presence
there, taken in connection with his subsequent conduct would tend
strongly to
establish his connection with the plot. It is claimed by the defense
that he
was in attendance all the evening at a meeting of the Carpenter's Union
in
Zepp's Hall on Lake Street at the northeast corner of Lake and Des
Plaines
Streets, two blocks west of Greif's Hall and was about half a block
north of
the spot where the speakers' wagon was located on the next night. He
certainly
was at Zepp's Hall during a part of the evening but may have gone over
to the
other meeting in session at Greif's Hall. A public announcement was
made to
those assembled on Zepp's Hall, requesting all who belonged to the
armed
section to go over to the basement of
It would make no difference, however, in
view of
his acts and declarations whether he was at the meeting Monday night or
not.
"Though the common design is the essence of the charge of conspiracy,
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 pursued by their acts the same object 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 attainment of that same object, the jury will be
justified in the conclusion that they were engaged in a conspiracy to
effect
that object." X X X. (3 Greenleaf on Ev. Sec. 93).
Let us examine some of Linng's acts and
declarations.
The plot of Monday
night required
the use of bombs to carry it into effect: Linng and his assistants were
making
bombs on Tuesday. He brought dynamite to Seliger's house on Friday, but
made no
preparations to fill bombs with it until the day of the Haymarket
meeting. He
knew all about the details of the conspiracy. On Tuesday night he told
Seliger
the meaning of the word "Ruhe", and that its insertion in the paper
had been provided for in the meeting of the previous night. He took a
copy of
the paper at Seliger's house and showed him the signal word in the
letter-box
column. On Monday night about the time the meetings at Zepp's Hall and
Greif's
Hall were adjourning, he came up behind Lehmann and several other
members of
the armed section, who were standing on the side-walk at the entrance
to
Greiff's Hall, and reproached them for their stupidity, calling them
fools and
oxen. When Lehmann, who had been standing guard most of the evening on
the
outside to prevent intruders from entering the basement, asked him what
had
taken place at the meeting they were just leaving, he said in reply
that if
they wanted to know something they should come to
We regard it as a very significant
circumstance,
as showing the connection between the conspiracy of Monday night and
the bomb
making of Tuesday afternoon, that parties who are proven without any
contradiction whatever to have been at the meeting in the basement of
Greif's
Hall on Monday night and to have belonged to the band of conspirators
that met
there, went to Seliger's house on the very next afternoon and were
there
associated with Linng in making the bombs that he carried to Neff’s
Hall
Tuesday night.
It was as late as eleven o'clock on
Monday night
when Linng told Lehmann and several other members of the armed sections
to come
the next night to Neff’s Hall. It was as early as seven o'clock on the
very
next morning when he set Seliger to drilling holes in the bomb-shells
and
instructed him to get bolts to fasten the shells together, accompanying
his
instructions, with the statement, that the bombs would be taken away
that day.
Linng said on Tuesday afternoon, while
he and his
assistants were at work at the bombs, that they were to be carried to
58 Clybourne
Avenue as soon as they were finished and were to be used that night,
and that
they were "going to be good fodder for the catitalists and the police
when
they came to protect the capitalists". When he returned to Seliger's
house
from the west side at one o'clock on Tuesday, he reproached Seliger
with the
slow progress he had made in his work.
It may be here stated, that six weeks
before this
time, when Linng first brought dynamite to Seliger's house, he remarked
that
every workingman should have dynamite and learn to handle it, as there
was to
be considerable agitation.
Between nine and ten o'clock on Tuesday
night Linng
and Seliger appeared before the North Avenue Station, and Linng
proposed to Seliger
to throw a bomb into the station and shoot down the policemen, two of
whom were
sitting in front of the building. Whether their failure to carry the
proposition into effect proceeded from a want of courage, or from
disappointment at not receiving some message or signal, that was
expected at Neff’s
Hall, is not disclosed by the evidence. But the proposition itself
bears
startling resemblance to the first and main min feature of the Monday
night
plot as already noticed.
Binng's conduct during Tuesday and on
Tuesday
night shows, that he expected a disturbance to occur Tuesday evening.
He and Seliger
and Lehmann and Schmidicke were standing on
Seliger swears, that he was present at
the meeting
of the Carpenters'
The proof discloses two circumstances
occurring
after the explosion of the bomb on Tuesday night, which tend to show
Linng's
connection with the Haymarket crime. About eleven o'clock on that
evening the
Lehmanns, the Hermanns, the Hagemanns and Hirschberger, the librarian,
were in Neff’s
saloon. Some of them had just come from the Haymarket and they were
talking
about the explosion of the bomb. In the midst of their conversation
Linng and Seliger
entered the saloon, when one Hermann said in an energetic voice to
Linng:
"You are the fault of all of it" or "That is your fault."
Thereupon, a subdued conversation took place between Hermann and Linng.
This
circumstance is sworn to by both Seliger and Neff, and is competent
testimony
as against Linng.
After this, when Seliger and Linng were
on their
way home from Neff’s saloon Linng "made the remark that he was even now
scolded - chided - for the work he had done."
The details of the plan adopted Monday
night as
the same are herein set forth, are proven by testimony which is
uncontradicted.
The evidence, introduced by the prosecution as to the nets and
declarations of Linng
on Tuesday and Tuesday night and during several weeks prior thereto are
also
uncontradicted by any testimony offered on the part of the defense, so
far as
we have been able to discover. What are the inferences to be drawn from
these
uncontraverted facts? The jury who are the judges of the facts in
criminal as
well as in civil cases have a right to draw from proven circumstances
such
conclusions as are natural and reasonable
The intentions of men can only be
determined from
their acts. "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being in the
peace
of the people, with malice aforethought, either express or implied."
(Criminal Code Sec. 140) We said in Davison vs. The People 90 Ills. 221
"Malice is always presumed where one person deliberately injures
another.
It is the deliberation, with which the act is performed, that gives it
character. It is the opposite of an act performed under uncontrollable
passion,
which prevents all deliberation or cool reflection in forming a
purpose."
Here is a man connected with a certain
organization, engaged in arming and drilling for a conflict with the
police. He
is experimenting with dymmite and in the construction of bombs under
the direction
of armed members of that organization. He makes bomb-shells, fills them
with
dynamite, takes them to the meeting place of armed members of that
organization, puts them where access to them can be easily had, using
such
precautions as such dangerous explosives naturally require. At once,
certain of
these armed members, such as the two large men of the Legr and Wehr
Verein
already spoken of, come forward and take bombs and go their several
ways. In a
little more than an hour afterwards one of these very bombs is thrown
into a
crowd of policemen and exploes and kills one of them. Was not the
conduct of
this man, who thus cooly and carefully prepared the weapons for one
definite
class of men, to use in the murder of another definite class of men
marked by
"deliberation", as that term is defined in the authorities?
It was a fair conclusion from the
evidence that Linng
knew that the bombs he was making would be thrown among the police.
It was a fair conclusion from the
evidence, that
he intended the bombs be placed in the hall-way to be used by the
members of
the International groups, not only in the interest of the general
movement
against the police with which he was connected, but in the interest of
the
particular conspiracy, that was concocted on Monday night.
Even if he did not know the name of the
particular
individual who was to throw the bomb, he knew that it would be thrown
by some
one belonging to the sections or groups already described, and this was
sufficient to affect him with the guilt of advising, encouraging,
aiding or
abetting the crime charged in the indictment.
He may not have known what particular
policemen
would be killed, whether Michael J. Degan, or another. But when he
opened the
the loaded satchel at Neff’s Hall on Tuesday night, that act, viewed in
the
light of all the antecedent, attendant and subsequent occur -
occurrences, was
virtually a designation of the body or class of men, who were to be
attacked.
When one of such class was killed, the guilt was the same as though a
person bearing
a particular name had been pointed out as the victim.
Even if he did not know that one of the
bombs
would be thrown on that evening at a particular place called the
Haymarket, it
was sufficient that he knew it was to be used at that point in the city
where a
collision should occur between the workingmen and the police. Such a
collision
did occur at the Haymarket.
Counsel for the defense claim, that
there is no
proof showing to bomb to have been thrown by any one of the members of
the
organization, for whose use Linng any have made it; that the bomb may
have been
thrown by some person out side of that organization and having a
private
grievance of his own against the police; in otherwords, that the
bomb-thrower
has not been identified as a member of the conspiracy or as a person
employed
by it or acting in its interest.
We think, however, that the jury were
justified,
in believing from the evidence that the man, who threw the bomb was
either a
member of the conspiracy, or an agent employed by it. This appears from
the
facts already recited. Three circumstances especially served to
identify him as
being connected with the conspiracy. First, the bomb that exploded was
one of
the bombs made by Linng: second, the bombs made by Linng were finished
and
distributed so short a time before the explosion, that they could
hardly have
been obtained elsewhere than from his possession or by others than
those for
whose use he intended them, third, the throwing of the bomb occurred
almost at
the same time with the firing of the shots the latter followed so
closely upon
the former, that the two cannot be regarded otherwise than as parts of
a joint
attack, showing that the man who threw the bomb, and the men, who fired
the
shots, were acting in unison with each other: this negatives the idea
of
independent action by an outside individual having a private grudge:
the
character of the attack as a joint one and the concert of action
between those
making it identify it as that kind of an attack, which the conspirators
planned
to make. Moreover there is no evidence in the record of the making of
bombs by
anybody except Linng and those associated with him.
Engel and Fischer
As to the defendant
Engel and Fischer,
it has already been shown that they originated the Monday night plan
and
procured its adoption first by the north westside group and second
company of
the Lehr and Wehr Verein on Sunday morning, and afterwards by the
representatives of all the groups on Monday night. They advised and
induced a
band of seventy or eighty armed and drilled men to enter into a plot to
murder
the police with bombs and pistols in a certain contingency, and to
agree to
certain details as to committee, signal-word, mass-meeting,
hand-bill-meeting
places with a view of carrying that plot into effect. The murder of
Degan took
place as the legitimate consequence of an attempt to accomplish the
objects of
the conspiracy originated and planned by themselves. Therefore, they
aided,
abetted, advised and encouraged the com-mission of that murder. Both
were present
at the Haymarket meeting on Tuesday night.
The evidence tends to show that Engel
was at his
home on
It has already been stated that Fischer
was at the
Haymarket early in the evening, and was seen walking about on
It would make no difference however, in
the degree
of responsibility, with which Engel and Fischer are chargeable under
the facts
already narrated, that they were not actually among those who stood
around the
wagon, when the bomb was thrown. Where persons combine to stand by one
another
in a breach of the peace with a general resolution to resist all
opposers, and,
in the execution of their design, a murder is committed, all of the
company are
equally principals in the murder, though at the time of the act, some
of them
were at such a distance as to be out of view, if the murder be in
furtherance
of the common design. (Wharton on Homocide Sec. 333 (2nd Ed) (Williams
vs. The
People 54
On the morning after the Haymarket
massacre about
ten or eleven o'clock the dfendant Fischer was arrested while coming
down the
stairs of the Arbeiter Zeitung building. The officer found upon his
person a
44-calibre, self-acting revolver loaded and also a file. He wore a belt
and
sheath under his coat, the belt having a brass buckle upon it with the
letters
"L. & W.V. a buckle of the Lehr and Wehr Verein Society. "The
file, an old fashioned three cornered file ground to a sharp edge, very
sharp
on the point with a wooden handle was in the sheath; the revolver was
stuck in
a slit in the belt; there were ten cartridges in his pocket; there was
also a
fuse cap - a fulminating cap - in his pocket; the fulminating cap was
bright.
At Fischer's house,
after his
arrest, were found a box of nearly fifty 44-calibre cartridges and a
light blue
blouse, such as is worn by the Lehr and Wehr Verein.
Spies and
Schwab.
We will now consider the relations of
the
defendants Spies and Schwab to the Monday night plot.
By the terms of the plot, the word
"Ruhe" was to be published in the Arbeiter Zeitung as a signal to the
members of the armed sections to arm themselves and gather at their
meeting
places, there to be ready to attack the police when the committee
appointed
should give information of a disturbance.
That word was published in the paper,
which was
issued on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 4th. Its publication was the
act of the
defendant Spies. He wrote with his own hands, the words,
"Brief-Kasten--Ruhe" the former of which means 'letter-box' in German-
and, from the original manuscript so written by himself, the printers
set up
the type from which the words were printed in the paper of Tuesday
afternoon.
"Ruhe" was not only in his hand-writing but he underscored it twice,
as if to give it greater emphasis and prominence. If he knew its
meaning as a
signal word and the object of its insertion in the paper, as explained
on the
night before by his own foreman, the defendant Fischer, then he was
lending
himself by its publication to the execution of the plan of Monday night.
Nor is it necessary to prove that the
conspiracy
originated with the defendants, or that they met during the process of
the
concoction;; for every person entering into a conspiracy or common
design,
already formed, is deemed in law a party to all acts done by any of the
other
parties, before or afterwards, in furtherance of the common design." (3
Greenl. on Ev. Sec. 93)
There is evidence tending to prove, that
Spies
inserted this word in the International organ as a member of the
committee,
whose business it was to do so, because that same committee was in
charge of
the Haymarket meeting and he was the most active man in the management
of that
meeting. He himself, inserted among the editorial notices in the
Arbeiter
Zeitung on Tuesday afternoon, the following notice in almost the same
words
unsed in the hand-bill, printed by Fischer. "Attention, Workingmen"
Grand mass-meeting this evening at half past seven o'clock on the
Haymarket,
Randolph between
In explanation of the
publication
of the word "ruhe", then defendant, Spies, swears that its meaning
was stated to him for the first time by Rau, his advertising agent, and
Fischer,
his foreman on Tuesday afternoon after its appearance in the paper and
that he
instructed them to speak to the armed men of its insertion at that
time, as a
mistake. Rau and Fischer were not placed upon the stand to confirm this
explanation, and whether it was credible, in view of his printed
utterances on
that day and several previous days and in view of all the other
features of his
conduct, as disclosed in the record, was a matter for the jury to
determine. If
they did not believe his explanation as against the evidence, which
tended to
contradict it, then they were justified in finding from the
circumstances
already mentioned and those hereafter stated, that he was as much a
party to
the plot as Engel and Fischer and Linng.
That plot, as has already been shown,
contemplated
the throwing of a bomb into each police station and then, in the
confusion,
using fire-arms against the policeman. In an article upon the riot of
Monday
afternoon, written by the defendant Spies and published in the same
Tuesday
afternoon edition, in which the word "Ruhe" appeared, he says:
"If brothers, who defended themselves with stones (a few of them had
litle
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." Here is a suggestion of that very mode of attacking the
police, which was the main feature of the Monday night conspiracy. This
suggestion
was made to the workingmen Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday nightm the very
thing
suggested took place, that is to day, a bomb was thrown not into a
station, but
among the police a few feet from a station, and, after it was thrown,
"good weapons" were fired into them, killing several and wounding
several more. The article in question did not stop, however, with a
suggestion
of an attack upon the police in the mode specified. It closed by saying
"last night, thousands of copies of the following circular were
distributed in all parts of the city," and then quoted and re-published
in
full the German portion of the "revenge" circular, that had been
composed by Spies and distributed among the workingmen on Monday night,
thereby
urging such workingmen in the most vehement terms to arm themselves and
make
war upon the police. A translation of this German circular is given
hereafter.
The reason why the plan of Monday night
provided
for throwing a bomb into each police station and shooting the escaping
policemen was that the latter might be thereby prevented from going to
the
scene of the disturbance, which was expected to take place. Such plan
would
naturally be based upon information, that the police intended to hold
themselves in readiness at their stations for a summons to some point
of
conflict. On the afternoon of April 30th 1886, being the Friday
preceding the
Tuesday, on which the Haymarket meeting occurred, the Arbeiter Zeitung,
in an
editorial, written by one or the other of its two editors, Spies and
Schwab,
thus addressed its 3600 readers among the members of the International
groups
and the unions of the workingmen:
"As we are informed from reliable
source, the
police have received secret orders to keep themselves prepared in their
stations, as a labor conflict is feared on Saturday of next week. You
see the
capitalistic sluggards are thirsty for the blood of workingmen. The
workingmen
will not permit themselves to be kicked by them like dogs any more.
They will
not be tortured to death any more by unlimited work, and they will not
be
starved any more. For this opposition, they want vengeance and they cry
for
blood. May be that this cry will be heeded- but then, beside the red
life-sap
of the extortioner's victim, there may flow a little of the
black-dragon poison
of the extortioners. To the workingmen we again say at this hour arm
yourselves. You have but one life to lose. Defend that with all means.
And in
this connection, we want to caution the armed workingmen as yet to
conceal
their arms so that they will not be stolen by the minions of the law,
as it has
happened in various instances."
Here was a statement that the police had
"received secret orders to keep themselves prepared in their
stations" for a labor conflict expected to occur in about a week, which
statement was accompanied with a caution to the workingmen to arm
themselves
and to conceal their arms. The injunction to arm could have had no
other object
than to meet the preparations which the police had received secret
orders to
make. Such preparations could be of no avail if the stations should be
blown up
and the police themselves should be shot down. Therefore, the plan of
Monday
night was exactly adapted to rendering the action of the police in
keeping
themselves prepared in their stations useless and of no effect. So
exactly does
the plan in question fit the state of things spoken of in the editorial
of
April 30th, that it would appear to have been suggested by that
editorial.
When it is remembered, that, on the very
day on
which this editorial made its appearance, Linng brought to Seliger's
house, the
large box of dynamite, already alluded to, and that, on the next Sunday
morning, Fischer, who, as foreman of the Arbeiter Zeitung, was all the
time at
work under the eyes of Spies and Schwab, went, in company with Engel,
to a
meeting of the second company of the Lehr and Wehr Verein and the
northwest
side group, where the plan for destroying the stations and their
occupants was
adopted upon the suggestion of Engel, it would appear that the
defendants Spies
and Schwab, not only joined the conspiracy now under discussion after
it was
formed, but inspired the conception of it before it was formed.
The armed men, who met and entered into
that
conspiracy on Monday evening, were called together by the Arbeiter
Zeitung, of
which Spies and Schwab were the editors and managers. In the edition,
called
"Die Fackel", issued on Sunday May 2nd, and in the issue of the
afternoon of Monday, May 3rd, there were published, in the letter-box
column,
the words: "Y- Komme Montag Abende" (Y- Come Monday night') This was
a summons to the armed sections to meet, as they did, on Monday night
at
Greif's Hall. The original manuscript from which the words were printed
for the
Sunday issue was in the handwriting of Rau, advertising agent of the
Arbeiter
Zeitung, member with Spies of the Bureau of Information, and
distributor for
Spies of the "Revenge" circular. The printing of the call twice, on
both Sunday and Monday, indicated the importance of the matters to come
before
the meeting.
In his testimony, Spies says of the
"Revenge" circular: "I wrote it to arouse the working people,
who are stupid and ignorant, to a consciousness of the condition that
they were
in." In the circular as above quoted, he uses the words: "Avenge the
atrocious murder, which has been committed upon your brothers to-day
(Monday),
and which will likely be committed upon you to-morrow (Tuesday). In the
minds
of "stupid and ignorant" workmen, already excited about the
eight-hour day of labor, the language here quoted could mean nothing
else than
that an attack, similar to the one which took place in the southwestern
part of
the city on Monday, would probably be made upon the workingmen by the
police on
Tuesday.
Again, in the issue of the Arbeiter
Zeitung, published
on Sunday, May 2nd, it is said: "Everything depends upon quick and
immediate 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 intensity, else the success will be
doubtful.
Within a week the fire, the enthusiasm will be gone, and then the
bosses will
celebrate victories."
Here is another designation of Tuesday
as the day
when the excitement would be the most intense. The conduct of Spies and
Schwab
during the few days preceding May 4th and on that day, as evinced by
their
utterances in the Arbeiter Zeitung and otherwise, shows a constant
effort to
increase the enthusiasm to the highest pitch.
They advised "stupid and ignorant"
workingmen
to arm themselves, and then sought by vehement appeals to urge them on
to
"quick and immediate action."
For instance: On Wednesday, April 28th,
they said: "The
power of the associate manufacturers and their state must be met by
labor
associations. The police and soldiers, who fight for that power, must
be met by
armed armies of workingmen; the logic of facts requires this; arms are
more
necessary in our times than anything else. Whoever has no money, sell
his watch
and chain to buy fire-arms for the amount realized. Stones and sticks
will not
avail against the hired assassins of the extortionists. It is time to
arm
yourselves."
On Thursday, April 29th, they said: "If
the
legitimate means of the thieves and scoundrels, who practice extortion
on their
fellow-men, are exhausted, then they resort to force. A wage-slave who
is not
utterly demoralized, should always have a breach-loader and ammunition
in his
house.
On Friday, April 30th, they said what
has already
been quoted from the editorial of that date, and on the same day they
further
said, in another article: "What will the 1st of May bring?
The workingmen bold
and
determined! x x Men of labor, so long as you acknowledge the gracious
kicks of
your appressors with words of gratitude, so long you are faithful dogs.
x x x
They are enraged, and will attempt, through hired murderers, to do away
with
you like mad dogs."
On Saturday May 1st they again said to
the
workingmen in the Arbeiter Zeitung: "Away with all rolls of membership
and
minute books where such are kept. Clean your guns, complete your
amunition. The
hired murderes of the capitalists, the police and militia, are ready to
murder.
No workingman should leave his home in these days with empty pockets."
On Sunday, May 2nd in the same editorial
which
urged quick and immediate action, and designated Monday or Tuesday as
the time
when the conflict would have reached its highest intensity, they used
the
following language: "Everywhere the workingmen are willing to accept a
corresponding reduction of wages with the introduction of the eight
hour
system, they were mostly refused. 'No, ye dogs; you must work ten
hours; that's
the way we want it, we're your bosses.' Something like this was the
answer of
the majority translated into intelligible language. In the face of this
fact it
is pitiful and disgusting, but more than that, it is treacherous, to
warn the
strikers against energetic, uncompromising measures."
On Monday, May 3d, in another article in
the
Arbeitur Zeitung they said: "The freight handlers were marching in full
force from depot to depot at noon today. It was rumored that 'scabs'
had been
improted from
Courage, courage, is
our cry.
Don't forget the words of Herways "The host of the oppressors grows
pale,
when thou weary of thy burden in the corner puttest the plow when thou
sayest
'it is enough'."
But there were other occurrences during
the same
period which tended to incite the workingmen to an attack upon the
police.
While Fischur the first foreman in the
compositors
room of Arbeitur Zeitung was present at the Sunday morning meeting on
Emma
Street Urban, a compositor of the arbeitur Zeitung was attending a
meeting of
the central labor union at
It was arranged at these morning and
afternoon
gatherings of the Central Labor Union that Spies should address the
meeting of
the striking lumber shovers to be held the next afternoon on the "
On Monday afternoon the meeting in
question took
place. It has already been referred to. The lumber shovers were "on a
strike" and met to hear reports from certain committees whom they had
appointed to negotiate with their employers in reference to the eight
hour
movement. The immense crowd in attendance upon this occasion was
addressed by
Spies, as has already been stated. He spoke in the German language from
the top
of a freight car. His manner was excited and his gestures were violent.
One of
the witnesses says, that while speaking, "he jumped up three or four
feet
high." About three blocks west from the place where he was speaking was
situated the factory which was employing non-union laborers, as
heretofore
explained. The lumber shovers at the meeting were not connected in any
way with
the workingmen engaged at the factory. But when the latter came out of
the
factory gate about three o'clock in the afternoon at the ringing of a
bell an
attack was made upon them by several thousand of the lumber shovers who
rushed
from the freight car towards the gate before the speaking was finished
in
obedience to an order from some one on the car. A conflict ensued. The
police
were called out, stones were thrown, clubs were used and pistols were
fired by
both the crowd and the police. Some of the policemen and several of the
workingmen were wounded. One of the latter was killed, as has been
heretofore
mentioned..
It is admitted by the defendant Spies
that upon
this occasion he urged the workingmen, many of whom were armed with
revolvers,
to resist the attempt of the police to quell the riot. In an account of
what
took place, written by himself and published on the next afternoon
(Tuesday May
4) in the Arbeiter Zeitung, he says:-
"The writer of this hastened to the
factory
as soon as the first shots were fired and a comrad urged the assembly
to hasten
to the rescue of their brothers, who were being murdered, but no one
stirred. *
* * The writer ran back. He implored the people to come along- those
who had
revolvers in their pockets, but it was in vain. With an exasperating
indifference they put heir hands in their pockets and marched home,
babbling as
if the whole affair did not concern them in the least.. The revolvers
were
still cracking and fresh detachments of police, here and there
bombarded with
stones, were hastening to the battle-ground. The battle was lost!"
On Tuesday afternoon
Spies
inserted in his paper a call for the Haymarket meeting in order to
denounce the
action of the police at this very riot. The Haymarket meeting was thus
nothing
more than a continuation of the warfare on the police, which he himself
had
incited and taken part in on Monday afternoon.
After his return from the "
(1)
"Revenge.
"Workingmen
to Arms"
"The masters sent out their blood
hounds--
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 contented with
whatever your bosses condescend to allow you, or you will get killed."
"You have for years endured the most
abject
humiliations: you have for years suffered unmeasurable iniquities; you
have
worked yourself to death; you have endured the pangs of want and
hunger; your
children you have sacrificed to the factory lord--in short, you have
been
miserable and obedient servants all these years. Why? to satisfy the
insatiable
greed, to fill the coffers of your lazy theiving masters. When you ask
them now
to lessen your burdens, he sends his blood hounds out to shoot you-
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 will
call
you, to arms. Your brothers."
He at the same time wrote an address in
the German
language of which the following is a translation:-
"Revenge!
Revenge!
"Workmen,
to Arms!
"Men of
labor, this afternoon the blood
hounds of your oppressors murdered six of your brothers at McCormicks.
Why did
they murder them? Because they dared to be dissatified with the lot
which your
oppressors have assigned to them. They demanded bread, and they gave
them lead
for an answer, mindful of the fact that thus people are most
affectually
silenced. You have for many, many years endured every humiliation
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 blood-hounds,
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 today, and
which
will likely be committed upon you tomorrow. Laboringmen, Hercules, you
have
arrived at the crossway. Which way will you decide? For slavery and
hunger, or
for freedom and bread? If you decide for the latter, then do not delay
a moment;
then, people, to arms. Annihilation to the beasts in human form who
call
themselves rulers! Uncompromising 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."
These two addresses were printed, one in
the
English and the other in the German language, upon the same sheet of
paper and
one above the other, as one circular. The printers in the Arbeiter
Zeitung
office usually stopped work at five o'clock in the afternoon. On this
particular Monday afternoon, however, five or six of them were detained
to set
up the type for this circular. By direction of Spies, the form was sent
across
the street to a printing office at no. 88 Fifth Avenue. The order was
given to
stike off as many as possible. Twenty-five hundred copies were printed
that
evening. As soon as they came from the hands of the printer, they were
carried
away. `"a dozen different parities came there after them, coming one
and
two at a time, taking it as fast as it came from the press".
These circulars were distributed on
Monday evening
at various places and is different parts of the city.
One of the witnesses says: "it was a few
minutes after six o'clock x x on Monday afternoon. I was standing in
the
doorway of the entrance of 54 West Lake Street, talking with the
proprietor of
the hall, and first had by attention attracted to a circular by seeing
a few of
then flying through the air, and remember distinctly picking up one and
reading
it at the time. Just at the momentIsaw a horseman, and the distribution
of the
circulars was co-incident with the appearance of the horseman is front
of
A copy was seen by one of the witnesses
at a
meeting that night of the metal workers at no.
Another witness says that he was walking
west on
Randolph Street Tuesday evening about half- past seven o'clock, and
somebody
handed him a circular headed "revenge" and signed "your
brothers".
That this circular gave impulse to the
action of
the members of the armed sections at the Monday night meeting and
inspired the
adoption of the plan agreed upon, is apparent from the fact, that its
contents
were fully discussed and dwelt upon at that meeting.
The witness Greenhut says that he was at
the
Arbeiter Zeitung office between five and seven o'clock on Monday
afternoon;
that Schwab and the book-keeper and Neebe (though he is not so sure
about the
latter) were present while Spies was writing the revenge circular and
heading
the proof-sheets of it as they came from the hands of the printer; that
Spies
told them of the ‘lumber shovers' riot from which he had just come and
of the
killing of six men by the police, and deplored the fact that the
working men
had not been better armed for their offence, favoring the use of
dynamite as
the most effective mode of arming; that the calling of a mass meeting
was then discussed and agreed upon among them, and it was
agreed that the meeting should be held at night and be in the open air;
that
the circulars which Spies was preparing were to be printed "for
distribution for the mass-meeting"; that the Haymarket meeting held
Tuesday night was the meeting talked about and agreed upon on that
Monday
afternoon.
Gruenberg says, that he saw Fischer in
the
compositors' room of the Arbeiter Zeitung as late as half-past five
o'clock on
Monday evening, and when it is remembered that Fischer went to the
meeting at
Greif’s Hall that night and induced the armed men to agree to the
molding of an
open-air meeting on Tuesday night at the Haymarket, and himself printed
and
caused to be circulated a hand-bill calling on the workmen to come
armed to
that meeting, and when it is further remembered, that the signal world
"ruhe", which the armed men agreed upon that night at his suggestion,
was next day written by Spies with his own hand and published in the
Arbeiter
Zeitung on Tuesday afternoon, the jury certainly has reasonable ground
for
believing that the action of Fischer on Monday night was taken in
consequence
of and pursuant to the arrangements decided upon between Spies, Schwab
and
others at the Arbeiter Zeitung office Monday afternoon.
This conclusion receives confirmation
from the
character of the articles, which appeared in the Arbeiter Zeitung on
Tuesday
afternoon. The following editorial published on May 4-th 1886 and
called the
"to arms" editorial was written by the defendant Schwab.
"Blood has
flowed. It happened as it had to.
Order has not drilled and disciplined her murdering hounds in vain. The
militia has not been drilled in street-fighting for mere
sport. The robbers, who know best themselves what a mean rabble they
are, who
keep up their mammon by rendering the masses wretched, who make the
slow
murdering of laboring men's families their vocation, they are the last
to be
afraid of directly butchering the laboring men. Down with the rabble is
their
watch-word. Is it not an historical fact, that private property has had
its
origin in acts of violence of all sorts? And shall the "rabble", the
laboring men, allow this capitalistic pack of robbers to carry on,
through
hired assassins, their bloody orgies? Nevermore! The war of classes has
come.
In front of Mccormick's factory workmen were shot down yesterday, whose
blood
cries for vengeance. Who will any longer deny that the ruling tigers
are thirsting
for the workman's blood? Countless victims have been slaughtered upon
the
altars of the golden calf amidst the triumphant shouts of the
capitalistic band
of robbers. One has only to think of
Modesty is a
vice of the workingman, and can there
be anything more modest that this eight hour demand? Peaceably the
workmen made
it already a year ago, in order not to neglect to give the extortioner
opportunity to prepare for it; and the answer to this was to drill the
police
force and the militia and to brow-beat the laborers, who worked in
favor of the
eight hour system. And yesterday blood flowed. This is the manner in
which these
devils reply to a modes petition of their slaves.
Death, rather
than a life of wretchedness! If
workmen must be shot at, well, then, let us answer them in a manner
which the
robbers will not soon forget again. The murderous capitalistic beats
have
become drunk with the smoking blood of laborers. The tiger lies ready
for the
jump; his eyes sparkle eager for murder; impatiently he whips his tail,
and the
sinews of his clutches are drawn tight. Self-defence causes the cry "to
arms!" "to arms!" if you do not defend yourselves, you will be
torn in pieces and ground by the animals' teeth. The new yoke which
awaits you
in case of cowardly retreat is heavier still and harder than the severe
yoke of
slavery as it exists now.
All the
powers, hostile to the workman, have
been (made) common cause. They recognize their common interest. They
have the
necessary class consciousness. In such days as ours are, everything
else must
be subordinated to this one thought: how can the thieving ----------
together
with their gangs of hired murders, be made harmless?
The whole
newspaper gang makes up the lie to
day that the strikers, who were in the neighborhood of Mccormick's
factory
yesterday, were in first to fire. That is a bold bare-faced lie on the
part of
the journalistic ragamuffins. Without any warning whatever, they fired
at the
workmen, when they, of course, returned the fire. Indeed, why should
they make
so much ado about the rabble? To be sure, if they had been sheep or
cattle,
instead of human beings, one might have reflected a little before
shooting. But
as it was, a laboring man is quickly replaced, and the
gluttons then at their rich dinners and in the circles of their
mistresses
boast of the splendid achievements of law and order.
In the poor shanty, miserably clad women and children are weeping for husband and father. In the palace they touch glasses filled with costly wine and drink to the happiness of the bloody bandits of law and order. Dry your tears, ye poor and wretched; take heart, ye slaves! Arise in your might and overthrow the system of robbery, present order based on robbery."
The following is a portion of the
article already quoted from,
which was written by the defendant Spies and published in the Arbeiter
Zeitung
on Tuesday May 4th 1886.
"Six months
ago when the eight hour movement
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" ("that is non-sense"
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 been possible if our advice
had been
followed?
"Wage-workers,
yesterday the police of this
city murdered 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
boom, not one of the murders 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
slavery the laborers who had become dissatisfied and mutinous. Will
they
succeed in this? Xxxxx 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 followed three patrol wagons besides, full of law
and order
beasts; 200 policemen were on the spot in less that ten or fifteen
minutes, and
the firing on fleeing workingmen and women resembled a promiscuous
bush-hunt. X
x x x a few of the strikers had little snappers of revolvers and with
these
returned the fire x x x with their weapons, mainly stones, the people
fought
with admirable bravery. They laid out half a dozen blue coats, and
their x
round bellies, developed to extreme fatness in idleness and luxury,
tumbled
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 dust.) But it looked worse on
the
side of the defenseless workmen. Dozens who had received slight shot
wounded
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 severely
wounded.
How many were really injured and how many were mortally 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 about 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 express wagon by two policemen."
Also in the issue of Arbeiter Zeitung of
Tuesday
May 4th. 1886 appeared the following;
"An outbreak
was expected on the southwest
side this morning a regiment of militia and the whole municipal gang of
murderers were held in readiness. Just stir, ye free workmen of
In the same issue of the Arbeiter
Zeitung of May
4th. 1886, also appeared the following;
"The heroes
of the club dispersed with their
cudgels yesterday in the most brutal manner a crowd of girls, many of
whom had
scarely outgrown their baby shoes. Whose blood does not rush quicker
through
there veins when he hears of this atrocity of the minons of the law?.
He, who
is a man, show it these days. Men, to the front!!"
"The armory
on
The alarm and the Arbeiter Zeitung were
more than
mere newspapers to the members of the International Association. They
were the
organs of that association. The members looked to those papers for
orders and
directions. More especially was this the case with the Arbeiter Zeitung
and its
German readers. The record contains many evidences of this fact.
The seventy or eighty armed men who
assembled in
the basement of Greif’s Hall, and their absent confederates, who were
to be
informed of their conspiracy, were to look for the word "ruhe" in the
Arbeiter Zeitung. From that paper they were to learn when the social
revolution
had come and when they were to assemble for conflict. This showed, that
they
were in the habit of reading that paper and consulting it. When a
special
meeting of the armed sections was desired, they, who belonged to those
sections, found the signal words, calling them together, in the
Arbeiter
Zeitung. This implied that they were readers of that paper. The seventy
or
eighty men just referred to went to Greif’s Hall, because they saw the
summons
to go there in their organ. Some of them testify that they went there
for that
reason, and there is no evidence, that they received any other notice
of the Monday
night meeting than the one published in the Arbeiter Zeitung. The
assemblage of
seventy or eighty of them there may be regarded as proof that seventy
or eighty
of them read the paper in question on Sunday and Monday.
Many witnesses in this case, both for
the state
and for the defense, who testify to their membership in the
International
Association, testify also to the fact that they were in the habit of
reading
one or the other of the two organs here referred to.
Waller, a member of the Lehr and Wehr
Verein, who
presided at the gathering in the basement of Greif’s Hall, and who was
armed
with a revolver at the Haymarket on Tuesday night, says that he saw the
word
"ruhe" in the Arbeiter Zeitung at six o'clock Tuesday afternoon in a
saloon on Milwaukee Avenue, and that on Monday he saw the words "komme
montag abende" in
the same paper.
When Linng desired to explain to Seliger
the
disturbance, that was expected on the west side, he went to the
Arbeiter
Zeitung and showed the word "ruhe".
Without going further into the
testimony, we think
the jury were warranted in believing, that most of the editorials in
those
papers, which were generally in the form of appeals or addresses to the
workingmen, were read at least by those of the workingmen, who belonged
to the
groups herein mentioned. More especially were these organs consulted
during the
excitement of the eight-hour movement, when information as to the
progress of
that movement was eagerly sought after among the classes affected by it.
As already stated, the weight of the
evidence is
in favor of the conclusion that Degan was killed by some member of the
International
Association. It was for the jury to say, how far that fatal result may
have
been brought about through the influence of the utterances, put forth
by the
organs here designated.
As late as Tuesday afternoon Spies said
to the
workingmen in an editorial in his paper, proven to have been written by
himself;
"then do not delay a moment; then, people to arms! Annihilation to the
beasts in human form, who call themselves rulers".
As late as Tuesday after noon, Schwab said to the workingmen in an editorial in the same paper, proven to have been written by himself:
"The murderous capitalistic beats have become drunk with the smoking blood of laborers. The tiger lies ready for the jump: his eyes sparkle eager for murder; impatiently he whips his tail, and the sinews of his clutches are drawn tight. Self defense causes the cry; "to arms! To arms"! If you do not defend yourselves you will be torn in pieces and ground by the animal's teeth".
"He, who inflames peoples minds and induces then by violent means, to accomplish an illegal object, is himself a rioter, though he takes no part in the riot."
"One is
responsible for what wrong flows
directly from his corrupt intentions; if he set in motion the physical
power of
another, he is liable for its result. If he contemplated the result, he
is
answerable, though it is produced in a manner he did not contemplate.
If he
awoke into action an indiscriminate power, he is responsible. If he
gave
directions vaguely and incautiously, and the person receiving then
acted
according to what he might have foreseen would be the understanding, he
is
responsible".
We conceive that it can make no
difference,
whether the mind is affected by inflammatory words, addressed to the
reader,
through the newspaper organ of a society to which he belongs, or to the
hearer
through the spoken words of an orator, whom he looks up to, as a
representative
of his own peculiar class.
It was a question for the jury, whether,
with the
evidence before them, the attack upon the police at the Haymarket "was
so
connected with the inflammatory language used, that they can not be
separated
by time or other circumstances".
We do not wish to be understood as
deciding, that
the influence of these publications in bringing about
the crime at the Haymarket could be considered by the jury if they were
the
only evidence of encouragement of that crime, which was furnished by
the
record. We only hold, that the jury were at liberty to consider the
publications in question in connection with all the other facts and
circumstances of this particular case and as a part of those facts and
circumstances, with a view of determining whether the defendants, who
were
responsible for their issuance, did or did not belong to the conspiracy
now
under consideration.
It has already been stated, that the
defendant
Schwab was present at the Haymarket a part of Tuesday evening, but left
and
went to Deering, where he made a speech. What he said in that speech is
not
disclosed by the record. The proof shows, that those, who called the
Haymarket
meeting, expected an attendance of 25,000 workingmen at that place. As
a matter
of fact only about 2,000 came. Several thousand had assembled at
Deering. That
Schwab went to Deering and there addressed some of the workingmen, who
were
expected at the Haymarket but failed to come, would in no wise lessen
his
responsibility for the death of Degan, if his acts and declarations, as
heretofore and hereafter noticed, helped to cause that death. If he
belonged to
the same conspiracy with Degan's murderer and the murder of Degan was
perpetrated in furtherance of that conspiracy, them the act of the
murderer was
his act. It is to be noted that he did not go to Deering, until he
first went
to Haymarket and had a consultation with one or more of the leaders,
who had
control of the matters at the letter latter place. But a further
consideration of the branch
of the case will be postponed for the for the present.
Spies spoke to the crowd at the
Haymarket.
One of the witnesses says that, in his
speech, he
dwelt upon the occurrences of Monday afternoon at the lumber shovers'
meeting
and the part he took in them, and then "advised the using of violent
means
by the workingmen to right their wrongs; that law and government were
the tools
of the wealthy to oppress the poor; that the ballot was no way in which
to
right their wrongs; that by physical force was the only way in which
they could
right their wrongs".
The following is another portion of his
speech as
testified to by a witness, who heard it; "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'| ---------- is the man who created the row Monday,
and he
must be held responsible for the murder of our brothers.| cries of
'hang him'.|
don't make any threats; they are of no avail; whenever you get ready to
do
something, do it, and don't make any threats beforehand. There are in
the city
to-day between forty and fifty thousand men locked out because they
refuse to
obey the supreme will or dictation of a small number of men. The
families of 25,000 or 30,000 men are
starving because their husbands and fathers are not not men enough to
withstand
and resist the dictation of a few thieves on a grand scale to put out
of the
power of a few men to say whether they should work or not. Would they
place
their lives, their happiness, everything out of the arbitrary power of
a few
rascals? To say whether you shall work or not, you place your lives,
your
happiness, everything out of the arbitrary power of a few rascals who
have been
raised in idleness and luxury upon the fruits of your labor. Will you
stand
that!"
Still another witness says: "he talked
about
the police, the blood-hounds of the law shooting down six of their
brothers,
and he told: 'When you get ready to do something, do it, and don't tell
anybody
you are going to.' x x x at the time Mr Spies was showing them how the
officers
came down the 'Black Road' and commenced shooting into the crowd of
workingimen
x x x they appeared much excited in the neighborhood of the wagon and
in the
neighborhood where they halloed out: "Let us hang them?"
The observations hereafter made in
regard to the
speech of the defendant Parsons and its effect, apply also to this
speech of
the defendant Spies.
The evidence thus far commented upon in
reference
to the acts and declarations of the defendants, Spies and Schwab, is
such that
the jury were warranted in finding them to be parties to the
conspiracy. In
addition, however, to the facts and circumstances already noticed,
there was
other testimony introduced by the state for the purpose of proving that
the
defendants Spies and Schwab, either one or both of them, gave the bomb
that
killed Degan, into the hands of the person who threw it, and aided him
in his
murderous design.
Malvern M. Thompson testifies, that he
saw Spies
and Schwab together in Crane's alley on the night of the Haymarket
meeting and
heard the word "Police" and "pistols" uttered in a
conversation between them; that Spies said to Schwab "Do you think one
is
enough or hadn't we better go and get more?" That they came out of the
alley and walked together west on Randolph Street to the south west
corner of
Randolph and Halstead Streets where they entered the thickest of a
crowd of
about twenty-five men, remaining there some three minutes and then
returning to
Des Plaines Street; that, on the way back, the word 'police' was again
used, and Schwab said to
Spies: "Now, if they come we will give it to them"; that, upon their
return, Rudolph Schnaubelt met them on the sidewalk near the wagon and
Spies
handed Schnaubelt something which the latter put in his pocket on the
right
hand side; that Spies then mounted the wagon and began to speak; that
just
after him Schnaubelt also mounted the wagon and sat upon it with his
hands in
his pockets until Fielden began to speak, when the witness left.
The witness did not know what it was
that was
handed to Schnaubelt, but, upon the assumption that he tells the truth,
it was
evidently something that was to be used against a body of policemen,
and as a
bomb with a projecting fuse is made to be thrown into a crowd of men,
the jury
looking at the circumstances here noted in the light of the other facts
and
circumstances developed by the testimony in the case, were warranted in
believing that the thing given to Schnaubelt was a bomb. Therefore, the
evidence of Thompson, if true, tends very strongly to convict Spies and
Schwab
of aiding and abetting the crime of the Haymarket.
Schwab testifies that while he was at
the Arbeiter
Zeitung office on that evening, a call came through the telephone for a
speaker
to address the meeting at Deering, and that he at once went over to the
Haymarket
to consult with Spies about it, that he failed to find Spies and did
not see
him or talk with him at all that he met Schnaubelt, his brother-in-law,
and
after talking with him about sending a speaker to Deering, concluded to
go
himself; that he thereupon took a Randolph Street car and went east to
the
Court House, there boarding a Clybourne Avenue car for the north.
The testimony in regard to the matters
about which
Thompson testifies, is very conflicting. There is much that tends to
confirm
him, and much that tends to contradict him.
1st. As to the proof tending to confirm
Thompson.
It is established beyond question, that
Schwab
went to the Haymarket for the express purpose of seeing Spies; that
Scnaubelt
was at the Haymarket until after ten o'clock, and was on the wagon with
Spies,
Parson and Fielden; that Spies did walk in company with somebody from
the wagon
westward on Randolph Street for the avowed purpose of finding Parsons,
who had
been seen before eight o'clock at the corner of Randolph and Halstead
Streets,
and did return along Randolph Street to the wagon in company with the
same
person, who started with him.
The statements of Owen and Heineman and
of Spies
and Schwab themselves, were analyzed and compared, show that Schwab was
at the Haymarket
that evening for at least half an hour and that Spies was there at the
same
time.
Other testimony shows that Schnaubelt
was there at
the same time. Thompson is confirmed in many particulars. He says that
"Schwab
came rushing along
Thompson says, that just after seeing
Schwab he
crossed to the east side of Des Plaines Street, went north towards
Lake, then
returned southward, saw Spies get on the wagon and hear him ask if
Parsons was
present, then while he was standing at the entrance to the alley, saw
Spies
after his descent from the wagon, go with Schwab for a few moments into
the
alley &c. Owen says, that when Schwab saw the mayor at the corner
of
DesPlaines and Randolph Street, he "immediately upon that turned about
and
went north on Des Plaines Street." It thus appears that Schwab was seen
going in the direction of the alley, where Thompson
claims to have seen the meeting between him and Spies, and about, the
time when
that meeting is claimed to have been witnessed. Schwab says himself
that he
"went across
Cosgrove says: "I saw Mr Schwab there
before
the meeting began. I seen him there just after the time Mr Spies
returned. X X
X The first time I saw him was about forty feet south of Randolph on
DezPlaines
Street on the west side of the street. The last time I saw him was at
the wagon
- it was about half past eight."
McKeough says: "I saw Schwab on the
wagon in
the early part of the evening and a man named Schnaubelt X X X Spies
started
away then and officer Myers and I followed him as far as the corner.
There was
a man with him, who I think was Schwab. I saw Schwab there in the early
part of
the evening. I lost sight of him finally somewheres in the vicinity of
half
past eight o'clock. After that I did not see him at all during the
entire
evening. X X X He got on the wagon I think before the meeting started
and
tapped Mr Spies on the shoulder and said something to him. I saw him at
the
side of the wagon talking to Spies."
Freeman, a reporter, also says that he
thought he
saw Schwab on the wagon.
The person who thus spoke to Spies on
the wagon
and who was Schwab according to McKeough's evidence, is said by Spies
to have
been one Schroeder. Spies also says, that the man who started away with
him to
the corner of DesPlaines and Randolph Streets, was Schnaubelt. As
McKeough
speaks of seeing Schnaubelt on the wagon, he must have known him, and
he does
not refer to Schnaubelt as being with Spies when the latter went off to
the west.
The south end of the wagon was only a
few feet
from the alley, and if Schwab and Spies did step into the alley and
utter a few
words, which Thompson claims to have heard, it could all have been done
in a
few seconds before that started towards
The utterance of the word 'pistols' and
'police'
at that time and under those circumstances was natural, as Schwab had
just
passed the Des Plaines Street Station, and he must have seen what Sahl,
one of
the witnesses for the defense, says that he saw at about a quarter
before eight
o'clock, namely, "three patrol wagons, manned with police, and about
100
to 150 men drawn up in the rear of the patrol wagons on Waldo Place."
That
this created such an excitement among these interested in the Haymarket
meeting
as would have given rise to the expressions which Thompson claims to
have heard
is manifest from the language used by Spies and Parsons in their
speeches.
The conversation between Spies and
Schwab as sworn
to by Thomson, would indicate a knowledge of the place where bombs were
to be
had. Schwab belonged to the same north side side group, engaged in
arming for May
1st, to which Seliger and Linng belonged. Seliger one of the
bomb-makers was a
member of the central or general committee, which held its meetings
every two
weeks in the library room in the rear of Schwab's office at the
The remark, "Now, we will give it to
them", would imply that, if Spies and Schwab gave Schnaubelt a bomb,
they
obtained it from some one among the twenty five men, into whose midst
they went at the corner of Halstead and Randolph Streets. The most
direct route
to the Haymarket from
There is evidence in the record tending
to show
that several of Linng's assistants in the matter of making bombs were
at the Haymarket
meeting.
2nd. As to the proof tending to
contradict
Thompson.
Spies and Schwab both swear that they
not only did
not talk together or walk together at the Haymarket meeting, but that
they did
not see each other on that evening.
Henry W. Spies also contradicts
Thompson, but we
regard his evidence as seriously weakened by his cross-examination.
He testifies on his direct examination
as follows:
"While the speaking was going on I was
standing along side of the wagon X X I stood there during the entire
meeting. X
X I saw Fielden getting off at the back of the wagon. I told my brother
(August
Spies, the defendant) to get off and reached my hand over to him to
help him
jump. He took my hand X X X just at that time the explosion took
place. X X X
As he jumped, somebody jumped behind him with a weapon right by his
back, and I
grabbed it, and, in warding off the pistol from my brother, I was
shot."
On his cross-examination he says: "On the 5th of May I was arrested at
my
house by officers Whalen and Lowenstein. I told them, that, when the
bomb
exploded, I was at Zeff's Hall, walked out and was shot in the door. I
told
them that I was not at the Haymarket at all from beginning to end. That
was not
true when I told it to them. I lied to them. X X X I also said that I
did not
see my brother that evening until he called at the house and asked me
if I had
a good physician. I now state that what I then said about that was not
the
truth."
Richter says, that he was standing at
about the
middle of the mouth of the alley and saw Spies on the wagon, when he
asked
"Is Parsons here?" but did not see him go into the alley after he
descended from the wagon. He says, however, that he did not notice on
which
side of the wagon Spies alighted, nor in what direction he went after
leaving
the wagon.
Lindinger says, that he did not see
Spies or Schwab
enter the alley, but he also says, that, after Spies called for
Parsons, he
descended from the wagon on the north side, and "I didn't follow him
only
until he was down off the wagon."
So with Liebel --- he says that he did
not see
Spies enter the Alley. But he also says, that he did not see in what
direction
or where Spies went after he left the wagon.
Sahl's testimony tends more strongly to
contradict
Thompson than that of the other witnesses. He says that he knew Spies
and Schwab
and had heard them speak at Greif's Hall and Zeff's Hall; that he saw
Spies on
the wagon and heard him ask for Parson's; that Spies after he came down
from
the wagon passed witness in company with two or three other persons and
that Schwab
was not one of them. Sahl was at that time in the middle of the street
in a
southwesterly direction from the wagon in the crowd of persons standing
there.
Thompson's testimony is positive in its
character
and he is unimpeached as a witness, while that of the defense upon this
subject, is, for the most part negative in character.
The jury had a right to consider the
evidence of
Spies and Schwab in the light of the facts, that they were both on
trial for
murder, and that their statements on the stand were inconsistent with
and
contradictory of previous declarations, made by them. (Greenl. on Ev.
Vol. 1
Sec. note)
The prosecution introduced a witness by
the name
of Harry L. Gilmer. If the testimony of this witness is true there is
no doubt
but that the defendant Spies is Guilty of the Murder of Degan. He
swears that
Spies struck a match and lighted the fuse of a bomb in the hand of
Rudolph
Schnaubelt and that Schnaubelt at once as soon as Spies had applied the
match,
threw the bomb into the midst of the police. Gilmer says, that he came
to the Haymarket
meeting at a about a quarter before ten o'clock; that he had been on
the souht
side and was going to his home on the west side and stopped at the
meeting on
his way; that he went up from Randolph street on the east side of
DesPlaines
while Fielden was speaking, and stood between the lamp post on the
south east
corner of the alley and Des Plaines Street, and the wagon near the east
end of
the wagon; that he stepped back into the alley on the north side
thereof and
noticed some parties opposite him on the south side of the alley, who
were
talking in German and whose conversation he did not understand that he
heard
some on the edge of the sidewalk say, "Here come the police," and
then there was a rush as if to see the police as they were coming up:
that a
man came from the wagon to the parties on the south side of the alley
and
"lit a match and touched it off, something or other; the fuse commenced
to
fizzle and he gave a couple of steps forward and tossed it over into
the
street, --x--x the man that lit the match came on this side of him and
the two
or three of them stood together, and he turned around with it in his
hand "&C.
The witness stated, that he did not know the name of the man, who
threw the
bomb, but knew him by sight, as he had seem him several times at
meetings at
different places in the city. When shown a photograph of Schnaubelt he
aid:
"I say that is the man that threw the bomb out of the alley." When
asked who the man was that came from the wagon towards the group
referred to
and lighted the match, he pointed to the defendant Spies and said "that
is
the man right there." The defense have proven that a match was lighted
in
the alley at this time but claim that it was struck by a laborer in
order to
light his pipe.
The defense introduced nine witnesses
living in
Before a witness can say that he will
not believe
a man under oath he must first swear that he knows that mans reputation
for
truth and veracity among his neighbors and that such reputation is bad.
The
unwillingness to believe under oath must follow from and be based upon
two
facts: first, the fact that the witness knows the reputation for truth
and
veracity among the mans neighbors, second, the fact, that such
reputation is
bad. As the reputation must be bad, before it can be known to be bad,
the most material
fact to be proved is that such reputation is bad.
What a man's reputation is, is a fact to
be proved
just as any other fact. Where, as here, eighteen witnesses of standing
and
credibility swear that a mans reputation is good, while nine of equal
standing
and credibility swear that it is bad, the jury must determine for
themselves
whether they will believe the eighteen men or the nine men.
Other testimony introduced to discredit
Gilmer was
intended to established, first, that the bomb was not thrown from the
point
from which Gilmer said it was thrown; second, that Spies was just
getting off
the wagon, when the explosion occurred, and, therefore, could not have
been in
the ally lighting a match.
A witness by the name of Bernett swore
that he saw
the bomb thrown and that the man, who threw it, stood right in front of
him,
and threw the bomb towards the
The testimony of the witnesses differs
very
greatly as to, the point with reference to the alley from which the
bomb ascended
into the air before it fell. One witness says it came from a point
north of the
alley, another that it came from a point five or six feet south of the
corner
of the alley, others fix the point at various distances south of the
alley
varying from five to forty five feet. Witnesses for the defense,
identified
mostly with the International organization and from whose midst the
shots fired
at the police must have come, place the point, from which the bomb was
thrown,
at the greatest distances south of the point where Gilmer fixes it.
Heineman the reporter, a witness whose
testimony
is favorably credited by both sides, says that he was 46 feet south of
the
alley on the east side-walk of Des Plaines Street when the bomb
exploded, and
that he saw the bomb, or the burning fuse, rise out of the crowd from
"very nearly the south east corner of the alley" and "fall among
the police". This is just about the place from which Gilmer says that
it
ascended.
When the police halted and the captain
gave the
order to disperse, they were very near the south end of the wagon. The
main
body was on a line with the mouth of the alley which was eleven feet
wide.
Bobfield says "the front rank of the first division was near up to the
north line of the alley",. All the police faced towards the north and
were
standing in regular fixed lines. Several of the officers describe the
course of the bomb through the air, as seen by them from their
positions in the
ranks. It could not have been seen by them in the manner indicated in
their
testimony, if it had started from a point as far south as that sworn to
by
Bennett and some of the other witnesses for the defense. The defense
introduced
a number of witnesses, more or less identified with the defendants in
their
conspiracy against the police and who stood around the wagon during the
evening, for the purpose of showing that Spies did not go into the
alley just
before the explosion. The testimony is negative in its character. It
may have
been true that Spies did go into the mouth of the alley as Gilmer says,
and yet
it may be true, that most of these witnesses, whose attention was
naturally
directed towards the approaching columns of the police, may not have
seen him
enter the alley. The defendant Spies swears, that, when the order to
disperse
was given, he was still on the wagon, and that, when he dismounted, the
bomb
exploded just as he touched the side walk. The evidence of other
witnesses for
the defense tends to confirm this statement. He says, that, after the
explosion, he was carried northward by the pushing crowd and went into
Zepp's
Hall, and that he did not go into the alley nor in the direction of the
alley.
But Bonfield swears, that after his arrest, Spies claimed to have gone
after
the explosion eastward through Crane's alley and then Southward
therefrom to
To further contradict Gilmer, a witness
was
examined for the purpose of showing that Schnaubelt left the Haymarket
before
the bomb was exploded. This witness was August Krueger, the orderly
sergeant
and corresponding secretary of the second company of the Lehr and Wehr
Verein.
He was present at the Monday night meting of the armed sections, at
which
Schnaubelt was also present.
Kreugar states that he saw the notice of
the Haymarket
meeting in the Arbeiter Zeitung and went there about nine o'clock and
remained
until ten o'clock; that about ten o'clock he was standing on the west
side of Des
Plaines Street about 30 or 40 feet north of Randolph street, when
Schnaubelt
came towards him from the northeast: that he had seen Schnaubelt
before, but
did not know his name: that Schnaubelt proposed to him to go home; that
he
walked south to Randolph street with Schnaubelt, then eastward to
Clinton
street, when Schnaubelt proceedid on eastward on Randolph street, while
he went
north on Clinton Street, thence by way of Milwaukee Avenue to Engle's
house.
If this were all true, Schnaubelt may
have
returned and entered Cranes alley through its opening into
There is a mass of testimony in the
record in
reference to the statements made by Thompson and Gilmere. Some of this
testimony sustains those statements and some of it discredits them. Any
further
review of it than that, which has already been made, will be impossible
in this
opinion. It is sufficient to say that it is very conflicting. It was
the
province of the jury to pass upon it. They had the right to consider it
in
connection with all the other facts and circumstances in the case. It
is not
necessary for us to pass any opinion upon it, as we think there is
evidence
enough in the record to sustain the finding of the jury independently
of the
testimony given by Thompson and Gilmer.
Fielden:
On Monday evening the defendant Fielden
was making
a speech to some wagon-makers on one of the upper floors of the
building NO 54
West Lake street, while the armed sections were concocting their
conspiracy in
the basement of that building. The proof does not show, however, that
he was
present at the meeting in the basement, or took part in the original
formation
of the Monday night conspiracy.
A conspiracy may be described in general
terms as
a combination of two or more persons by some concerted action to
accomplish
some criminal or unlawful purpose or to accomplish some purpose not in
itself
criminal or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means. (3 Greenleaf on
Eve sec.
89; Heaps vs Dunham 95 Ills 583). It is not necessary however, that the
accused
should have been an original contriver of the mischief, "for he may
become a partaker in it
by joining the others while it is being executed". (2 Bishop Criminal
Law
190).
If he concur, no proof of agreement to
concur is
necessary --x--x--x. As soon as the union of wills for the unlawful
purpose is
perfected the offense of conspiracy is complete. This joint arrest of
minds,
like all other parts of a criminal case, may be established as an
inference of
the jury from the other facts proved, in other words, be circumstantial
evidence. (2 Bishop on Criminal Law and note 7)
Are there such facts and circumstances
proven in
this case, as would warrant a jury in finding that the defendant
Fielden became
a partaker in the conspiracy planned on Monday night by joining those
who were
engaged in its execution on Tuesday night
He says that he had an engagement to
make a speech
Tuesday night on West twelfth street, but that he saw in an English
evening
paper a call to the members of the American group to meet at No 107
Fifth
Avenue on important business; that, as he was the treasurer of that
group and
had its funds in his hands, he cancelled his engagement and went to the
meeting
so called arriving at ten minutes before eight. It was held in the
office of
the Arbeiter Zeitung newspaper and has already been referred to.
Between eight and nine o'clock he left
the Arbeiter
Zeitung building and went over, in company with Parsons and other
members of
the International Rifles, to the Haymarket. After the crowd there had
been
addressed by Spies and Parsons, the defendant Fielden made a speech
from the
wagon, some of which was as follows:
'There are
premonitions of danger. All knew. The
press say the anarchists will sneak away; we are not going to. If we
continue
to be robbed it will not be long before we will be murdered. There is
no
security for the working classes under the present social system. A few
individuals control the means of living 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 community where there were
dissatisfied
workingmen, for they would solve the labor problem. 'I don't know
whether you
are democrats or republicans, but which ever you are, you worship at
the shrine
of rebels. John Brown,
and not to
the workingman's defense when he, Mr.
McCormick, attacked him and his living.' (Cries of 'No') 'There is the
difference. The law makes no distinctions. A million 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. Throttle it. Kill it. Stab it. Do everything you can to wound it--
to impede
its progress. Remember, before trusting them to do anything for
yourself,
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 effort 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 yourselves, 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 or 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 the policemen appeared and
ordered
the meeting to disperse, as has already been stated. Witnesses for the
State
swear, that, when the policemen were approaching the alley, either
Fielden, or
someone with him on or near the wagon, used the following language:
"Here
come the blood-hounds; do your duty men, and I'll do mine." Witnesses
for
the defense swear, that no such words were spoken. Whether one set of
witnesses
or the other told the truth upon this subject was a matter for the jury
to
decide.
There is evidence of a very distinct and
positive
character that Fielden shot at the police:
Lieutenant Martin Quinn say there was a
shot fired
from the wagon by the man that was speaking at that time. x x x x It is
Mr. Fielden
here. x x x He made the remark "We are peaceable" just as he was
going down off of the wagon onto the sidewalk x x x and just as he was
going
down he fired right where the Inspector was and captain Ward and
Lieutenant
Steele &C."
Officer Krueger says: "He (Fielden)
stood at
the south end of the wagon; x x x x he stepped down from the wagon and
passed
right to my right behind the wagon, and in about a moment the bomb fell
behind
me. Then I saw a pistol in his hand and it exploded twice. I am certain
of two
shots being fired by that gentleman (Fielden). I stood within about six
or
eight feet of the wagon, on the street side of it. He (Fielden) passed
right
past me; I could almost have touched him with my hand, and he went
right behind
the wagon and stepped upon the sidewalk when the bomb exploded.
Then, I saw him have a pistol in his
hand and he
fired twice to my recollection? x x x he took cover behind the wagon;
he
covered himself with the wagon between the police and him; I then
returned his
fire and at the same instant I received a bullet in my knee-cap: he
fired
directly at the column of the police and he fired two shots from there;
he
stooped down behind the wagon."
L.C. Baumann a policeman of Lieutenant
Steele's
company, says: "I was standing north of that alley there, I should
judge
about three or four feet from the wagon. x x I saw Mr. Fielden, that he
was
standing on the hind wheel, behind the hind wheel of the wagon, and had
a
revolver in his hand and fired off a shot; he was standing on the
sidewalk
right behind the hind wheel; he shot from east to west: that was after
the
explosion of the bomb, I should say about half a minute."
Officer Hanley says: "At the time the
bomb
exploded I was about four or five feet from the wagon; I was
facing north; I noticed the man that was the last speaker; immediately
after
the bomb exploded I turned face from(to) where the explosion was and I
looked
for the wagon again, and I noticed that man right over there(referring
to
defendant Fielden) by the wheel of the wagon, with a revolver, right
behind,
firing. I saw one shot go, then I thought it was time to draw my
revolver, and,
just as I got my revolver out, they rushed for the alley that was a
little
south of the wagon. Q. Who rushed into the alley? A. Well, him(Fielden)
and
about, I really should judge, about twenty more; they kept firing about
fifteen
or twenty shots after they started to run in the alley."
Officer Spierling says: "I was facing
north
when the bomb exploded: I was about ten or twelve feet from that wagon
at that
time. I saw Mr. Fielden get off of the wagon and fire one shot; he was
standing
behind the wagon on the sidewalk."
John Wessler, a policeman in Lieut.
Bowler's
company, testified:
"The wagon stood next to the curb
lengthwise-- and at the middle of the south end of the wagon, Mr.
Fielden stood
there and I noticed before I, got there a man who would not stand up,
and he
would shoot into the police and get down behind the wheel, x x x and I
went up
and saw that Mr. Fielden was there and he got up a second time and shot
into
the police."
Fielden swears that he not only fired no
shots on
Tuesday evening, but that he had no revolver and never carried one
in his life. It was for the jury to determine whether he told the truth
or not.
They had a right to consider that he was on trial for murder, and that
for more
than a year prior to the Haymarket Meeting he had not only been urging
others
to arm themselves but himself belonged to the armed section of the
American
group, otherwise known as the International Rifles.
Besides Fielden, six witnesses were
produced by
the defense, who swore that they did not see any shots fired by Fielden.
If there was a bias against the
defendant Fielden
on the part of the policemen testifying
for the State, there was just as much of a bias in his favor on the
part of
those testifying for the defense. Here is a conflict of testimony. Six
men
swear that they saw pistol shots fired by the defendant Fielden; six
other men
swear that they did not see such shots fired. The jury saw the
witnesses and
heard them testify and marked their manner and bearing on the stand. It
was
their special province to determine whether the witnesses for the
accused or
for the people told the truth.
It is true, that Degan was killed by the
bomb that
was thrown and not by the shots that were fired. But the attack at the
Haymarket
was a joint attack made by a number of persons with two different kinds
of
weapons in pursuance of a previously arranged conspiracy. When Fielden
lent
himself to the execution of that conspiracy by participating in the
joint attack, he was just
as guilty of the murder of Degan by reason of firing his pistol as
though he
had thrown the bomb.
If the man who threw the bomb, and the
twenty men
whom officer Hanley saw running into the alley, had stood up together
and the
one had thrown his bomb and the others had fired their shots all at the
some
time into the ranks of the police and one of the policeman had at once
fallen
dead, would not each of the twenty men have been as responsible as the
bomb
thrower for the death of the man killed, whether such death was caused
by the
bomb or by the shots?
All had the murderous intent. All were
using
deadly weapons in pursuance of a common design to destroy life.
The conduct of Fielden at the Haymarket,
considered
in connection with his acts prior there to, and with all the other
facts as
here in set forth, certainly warranted the jury in finding that he was
one of
the conspirators.
Parsons:
What are the facts in regard to the
connection of
the defendant Parsons with the Haymarket meeting?
The call to the American group to meet
at half
past seven o'clock at the Arbeiter Zeitung office on Tuesday evening
was
published by the defendant Parsons. The notice, which has already been
referred
to, was inserted by him in the Evening News, and the original
manuscript from
which it was printed, was in his handwriting. He was seen by several
witnesses
at the Haymarket on the corner of Randolph and Halsted Streets before
eight
o'clock and before he appeared at the gathering of the group he had
called
together at
"About the only thing that I could quote
exact was that at one time he said: "What good are these strikes going
to
do? Do you think that anything will be accomplished by them? Do you
think the
working-men are going to gain their point? No, No, they will not. The
result of
them will be that you will have to go back to work for less money than
you are
getting." That is his language, in effect. x x At one time he mentioned
the name of Jay Gould; there were cries from the crowd; "Hang Jay
Gould;
throw him into the lake," and so on. He said: "No, No, that would not
do any good. If you would hang Jay Gould now,
there would be "another, and perhaps a hundred, up to-morrow. It don't
do
any good to hang one man. You have to kill "them all," or get rid of
"them all." Then he went on to say that it was not the individual
always, but the system; that the government should be destroyed. It was
the
wrong government, and these people who supported it had to be destroyed
en
masse.
The temper of the crowd was extremely
turbulent,
especially after that speech he made about the workingmen not gaining
anything
by the strike, X X The crowd seemed to me to be thoroughly in sympathy
with the
speaker, and applauded almost every utterance."
Tuttle says: "The crowd that was
enthusiastic
was near the wagon or around it, and some were on the north side of the
wagon.
The same parties who had spoken when he
referred
to Gould, I think the same, one of them anyway, because I had my eye on
him for
two or three minutes, two minutes, I should say. I think I could
describe the
men, and would know if I saw him---he stuck up his hand like that
(illustrating), with a revolver in it and said: "We will shoot the
devils," or some such expression. And I saw two others sticking up
their
hands near to him, who made similar expressions, and had what I took to
be at
that time revolvers; but this one man I speak of, I took particular
notice of
him, and remember his appearance and saw his revolver very plainly in
his right
hand; and he grasped it about the center of the weapon and stuck it up
in front
of the speaker."
Cosgrove says: that Parsons talked of
the police
and capitalists and militia and Pinkertons. He says he was down in the
Hocking
Valley region, and said they were only getting 24 cents a day, and that
was
less than Chinamen, and he said: "My friends, you will be worse than
Chinamen, if "you don't arm yourselves", and he said they would be
held responsible for the blood that would flow in the near future.
McKeough testifies: "Parsons, among
other
things, said: "I am a tenant and I pay rent to a landlord. X X X The
landlord pays taxes, the taxes pay the sheriff, the police, the
Pinkerton
knights and the militia that are on duty out at the barracks, who are
ready to
shoot you down when you are looking for your rights. I am a socialist
from the
top of my head to the soles of my feet and I will express my sentiments
if I
die before morning." He said that very strongly and made a great
commotion. That seemed to kind of catch the crowd in the neighborhood
of the
wagon and they let out a great cheer. X X X X I went to the outer edge
of the
crowd. X X The next remark I heard Mr Parsons say, taking off his hat
in one
hand, said he: "To arms, to arms, to arms", three times
distinctly."
English says: "Spies, I think, spoke
fifteen
or twenty minutes: X X X
"Well, now here is an abstract of
Parsons,
and I can't give the exact language when he first started off. It was
about the
workingmen, that the remedy for their
wrongs was in socialism.
"He said, without them they would soon
become
Chinamen. He said, "It is time to raise a note of warning. There is
nothing in the eight-hour movement to excite the capitalist.
"'Don't you know that the military are
under
arms, and a Gatling gun is ready to mow you down? Was this
"There is another part of it here. 'It
behoves you, as you love your wife and children, 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."
Simonson, a witness for the defense,
says of the
speech, made by Parsons: "I remember in his speech he said: "To arms,
to arms, to arms," but in what connection I cannot remember."
There is no dispute about the fact that
Spies
spoke first, Parsons next and Fielden last. It is claimed by the
defense, that
just before Fielden closed his speech, Parsons left the speakers'
wagon, or a wagon standing just north of it, on
account of an appearance of rain, and went to Zepf's Hall, and that he
was in
the saloon at Zepf's Hall when the bomb exploded. Allen one of the
newspaper
reporters, says: "When the bomb was thrown I was in the saloon of
Zepf's
Hall, standing about the middle of the room at the time. I did not see
any of
the defendants there. X X X I am almost certain Parsons was not at
Zepf's Hall.
X X X There was a constant passing to and fro from the
furniture-workers'
meeting upstairs to the meeting over at the Haymarket. I was with Mr.
Malkoff
at Zepf's Hall." Parsons says that, "In a moment or two" after
the explosion, two or three men rushed breathlessly in at the door of
the
saloon and that he "remained there possibly twenty minutes or so."
Knox,
another newspaper reporter, swears, that he had a conversation with
Spies on
the night of May 5th and Spies then said that when the bomb exploded he
ran to
Zepf's Hall and there found a certain party 'waiting for' Parsons.
The statement of Parsons, that he was in
the
saloon at Zepf's Hall when the bomb exploded, is sustained by the
testimony of
Ingram, of Malkoff, a Russian, who on May 5th, 1886, was a reporter for
the Arbeiter
Zeitung and a correspondent of a paper in Moscow, Russua, and had
roomed with Rau
and lived with Schwab; of Brown, a member of the American group who had
attended the meeting at 107 Fifth Avenue on Tuesday night and had been
arrested
by reason of his connection with the Haymarket meeting; and of Wandray,
who had
belonged to the northwest side group for three years before December,
1885.
Two circumstances are to be noted:
First, it can
hardly be said that Parsons was absent from the Haymarket meeting, when
he went
into Zepp's Hall. It has already been stated, that the latter place was
only a
few steps north of the speakers' wagon and in sight from it. Parsons
himself
says that, before he left the wagon he "saw he lights through the
windows
of the hall." From the window of the saloon he was watching the
proceedings around the wagon, when the explosion occurred. He says:
"All
at once, looking directly at the meeting I saw an illumination." Second
he
did not start to Zepp's Hall until five or ten minutes before the
police came
up to the wagon. When he left the wagon for the saloon, Fielden had
just
uttered the words about stabbing and throttling the law, which had so
excited
the crowd as to induce McKeough to go to the
We do not think that the defendant Parsons can escape his share of the responsibility for the explosion at the Haymarket because he stepped into a neighboring saloon and looked at the explosion through the window. While he was speaking, men stood around him with arms in their hands. Many of these men were members
of the armed sections of the
International groups.
Among them were men, who belonged to the 'International Rifles', an
armed
organization, in which he himself was an officer, and with which he had
been
drilling in preparation for the events then transpiring. To the men
then listening
to him, he had addressed the incendiary appeals that had been appearing
in the
Alarm for two years. He had said to them: "One dynamite bomb properly
placed will destroy a regiment of soldiers, a weapon easily made, and
carried
with perfect safety in the pockets of one's clothing." He had said to
them
on Saturday, April 24th, 1886, just ten days before May 4th, 1886, in
the last
issue of the Alarm that had appeared before May 4th: "Workingmen to
arms.
War to the palace, peace to the cottage and death to luxurious
idleness. The
wage system is the only cause of the world's misery. One pound of
dynamite is
better than a bushel of bullets. Make your demand for eight hours with
weapons
in your hands to meet the capitalistic blood-hounds, police and militia
in
proper manner"; and, at the close of another article in the same issue,
he
had also said: "The social war has come and whoever is not with us is
against us."
To many of these same men, then gathered
around
the wagon from which he was speaking, after denouncing the police and
militia
as ready to shoot them down, he took off his hat and cried out: "To
arms!
To arms! To arms!" Within less than an hour after the delivery of this
appeal and on the spot where it was made, persons in the crowd, to
which it was
addressed, attacked the police with bomb and revolver, and Degan was
killed. What is
the law applicable to the state of facts here recited?
"If one purposely excites another to
commit
an offense, as, if he harangues people, inflaming them to a riot, and
the
offense is accordingly committed, he is guilty though he personally
takes no
part in it." (1Bishop on Criminal Law 640)
In reg. v. Sharpe 3 box c.c. 288, Chief
Justice
Wilde, in charging the jury, said:
"If persons are assembled together to
the
number of three or more, and speeches are made to those persons to
excite and
inflame them, with a view to incite them to acts of violence, and if
that same
meeting is so connected in point of circumstances with a subsequent
riot that
you cannot reasonably sever the letter from the incitement that was
used, it
appears to me that these who incited are guilty of the riot, although
they are
not actually present when it occurs. I think it is not the hand that
strikes
the blow or that throws the stone (bomb), that is alone guilty under
such
circumstances; but that he who inflames peoples' minds and induces them
by
violent means to accomplish an illegal object is himself a rioter,
though he
take no part in the riot. It will be a question for the jury whether
the riot
that took place was so connected with the inflammatory language used by
the
defendant that they cannot reasonably be separated by time or other
circumstances."
The jury were warranted in believing from the evidence that the
defendant
Parsons was associated with the man, who threw the bomb, and the men,
who fired the shots at the Haymarket,
in a conspiracy to bring about a social revolution in Chicago by force
on or
about May 1st, 1886, or, in other words, to destroy the police and
militia on
or about that date with bombs and revolvers or rifles. It is well
settled that,
when the fact of a conspiracy is once established, any act of one of
the
conspirators in the prosecution of the enterprise is considered the act
of all.
(Nudd vs. Burrows 91
It makes no difference that Parsons may
not have
been present in the basement of Greif's a Hall when the Monday night
conspiracy
was planned. He belonged to the armed sections, whose representatives
entered
into that conspiracy and was one of the absent members, who were to be
informed
of its provisions. One of those provisions was the holding of a meeting
at the Haymarket.
When he went to that meeting in obedience to a summons from Rau and
there made
an incendiary speech, he joined the others in their execution of the
conspiracy
and thereby became a party to it. "Individuals, who, though not
specifically parties to the killing, are present and consenting to the
assemblage, by whom it is perpetrated, are principals when the killing
is in
pursuance of the common design." (Wharton on Homicide (2) Sec. 201:
Wharton's Am. Law of Homicide pages 345, 346 etc. R. vs.
The plan adopted on Monday night, was
merely a
specific mode of carrying out the more general conspiracy, to which
Parsons and those present on Monday night were all
parties. The adoption of the Monday night plot was the act of those who
were
co-conspirators with Parsons. It was therefore his act. He had advised
the use
of bombs and arms against the police on or about May 1st. The men, who
met Monday
night, merely indicated more specifically the time when and places
where and
mode in which such bombs and arms should be used, so as to be most
effective.
"A man may be guilty of a wrong which he
did
not specifically intend, if it came naturally or even accidentally
through some
other specific or a general evil purpose. When, therefore, persons
combine to
do an unlawful thing, or if the act of one proceeding or growing out of
the
common place terminates in a criminal result, though not the particular
result
meant, all are liable." (1 Bish. Cr. L. 686 and cases cited)
"There might be no special malice
against the
party slain nor deliberate intention to hurt him; but if the fact was
committed
in the prosecution of the original purpose, which was unlawful, the
whole party
will be involved in the guilt of him who gave the blow." (Foster 351
sec.
6). "Where there is a conspiracy to accomplish an unlawful purpose, and
the means are not specifically agreed upon or understood, each
conspirator
becomes responsible for the means used by any co-conspirator in the
accomplishment
of the purpose in which they are all at the time engaged." (State vs.
McCahill 30 N.W.R.) (553.)
He who enters into a combination or
conspiracy to
do such an unlawful act as will probably result in the unlawful taking
of human life, must be presumed to have understood the
consequences, which might reasonably be expected to flow from carrying
it into
effect, and also to have assented to the doing of whatever would
reasonably or
probably be necessary to accomplish the objects of the conspiracy, even
to the
taking of life. (1 Wharton's Crim. Law sec. 225 a (9th Ed.); Brennan et
al vs.
People 15 Ill, 511; Hanna vs. People 86 Ill, 243; Lamb vs. People 96
Ill. 74)
Neebe.
The defendant Neebe, as has already been
stated,
was a member of the North side group, which had resolved "not to meet
the
enemy unarmed on May 1st, 1886." He was one of the stockholders of the
Arbeiter
Zeitung and, next to Spies and Schwab, the most active man in its
management.
He was looked for and found at the Arbeiter Zeitung office in
consultation with
Spies and Schwab during the week prior to May 4th. The testimony of
Gruenhut
shows that Neebe was active in organizing and preparing for the
movements then
going on. He was found in possession of the Arbeiter Zeitung building
after the
arrest of Spies and Schwab and announced himself as the person, who had
charge
of the office. He stated to the officers that a package of dynamite,
which they
found in a closet on one of the floors of the building, was something
for
"cleaning type." There were found at his house on May 7th a red flag,
a sword, a breech-loading gun and a 38 calibre Colt's revolver, five
chambers
of which had been fired; one chamber was loaded with a cartridge and
one had a
shell in it. He is shown to have presided at meetings where the use of
arms and dynamite against the
police was advocated. On Monday night, May 3rd, 1886, he was seen
distributing
the "Revenge" circulars. He took a package of them into a saloon at
the corner of Franklin and Division streets on that night between nine
and ten
o'clock and placed some on the counter and some on the tables, while
seven or
eight persons were present. He stated there, that the circulars had
just then
been printed. He exhibited anger to toward police, and said, in
reference to
the riot of that afternoon: "It is a shame that the police act that
way,
but maybe the time comes that it goes the other way- that they get the
chance,
too."
When a man, as prominently connected as
Neebe was
with the International organization and its organ and leaders, was
proven to
have been engaged late on the night before the Haymarket murder in
distributing
an inflammatory circular calling upon ignorant workingmen to arm
themselves and
avenge the act of the police in quelling a riotous disturbance, we
cannot say
that the jury were not justified in holding him responsible, along with
his
confederates, for the murder on Tuesday night of one of the very
policemen,
whose death he was urging and advocating on Monday night. We do not
think that
the trial court erred in refusing the instructions asked on his behalf.
Various errors are assigned upon the
record. These
errors relate to the evidence introduced, the instruction given and the
impaneling
of the jury.
It is claimed that the trial admitted
improper
testimony. The news-papers articles and the speeches, already referred
to, are
complained of as having been improperly received in evidence.
We think there was no error in admitting
them for
the following reasons:
1st, the International Association in
Chicago, as
above described, was an illegal organization engaged in making bombs
and
drilling with arms for the unlawful purpose of attacking the police if
the
later should assume to do their drill in the protection of the public
peace.
Its members were conspirators, and by their act of conspiring together,
they
"jointly assumed to themselves, as a body, the attribute of
individuality,
so far as regards the prosecution of the common design." greenl. On ev.
Sec. 93.() the papers which published the articles in question were the
organs
of their conspiracy. The men who made the speeches in question, were
its
spokesmen and mouthpiece. Hence the utterances of these papers and
speakers
were competent evidence as showing the purposes and intentions of the
conspiracy which they represented.
2nd Spies, Schwab, Parsons and Engel
were
responsible for the articles written and published by them as above
shown.
Spies, Schwab, Fielden, Parsons and Engel were responsible for the
speeches
made by them respectively. As against these defendants the articles and
speeches in question were properly introduced in evidence, not because
they
gave general advice to commit murder, but because they advises and
encouraged a particular class in Chicago, to wit: the members of the
international groups and such other workingmen as could be persuaded to
join
them "to arm themselves with guns, revolvers and dynamite," and kill
another particular class in Chicago, to wit: the police at a particular
time to
wit: about May 1st. 1886. There is evidence in the record tending to
show, that
the death of Degan occurred during the prosecution of a conspiracy
planned by
members of the international groups, who read these articles and heard
these
speeches. How far the formation and execution of this conspiracy may
have been
aided and encouraged by the printed and spoken utterances of the
particular
defendants here named was a proper matter for the jury to consider in
the light
of all the other circumstances developed by the testimony in this case.
3rd, the evidence objected to was
properly
introduced against all the dependants where the conspiracy is once
established.
Every act and declaration of each member in furtherance of the common
design is
in contemplation of law, the act and declaration of all the members,
and is
therefore original evidence against each of them. "it makes no
difference
at what time any one entered into the conspiracy". (1 green'l on ev.
Sec.
111). All the defendants in this case are proven to have belonged to
the
illegal organization above specified. Hence they were all
co-conspirators. The
speeches and newspaper articles here under consideration were in
furtherance of
the common design. Being the acts and declaration of some of the
conspirators
they were the acts and declarations of all of them. It is not necessary
to
hold, that the conviction of the defendants in this case is to stand
merely
because they made speeches and published articles advising the
murder of the police, such conviction is sustained because there is
evidence in
the record from which the jury were warranted in believing that the
defendants
advised, encouraged, aided and abetted the perpetration of the crime,
committed
at the Haymarket. When they combined or conspired together, with a view
of
bringing about that crime, and became united in a common plan for its
commission, then the acts and declaration of any one of them, which had
the
effect of advising, encouraging, aiding and abetting its perpetration
were the
acts and declarations of all.
We do not agree with the position of
counsel that
the general conspiracy here in before described and the plot of Monday
night,
May 3rd, 1886, were two separate conspiracies. The later was merely the
outgrowth and culmination of the former. The latter merely designated
the
particular mode in which the objects of the former where to be
effected. It was
competent to show the acts and declarations of the parties to the
general
conspiracy which preceded and led up to the formation of the special
plot May 3rd, with a view of understanding
the
latter.
The defendants were engaged in a series
of efforts
to increase the international groups by accessions from the workingmen,
and to
educate and discipline those groups in the making of bombs and in the
use of firearms,
so as to prepare them for a conflict, with the police when the eight
hour
excitement should reach its height. Among these effors were the
speeches made
and the publications issued as hereinbefore stated. The Monday night
conspiracy
was the product of these efforts, and could only be understood by
showing their
nature and character. These views are sustained by the following
authorities:
The circulation of this treatise was an
act of the
illegal organization, to which all the defendants belonged, and was one
of the
methods by which that organization instructed and advised its members
to get
ready for the murder of the police during the eight hour excitement.
Its
distribution among the members of the international groups at their
picnics and
meetings through the agent of the International Association is proven
beyond
controversy. The newspaper organs commended it and quoted from it and
advertised it without charge. Linng and Fischer read it and acted upon
the suggestions contained in it.
When the leaders of the organization thus made use of this treatise.
They
adopted it as a manual of tactics, and it became a book of their
written advice
and instructions to their followers. It was competent testimony as
showing the
purposes and objects which they had in view, and the methods, by which,
they
proposed to accomplish those objects. When the newspapers organs
commenced its
study to their readers they made its suggestions a part of its own
advice to
those readers. The efforts of the defendants who controlled these
organs to put
this pamphlet into the hands of the members of the international groups
were
acts and declarations in furtherance of the conspiracy and were binding
upon
the other defendants.
It is also assigned as error, that the
trial court
admitted in evidence a letter, written to the defendants Spies in 1884
by
Johnann most, the author of the treatise above referred to. The letter
is set
out in the statement which prefaces this opinion.
The defendant Spies took the stand as a
witness
for the defense. Upon his cross-examination the prosecution produced
the letter
in question, examined him in reference to it and then offered it in
evidence
and it was admitted.
The main objection is that after the
arrest of Spies
certain effects of his, including this letter, were seized by the
police in the
Arbeiter Zeitung office without a search warrant or other legal
process, that
such seizure was in violation of the United states and Illinois
constitutions and that
the admission of the letter "was" in the language of counsel for
plaintiffs in error, "improper as being in effect a compelling of the
plaintiffs in error to give testimony against themselves contrary to
the
provision of the Fifth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and to the
Federal
Constitution and to the provision of Article 2 of our Constitutions of
1870" in other words, the introduction of the letter is objected to in
this court, as having been in contravention of the principles laid down
by the
supreme court of the United States in Boyd vs. The United States 116 U.
S. 616.
In that case, an act of congress authorizing the federal courts to
require
parties charged with violations of the revenue laws to produce their
books
invoices and papers for inspection and for use in evidence against
themselves,
was declared to be unconstitutional. In the case at bar, the defendants
were
not required to produce the letter: the state had the letter and
produced it.
We will not attempt however to draw any distinction between this case
and the Boyd
case. We do not think that the record is in such shape as to permit
counsel to
make the point urged by them before this court.
In the first place, it is not clear from
the
testimony that the letter from most was seized by the police in the
manner
suggested. Early in the trial two police officers, testifying for the
prosecution, stated that on May 5th, 1886 they took possession of a
number of
articles found in the office of the Arbeiter Zeitung newspaper, among
which were
certain letters lying on the desk occupied by Spies, and certain other
letters
in the drawer of the desk. But it nowhere appears in the record so far
as we
can find, that this particular letter from most to Spies, introduced
near the
close of the trial, was among the letters so taken from the top of
Spies desk
or among those taken from the drawer of it. For aught that appears to
the
contrary, this letter may not have come to the hands of the state
through the
alleged illegal seizure complained of, but may have been obtained in
some other
proper and legitimate manner. We cannot infer, that because certain
letters
were seized by the police, the most letter must have been one of them.
On the trial below counsel for the
defense took
the position that the letter was not found in the possession of Spies,
we find
the following statement in the record of what occurred, when the trial
judge
passed upon the offer to introduce the letter "the court xxx":
"letters which have never been in the possession of the defendant
cannot
be admissible in evidence against him." Mr. Black: there is no evidence
in
this case that the letter was found in his possession. The court": he
says
he received it. This brings us to the second reason why the point now
under
consideration cannot be made here.
The objection that the letter was
obtained from
the defendant by an unlawful seizure, is made for the first time in
this court.
It was not made on the trial in the court below. Such an objection as
this,
which is not suggested, by the nature of the offered evidence, but
depends
upon the proof of an outside fact, should have been made on the trial.
The
defense should have proved that the Most letter was one of the letters
illegally seized by the police and should then have moved to exclude it
or
opposed its admission on the ground that it was obtained by such
illegal
seizure. This was not done, and, therefore we cannot consider the
constitutional question supposed to be involved.
The only objections made to the Most
letter, which
we find in the record, were; 1st- that it was not proper cross
examination; 2nd
that it had not been answered by Spies.
The defendant Spies on his direct
examination had
explained his possession of two bombs with iron shells by saying that
an
unknown person who claimed to be a shoe maker named Schwab, and to be
on his
way from Cleveland to New Zealand, had called at the Arbeiter Zeitung
office,
and, asking Spies if he had seen one of the bombs "they" were making,
had left the two iron shells, saying "he would not take them along."
Spies also testified, that a stranger had called at the office in his
absence
and left two "Czar" bombs on his desk, stating to the book-keeper or
office boy that he came merely to "enquire whether those were bombs of
a
good construction, and the man never called for them." He further
testified that he procured the cartridges of dynamite and coils of fuse
and
detonating caps found in his office for the mere purpose of
experimenting
without explaining why he wanted to experiment. He stated that he
showed these
things or some of them to the reporters, who swear to having seen them
there,
merely to give them something sensational to write about in their
papers.
The Most letter and the questions about
its
contents were proper subjects for cross-examination because they tended
to test
the sincerity of the claim made by him on his direct examination that
he had no
serious object in view in keeping the dynamite, and other articles,
which he
had on hand. That letter shows on its face that some communication or
message
had passed between Spies and Most as to a "letter from the
The second objection to the letter was
that it was
unanswered, and therefore inadmissible on the ground that a letter
written to a
party by a third person to which no reply is made, does not show an
acquiescence in the facts stated in it. As we understand the evidence
of the
defendant Spies he admits that this letter is in the handwriting of
Most and
that he received it from Most and read it. He does not say that he did
not
answer it, but that he does not remember whether he answered it or not.
We do
not think however, that it can be regarded as an unanswered letter. To
all
intents and purposes it was answered, Spies swears that he did not
himself give
the directions asked for by Most in the letter as to shipping the
'medicine' or
'genuine article.' but he a also says: "There may have been a letter
addressed to my care which I may have sent to him." If he procured a
third
person to write a letter, giving directions how to ship material to the
point indicated, and then enclosed this letter to
Most, he, in effect, answered the only portion of Most's letter which
required
an answer. Moreover, the letter shows in its opening sentences that it
was
"invited" by Spies, (Wharton's Criminal Evidence (9th Ed) Secs. 644
and 682) and that it was written in response to some former
communication by
him.
It is also objected, that the
cross-examination of
those of the defendants, who took the stand, compelled them to give
evidence
against themselves. After a careful examination of the testimony of
these
defendants as set out in the record, we cannot see that they were cross
examined upon any subject not connected with the direct examination. If
a
defendant offers himself as a witness to disprove a criminal charge, he
cannot
excuse himself from answering on the ground that, by so doing, he may
criminate
himself.
"So far as concerns questions touching
the
merits, the defendant by making himself a witness as to the offense,
waives his
privileges as to all matters connected with the offense.
It has been ruled also that, to affect
his
credibility, he may be asked whether x x x x x he has been concerned in
other
crimes, part of the same system." (Whar. Crim. Ev. Sec 432.)
Objection is also made, that certain
articles,
which had been struck and torn and otherwise injured through the
explosion of
the Haymarket bomb and also through the explosion, by way of
experiment, of
certain bombs made by the defendant Linng,were improperly introduced
before the jury. It was the claim of the
International Association and its organs and speakers constantly put
forth by
them to the workingmen to induce the latter to join the movement
against the
police and militia, that a Dynamite bomb in the hands of one man was
equal in
destructive power to a regiment of soldiers, armed with rifles. The
articles in
question were presented in the condition in which they were left after
being
exposed to the force of an exploding bomb, for the purpose of showing
the power
of dynamite as an explosive substance. While this kind of testimony may
not
have been very material, we cannot see that it was to such an extent
incompetent as to justify a reversal.
It is also objected that the trial court
allowed
bombs and cans containing dynamite and prepared with contrivances for
exploding
it, which had been found under sidewalks and buried in the ground at
certain
points in the city, to be introduced in evidence.
Among these were the bombs hidden by
Linng and Seliger
under the sidewalk on Sigel street, and those given by Linng to Lehmann
and
buried by Lehmann near Ogden Grove, and those given by Linng to Thielen
and
found upon the latter's premises.
As specimens of the kind of weapons,
which Linng
and his associates were preparing, and as showing the malice and evil
heart,
which the intended use of such weapons indicated, the introduction of
bombs
made by him was not improper. The jury had a right to see them and
compare
their structure with the descriptions of the bomb that killed Degan,
with a
view of determining whether Linng was the maker of the latter or not.
As to the fact, that some of
those bombs and caps, like those shown to the American group during
their
drill, were found buried near Wicker Park-- one of the designated
meeting
places where certain of the armed men were to gather on Tuesday night--
this
was a circumstance proper to be considered by the jury in determining
the
nature and character of the conspiracy and its connection with the
events of
Tuesday night. As to the suggestion, that these things may have been
placed
where they were found, by other parties than those connected with the
conspiracy herein described, it was for the jury to say, whether, under
all the
circumstances, any others than the members of that conspiracy had
undertaken to
make such weapons or knew anything about them.
It is again urged as error, that a
witness on the
part of the State, for whom Schnaubelt had been working, was allowed to
testify
that the latter cut off his beard a few days after the night of May
4th. In the
photograph that has been referred to he had a beard.
Gilmer swore that Schnaubelt had a
beard, when the
bomb was thrown. To explain the fact that he was seen without a heard
after the
Haymarket meeting, it was shown that he cut off his beard subsequently
to the
date of that meeting. The statement made by the witness was merely for
the
purpose of identification. It was not very important and we cannot see
that it
did any harm.
It is also objected, that some testimony
was
admitted as to conversations with the defendant Spies which were merely
narrative of what had been or would be done. It is
undoubtedly the law, that, after a conspiracy is established, only
those
declarations of each member, which are in furtherance of the common
design, can
be introduced in evidence against the other members.
Declarations that are merely narrative
as to what
has been done or will be done are incompetent and should not be
admitted except
as against the making them, or in whose presence they are made. The
utterances
of the defendant Spies, whether in his paper, his speeches or his
conversations, were in furtherance of the purposes and objects of the
conspiracy in which he was engaged.
If testimony as to expressions used by
him, that
are not of the character here indicated, has crept into the record, it
is so
inconsiderable that it could not have in any way injured the other
defendants.
We think this point was sufficiently guarded by the trial judge in his
rulings
and in his instructions.
A further objection is made as to the
order, in
which the trial court permitted certain portions of the evidence to be
introduced. It is claimed that some of the acts and declarations,
proven in the
case, were allowed to come in before proof was made of the conspiracy
or of the
connection of the defendants with it. This matter is largely
discretionary with
the trial judge.
The proof of conspiracy, which will
authorize the
introduction of evidence as to the acts and declarations of the
co-conspirators
may be such proof only as is sufficient in the opinion of the trial
judge, to
establish prima facie the fact of conspiracy between the parties, or
proper to be laid before the jury, as
tending to establish such fact. (1 Greenl on Ev Sec 111). Sometimes for
the
sake of convenience the acts or declarations of one are admitted in
evidence
before sufficient proof is given of the conspiracy; the prosecutor
undertaking
to furnish such proof in a subsequent stage of the cause. (idem)
The rule, that the conspiracy must be
first
established prima facie, before the acts and declarations of one
conspirator
can be received in evidence against another, cannot well be enforced
"where the proof of the conspiracy depends upon a vast amount of
circumstantial evidence, a vast number of isolated and independent
facts; and,
in any case, where such acts and declarations are introduced in
evidence, and
the whole of the evidence introduced on the trial, taken together,
shows that
such a conspiracy actually exists, it will be considered immaterial
whether the
conspiracy was established before or after the introduction of such
acts and
declarations." (State v Winn 17 Kan 298).
The prosecutor may either prove the
conspiracy
which renders the acts of the conspirators admissible in evidence, or
he may
prove the acts of the different persons, and thus prove the conspiracy.
(Roscoe's Crim Ev page 415 (7th Ed)).
In many important cases evidence has
been given of
a general conspiracy, before any proof of the particular part which the
accused
parties have taken. (idem) In some peculiar instances, in which it
would be
difficult to establish the defendant's privity without first proving
the existence of a
conspiracy, a deviation has been made from the general rule, and
evidence of
the acts and conduct of others has been admitted to prove the existence
of a
conspiracy previous to the proof of the defendant's privity. (Roscoe's
Crim Ev
page 414).
The term "acts" as here used includes written correspondence and other papers relative to the main design. (1 Green on Ev sec 111)
Many other objections to different items
of
testimony are insisted upon by counsel for the defense. We have noticed
those,
which have seemed to us to be the most important. Any further comment
would
swell this opinion, already of inordinate length, into still more
tiresome
proportions. Taking the whole record together we are unable to see,
that the
lower Court committed any such errors, either in the admission or
exclusion of
evidence, as prejudiced the rights of the defendants.
The second class of errors assigned
relates to the
giving and refusal of Instructions.
First, the instructions, numbered 4 and
5 1-2,
which were given for the State, are claimed to be erroneous because
they did
not require the prosecution to establish the identity of the
bomb-thrower. The
fourth instruction told the jury that, upon a given state of facts,
certain
members of the conspiracy mentioned would be guilty of murder, "whether
the identity of the person throwing the bomb be established or not,"
Instruction No 5 1-2 said; "All of such conspirators are guilty of such
murder whether the person, who perpetrated each murder, can be
identified or
not" &c. The identity here intended had reference to name or
personal
description. The jury were expressly required by the fourth instruction
to find
from the evidence, that the person throwing the bomb was at the time a
member
of the conspiracy to unlawfully resist the officers of the law, and
that he
threw the bomb "in pursuance of such conspiracy and in furtherance of
the
common object."
The theory of the fourth instruction
was, that the
bomb thrower was sufficiently identified if he belonged to the
conspiracy, and
if he threw the bomb to carry out the conspiracy and further its
designs, even
though his name and personal description were not known. We do not
think that
this theory was an erroneous one.
Counsel for plaintiffs in error say,
that
"membership in the supposed conspiracy could not be proved without some
evidence of identification." In the first place, some of the counts in
the
indictment charged, that Rudolph Schnaubelt threw the bomb. Evidence
was introduced
tending to support these counts. If the jury believed it, they must
have found
that the crime was committed by a member of the conspiracy, the proof
as to
Schnaubelt's membership in it being uncontradicted.
In the next place some of the counts in
the
indictment charged that the bomb was thrown by an unknown person. All
the proof
introduced by the defendants themselves, tending to show that
Schnaubelt did
not throw the bomb, tended also to prove that an unknown person threw
it. If
the jury believed the evidence of the defense upon this subject, they
had
before them other testimony from which they were justified in
believing, that
the bomb thrower, though unknown by name or personal description, was a
member
of the conspiracy and acting in furtherance of its objects. This
testimony
introduced by the state tended to show that the bomb-thrower
threw a bomb made on Tuesday
afternoon by Linng, the agent of the conspiracy; that he obtained it
from a
place where only a member of the conspiracy could have obtained it, and
at a
time when no one but such a member would have sought to obtain it; that
he
threw it at a meeting appointed by the conspiracy, from the midst of a
company
of persons belonging to the conspiracy, upon the happening of a
contingency
provided for by the conspiracy, and as part of an attack planned by the
conspiracy. These and other circumstances already spoken of, were
sufficient to
establish his membership.
It is a mistake to assume that a
defendant cannot
be charged with advising, encouraging, aiding and abetting an unknown
principal
in the perpetration of a crime. Suppose that A instructs B to hire some
person
to kill C. B hires a person, whose name is unknown to A and never
becomes known
to the State, and that person kills C in pursuance of B's employment.
Will it
be said that A is not guilty as an accessory before the fact, because
the
instrument employed by B is unknown by name or personal description?
Archbold
says that if the principal felon be unknown, the indictment of the
accessory
may state it accordingly, (Pr & Pl Vol 1, p 67) It is also held,
that if
the principal is declared to be unknown in the indictment, and the
proof on the
trial shows that he is known, there is a fatal variance. (Rex vs Walker
3 Camp.
264; Rex vs Blick 4 C & P 377).
But where there are two separate counts
one
charging the principal to be known, and the other charging
him to be unknown, it is sufficient if either is proven. (Whart Crim
Law Vol 1,
Secs 207, 225, 226 and 231; Bishop C. L. Vol 1, Secs 651 and 677; Reg v
Tyler 8
C & P 616; State vs Green 26 S.C. 103 128; Pilger v Com 112 Penn St
220;
Brennan vs People 15 111 516; Baxter vs People 3 Gilm 368; Ritzman vs
People
110 111, 362). The objection, that the instructions on behalf of the
State are
faulty in not requiring the principal in the commission of the crime
charged to
be identified, is not well taken.
Counsel for plaintiffs in error make the
general objection
that the instructions for the State were at variance with the proof
introduced
by the State. If we understand the meaning of this objection, it is
this: that,
some of the counts in the indictment having charged the defendants with
advising, encouraging, aiding and abetting Schnaubelt in the
perpetration of
the crime, and the State having introduced testimony to show that
Schnaubelt
did perpetrate the crime, therefore the instructions should have
directed the
attention of the jury solely and exclusively to the theory that
Schnaubelt was
the perpetrator of the crime, and that such instructions were erroneous
in
having called the attention of the jury to the theory that an unknown
person
may have been the perpetrator of the crime, notwithstanding the fact
that some
of the counts charged the defendants with advising, encouraging, aiding
and
abetting an unknown person in the commission of the crime, and
notwithstanding the fact that
there was evidence in the record tending to show that the perpetrator
of the
crime was an unknown person. We regard this position as wholly
untenable.
Under our statute and the construction
given to it
by the decisions of this Court (Baxter v People 3 Gilm 368 and other
cases) the
man, who, "not being present aiding, abetting or assisting, hath
advised,
encouraged, aided or abetted the perpetration of the crime" may be
considered as the principal in the commission of the crime, may be
indicted as
principal and may be punished as principal. The indictment need not say
anything about his having aided and abetted either a known principal or
an
unknown principal. It may simply charge him with having committed the
murder as
principal. Then, if, upon the trial, the proof shows, that he aided,
abetted,
assisted, advised or encouraged the perpetration of the crime, the
charge, that
he committed it as principal, is established against him. It would make
no
difference, whether the proof showed, that he so aided and abetted
&c a
known principal or an unknown principal.
In the case at bar, some of the counts
in the
indictment charge the defendants with the murder of Degan, as
principals and
not as accessories before the fact. If the jury believed from the
evidence that
the defendants aided, abetted advised or encouraged the perpetration of
such
murder, then they were justified in finding the defendants guilty as
principals, as charged in the indictment.
The material question for them to
consider was not
so much whether the man, who threw the bomb, was a known person or an
unknown
person, as whether these defendants aided, abetted, advised or
encouraged the
throwing of the bomb.
The instructions commented upon and not
fully
quoted in this opinion, are set out in the statement, which precedes
it. They
will not be here quoted, except so far as may be necessary to
understand the
comments made upon them.
The portion of the fifth instruction for
the
State, which is complained of by the plaintiffs in error, is found in
the
following words: "Although the jury may further believe from the
evidence
that the time and place for the bringing about of such revolution or
the
destruction of such authorities had not been definitely agreed upon by
the
conspirators, but was left to them and the exigencies of time or to the
judgment of any of the conspirators."
It is said, that there was no evidence
in the
record to support the hypothesis contained in the quotation here made.
We think
there was such evidence. The hypothesis is, that the time and place for
bringing about the destruction of the authorities was left to the
judgment of
some of the conspirators, instead of being definitely agreed upon by
all of
them. The publication of the word "Ruhe" in the Arbeiter Zeitung was
to indicate the time for the social revolution to begin and for the
armed men
to gather at their meeting-places. Its publication was left to the
judgment and discretion of a committee appointed by the
conspirators. This committee was also to report to the armed men at
what place
the conflict with the police had occurred.
Counsel for plaintiffs in error claim,
that
instruction No. 5 1-2, given for the State, was erroneous mainly for
the
following reasons, to wit: 1st, "because it assumes that mere general
advice to the public at large to commit deeds of violence, as contained
in
speeches or publications, without reference to the particular crime
charged and
without specifying object, manner, time or place, works responsibility
as for
murder"--2nd.--because in it "there was the fatal error of an
omission of all reference to the evidence", or, in other words, that
"the jury are not told in it that if they find from the evidence so and
so, then they can conclude thus and so."
As to the last objection, we think that
the defect
therein indicated was cured by the instruction, which the trial Judge
gave to
the jury sua motu. We have held that a Judge of the X Circuit Court is
at
liberty to instruct at his discretion if he reduces his instructions to
writing, so that the jury can take them with them in considering their
verdict.
(Brown vs People 4 Gilm 439; Green vs Lewis 13 Ill 642) In this case,
the
Judge, who presided at the trial in the Court below, himself wrote an
instruction and read it to the Jury, which contained the following
words:
"What are the facts and what is the
truth the
Jury must determine from the evidence and from that alone. If there are
any unguarded expressions in any of the instructions,
which seem to assume the existence of any facts, or to be any
intimation as to
what is proved, all such expressions must be disregarded and the
evidence only
looked to determine the facts." It is difficult to see how, after such
a
clear and explicit injunction as this, the jury could have made any
finding,
that was not based on the evidence.
As to the first objection, if we
construed the
instruction to mean what counsel claim it to mean, we would be forced
to agree
with them, that it was erroneous.
It is the duty, of the jury to consider
all the
instructions together, and when this Court can see that an instruction
in the
series, although not stating the law correctly, is qualified by others,
so that
the jury were not likely to be misled, the error will be obviated.
(Toledo W.
& W.R.W. Co vs Ingraham 77 Ill, 309)
Although an instruction, considered by
itself, is
too general, yet if it is properly limited by others given on the other
side,
so that it is not probable it could have misled the jury, judgment will
not be
reversed on account of such instruction. (
The Supreme Court of Iowa has said: "It
is
usually not practicable, in any one instruction, to present all the
limitations
and restrictions of which it is susceptible. These very frequently must
be
presented in other and distinct portions of the charge. The charge must
be taken together, and,
if, when so considered, it fairly presents the law and is not liable to
misapprehension nor calculated to mislead, a cause should not be
reversed
simply because some one of the instructions may lay down the law
without
sufficient qualification." (Rice vs City of Des Moines 40 Iowa 638).
The same court held in a criminal case,
where the
indictment was for murder, that "instructions are all to be considered
and
construed together," and that an omission to state the law fully in one
instruction, where the omission is fully supplied in another, does not
constitute error.
The supreme court of
The principle here announced, that an
instruction,
which is general in its character, may be limited or qualified by other
instructions in the series, does not contravene the rule, that, in a
criminal
case "material error in one instruction calculated to mislead is not
cured
by a subsequent contradictory instruction" |Whar, Cr, Pl. & pr.
8th.Ed.Sec. 793.|
An application of the foregoing views to
the
instruction now under consideration will show that it could not have
misled the
jury to the prejudice of the defendants.
Counsel contend, that the language of
instruction
no. 5-1/2 was broad enough to lead the jury to believe, that, if, some
person
other than either of the plaintiffs in error had advised and encouraged
the
commission of the murder and the murder had been committed by reason of
his
advice and encouragement, the plaintiffs in error would be guilty,
provided
such person was a party with then to the conspiracy to excite crime
etc. The instructions
for the defense however, limited the responsibility of the defendants
to such
advice and encouragement as were given by themselves alone.
In one instruction given for the
defense, the
court charged the jury as follows; "unless the prosecution has
established
in the minds of the jury, beyond all reasonable doubt, that either some
of the
defendants threw the said bomb, or that the person, who did so throw
the same,
was acting under the advice and procurement of defendants or some of
them, the
defendants and all of them should be acquitted."
In another instruction given for the
defense the
court said; "it will not do to guess away the lives or liberties of our
citizens nor is it proper that the jury should guess that the person,
who threw
the bomb which killed Degan, was instigated to do the act by the
procurement of
defendants or any of them. That fact must be established beyond all
reasonable
doubt in the minds of the jury" etc.
In still another instruction for the
defense the
court said; "therefore the jury must be satisfied beyond all reasonable
doubt that the person throwing said bomb was acting as the result of
the
teaching or encouragement of defendants or some of them, before
defendants can
be held liable therefore, and this you must find from the evidence."
Counsel also claims, that the
instruction now
under consideration may be construed to mean, that mere general advice,
in
[xxxx] by speech, addressed to the public at large, urging them to
commit deeds of violence, works responsibility
for murder. If the instruction was too general in this regard, it was
limited
and qualified by other instructions given for the defendants.
In an instruction given for the defense
the court
said to the jury; "it will not do to say that, because defendants may
have
advised violence, that, therefore when violence came, it was the result
of such
advice,. There must be a direct connection established by credible
testimony
between the advice and the consummation of the crime, to the
satisfaction of
the jury beyond all reasonable doubt."
In another instruction for the defense
-- and all
the instructions for the defense were prepared by the defendants
themselves and
the giving of them was asked by the defendants-- the court said;
"before
party can be lawfully convicted of the commission of a crime under our
statute
concerning accessories, it is incumbent on the prosecution to show
beyond all
reasonable doubt, by credible evidence, that the crime was committed by
some
persons or person acting under the advice, aid, encouragement, abetting
or
procurement of the defendant or defendants, whose conviction is asked.
Though
the jury should believe from the evidence, that a party in fact advised
generally
the commission, in certain contingencies, of acts amounting to crime,
yet if
the act complained of was in fact committed by some third party of his
own mere
volition, hatred, malice or ill-will, and not materially influenced,
either
directly or indirectly, by such advice of the party charged or if he
was actuated only by the advice of other
parties not charged, and for whose advice the defendants are not
responsible,
the party charged would not in such case be responsible."
In another instruction for the defense,
the court
said; "although the defendants or some of them may have spoken and also
published their views to the effect that a social revolution should be
brought
about by force, and that the officers of the law should be resisted,
and, to
this end, dynamite should be used to the extent of taking human life,
that
persons should arm to resist the law, that the law should be throttled
and killed;
and although such language might cause persons to desire to carry out
the
advice given as aforesaid and do the act which caused officer Degan's
death,
yet the bomb may have been thrown and Degan killed by some one
unfamiliar with
and unprompted by the teachings of defendants or any of them.
Therefore, the
jury must be satisfied, beyond all reasonable doubt that the persons
throwing
said bomb was acting as the result of the teaching or encouragement of
defendants" etc.
The instruction last quoted, which was
drawn by
the counsel for the defense and given at their request, recognizes and
admits
the claim, that advising, encouraging, aiding and abetting murder,
within the
meaning of our statute, may be effected through the utterance of such
speeches
and the publication of such articles as have been heretofore referred
to. The
only thing insisted upon in the instruction is, that the proof must
show,
clearly and beyond a reasonable doubt, the connection between the
speeches and publications as the cause, and the murder as the result.
The last instruction given for the
defendants
limited the instructions, having reference to general advice to commit
murder
or general conspiracy to commit murder, by calling the attention of the
jury
specifically to the Monday night plot. It was as follows: "if the jury
find that on the evening of May 3rd. At 54 West Lake St, at a meeting
at which
some of the defendants were present, a proposition was adopted, that in
the
event of a collision between the police force, militia or firemen on
one side,
and the striking laborers on the other, it was agreed, that certain
organization of which some of the defendants were members, should meet
at
certain designated places in the city of Chicago. That a committee
should
attend public places and public meeting where an attack by the police
and
others might be expected, and in the event of such an attack being
made, report
the same to said armed sections, as aforesaid, to the end that such
attack
might be resisted and the police stations of the city destroyed, and if
the
jury further find that, on the night of May 4th, some person unknown
went to a
meeting at the Haymarket and threw a bomb into the assembled police,
the
explosion of which killed Mathias J. Degan and that from all the
evidence in
the case the jury are not satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt, that
said act
causing the death of said Degan was the result of any act in
furtherance of the
common design as herein stated, but may have been the unauthorized
and
the individual act of some person acting upon his
own responsibility and volition, then none of the defendants can be
held
responsible therefore on account of said West Lake St. meeting".
But instruction no. 5-1/2 will not be
found to be
so general in character, as it is claimed to be, if its language is
carefully
analyzed and considered in connection with other instructions given for
the
state.
The persons referred to therein as being
excited
to tumult and riot and to the use of deadly weapons and to the taking
of life,
are "the people or classes of people of this city." the expression is
in the alternative. "classes of people of this city" are words which,
when construed in the light of the evidence in this record, could only
have
been understood to designate workingmen of the city of
The words "without designating time,
place or
occasion" must be taken the man, who threw the bomb that killed
Degan.with
the qualification given to them in the fifth instruction, that is to
say, such
time, place and occasion as the committee of the conspirators appointed
for
that purpose might designate.
According to the theory of this
instruction, the defendants
conspired to excite certain classes to tumult, riot, use of weapons and
taking
of life, "as a means to carry their designs and purposes into
effect". The instruction does not specify what those designs and
purposes
are, because they had been stated in the two preceding instructions to
be the
bringing about of a social revolution and the destruction of the
authorities of
the city. The ordinary workingmen had two purposes in view, first, to
get an
eight hour day of labor, second, to keep the police from interfering to
protect
non-union laborers against strikers. The defendants in this case cared
nothing
about the eight hour movement or the contentions between union and
non-union
men. They looked beyond to the social revolution. They sought to make
use of
the excitement among the workingmen over the eight hour movement and
over the
attacks of police upon strikers, in order to create riot and tumult and
thus
precipitate the social revolution. The stirring up of riot and tumult
was with
them a means to an end. There is testimony tending to support this
view. The men who excited
the tumult and riot by print and speech, may have had a different end
in view
from that sought by the classes whom they so excited. But they were
none the
less responsible for murder that resulted from their aid and
encouragement.
If the defendants, as a means of
bringing about
the social revolution and as a part of the larger conspiracy to effect
such
revolution, also conspired to excite classes of workingmen in Chicago
into
sedition, tumult and riot and to the use of deadly weapons and the
taking, of
human life and for the purpose of producing such tumult, riot, use of
weapons
and taking of life, advised and encouraged such classes by newspaper
articles
and speeches to murder the authorities of the city, and a murder of a
policeman
resulted from such advice and encouragement, then defendants are
responsible therefore.
It is a familiar doctrine of the law, in
criminal
cases, that, if a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the prisoner is
entertained,
the jury have no discretion but must acquit. The twelfth and thirteenth
instructions for the prosecution are objected to as not correctly
stating to
the jury the meaning of "reasonable doubt". The twelfth instruction
is an exact copy, verbatim et literatim, of the sixth instruction in
Miller et
al vs. The People 39 Ills. 457, which we approved in that case, and
which, since
that case, we have endorsed as correct in at least three cases, to-wit:
May vs.
The People 60 Ills. 119, Connaghan vs. The People 88
The portion of the thirteenth
instruction, which
plaintiffs in error complain of, is that which is contained in the
following
words: "You are not at liberty to disbelieve as jurors if from the
evidence, you believe as men". This expression has been sanctioned by
the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as having been properly used in an
instruction
given to the jury by a trial Judge and we are inclined to follow the
ruling
there laid down. That Court said in Nevling vs.
By the 12th and 13th instructions,
considered in
connection with the 11th instruction for the State and also in
connection with
the definitions of reasonable doubt as embodied in the instructions
given for
the defense, we think the law upon this subject was correctly presented
to the
jury.
The statute of this State provides that
"Juries in all criminal cases shall be judges of the law and fact."
Instruction No. 13 1-2 given for the prosecution, is objected to as
improperly
limiting and qualifying this provision of the statute. It tells the
jury, that
"if they can say upon their oaths that they know the law better than
the
court itself, they have the right to do so" x x x x but that "before
saying this upon their oaths, it is their duty to reflect whether from
their
study and experience they are better qualified to judge of the
law than the
Court" etc.
The language of instruction No. 13 1-2
is an exact
copy verbatim et literatim, of the language used by this Court in
Schnier vs.
The People 23
It is also claimed that the Court erred
in
refusing to give certain instructions asked by the defendants. The
refusal of
refused instructions numbered 3, 8, 9, 11 and 18 is especially insisted
upon as
error.
Instruction No. 3 was properly refused
because it
told the jury, that those of the defendants, who were not present at
the Haymarket,
counseling, aiding or abetting the throwing of the bomb, should be
acquitted.
Under our statute and the decision of this Court in Breman vs. The
People 15
Ill. 517, the defendants were guilty, if they advised and encouraged
the murder
to be committed, although they may not have been present.
Instruction No. 8 was wrong for a number
of
reasons, but it is sufficient to refer to one; it assumes that "a
conspiracy to bring about a change of government x x by peaceful means
if
possible but, if necessary, to resort to force, for that purpose" is
not
unlawful. The fact that the conspirators may not have intended to
resort to
force, unless, in their judgment, they should deem it necessary to do
so, would
not make their conspiracy any the less unlawful.
All that was material in instructions 9,
11 and 18
was embodied in the instructions which were given for the defendants.
The defendants also complain that the
Court
refused to give an instruction for them, which contained the following
statement;-"It cannot be material in this case that defendants or some
of
them, are or may be socialists, communists or anarchists" etc.
If there was a conspiracy, it was
material to show
its purposes and objects with a view of determining whether and in what
respects it was unlawful. Anarchy is the absence of government; it is a
state
of society, where there is no law or supreme power. If the conspiracy
had for
its object the destruction of the law and the government and of the
police and
militia, as the representatives of law and government, it had for its
object
the bringing about of practical anarchy. Whether or not the defendants
were
anarchists may have been a proper circumstance to be considered in
connection
with all the other circumstances in the case, with a view of showing
what
connection, if any, they had with the conspiracy and what were their
purposes
in joining it. Therefore, we cannot say, that it was an error to refuse
an
instruction, containing such a broad declaration as that announced in
the above
quotation.
Defendants further complain because the
instruction, numbered 13, which was asked by them, was refused by the
trial
Court. The refusal of this instruction was not error.
It was proper enough, so far as it
stated, that,
if a person at the Haymarket "without the knowledge, aid, counsel,
procurement
encouragement or abetting of the defendants or any of them, then or
theretofore
given X X X threw a bomb among the police, whereupon resulted the
murder or
homicide charged in the indictment, then the defendants would not be
liable for
the results of such bomb" &c. But the instruction is so ingeniously
worked as to lead the jury to believe the person who threw the bomb at
the Haymarket
was justified in doing so, if the meeting there was lawfully convened
and
peaceably conducted and if the order to disperse was unauthorized and
illegal.
Counsel inject into the instruction the hypothesis that the bomb may
have been
thrown by an outside party "in pursuance of his "view of the right of
self defense." A mere order to disperse cannot be an excuse for
throwing a
dynamite bomb into a body of policemen. If the bomb thrower had been
illegally
and improperly attacked by the police, while quietly attending a
peaceable
meeting and had thrown the bomb to defend himself against such attack,
another
question would be presented. The vice of the instruction lies in the
insidious
intimation embodied in it, that, when a body of policemen even if in
excess of
their authority, give a verbal order to an assemblage to disperse, a
member of
that assemblage will be excusable for throwing a bomb on the ground of
self
defense and because of the supposed invasion of his rights.
The instruction, given by the court of
its own motion
and which has already been referred to, is also claimed to be
erroneous. So far
as it speaks of murder and advice to commit murder in general terms, it
is
sufficiently limited and qualified when read in connection with all the
other
instructions, to which it specifically calls attention. It does not
supersede
and stand as a substitute for the other instructions, given for both
sides. It
does not so purport upon its face. On the contrary the jury are
directed to
"carefully scrutinize" such other instructions, and are told that
their apparent inconsistencies will disappear under such scrutiny. In
the last
sentence they are requested to disregard any unguarded expressions that
may
have crept into the instructions "which seem to assume the existence of
any facts", and look only to the evidence &c. Why caution the jury
to
disregard certain expressions of a particular kind in the other
instructions,
if the latter were to be entirely superseded? We do not think that the
instructions given by the trial judge sua motu is obnoxious to the
objections
urged against it.
Defendants also object to the
instruction as to
the form of the verdict as being erroneous.. It is claimed, that the
jury were
obliged, under this instruction, to find the defendants either guilty
or not
guilty of murder, whereas the jury were entitled to find that the
offense was a
lower grade of homicide then murder, if the evidence so warranted. This
position is fully answered by our decisions in the cases of Dunne vs.
The People
109 Ill. 646 and Dacey vs. The People 116 Ill. 555.
If counsel desired to have the jury
differently
instructed as to the form of the verdict, they should have prepared an
instruction, indicating such form as they deemed to be correct, and
should have
asked the trial court to give it. They did not do so, and are in no
position to
complain here.
The Court, at the request of the
defendants, did
give the jury an instruction, defining manslaughter in the words of the
statute
and specifying the punishment therefore as fixed by the statute. The
Court also
gave the jury the following instruction: "The jury are instructed, that
under an indictment for murder a party accused may be found guilty of
manslaughter; and in this case, if from a full and careful
consideration of all
the evidence before you, you believe beyond a reasonable doubt, that
the
defendants or any of them are guilty of manslaughter, you may so find
by your verdict."
The next error assigned has reference to
the
empanelling of the jury. The counsel for plaintiffs in error have made
an able
and elaborate argument for the purpose of showing that the jury, which
tried
this case, was not an impartial jury in the sense in which the word
"impartial" is used in our Constitution. We do not deem a
consideration of all the points presented as necessary to a
determination of
the case, and shall only notice those that seem to us to be material.
981 men are called into the jury box and
sworn to
answer questions. Each one of the eight defendants was entitled to a
peremptory
challenge of twenty jurors, making the hole number of peremptory
challenges
allowed to the defense/ 160. The State was entitled to the same number.
757
were excused upon challenge for cause. 160 were challenged peremptorily
by the
defense and 52 by the State.
Of the twelve jurors who tried the case,
eleven
were accepted by the defendants. They challenged one of these, whose
name was
Denker, for cause, but, after the Court overruled the challenge, they
proceeded
to further question him and finally accepted him, although 142 of their
peremptory challenges were at that time unused. They accepted the ten
others,
including the juror, Adams, without objection. When Adams, the eleventh
juror
was taken, they had forty-three peremptory challenges, which they had
not yet
used.
Therefore, as to eleven of the jurymen,
the
defendants are estopped from complaining. They virtually agreed to be
tried by
them because they accepted them, when, by the exercise of their unused
peremptory challenges, they could have compelled every one of them to
stand
aside.
Counsel for the defense complain, that
the trial
Court overruled their challenges for cause of twenty-six talisman, to
whose
examinations they specifically call our attention. As they afterwards
peremptorily challenge the talisman so referred to, no one of them sat
upon the
jury. Every one of these twenty-six men had been peremptorily
challenged before
the eleventh juror was taken.
After the eleventh juror was accepted,
the
forty-three peremptory challenges, which then remained to the
defendants, were
all used by them before the twelfth juror was taken.
After the defendants had examined the
twelfth
juror, whose name was
The 160 talisman, who were peremptorily
challenged
by defendants, were first challenged for cause and the challenges for
cause
were overruled by the trial court.
It is claimed that, inasmuch as the
defendants
exhausted all their preemptory challenges before the panel was finally
completed, the action of the court in regard to these particular jurors
will be
considered, and if erroneous, such action is good ground of reversal.
We think
it must be made to appear that an objectionable juror was put upon the
defendants after they had exhausted their preemptory challenges "Unless
objection is shown to one or more of the jury, who tried the case, the
antecedent rulings of the court upon the competency of incompetence of
jurors,
who have been challenged and stood aside, will not be inquired into in
his
court." (Holt vs state
We cannot reverse this judgment for
errors commit[xx]
lower court in overruling challenges for cause to jurors, then though
defendants exhausted their preemptory challenges unless it is further
shown
that an objectionable juror was forced upon them and sat upon the case
after
they had exhausted their preemptory challenges. This doctrine is ably
discussed
in Loggins Vs The State 12 Texas Ct App. 65. We think the reasoning in
that
case is sound and answers the objection here made.
In addition to this reason, we have
carefully
considered the examinations of the several jurors challenged by the
defendants
peremptorily and while we cannot approve all that was said by the trial
judge
in respect to some of them, we find no such error in the rulings of the
court
in overruling the challenges for cause as to any of them as would
justify a
reversal of the cause. The examinations as they appear in the record,
of the 43
talisman, who were challenged peremptorily after the eleventh juror was
accepted show that many of the 43 challenges were exercised arbitrarily
and
without any apparent cause. Such challenges were not compelled by any
demonstrated unfitness of the jurors, but seem to have been used up for
no
other purpose than to force the selection of one juror, after the 43
challenges
were exhausted. The only question then, which we deem it material to
consider,
is: did the trial court err in overruling the challenge for cause of
Sanford,
the twelfth juror, or in other words was he a competent juror? The
following is
the material portion of his examination:
"Have you an opinion as to whether or
not
there was an offense committed at the Haymarket meeting by the throwing
of the bomb"
A. Yes.
Q. Now, from all that you have read and
all that
you have heard have you an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of any
of the
eight defendants of the throwing of that bomb?
A. Yes.
Q You have an opinion upon that question
also?
A. I have. --X--X--X.
Q Now if you should be selected as
a juror in this
case to try and determine it, do you believe that you could exercise
legally
the duties of a juror, that you could listen to the testimony and all
of the
testimony and the charge of the court and after deliberation return a
verdict
which, would be right and fair as between the defendants and the people
of the
state of Illinois?
A Yes Sir.
Q You believe that you could do that?
A. Yes sir.
Q. You could fairly and impartially
listen to the
testimony that is introduced here?
A Yes.
Q. And the charge of the court and
render an
impartial verdict you believe?
A. Yes
Q Have you any knowledge of the
principles
contended for by socialists, communists and an archaists?
A. nothing except what I read in the
papers.
Q Just general reading?
A Yes.
Q. You are not a socialist, I presume,
or a communist?
A. No Sir.
Q. Have you a prejudice against them
from what you
have read in the papers?
A Decided.
Q. Do you believe that that would
influence your
verdict in this case or would you try the real issue which is here as
to
whether these defendants were guilty of the murder of Mr. Degan or not,
or
would you try the question of socialism and anarchism, which really has
nothing
to do with the case?
A. Well as I know so little about it in
reality at
present it is a pretty hard question to answer.
Q You would undertake, you would attempt
of course
to try the case upon the evidence introduced here upon the issue which
is
presented here?
A. Yes Sir. --X--X--X
Q Well, then, so far as that is
concerned I do not care very much what your opinion may be now,
for your opinion now is made up of random conversations and from
newspaper
reading, as I understand?
A Yes.
Q. That is nothing reliable. You do not
regard
that as being in the nature of sworn testimony at all, do you?
A. No
Q--Now, when the testimony is introduced
here and
the witnesses are examined, you see them and look into their
countenances,
judge who are worthy of belief and who are not worthy of belief, don't
you
think then you would be able to determine the question?
A Yes.
Q. Regardless of any impression that you
might
have or any opinion?
A. Yes.
Q--Have you any opposition to the
organization by
laboring men of associations or societies or unions so far as they have
reference to their own advancement and protection and are not in
violation of
law?
A. No sir.
Q.-Do you know any of the members of the
police
force of the City of
A.- Not one by name.
Q.-You are not acquainted with any one,
that was
either injured or killed, I suppose, at the Haymarket meeting?
A. No. X X X
Q.-If you should be selected as a juror
in this
case, do you believe that regardless of all prejudice or
opinion which you now have, you could listen to the legitimate
testimony
introduced in court, and upon that and that alone, render and return a
fair and
impartial, unprejudiced and unbiased verdict?
A. Yes."
The foregoing examination was by the
defense the
following was by the state:
Q. Upon what is your opinion founded --
upon
newspaper reports?
A. Well, it is founded on the general
theory and
whatIread in the newspapers.
Q. And what you read in the papers?
A. Yes sir
Q. Have you ever talked with any one
that was
present at the Haymarket at the time the bomb was thrown?
A. No sir.
Q. Have you ever talked with any one who
professed
of his own knowledge to know anything about the connection of the
defendants
with the throwing of that bomb?
A. No
Q. Have you ever said to anyone whether
or not you
believed the statements of facts in the newspapers to be true?
A. I have never expressed it exactly in
that way,
but still I have no reason to think they were false.
Q. Well, the question is not what your
opinion of
that was. The question simply is-- it is a question made necessary by
our
statute, perhaps?
A. Well, I don't recall whether I have
or not.
Q. So far as you know then, you never
have?
A. No sir.
Q. Do you believe, that, if taken as a
juror, you
can try this case fairly and impartially and render a verdict upon the
law and
the evidence?
A. Yes."
It is objected, that
It is apparent from the foregoing
explanation that
the opinion of the juror was based upon rumor or newspaper statements,
and that
he had expressed no opinion as to the truth of such rumors or
statements. He
stated upon oath that he believed he could fairly and impartially
render a
verdict in the case in accordance with the law and the evidence. That
the trial
court was satisfied of the truth of his statement would appear from the
fact
that the challenge for cause was overruled.
Therefore, the examination of the juror
shows a
state of facts, which brings his case exactly within the scope and
meaning of
the third proviso of the fourteenth section of chapter 78, entitled
"jurors" or our revised statutes. That proviso is as follows:
"and provided further, that in the trial of any criminal cause, the
fact
that a person called as a juror has formed an opinion or impression
based upon
rumor or upon newspaper statements (about the truth of which he has
expressed
no opinion) shall not disqualify him to serve as a juror in such case,
if he
shall, upon oath, state that he believes he can fairly and impartially
render a
verdict therein in accordance with the law and the evidence, and the
court
shall be satisfied of the truth of such statement"
In
The expressions of
Counsel for the defense seen to claim in
their
argument, that the proviso above quoted is unconstitutional in that it
violates Section 9 of Article 2 of the present constitution
of this state, which guarantees to the accused party in every criminal
prosecution "a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the county
or
district in which the offence is alleged to have been committed." we do
not think that the proviso is unconstitutional for the reason stated.
The rule
which it lays down, when wisely applied, does not lead to the selection
of
partial jurors. On the contrary, it tends to secure intelligence in the
jury
box and to exclude from it that dense ignorance which has often
subjected the
jury system to just criticism. A statute upon this subject similar to
ours and
attacked as unconstitutional for the same reason here indicated, was
held to be
constitutional by the Court of Appeals in the state of
The juror Sanford further stated that he
had a
prejudice against socialists, communists and anarchists. This did not
disqualify him from sitting as a juror. If the theories of the
anarchists
should be carried into practical effect, they would involve the
destruction of
all law and government. Law and government cannot be abolished without
revolution, bloodshed and murder. The socialist or communist, if he
attempted
to put into practical operation his doctrine of community of property,
would
destroy individual rights in property. Practically considered, the idea
of
taking a man's property from him without his consent for the purpose of
putting
it into a common fund for the benefit of the community at large,
involves the
commission of theft and robbery, therefore, the prejudice which the
ordinary
citizen, who looks at things from a practical stand-point, would have
against
anarchism and communism, would be nothing more than a prejudice against
crime.
In Winnesheik Insurace Company vs.
Schueller, 60
We cannot see that the trial court erred
in
overruling the challenge for cause of the twelfth juror. This being so,
it does
not appear that the defendants were injured or that their rights were
in any
way prejudiced by his selection as a juryman.
On the motion for a new trial the
defendants read
three affidavits for the purpose of showing that shortly after May 4th,
1886,
two of the jurors had given utterance to expressions, showing prejudice
against
the defendants. The two jurors made counter affidavits denying that
they used
the expressions attributed to them.
We do not think that the affidavits
satisfactorily
proved previously expressed opinions on the part of the two jurors
referred to.
It is a dangerous practice to allow verdicts to be set aside upon ex
parte
affidavits as to what jurors are claimed to have said, before they were
summoned to act as juryman the parties making such affidavits submit to
no
cross-examination and the correctness of their statement is subject to
no test
whatever. We adhere to the views which we have recently expressed upon
this
subject in the case of Hughes vs. The People 116 Ill's 320.
The defendants claim that although they
were
entitled to 160 peremptory challenges, yet the state was entitled to
only
twenty. And they charge it as error that the state was allowed to
peremptorily challenge
more than twenty salesmen. The statute says: the attorney prosecuting
on behalf
of the people shall be admitted to a peremptory challenge of the same
number of
jurors that the accused is entitled to, R. S. Chap 38 Sec. 432.) We
cannot
conceive how language can be plainer than that here used. It explains
itself
and requires no further remark.
The defendants also claim that the trial
court
erred in refusing a separate trial, from the other defendants to the
defendants, Spies, Schwab, Feilden, Neebe and Parsons. Error cannot be
assigned upon the refusal to grant
separate trials, where several are jointly indicted. It was a matter of
discretion with the court below. We so decided in Maton et al vs. The
people 15
ill's 536. We are unable to see any abuse of the discretion in this
case.
Defendants also take exceptions to the conduct of the special bailiff.
The
regular panel having been exhausted and the defendants having objected
"to
the sheriff summoning a sufficient number of persons to fill the panel"
of
jurors, the court appointed a special bailiff named Ryce to summon such
persons
under section 13, Chap. 78 Rev Stat., on the motion for new trial,
defendants
read the affidavit of one Stevens, in which Stevens swore that he had
heard one
favor say, that he, favor had heard Ryce say, that he Ryce, was
summoning as
jurors such men as the defense would be compelled to challenge
peremptorily
&c. The defendants then made a motion, based upon this affidavit,
that
favor be compelled to come into court and testify to what Ryce had said
to him.
The refusal of the court to grant the application is complained of as
error.
The statements in the affidavit were
mere hearsay
and were too indefinite and remote to base any motion upon. Moreover,
if Ryce
did make the remark in question to Favor, it does not appear that
defendants
were harmed by it. There is nothing to show that Ryse made any remarks
of any
kind, proper or improper, to the jurors whom he summoned.
In addition to this, it is not shown
that the
defendants served Favor with a subpoena so as to lay a foundation for
compelling his attendance.
We think that the course pursued on the
trial in
regard to the manner of empannelling the jury, was correct and in
accordance
with the plain meaning of Sec. 21 Chap. 28 of Rev. Stat. That section
says
"that the jury shall be passed upon and accepted in panels of four by
the
parties, commencing with the plaintiff." The State is not called upon
to
tender the defendants a second panel before the defendants tender it
back four.
We cannot see that the remarks of the
States
Attorney in his argument to the jury were marked by any such
improprieties, as
require a reversal of the judgment. (
In their lengthy argument counsel for
the defense
make some other points of minor importance, which are not here noticed.
As to
these it is sufficient to say that we have considered them and do not
regard them as well taken.
The judgment of the
Be it remembered that afterwards,
to-wit: on the
20th day of September, A. D. 1887, the same being one of the regular
days of
said term of court, certain proceedings were had and orders made by
said court
and entered of record, among which is found the following, viz:
August Spies, et al. 59 A.D. vs. The
People of the
State of
And now on this day come the said
plaintiffs in
error by William P. Black, their attorney, and move the Court for leave
to
withdraw the record of the proceedings of the Criminal Court of Cook
County
filed herein, for the period of thirty days for the purpose of
submitting the
same to associate counsel, and if so advised to submit the same to the
Supreme
Court of the United States, upon application for Writ of Error.
Which said motion is by the Court taken
under
advisement.
And now the Court
having duly considered said
motion and being fully advised of and concerning the premises, overrule
the
said motion. Therefore it is considered by the Court that the motion
for leave
to withdraw the record herein filed be and the same is overruled and
denied.
STATE OF
I, Alfred H. Taylor, Clerk of the
Supreme Court,
in and for the Northern Grand Division of said State of Illinois, and
keeper of
the Records and Seal thereof, Do hereby certify that the foregoing
record
contained in Seventeen Volumes and marked respectively "l", "A",
"B", "C", "D", "E", "F",
"G", "H", "I", "J", "K",
"L", "M", "N", "Exhibits", and
"O", to be a full, true, perfect, and complete copy of the Record and
Proceedings (except as to index to Volumes "I", "J",
"K", "L", "M", and "N",) in a certain
cause lately pending in said Court, wherein August Spies, Michael
Schwab,
Samuel Fielden, Albert R. Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis
Lingg,
and Oscar W. Neebe, were plaintiffs in error, and The People of the
State of
Illinois were defendants in error, as the same appears from the records
and
files in my office remaining; together with the opinion of the Court
filed in
said cause on the 14th day of September, A. D. 1887.
In Testimony Whereof, I have hereunto
set my hand
and affixed the Seal of the said Supreme Court, at
Alfred H. Taylor
Clerk of the Supreme Court.