WHAT SHALL BETME,
WITH THE ANARCHISIS!
A LECTURE
BEFor E THE SOCIETY FOR ETHICAL CULTURE OF CHICAGO, IN
GRAND ppERA HOUSE, SUNDAY, October 23.
BY WILLIAM M. SALTER.
WITH
- --- Criticiszans frozn the Cliniczago TN 2-ºxºrs, a ricſ
I-Irs-salter's ERep1izs,
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY.,
175 LA SALLE ST., CHICAGO.
1887.
WHAT SHALL BE DONE
WITH THE ANARCHISTS?
A LECTURE
BEFoRE THE society For ETHICAL CULTURE OF CHICAGO, IN
GRAND OPERA. Hous E, SunDAY, OCTOBER. 23.
BY WILLIAM M. SALTER.
WITH
JEXclitoria 1 Criticisrns from the C1:licago TNT evºrs, a rici
TXIz. 5a1ter’s FReplies.
THE OPEN COURT, PUBLISHING COMPANY.
175 LA SALLE ST., CHICAGO.
1887
WHAT SHALL BE DONE
WITH THE ANARCHISTS?
A LEctURE BEFor E THE SocIETY For ETHICAL CULTURE of cHICAGO, IN
GRAND OpERA House, SUNDAY, octop ER 23.
BY WILLIAM M. SALTER."
There is no more sacred thought than that of justice. With
the sense of its august nature I do not wonder that men have
committed its execution to the supreme powers that rule the
world. We believe, however, that justice is the task of man;
that the supreme powers have intrusted it to him; that a portion
of invisible sanctity attaches to the office of the magistrate and
the judge. The divine institution in the world is not the Church,
but civil society; hence no apology is needed when real religion
(which is nothing but the sense of justice) mingles in civil
affairs. If the churches that look for justice and judgment from
another power and in another world have no need to trouble
themselves about earthly courts of justice, not so with us. If we
do not continually speak, it is because we assume that justice is
being continually done, and our duty lies only in supporting and
encouraging those through whose hands it is administered and
executed. But our courts are not infallible, nor does a divinity
hedge and attend them in such a sense that their every verdict
* My authorities in preparing this lecture were the respective Briefs of
the prosecution and the defense, presented to the Illinois Supreme Court last
spring; also a special Brief by Leonard Swett.
4. WHAT SHALL BE DONE
must be submissively received. Occasions may arise—at rare
intervals, we must presume, at least in modern democratic
societies—when justice is not done. My friends, there are grave
doubts in many minds whether such an occasion has not recently
arisen in our midst. No man who honors the law and loves his
country can, without some trepidation publicly question the
righteousness of a judicial verdict, rendered after a long trial and
re-affirmed by a higher court. We must presume that as a rule
justice is done in our courts, else anarchy is near to being justi-
fied. It is with a full sense of my responsibility, and of the mis-
interpretation to which I render myself liable, that I speak on the
question I have announced for to-day: What shall be done with
the anarchists?
Let no one expect from me a sensational treatment of this
theme. I am not here to appeal to any one's passions or preju-
dices, or even sympathies. My thought is justice. Justice
requires before all things a cool and dispassionate mind. In such
a spirit, with such an aim at least, I have for days and weeks
'studied this question. It is largely a question of facts, of dry
facts, if you will. The discussion of them may be tedious to
some. Very well, I am here before all to speak to those who
want to know what the facts really are.
I shall make my remarks under three heads: First, are the
seven men now in the county jail guilty of the crime with which
they were charged? Second, if not, of what are they guilty?
Third, what should be their punishment?
First, are they guilty of the crime charged against them? My
hearers will certainly pardon my familiarity in the use of names
for the sake of clearness and brevity—on this occasion—a famil-
iarity which under other circumstances would be quite out of
place. The crime was that of the murder of the policeman
Mathias T. Degan. It is “conceded,” to use the language of the
Supreme Court of the State, that no one of the seven men threw
the bomb with his own hands; they are charged with being
accessories, in the technical language of the law, before the fact.
An accessory of a crime is one who stands by and aids or abets
WITH THE ANARCHIsts? 5
or assists, or who, if not present, has yet advised and encouraged
its perpetration, and by the law—and it is surely a just law—such
an accessory is as guilty as if he were the actual perpetrator.
What is the proof that the seven men were accessories in this case?
There is no doubt that a conspiracy was formed Monday
night—the night before the massacre—to resist the police in case
the striking workingmen of that excited time were attacked.
There is no doubt that Engel and Fischer—two of the seven
men—were leaders in that conspiracy; nor any doubt worth con-
sidering that Lingg—another—was acquainted with its designs.
Lingg, with others, was manufacturing bombs much of the next
day; he chided his assistants for working so slowly; he said they
were for use that night. There can be -no reasonable doubt, tak-
ing into account that dynamite bombs were the trusted weapons
of warfare to this particular class of workingmen, and further the
special evidence produced at the trial, that these particular bombs
were made—thirty to fifty of them were made—to serve the
purposes of the Monday night conspiracy. Plans were also
made Monday night for the Haymarket meeting the following
night. There is no evidence that a conflict was specially expected
at the Haymarket. That contingency was in mind, but the plan
was simply that the conspirators should come to the assistance of
workingmen, whenever they should be interfered with. That
(Monday) afternoon several workingmen were reported to have
been killed by the police near McCormick's factory; a circular
calling on workingmen in passionate terms to arm themselves
and avenge the death of their brothers was distributed at the
Monday night meeting and doubtless tended to heighten the
angry feelings of those present; but there is no evidence that an
offensive attack on the police was planned for—the evidence is
simply that the conspirators were to be ready to resist any attack
of the police. The Haymarket meeting took place as planned for
on the following night. Its purpose was to denounce the police
for shooting down workingmen the day before. A handbill had
been widely circulated (written by Fischer) calling on working-
men to arm themselves and appear in full force. There can be
6 W HAT SHALL BE DONE
little doubt that had the policemen appeared in the early part of
the evening and attempted to disperse the meeting, there would
have been a slaughter in their ranks far more fearful than that
which actually took place later—fearful and ghastly as that was.
But the meeting, according to the testimony of a Tribune reporter,
who was there all the time, was a peaceable and quiet one for an
outdoor meeting. The Mayor was present so as to personally
disperse it in case it assumed a dangerous tendency, but left it late
in the evening, stepping into the neighboring police station on his
way home to say to Captain Bonfield that nothing had occurred
or looked likely to occur that required interference, to which
Bonfield replied that he had reached the same conclusion from
reports already brought to him. But for the violent harangue
of Fielden, who spoke after the Mayor had gone, the police would
probably never have descended on the scene, and the bomb
would not have been thrown. And by that time the leaders of the
conspiracy had left the meeting, the gathering had dwindled to a
third or a quarter of its original size, a threatening cloud had
caused a motion to be made to adjourn to an adjacent hall—and if
Fielden had allowed himself to be interrupted in this way, it is
likely that the meeting would have closed without any incident
whatever. As it was, Fielden protested in answer to the summons
of the police to disperse, “we are peaceable;” but to no purpose,
as in a trice the infernal missile went flying through the air.
Who were the accessories to this crime? For the thrower of
the bomb is unknown. There can be no doubt considering all the
evidence, that the bomb was one of those made by Lingg, and
that, according to his own statement, it was made for service
(“fodder,” as he expressed it) against the capitalist and police. He
may not have known it was to be used at the Haymarket; but
he made it for service, immediate service, he made it in further-
ance of the purposes of the conspiracy which met Monday night.
If any one is guilty as an accessory, plainly he is. Fischer was
drinking beer in a neighboring saloon when the bomb was thrown
and Engel was regaling himself in the same way at home. Both
had left the meeting, apparently anticipating no trouble. It is
WITH THE ANARCHISTs? 7
possible that neither of them knows who threw the bomb, that
both of them regretted the throwing as a foolish thing, when they
heard of it, though we have evidence only that one did; but that
it was thrown by a member of the conspiracy of which they were
leaders, there can be scarcely any doubt, certainly no reasonable
doubt, and that as leaders they are responsible for the act of their
fellow-conspirator, done at their instigation, though not at just the
time and place which they might have chosen, there can be no rea-
sonble doubt either. Fischer had called on workingmen to come
to the Haymarket meeting armed—and “armed” meant in the
circle to which he belonged, as much armed with dynamite as
with revolvers—he had objected to another proposed place of
meeting for Tuesday night, that it was “a mouse-trap,” which
could mean nothing if violent resistance was not contemplated as
a possible contingency; it was he who caused the word Ruhe to be
placed in the Arbeiter-Zeitung Tuesday afternoon, which was a
signal to the conspirators, agreed upon at the Monday night
meeting, and which summoned them to assemble and arm them-
selves; and he was himself found the next day with a loaded
revolver and ten cartridges, a file, and a fuse or fulminating cap
on his person—and the use of the cap in connection with dyna-
mite bombs he confessed to have learned from reading Most's
book on the Science of War. The other leader, Engel, had given a
detailed description to workingmen on the North Side only a few
months previous as to how bombs were made and recommended
to all those who could not buy revolvers to buy dynamite; in his
speech in court, he allowed that he had said in workingmen's
meetings that if every workingman had a bomb in his pocket,
there would soon be an end of capitalistic rule; and he it was who
proposed the plan to the Monday night meeting of throwing
bombs into the police-stations and shooting down the policemen
as they came out, so as to prevent their going to wherever the
conflict might be between other policemen and strikers, which was
contemplated as a practical certainty in the near future and to
meet which the conspiracy was formed. This plan was not car-
ried into effect, probably owing to the fact that the police inter-
8 WHAT SHALL BE DONE
fered with the Haymarket meeting so late at night and after all
apprehension of trouble had gone from the minds of the conspira-
tors, and, probably too, because after all the conspiracy was a
half-and-half affair. But the conflict that was to precipitate all this
terrible tumult and bloodshed did take place; and there can be
scarcely a doubt that it took place owing to the incitement and
instigation of the two leaders I have named. Engel and
Fischer and Lingg are beyond a reasonable doubt, accessories to
the Haymarket crime. It is perfect folly to urge that the police
had no right to disperse the Haymarket meeting; even if it had no
right, no one in the crowd had a right to respond with the mur-
derous weapon, so long as no violence was used against the crowd
—the remedy for the offenses of the civil authorities as for other
offenses lies in the courts. Further, it is quite evident that the
class of people to whom the conspirators belonged regard almost
any hindrance to their actions by the authorities as an invasion of
their rights; even if striking workingmen are employing violence
against those who take their places, they allow no right of the
police to step in and restrain their violence and preserve peace—
that they call, forsooth, taking the side of the employer against
the strikers, a most arrant bit of nonsense! The rage that inspired
the notorious “Revenge” circular to which I have referred was
all excited because the police interfered to protect peaceable, inof.
fensive workingmen who had taken the place of strikers at McCor-
mick's factory against a lot of ruffians who attacked them with
bricks and stones and sticks; interfered and in the mêlée fired at
some; such rage I call arrant humbuggery and the now notorious
circular was nothing but blatant bombast and was itself a con-
fession of sympathy with crime.
I have spoken of three of the seven condemned men. What
shall be said of the remainder? Clear and positive evidence of
connection with the Monday night conspiracy, to my mind, here
entirely fails. There is no claim that any of them—Spies,
Schwab, Parsons or Fielden—were at the Monday night meeting,
nor at a meeting on the previous day when the conspiracy was
first hatched. Spies wrote the “Revenge” circular which was
WITH THE ANARCHISTS P 9
read at the Monday night meeting, but there is no claim that it
was read with his knowledge. Spies wrote the word Ruhe for the
printers of the Arbeiter Zeitung, but there is no evidence that he
knew its special import, and when he learned it he told his adver-
tising agent to go and tell the armed men that the word was put
in by mistake. Spies was invited Tuesday morning by Fischer to
speak at the Haymarket meeting, but noticing that the hand-bill
calling for the meeting contained the words “Workingmen, arm
yourselves and appear in full force,” he said to Fischer that those
words “must be struck out or he would not attend the meeting
or speak there.” Spies spoke at the Haymarket meeting, but
Mayor Harrison and the Tribune reporter heard him and they
made the testimony that I have already given. Two witnesses
were produced against Spies, whose testimony, if it were credi-
ble, would convict him, beyond a peradventure, of a direct com-
plicity in the plot—Thompson and Gilmer. But of Thompson's
testimony, the Supreme Court says there is much that tends to
confirm him and much that tends to contradict him; and though
on the whole the court is inclined to credit his testimony, I see
not how any unprejudiced person could say that it convicts Spies
beyond all reasonable doubt. Gilmer is proved to have been a
lying person by his first statement as a witness; he is contradicted
by fifteen witnesses and is unsupported by any witness in the
record, and though the Supreme Court is again inclined to give
credence, it admits that the evidence as to his trustworthiness is
“very conflicting” and refuses “to pass any opinion upon it,”
saying in so many words that “there is evidence enough in the
record to sustain the finding of the jury independently of the
testimony given by Thompson and Gilmer.” (Of other evidence,
I may say by the way, there is none implicating Spies directly
in the throwing of the bomb, besides what I have already men-
tioned; the entirely different sort of evidence against Spies, on
which the court mainly relies, I shall speak of later). Of Schwab,
Spies's assistant on the Arbeiter-Zeitung, there is no evidence
whatever of his connection with the plot save that afforded by the
doubtful testimony of Thompson, to which I have just alluded:
1O WHAT SHALL BE DONE
Schwab was present at the Haymarket for only a short time early
in the evening and went off to address a workingmen's meeting
at Deering's factory on the North Side. Parsons was in Cincin-
nati when the conspiracy was formed, he only returned to
Chicago on Tuesday morning; he called a meeting, and attended
it that evening, of what was known as the “American Group,”
at the Arbetter-Zeitung office, and at the time of going to it, did
not know that any meeting was to be held at the Haymarket at
all. During the session of the American Group, however, which
discussed the organization of the sewing women of Chicago with
reference to the eight-hour movement, the advertising agent of
the Arbeiter-Zeitung called and said that speakers were wanted at
the Haymarket meeting. When the group adjourned, about nine
o'clock, he with almost all the others present—fifteen were there
—went over to the Haymarket, and he took his wife and children
with him. Mayor Harrison heard Parsons’ speech nearly to the
close, and testified as I have above explained. He doubtless heard
some one cry out when Parsons mentioned Jay Gould, “Hang
him!” and Parsons reply, “No, that it was not a conflict between
individuals, but for a change of system;” and he probably heard
Parsons’ exclamation, on which so much stress has been laid,
“To arms! To arms!”— though neither he nor the police took
alarm at this utterance, and it is almost incredible that Parsons
should have brought his wife and children to the meeting, if he
had expected bombs were to be thrown there. Fielden's speech
brought out the police; it contained violent and inflammatory
appeals; the police were surely justified in putting an end to such
a speech and dispersing the crowd; but there is no evidence that
Fielden expected violence that night, or planned for it, or had any
knowledge of the Monday night conspiracy; he had been going
about his business during the day, hauling stones to one of the
parks, and had an appointment to speak elsewhere that night and
would never have been at the Haymarket meeting, had he not
been at the meeting of the American Group I have referred to
early in the evening, and been urged there to go over to the Hay-
market. Certain policemen testify that Fielden made threats as
witH THE ANARCHISTs? I t
they approached, and fired shots after the bomb was thrown; but
Capt. Bonfield and Capt. Ward, who were ahead of their com-
panies and nearer to Fielden than those who testified, did not hear
the threats, nor did several reporters who were very near Fielden;
further, seven witnesses who were immediately about Fielden and
watching him, saw no movement indicating shooting, and Fielden
swears he had no revolver and never carried one in his life. It is
quite possible that some one made the threats which the policemen
heard, namely, “Here come the bloodhounds of the police! Men,
do your duty and I will do mine!” It would be natural that the
bomb thrower should say that himself. And it is significant,
when one scans the testimonies of the seven policemen, that only
one says distinctly it was Fielden, that another says, some one
looking like Fielden, that three others say “some one” or “some-
body,” that still another says he heard the remark, but does not
know who made it, and as matter of fact he was at the time on
the Randolph street horse car tracks, one hundred feet away.
And as to the shooting, Fielden says that the policemen who
testified against him in the trial, made no mention of the fact at
the coroner's inquest held the next day after the massacre, though
he was present at that time and the facts must have been fresh in
their minds. Fielden offered to swear to this, but the court
excluded his offer as it did so many other testimonies that would
have tended to clear up matters in favor of the accused men.
As the conclusion of this part of my subject, I say that the
evidence for the guilt of Spies, Schwab, Parsons and Fielden is
not such as to convince any fair-minded, unprejudiced man
beyond reasonable doubt. It would not be enough if there were
a balance of probability against them; not only must we not—to
quote memorable words used in this trial—guess away the lives
and liberties of our citizens, but the guilt of accused persons
must be established beyond all reasonable doubt. The evidence I
have already considered against these four is not only insufficient,
it positively breaks down when submitted—I will not say to close
and carefully, but simply—to fairly intelligent and honest scrutiny.
If one wants to believe it, one can of course find reasons for doing
I 2 WHAT SHALL BE DONE
so; but if one wants simply the truth, the truth entirely irrespect-
ive of what one wishes to believe, and would like to see estab-
lished, it is scarcely conceivable to me how he should do so.
Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say because the four
men I have mentioned are not guilty, they are therefore guiltless
of any connection whatever with the Haymarket crime. They are
simply not guilty of the crime with which they were charged. They
were not accessories, in any hitherto recognized sense of that term,
to the murder of Degan. But I do not absolve them of all connec-
tion with that crime, and now I wish to point out what that con-
nection was; and so I take up my second question, Xf not guilty
of the crime with which they were charged, of what are they guilty?
For clearness' sake I will make my answer at the outset.
They are guilty of sedition, of stirring up insurrection; they were
all members of a criminal conspiracy against the State. There is
no blinking of this fact. While holding that Spies, Schwab,
Parsons and Fielden are not guilty of this particular crime, I
cannot refuse to admit that they were preparing for an infinitely
greater crime—greater, that is, in amount, not in essence. They
had no less an aim than to put down in this country all laws and
all force that protect what is ordinarily known as private property.
It was not so much the revolution of the State as its abolition
that they looked forward to, for there should be nothing like what
we call the State in the future. This is the meaning of their
doctrine, anarchy—no State, and why they call themselves
anarchists. These men not only agitated such ideas; they urged
workingmen to organize on the basis of them. Workingmen did
organize—organized in other cities besides Chicago, and these
men were the leaders of the organization here. The organiza-
tions were called “groups,” and inside each group, or most of
them, there were armed sections—men who met at regular or
irregular intervals and trained in the use of arms; and the arms
included rifles and dynamite bombs. The forty to eighty men
who formed the Monday night conspiracy were members of these
armed sections. It must be admitted that the Monday night
conspiracy was the legitimate outcome of the more general con-
WITH THE ANARCHISTS? I3
spiracy, which was known to the public as the International
Arbeiter (or Workingmen's) Association. The leaders of whom I
am now speaking urged men to join these armed sections and
themselves belonged to them, and the purpose of the sections
was nothing else than to prepare for such uprisings as the Mon.
day night conspiracy actually planned for. More than a year
before the fatal Tuesday, Spies explained in a private interview
the purposes of the International Association ; that the final aim
was the re-organization of society on a more equitable basis, so
that the laboring man might have a fairer share of the prod-
ucts of his labor; that it was not hoped to accomplish this by
legislation or the ballot-box; that force and arms were the only
way; that there were armed forces in all the commercial centers
of the country, and a sufficient number in Chicago—about 3,000–
to take the city; that they had superior means of warfare; that
once in possession of the city they could keep in possession by
the accession to their ranks of laboring men; that a time when
many men were out of employment, by reason of strikes and lock-
outs would be taken; that such a time might come when work-
ingmen attempted to introduce the eight-hour system; that blood-
shed might be involved, as frequently in the case of revolutions;
that those who engaged in the uprising would be liable to punish-
ment if they failed, but if successful it would be a revolution, and
they would have to take their chances.
The platform of the International Association, published time
and again in the 10cal organ, the Arbeiter Zeitung, contains the
statement that as in former times no privileged class ever relin-
quished 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; that efforts through legislation are
useless since the property-owning class control legislation; that
only one remedy is left—force; that the way which workingmen
must take is agitation with a view to organization, organization
with a view to rebellion. This is all treasonable to the State on
the face of it. It is repugnant to quote the words of these four
men as to the means by which they hoped to attain their ends.
I4. WHAT SHALL BE DONE
But in justice it must be done. All are equally guilty in this
regard. A successful movement must be a revolutionary one,
once said Spies; don't let us forget the more forcible argument of
all—the gun and dynamite. Spies wrote in his paper, the very day
of the Haymarket massacre, with reference to the McCormick riot,
that if the workingmen had been provided with weapons and one
single dynamite bomb, not one of the murderous police would
have escaped his well-merited fate. Schwab but a week before
had said: “For every workingman who has died through
the pistol of a deputy sheriff, let ten of the executioners fall!
Arm yourselves!” Parsons had said a year before, “Wo to the
police or the militia whom they send against us!” and again, “If
we would achieve our liberation from economic bondage, every
man must lay by a part of his wages and buy a revolver, a rifle,
and learn how to make and use dynamite.” He glorified the use
of dynamite in a fantastic and crazy manner in his final speech to
the court. Fielden admitted a few months before, that they had
lots of explosives and dynamite in their possession, and would
not hesitate to use them when the proper time came. One can
scarcely repeat or hear such words without shuddering and without
an outburst of indignation against those who had the barbarity to
first use them.
Do I hear some one say, ah, but you are giving away your case?
Friends, l have no case. I am not here to make a plea on one side
or the other, for the anarchists any more than for the State. I
am here as coolly and quietly as I may to ask, What are the facts,
and what is justice? The things that I have just stated are the
facts against the four men; the things I stated at the outset were
the facts in their favor. Are the two sets of facts, so different on
the face, in harmony? I believe they are. I cannot discover a
thing against these four men that goes beyond seditious and
treasonable language, and membership, or rather, leadership in a
diabolical conspiracy against the present order of society. This
is crime enough. It is crime enough to outlaw them or banish
them or—if you will—imprison them for life, or even hang them,
though I should not will the like. But it is not the crime with
WITH THE ANARCHISTs? I 5
which they were charged; it is not the crime of being accessories
to the murder of Degan. There is this kernel of truth in
the claim of anarchistic sympathizers, that the anarchists were
tried for murder and are to be hanged for anarchy. They were
charged with complicity in a definite act; four of them were vir-
tually condemned because they were leaders in a workingmens'
association in the bosom of which and in harmony with the gen-
eral purposes of which the plot to accomplish that act was formed.
It is a matter of the record that the conspiracy which the prose-
cution sought to establish at the outset was that formed at the
Monday night meeting, and that only when the complicity in the
same of Spies, Schwab, Parsons and Fielden could not be so con-
vincingly made out as was desired, did the prosecution take advan-
tage of certain rulings of the court and endeavor to show—and
there was no trouble in showing it—that these four men were lead-
ers in a plan for revolutionizing society, and hence were respon-
sible for the death of Degan, which occurred as a result and in fur-
therance of that plan. The prosecuting attorney refused to indict
these men with treason; and yet they were virtually condemned
for being partners in a treasonable conspiracy. I say virtually;
but not in form, for the prosecution and the Supreme Court of
the State in reviewing the case, think it necessary in form to con-
nect all seven men alike with the Monday night conspiracy. All
the doubtful evidence to that effect to which I have referred in
the first part of my address, and which can scarcely be credited at
all by a serious and dispassionate man, is vamped up—if I may
be pardoned the expression—both by the prosecution and the
Supreme Court, as more or less valid proof against the condemned
men. It is doubtful if they would dare to urge or confirm a verdict
without that prop; and yet that prop, in the case of four men, is
rotten. It is both sound ethics and sound law that accused persons
should know for what they are to be tried; and that men ought
not to be charged with one crime and then punished for another.
I grant the condemned men were not tried for anarchy, for
their opinions merely; they were tried for treasonable conspiracy.
I grant the Monday night conspiracy was an outcome of the more
I6 WHAT SHALL #3E DONE
generał conspiracy, a legitimate outcome; still the two were differ.
ent things and all of those who entered into the first did not enter
the second—and yet those who did not enter are treated as if
they were participants in it; they are to be hanged for something
they never did, nor expected nor plotted—neither aided nor abet.
ted, neither advised nor encouraged, to use all the technical terms
of the law. An incident in the history of our State Legislature
last winter throws light upon this matter. A bill was intro-
duced to define, as one of our city papers said, “with greater clearness
and precision,” the crime of unlawful conspiracy. It provided
that any person who should by speaking or writing incite local
revolution or the overthrow or destruction of the existing order of
society, should be deemed guilty of conspiracy, and if (and this is
the significant part) as a result of such speeches or writings, human
life is taken or person or property is injured, the person so speak-
ing and writing shall be deemed guilty of having conspired with
the person who actually committed the act and be treated as a
principal in the perpetration of the crime.* No other relation
than that of result between the act and the words or writings is
necessary, entirely irrespective of whether that result was intended
or anywise expected or not. Under this statute—which was
passed, I believe—the seven anarchists would be guilty of the
murder of Degan; any number of other anarchists would be
equally guilty; in a crime of this sort, indeed, it would be hard to
limit the guilt But this law was not in existence when the
murder of Degan took place. It was without doubt contrived
to meet such cases in the future. The fact that it was made
a law is proof that no legal provision parallel to it existed
before. Under the laws of the State then existing, I venture
to say that four out of the seven men could not have been
sentenced as they were by a dispassionate jury and judge. I am
loath to make such a statement as that. I trust I am not without
due respect for those who are my betters in wisdom and virtue.
I honor those who are in authority, because they are in authority.
*I follow here Leonard Swett’s Brief (p. 66). Mr. Swett quotes from the
Chicago Tribune.
witH THE ANARCHISTs? 17
sº
I would not say a word to make others think lightly of them.
And yet, though I love my country and its guardians and gov-
ernors, I love justice more; I could not be an ethical teacher and
stand on this platform to-day did I not recognize a higher law
than that which may be laid down by magistrates and courts.
Under all ordinary circumstances I believe our laws and our judi-
cial decisions are conceived in justice; but who shall say that
gusts of passion may not sometimes sweep legislators and juries
and judges away? Who shall say that even the majority may
not go wrong and public opinion itself cease to be the voice of the
invisible right? Yet, if we cannot say this, how do we know but
what jury and judge and public opinion may possibly have gone
wrong in this special instance? For my own part I should be a
coward if I did not speak as I do to-day, for I should know that a
public wrong was about to be committed and I did not dare
to protest against it. Let me be misjudged of men, if need be,
but let me stand clear before my own conscience.
A few words in closing on my last point. What should be
the punishment of these men? As to this matter I speak with
the least assurance. I am sure only of two things—that Spies,
Schwab, Parsons and Fielden should not be punished as equally
guilty with Engel and Fischer and Lingg, and that they deserve
to be punished for all that. The appeal of Parsons for liberty or
death is pure bathos, and is in keeping with the theatrical charac-
ter of the man. He is responsible, every one of the four men in
whose behalf I have made exceptions, is responsible, gravely
responsible, for that ghastly massacre of the fourth of May.
They were not exercising their inſalienable right of free speech
when they counseled the use of dynamite against the offi-
cials of the State, no matter how general was their language;
they should have been hindered from such treasonous speech long
ago; their international groups should not have been allowed in
the past, their treasonous newspaper organ should not have been
allowed; their mouths of every description should have been
literally shut, and similar mouths should be shut in the future.
But it is folly, it is almost a breach of good faith, for the authorities
f8 WHAT SHA1, L BE DONE
to hang men now for utterances and doings that were known
and tolerated for months and years in the past. The Arbeiter
Zeitung publication company was even incorporated by the State;
why was the charter not revoked, if in the judgment of the State
its treasonable utterances were crimes? It should have been, but
by the very allowing of a thing, the State may give it a certain
sanction. Let the men be imprisoned for a term of years, to
hang them would be a public crime; it would go down to history
as such, I haven’t the shadow of a doubt.
As to the three men who are beyond all reasonable doubt
guilty of complicity in the Haymarket crime, it is more difficult
to speak. Crimes against the State are in one sense the most
deadly crimes, and in another sense they are the crimes to be con-
sidered with the greatest magnanimity. Even these three men
were not murderers in the common sense of that word; they
were men who had earned an honest living, who had not even
been suspected of the smallest crime before. A political crime
belongs to a totally different category from ordinary crime.
There was a cry to hang Jeff Davis after the war; he was
surely a monstrous political criminal. But we should not now
regard it as a particularly noble thing if he had been hanged,
once the war was over—to say nothing of the ministers of
his cabinet and generals of his army. The policemen are
justified in shooting down all those who offer violent resist-
ance to their authority, when legitimately exercised; but
when the mêlée is over it may be wise and may be unwise to
execute the leaders of the revolt. I do not take up the question
of capital punishment; I think it is the poorest time in many
years to discuss that question. To admit the guilt of all these
men in its extremest form and yet argue for the commutation of
their sentence on the ground of the general wickedness of capital
punishment seems to me a piece of sentimentalism. If these
men, any or all, deserve the extremest penalty of the law, I for
one would say, let justice have its way. A common murderer, I
do not hesitate to say, deserves hanging. But it is because these
three men are not common murderers that I question whether
witH THE ANARCHISTs? I9
they deserve that ſate. Their offense is against the State and the
officers of the State. The question is, is not the State big
enough, strong enough to be able to afford to be magnanimous,
and to say to them: “Your mouths shall be closed, and you
shall never be free to plot again against the public peace, but the
boon of life shall not be taken from you.” It is a saying from
the lips of so eminent a statesman as Burke, that magnanimity is
not seldom the truest wisdom, and that a great State and little
minds go ill together. The words have a special interest to us,
for they were uttered with reference to the American colonies.
Anarchy is a disease. You cannot stamp it out—though all
these men were hanged and one hundred more besides, aye, and
every man or woman that has belonged to the different groups
in this city, you would not rid the body politic of its presence;
like a ghastly cancer, it would appear again in time. It has
to be cured. Shut it up, yes; but cure at the same time.
If you do not, you but drive it below the surface of society,
and in time it will rumble and shake and burst forth
with volcanic force and reduce our State, our very civil-
ization to ruins. May such a day never come! I believe
it never will come. But if it should, you and I, our judges
and our juries and our legislators, our churches and our wealthy
classes, and all who might do justice and yet do not, will be
responsible. O, my friends, my countrymen, what a trust have
we! Our fathers who laid the foundations of our government in
freedom never dreamed that in the very name of freedom anarchy
would raise its horrid head and dare to assail it. Let us remem-
ber their toils and their courage and take heart. Let us pledge to
our country a new devotion. Let us resolve in the spirit of the
immortal Lincoln—who belongs more particulary to this com-
monwealth and whose statue now crowns the entrance to one of
our parks—that this government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.
“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
WHAT SHALL BE DONE
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast and sail and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to trust the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee—are all with thee!”
WITH THE ANARCHISTs? 2 I
MR. SALTER’S PLEA FOR THE ANARCHIST.S.
CHICAGo NEws, october 25TH, 1887.
It was well that Mr. William M. Salter assured his audience
at the Grand Opera House on Sunday, that it was with a full .
sense of his responsibility that he discussed the subject “What
shall be done with the Anarchists?” Otherwise the public would
never have suspected it.
As the day when Spies and his associates are condemned to
pay the penalty for their crime approaches it behooves every
citizen to think and speak of the subject with the greatest circum-
spection. By due course of law, af er as fair a trial as was ever
conducted, Spies, Parsons, Fielden, Schwab, Engel, Fischer and
Lingg have been found guilty of murder and have been sentenced
to die. Their case has occupied the public mind for seventeen
months, and the attention of the courts for over a year. If there
has been a distinguishing feature about the trial and condemnation
of the anarchists it has been the singular absence of anything like
passion or revenge in the proceedings. From first to last they
have been accorded the fullest protection of the law which they
denounced and conspired to kill.
The anarchists were indicted as accessories to murder under
the statute which declares that “he who aids, abets, assists, advi-
ses, or encourages a crime shall be eonsidered as principal and
punished accordingly,” and which also provides that accessories
may be indicted and convicted “whether the principal is con-
victed or amenable to justice or not and punished as principal.”
Under the rulings of Judge Gary, sustained unanimously by the
Supreme Court of Illinois, the anarchists were found to liave
aided, abetted, assisted, advised, or encouraged the commission of
the murder perpetrated on the night of May 4, 1886. For many
months before that horrible night they had been preparing for
Just such an occasion, and when the murder was committed it
22 WHAT SHALL BE DONE
was in the manner and by the very implements which they had
advised and devised.
In view of these facts what do readers of the Daily Mews
think of Mr. Salter’s declaration: “There is this kernel of truth
in the claim of anarchistic sympathizers, that the anarchists were
tried for murder and are to be hanged for anarchy?” He could
not distinguish between the fact that anarchy is a crime against
the life of society and the crime for which the anarchists were
convicted was the murder of Officer Degan, for whose life society
is responsible.
Mr. Salter took the strange view for a man of intelligence that
the conspiracy which resulted in Degan's death was organized on
the Monday night before the Haymarket massacre. If he had
studied the case as carefully as he professed, he would have
known the plans and instruments for the attack on the police were
canvassed, matured, and provided months before the fatal night;
and that not Lingg, Engel, and Fischer alone were accessories to
the bomb-throwing, but that all the condemned anarchists in some
degree lent their aid, assistance, and encouragement to the crime.
Mr. Salter finds fault with the sentence in that seven are ad-
judged “all alike guilty of murder and alike deserving of being
hanged by the neck until they are dead.” The complete answer
to this is that a murder is a murder, and that the least guilty of the
anarchists was guilty of it, and brought upon himself the penalty.
The guiltiest could not receive a higher punishment.
There is no reason in Mr. Salter's discrimination against
Engel, Lingg, and Fischer, unless he is prepared to maintain that
the hand that executes is more responsible than the mind that
plans and directs. Spies and Parsons were accessories in chief,
and if any deserve death for the murder of Degan they are the
In e11.
Mr. Salter says: “It is folly, it is almost a breach of good
faith, for the authorities to hang men now for utterances and
doings that were known and tolerated for months and years in
the past.” This shows a lamentable ignorance or willful miscon-
struction of what the anarchists are condemned for. They have
witH THE ANARCHIsts? 23
been convicted not for any utterances or doings of the months
and years past but for the murder that grew directly out of those
utterances and doings. This is the very spirit of the constitution
of the state, which says “every person may freely speak, write,
and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of
that liberty.” The murder of Degan grew out of the abuse of
that liberty to speak and act freely, and so the anarchists were
properly held responsible for the consequences of their utterances
and doings.
ANOTHER WORD FROM MR. SALTER.
cHICAGo News, october 25th, isºr.
Zºo The Editor."
In your editorial this morning on my last Sunday's lecture
you quite ignore my point. The public is not in a mood for dis-
crimination now, and I very much regret to see that a journal so
widely read and so deservedly influential as the Daily Wews is
scarcely in such a mood, either. I maintained that there was no
trustworthy evidence implicating Spies, Schwab, Parsons and
Fielden in the Monday night conspiracy. I believe if you or any
candid man should review the evidence actually produced you
would not be satisfied with it. The other three men were part-
ners in that conspiracy. The four are only shown to have been
members and leaders in the general conspiracy known as the In-
ternational Association. I admitted that the minor one was the
legitimate outcome of the larger; but for all that they were two
things, and those who had the guilt attaching to membership in
the larger conspiracy did not have that attaching to membership
in the smaller. The general conspiracy never was broken up,
though it was as patent as the day. I believe it should have been.
The smaller one was hatched and formed behind closed doors
and, without a doubt, would have been broken up and its leaders
made examples of, even under Mayor Harrison's lax administra-
tion, if the police had discovered it. There is a difference in
ethics and a difference in law between general incitement to
24 WHAT SHALL BE DONE
crime and a special plot to commit crime. Wharton says incite-
ment must be special. It is this that constitutes accessoryship in
the hitherto established sense of that term. The Supreme court
holds that the four I have singled out were partners in the Mon-
day night conspiracy. Apart from that it is extremely doubtful
if it would hold them equally guilty with the rest. I do not plead
that Spies, Schwab, Parsons and Fielden should not be punished;
I should only like to see them punished for the crime they com-
mitted, and not for one for which there is no trustworthy evidence
that they were accessories any more than principals.
Very respectfully,
W. M. SALTER.
WHAT MR. SALTER IGNORES.
Mr. William M. Salter says the Daily Wews ignored the point
of his Sunday plea for the anarchists that “there was no trust-
worthy evidence implicating Spies, Schwab, Parsons and Fielden
in the Monday night conspiracy.” The Daily News paid specific
attention to his great point in the following words: “Mr. Salter
took the strange view for a man of intelligence that the conspiracy
which resulted in Degan's death was organized on the Monday
night before the Haymarket massacre. If he had studied the case
as carefully as he professed he would have known that plans and
instruments for the attack on the police were canvassed, matured
and provided months before the fatal night; and that not Lingg,
Engel and Fischer alone were accessories to the bomb-throwing,
but that all the condemned anarchists in some degree lent their
aid, assistance and encouragement to the crime.” This made
them accessories and, under the law, punishable as principals.
In January, 1885, Spies displayed a bomb which he said was
intended for use against the police. Five months before that
event he told of the time and manner in which such a bomb was
to be used. When analyzed the fragments of the bomb taken
from the body of Degan tallied exactly with the bomb displayed
By Spies in January and which remained in the possession of the
Paily Mews until required in evidence.—Chicago Mews, Oct. 27,’87.
The Wews still cleverly ignores my point. I do not differ in
the slightest with the Wews in its view that the conspiracy which
resulted in Degan's death, was organized long before the Hay-
market massacre. I distinctly said in my lecture that the Monday
witH THE ANARCHISTS? 25.
night conspiracy was the outcome, the legitimate outcome of the
general conspiracy, of which Spies, Schwab, Parsons and Fielden
were leaders. But the Illinois Supreme Court does not base its
decision on this fact. The court regards it as established that
these men just mentioned were acquainted with or partners to the
Monday night conspiracy also. It gives prolonged attention to
the “Revenge” circular, the writing of the word “Ruhe.” by
Spies, the utterances of Spies and all the others at the Haymarket
meeting, the evidence that Fielden shot at the police, the testimo-
nies of Gilmer and Thompson, all of which would be absolutely
superfluous if the four men are guilty of the murder of Degan
simply because of their leadership in the general conspiracy. The
court distinctly says, after once establishing the Monday night
conspiracy: “The last and most important question to be con-
sidered is: Were the plaintiffs in error parties to the conspiracy
formed on the evening of Monday, May 3, 1886?” It takes up
each one of the eight men in turn. More than a third of the
opinion is devoted to this question, and fully two-thirds of that
third is devoted to Spies, Schwab, Fielden and Parsons. The
News may ignore this point, but thoughtful men who are looking
into the facts of the case and making a first-hand judgment cannot
ignore it. It is a capital point, and I have no doubt that the Wews
and the other papers of Chicago will be sorry, some day, that they
slurred it over—though the sorrow may come too late to be of
any avail.
As to the bomb, it is sufficient to say that the court regards
it as established that it was one of those made by Lingg. That
Lingg may have copied after the one displayed by Spies is per-
fectly possible. That Spies is thereby implicated in Lingg's
manufacture of bombs is simply childish.
It seemed useless to reply to the Wews after the sort of re-
joinder it made to my communication. So these few words are
appended here. W. M. SALTER.