Death in the Haymarket

by James Green

  The next day Judge Gary outlined the state’s position in his charge to the jury. The prosecution would prove “the existence of a general conspiracy to annihilate the police force and destroy property” and show that the “defendants who were the instigators of it” were therefore liable for the act, “even if committed without their specific sanction at that particular time and place.” This ruling surprised and further disturbed the defense team. After court adjourned that day, defense counsel Salomon told reporters that the state had tricked them by saying the eight men were being tried for murder when instead they were being tried for being anarchists before a jury whose members had, for the most part, admitted their bias against anarchists.

  On the second day the prosecution called its first witness. Chief Inspector Bonfield reiterated his version of the events of May 4, emphasizing that men in the crowd opened fire on the police as soon as the bomb went off. Next, the IWPA leader Gottfried Waller took the stand. Arrested for presiding over the Monday-night conspiracy meeting, Waller had been persuaded to turn state’s evidence by Captain Schaack, who agreed to give money to Waller’s family and to find him safe passage to Europe. Born in Switzerland, a cabinetmaker by trade and a member of the workers’ militia, Waller was a star witness for the prosecution, though his account of the events leading up to the bombing fell short of incriminating the defendants.22

  Waller described chairing the May 3 meeting in Grief’s Hall, where it was decided to hold the protest rally the next night. But he testified that nothing was said about preparing for the Haymarket event because no one expected the police to intervene. No one at the meeting said anything about using dynamite. At one point in examining Waller, Assistant State’s Attorney George C. Ingham asked the witness if he possessed any bombs. Defense lawyer Foster routinely objected that Waller was not on trial, and then asked what he thought was a rhetorical question: “If you show that some man threw one of these bombs without the knowledge, authority or approval of one of these defendants, is that murder?” Ingham replied immediately: “Under the law of the state of Illinois, it is murder.” Therefore, he added ominously, “the law is strong enough to hang every one of these men.”23

  DURING THE NEXT WEEK, the state called nine police officers and three private citizens to the stand. Reporters quoted Grinnell as being thrilled at how well the trial proceedings had started and described the anarchists as being alternately “nervous and frightened.” For example, Fielden, who had been accused of firing a pistol at the police, hid his facial expressions when officers referred to him. However, the mastermind Spies listened imperturbably and smiled encouragingly when witnesses identified him.24

  On July 22, before the afternoon session opened, George Engel’s daughter Mary, a young woman of sixteen years, pinned geranium boutonnieres on the defendants’ coat lapels as the anarchists’ family members offered encouraging looks to the men in the dock. The court reporters became fascinated with the defendants and their entourage. Drawings of the characters in the courtroom opera appeared in the newspapers frequently. Some were quite unflattering to the defendants, but most depicted the anarchists as ordinary human beings. August Spies, whose family was described as seeming “modest and respectable,” was “not by any means an evil-looking person either.” To one journalist, Lizzie Swank Holmes appeared a wan young woman with a scrawny neck and a large lower lip. “From her meek appearance one would never guess she was a fire eater and a blood drinker, a member of the American Group, a blatherskite orator and a writer of inflammatory slush for anarchic publications.”25 Lucy Parsons attracted special attention from reporters, who described her homemade, yet stylish and colorful, attire. Albert, Jr., and Lulu were portrayed as shy, attractive little children whose fair hair and sallow complexions belied any sign of “colored descent.” The reporter did not stop with this observation. Mrs. Parsons, one reporter noted, objected to being called a “colored” woman and claimed she was born to Mexican and Indian parents. “But she is decidedly colored, just the same,” he wrote, “and any ordinary observer would conclude that at least one of her parents was a Negro.” 26

  Every day there was a scramble to gain admission to the most sensational trial anyone could recall. Spectators entered and left constantly to satisfy their curiosity, and the courtroom doors flapped open and closed frequently, allowing a few breaths of air to enter the ovenlike chamber. Judge Gary, described as a “horse-sense individual” who would “stand no non-sense,” nonetheless contributed to the theatricality of the event by filling the seats behind his chair with well-dressed young ladies who clearly enjoyed the spectacle. Mrs. Hortensia Black, the captain’s wife, displayed a different demeanor as she leaned into the defense box and whispered encouragement to her fellow Texan, Albert Parsons, and the other defendants. When Mrs. Black’s unexpected displays of sympathy toward the anarchists were reported in the press, she immediately placed herself beyond the pale of respectable Chicago.27

  A large corps of reporters filed stories every day, highlighting some exciting aspect of the state’s case or quoting at length one of the prosecutors’ soliloquies. The defense lawyers were given their due, but at times Salomon and Zeisler were described like vaudeville performers. 28 On July 25 the press was aroused by the appearance of a Pinkerton agent who had infiltrated IWPA meetings, one of several spies assigned to the task after businessmen, including Philip Armour and Marshall Field, hired the agency to report on the actions of the International. The anarchists trembled, one headline claimed, when they learned that detectives had been placed in their midst. The secret agent spoke mainly about various speeches he claimed to have heard, including remarks by Fielden and Parsons, who said a few explosions in Chicago would help the cause. He also quoted Spies speaking hypothetically about the “green” soldiers in the National Guard, who could be easily scattered by a few bombs.

  Captain William Black and his wife, Hortensia

  The prosecution made little use of this detective’s testimony, even though the agent supported Grinnell’s claim that the anarchists believed that May 1 would provide a good opportunity to start the revolution. Pinkertons were controversial figures in Chicago and had been strongly criticized by the mayor for causing trouble at McCormick’s. At one point Captain Black threw up his hands in despair when the secret agent made what sounded like disclosures concocted to please his Pinkerton bosses and their powerful clients. Nonetheless, the spy’s revelations seemed sensational to the press, because the agent exposed what appeared to be the sinister inner life of anarchist cells.29

  The next day the prosecution produced two witnesses who claimed that Schwab and Spies were directly involved in the bombing. M. M. Thompson testified that he stood next to the two men during the rally and overheard them talking about the police. He thought the word “pistol” was spoken and that a man he thought was Spies asked his friend (presumed to be Schwab), “Do you think one is enough or hadn’t we better get more?” Thompson took this as a reference to bombs. The witness said he tailed the two Germans until they met another much larger man. When shown a photo of the anarchist Rudolph Schnaubelt, Thompson identified him as the third man. 30

  Even more damning testimony came from a second witness, who said he saw August Spies light a fuse on a bomb that a man matching Schnaubelt’s description threw from the street. However, the witness, H. L. Gilmer, seemed far from credible to a Tribune reporter who described him as an odd-looking eccentric claiming to be a painter by trade. Standing 6 feet 3 inches, he looked so lean and cadaverous that he could have been an escaped giant from one of P. T. Barnum’s freak shows. “Dressed in a seedy black suit, and with his long, curling hair, sanctimonious visage, and great stretch of scraggy throat,” Gilmer resembled a well-worn Methodist circuit rider. His long legs stuck out of the small witness chair, and one foot revealed the tattered sole of an enormous No. 14 shoe. When the defense lawyer Foster posed a question that puzzled him, Harry Gilmer would squint his eyes, purse up his lower lip and roll his head until he ans
wered. “Sometimes he would place the tips of his fingers together, throw back his head until one would see about two feet of ropy neck, gaze up at the ceiling a moment, and presently come back to earth with the expected reply.” He patronizingly referred to Mr. Foster as “my learned friend” and acted oddly enough to provoke his interrogator to ask if he was “an opium-eater or practiced the morphine habit.”

  Then came a moment of high drama. Asked whether he could identify the man who lit the match to the bomb, Gilmer “stretched out his long, bony, claw-like left hand, and, shaking it directly at Spies, said ‘There is the man.’ ” The courtroom burst with excited exclamations. Spies jumped to his feet and laughed derisively, as the other prisoners shouted out protests in German and English. Judge Gary banged his gavel furiously for several minutes until the courtroom quieted.31

  Gilmer’s testimony seemed so absurd and so filled with inconsistencies and contradictions that the defendants returned the next day in a rather relaxed mood. Their lawyers were certain they could impugn the testimony of the state’s witnesses with their own witnesses. Oscar Neebe was cheerful because no one had connected him with the incident. Parsons casually read a newspaper, while Louis Lingg, who understood very little English, acted nonchalant and Michael Schwab seemed “philosophical.” The dashing Spies divided his attention between his women friends and admirers and the witnesses who happened to be testifying. The anarchists were also buoyed by the news that the Central Labor Union had organized a meeting of 800 workers to protest press coverage of the trial, to show sympathy for the defendants and to raise money for their cause.32 On July 30 the Tribune described the prisoners as “bearing up wonderfully well,” whereas, “in fact, the strain of the trial is more telling on the lawyers on both sides than on the Anarchists.” The jurymen seemed to be wilting in the hot air of the unventilated courtroom, as were the reporters, who complained that the judge insisted on keeping the windows closed to prevent street noise from drowning out any testimony.33

  Gary tried to maintain an iron grip on the proceedings, yet he presided over a courtroom that began to seem more and more like a circus ring. After Captain Schaack took the stand and introduced a truck-load of physical evidence, the center of the room looked a bit like a dynamite arsenal or a newspaper office. Files and baskets of anarchist papers were spread across tables and spilled onto the floor next to Lingg’s trunk, which was surrounded by fragments of iron and splintered wood— the results of Captain Schaack’s experiments in setting off several bombs the police had seized. While the captain described this evidence in grave tones, spectators cast nervous glances at various cigar boxes filled with dynamite, fuses and bombshells. Lingg, however, ignored the proceedings and kept reading a German newspaper, while Spies and his female friends found amusement in the bizarre display. 34

  On August 1, Attorney Salomon opened the defense case by arguing that none of the defendants had been charged with perpetrating the act of murder and that there could not be a trial of accessories without a principal. If none of the defendants threw the bomb, they could not be found guilty of committing murder. The Tribune dismissed Salomon’s argument out of hand and described its maker’s unlimited self-assurance as galling. 35

  Two days later the defense team called its star witness, Mayor Carter Harrison. The courtroom was besieged by larger crowds than ever that morning, all eager to hear the testimony of the flamboyant mayor. When he took the stand, to one reporter the mayor seemed a changed man, aged by the events of the past two years. Harrison was bareheaded, his white hair thinned; his looks contrasted with the well-known impression he made as a man “swaggering along the street with his black slouch hat cocked jauntily on his right ear or trotting down a boulevard on his Kentucky thoroughbred.” The mayor testified that he had carefully observed the crowd at the Haymarket meeting and saw no weapons at all upon any person. He also testified that after listening to the speakers he told Chief Inspector Bonfield nothing dangerous seemed likely to occur and that he should send the police reserves home.36

  The defense team then called a large number of eyewitnesses; some were socialists or trade unionists, and some were unaligned bystanders. They all contradicted the prosecution witnesses. None of them heard Fielden’s call to give the police bloodhounds their due, and none saw him shoot a pistol at the officers. No one saw Schwab at the rally where he was supposed to have been. No one saw Spies on the ground where he could have given the lighted bomb to Schnaubelt, the alleged hurler. No one saw the bomb come from the area around the wagon or from the alley behind it. And no one heard any firing from the crowd before or after the explosion. One witness, Dr. James Taylor, testified that he did not see Sam Fielden shoot at the police with a revolver, nor did he see the bomb fly out of the alley behind the speakers’ wagon, nor did he see people in the crowd shoot at the police after the bomb exploded. Dr. Taylor said shooting erupted from the street where the police were standing. 37

  Here was a remarkable situation. The eyewitnesses called by the defense contradicted nearly every piece of incriminating testimony by the police and the state’s witnesses. It was as though the two groups of people in Haymarket Square that night had seen completely different events unfold before their eyes.38

  The young lawyers, Salomon and Zeisler, thought their witnesses had demolished the prosecution’s case, but Black and Foster were not so sure and said nothing to the press. The older lawyers had perhaps anticipated the response to their arguments from the newspapers. On August 5 the Tribune reported all evidence produced by the defense to be of trifling significance to the jurymen, who seemed too weary to keep tabs on this new testimony; they had been much more alert when the prosecution was at work. 39

  “The Great Trial”

  ON AUGUST 7 the accused anarchists began to take the stand to speak in their own defense. The courtroom quieted as Sam Fielden lumbered up to the stand. Nervous at first, he gradually gained confidence and, as he repeated his Haymarket speech, he seemed to be haranguing the jury. One reporter was so impressed that he said Fielden, if acquitted, could make a fortune on the lecture circuit. On August 9, August Spies, the accused ringleader of the anarchist conspiracy, addressed the court. Attired in a trim navy blue suit and a vest that sported a gold chain and tie pin, he looked to one reporter like a well-dressed salesman.40 Speaking fluently with a strong German accent, Spies gave his account of the events at McCormick’s and of his attempts to halt the men who charged the plant. He admitted that he approved the circular calling for the Haymarket protest but explained that he had ordered the words “Workingmen! To Arms!” removed from the leaflet. He denied receiving a bomb from Michael Schwab at the rally, repeating the point that Schwab was not even present in the square as prosecution witnesses charged. He also explained that he could not have given a bomb to a bomb thrower on the street, as some witnesses said, because he had remained on the wagon the entire time. Finally, Spies said that he had asked the people in the square to hold a peaceful protest.41

  The climax in the anarchist trial approached when the state began to present its summation on August 12. State’s Attorney Francis W. Walker started portentously: “We stand in the temple of justice to exercise the law, where all men stand equal,” he proclaimed. One of the few native Chicagoans on the scene, the prosecutor was a corpulent young man of thirty years who shouted his words vehemently like a politico on the stump. His voice was so loud, it could be heard outside the courthouse on Clark Street.42 Walker began by arguing that the defendants conspired to precipitate a social revolution, one that cost Mathias Degan his life, but then, carried away by the moment, he strayed far beyond the indictment, alleging that 3,000 men had participated in the conspiracy and that every one of them was equally guilty of the murder of Officer Degan, including all the members of the Lehr und Wehr Verein.43

  After Walker finished, Sigmund Zeisler opened for the defense. He impressed one reporter as a good-looking young man with a mellifluous foreign accent and an excellent grasp of English, though h
is gestures seemed superfluously dramatic. Zeisler went after his opponent, Walker, like an archer shooting arrows at a straw target. He said the prosecutor’s argument depended not on evidence but on stirring the prejudice of the jury. Showing no respect for the police, he dismissed their credibility as witnesses. “And before we get through,” Zeisler declared, “we will show that these men were not heroes, but knaves, led on by the most cowardly knave who ever held a public position.” Why, everyone wondered, did the police descend to disperse a peaceful meeting? Even detectives testified that the rally was breaking up when, Zeisler asserted, “this army of 180 policemen arrived armed with clubs and revolvers, headed by this hero, Bonfield, the savior of his country, to break up this meeting of peaceable and unarmed citizens. Was this courageous or cowardly?”

  Zeisler also attacked the prosecution’s claim that the defendants planned to start a social revolution on May 1. He said that anyone who had studied history knew, as the anarchists certainly did, that a revolution could not be called up at any given moment. A revolution was a thing that developed of its own accord, and no single man, or even a dozen men, could simply inaugurate a revolution on a certain day. “Has ever a ridiculous statement like this been made to an intelligent jury?” he wondered.44

  Zeisler concluded by accusing State’s Attorney Grinnell of being “blinded by malice and prejudice.” He charged that the lead prosecutor had eagerly joined in a conspiracy with the police to send these men to the gallows, even if it meant relying upon the testimony of eccentrics like Harry Gilmer.45 The young lawyer acted as though he were speaking before a public forum on the West Side, where citizens hated Bonfield and his blue-coated patrolmen, instead of before a jury who regarded the police as heroes.