Haymarket (37 page)

Grinnell’s ignorance and distortions set my blood a-boil. The man
has no commitment to truth. He sees this case as the opportunity of a lifetime, and would happily sacrifice our lives to advance his career. He describes our characters and motives in the vilest of terms. I myself came in for an extra share of abuse today: “Parsons is a coward who never did a manly thing in his life—all the more shameful for someone born on our soil.”

But it was Spies who got the worst of it. Grinnell portrayed him as some sort of moral monster, intent on destruction for its own sake, a man who relentlessly preaches the doctrine of bloodshed and riot. He insists that Spies is at the center of a secret, diabolical conspiracy to bomb the city to ruins; accuses him of personally instigating the violence at the McCormick plant—and then running away from the scene to save himself; of planting secret words in the
Arbeiter
to signal the other plotters that the moment for a general uprising had arrived; of then attempting to use the Haymarket meeting to inaugurate a citywide orgy of bomb-throwing, an attempt foiled only by the “timely and wise” intervention of police inspector Bonfield; and so on, and so on. Throughout, Grinnell’s voice throbbed with such histrionic zeal that if ever the term
extremist
applied to any man it surely belongs to him. To top it off, he had the gall to tell the jury, his eyes droopy with fake sincerity, “I hope I shall not at any time during this trial say anything to you which will in any way or manner excite your passions.” How does the man live with himself?

The jury seemed mesmerized throughout, but that doesn’t mean, I like to believe, that they’re foolish enough to swallow Grinnell’s wild fabrications whole. Captain Black tells us that much will hinge on the plausibility of the link Grinnell will try to establish between the bomb-thrower’s act and the words we’ve spoken and written over the years that purportedly encourage such acts. The key to Grinnell’s strategy was revealed, the Captain said, when he told the jury that “perhaps none of these men personally threw that bomb, but each and all abetted, encouraged, and advised the throwing of it, and therefore are as guilty as the individual who in fact did throw it. They are accessories.” In case Grinnell can’t produce the actual bomb-thrower—though Captain Black says he’ll try to pin the deed on Rudolph Schnaubelt, Schwab’s brother-in-law and a member of the
IWPA
—he’s cleverly laid the groundwork for arguing that the actual murderer need not be named, nor even indicted, in order for the jury to find
us
guilty.

July 16

Grinnell today called as the first witness “for the people,” Inspector John Bonfield. As he moved to take the stand, applause broke out in the packed courtroom. Judge Gary lightly pounded his gavel for order, but his avuncular smile contradicted any suggestion of a reprimand. Bonfield spoke with the snappy assurance of a man confident of his audience, even as he boldly lied to it. He claimed some thousand people were in Haymarket when the police arrived—in fact there were maybe two hundred—and then described how, immediately after the bomb exploded, “firing poured in on us” from all sides, “from seventy-five to a hundred pistol shots before a shot was fired by any officer.” Yet even the mainstream press reported that the police opened fire with such reckless speed that they managed to kill several of their own officers. Mayor Harrison himself has described the crowd as peaceable and unarmed.

Following Bonfield’s brief appearance, Gottfried Waller took the stand. We knew in advance that he’d be testifying for the prosecution, indeed, that he’d be the centerpiece in building its case for a “widespread conspiracy.” Still, seeing one of our own
IWPA
stalwarts, a dedicated social revolutionary, in the embrace of our enemies, was painful to behold. His drooping shoulders and downcast look gave the appearance of a man unhappy with his assignment. But I may well be imagining or embellishing what I would like to believe is true.

As the man who chaired the notorious meeting of May 3rd at Greif’s Hall, Waller’s testimony carried special authority. Yet the story he told was full of distortions and outright lies, as Fisher and Engel, the only defendants present at that May 3rd meeting, later assured us. According to Waller, Engel presented a plan at Grief’s, which the group adopted, that called for an armed response to revenge the recent massacre at the McCormick plant. The signal for the uprising would, according to Waller, be the appearance of the word
Ruhe
(quiet, rest) in prominent letters in the
Arbeiter
. In the paper’s edition of May 4th,
Ruhe
did appear, in the “Letterbox” column of announcements, which meant (so the prosecution would have the jury believe) that in Haymarket Square that evening, the Revolution would begin. Yet Waller himself admitted that at the May 3rd gathering at Greif’s, the pending Haymarket meeting was scarcely discussed and the possibility that the police would attempt an intervention there was never once mentioned. If a “conspiracy”
had
been decided upon at Greif’s,
no one seems to have dreamt that it should or would commence the very next night at Haymarket. Indeed it was specifically suggested that men carrying arms should stay away from that meeting altogether!

Tonight in the cellblock, Engel told us that the “plan” he’s accused of having presented at Grief’s on May 3rd was nothing more than a vague suggestion that workers stop turning the other cheek and start responding to force with force. Those at the meeting, he said, had been equally vague when expressing agreement with him. Nobody had spoken of particular timetables or detailed strategies. Most of those present, Engel says, simply shared his view that one day, a proletarian uprising would take place, and when it did, they would be ready to lend their support. What the so-called conspiracy amounted to was a group of men expressing their conviction, widespread in the working-class, that the shape of the future has been unavoidably set.

I’m sure Engel is telling the truth, though I suspect he’s downplaying the rage he expressed that night at Greif’s. It had been but a few hours, after all, since the slaughter at the McCormick plant. Spies had poured his outrage into his overwrought editorial. And had I been in town, I might well have given way to some sort of ill-considered passion. So might any one. Only those indifferent to suffering—the Cyrus McCormicks of the world—can maintain composure in the face of human misery.

In any case, by the time our counsel was done with Waller, his credibility had been shredded. Captain Black got him to admit that he had no idea why the word
Ruhe
appeared in the
Arbeiter
on the fourth—that no “gong” had in fact been sounded—and to admit, further, that Spies, the paper’s editor, was ignorant of the significance of
Ruhe
as any sort of “signal”; he had simply inserted it in the “Letterbox” in the same automatic way he did other announcements that came in to the paper.

Waller even admitted on the stand that it was after the police had threatened him with indictment for conspiracy that he’d agreed to cooperate. He further acknowledged that he’s been at Central Station every day for the past two weeks discussing the shape his testimony should take, and matter-of-factly added that the police had written out portions of it for him to memorize. He even revealed that he’s been financially compensated for his time and that Captain Schaack has helped him find a job. Perhaps Waller’s had a change of heart. Why else would he have played so directly into Black’s hands?

I would have assumed that the revelation of perjured testimony and police complicity in it would immediately result in the declaration of a mistrial, if not the dismissal of the indictments themselves. But apparently my naiveté is bottomless. When Waller stepped down from the stand, the trial proceeded with a recess so short, we barely had time to stretch our legs.

July 20

Having failed thus far to prove the existence of a “conspiracy,” let alone any persuasive connection between the meeting at Greif’s on May 3rd and the events that took place at Haymarket on the fourth, the prosecution has shifted its focus on to Rudolph Schnaubelt, who was indicted with the rest of us but has disappeared. To make his case against Schnaubelt, Grinnell’s been calling a ragtag string of witnesses to the stand. His two “stars” have been a Mr. M. M. Thompson, who works in dry goods at the Marshall Field Company, and a Mr. Harry L. Gilmer, whose employment history seems as clouded as his sense of truth.

Thompson testified that during the Haymarket rally, he followed Spies and Schwab into Crane’s Alley and overheard the words
pistol
and
police
exchanged. Moving closer, Thompson claims to have heard Spies say, “Do you think one is enough, or hadn’t we better go and get more?” A few minutes later, Thompson insists, he heard Schwab say, “Now, if they come, we will give it to them.” At that point, according to Thompson, the two were joined by a third man. Spies handed the man a large object, which he put in his right-hand pocket. That was Grinnell’s cue to whip out a photograph of Schnaubelt, whom Thompson dutifully identified as the third man in question.

On cross-examination, it emerged that Thompson had never previously seen either Spies or Schwab, that between the word
pistol
and the word
police
he had heard nothing at all, and, most damning, that he himself doesn’t speak German! Thompson tried to claim that Spies and Schwab conversed in English that night, but Captain Black called up witnesses who established beyond question that the two men, when together,
always
spoke German. “It hardly seems likely,” Foster acidly told the court, “that two men plotting a murderous crime would revert to using a language more readily understood by bystanders—and would speak up loudly enough to be overheard by a man standing some six feet away.”

Other witnesses conclusively demonstrated that Schwab went to Haymarket from the
Arbeiter
office that night solely to give Spies a message imploring him to come at once to address a meeting in progress at the Deering plant. Unable to find Spies after searching for him in the crowd for fifteen minutes, Schwab went off to Deering to fill the speaking engagement himself. In short, Spies and Schwab never even crossed paths that night in Haymarket!

Unfazed at having had one star witness demolished, Grinnell promptly called a second. Gilmer proved, if anything, a still greater disaster for the prosecution. He claimed that after the police had entered Haymarket, Spies climbed down off the wagon and joined several men in Crane’s Alley. “One of them was him,” Gilmer said, pointing to Fischer, seated in the dock. Spies had then, according to Gilmer, lit a match to some object another man was holding. “A fuse then commenced to fizzle,” Gilmer testified, “and the second man then tossed it into the column of police.” Once again the photograph of Schnaubelt was produced, and once again the witness identified him, without hesitation, as the man who threw the bomb. A pat enough narrative—but alas for the prosecution, markedly different from the version Gilmer had earlier given to a reporter from the
Chicago Times
. In the
Times
interview, Gilmer had never mentioned Spies at all and had insisted that one and the same man lit and threw the bomb, and the man he described bore not the slightest resemblance to Schnaubelt.

The prosecution offered no corroborating evidence for Gilmer’s testimony—in either of its versions. Captain Black, on the other hand, produced
thirteen
witnesses to the effect that Spies had not left the wagon after the police arrived until Captain Ward gave the order to disperse. When Spies did then step down, someone tried to shoot him and he was saved by his brother lunging between him and the would-be assassin. As for Fischer’s purported role in the bomb-throwing, Captain Black proved that at that fateful moment, Fischer was not even in Haymarket Square, but rather at Zepf’s Hall. That Gilmer was a venal and inveterate liar was testified to over and over again by the nine neighbors and acquaintances Captain Black produced. Two of them went so far as to insist that Gilmer was “not to be believed even under oath!”

What a wondrous debacle! Our spirits soared. After the hearings ended for the day, Lucy came by with some roast chicken and we feasted
on the imminence of our vindication and release. Captain Black and his wife, Hortensia—she’s attended every session—stopped by, and they seemed as pleased as we with how things are going. Captain Black did feel compelled to remind us that the prosecution is far from finished. He predicted that they’d next shift their focus on to Lingg; having failed to establish him as the bomb-thrower, they’d now try to target him as the bomb-maker. “No, I fear we’re not yet done,” the Captain said, though his face shone with satisfaction. “We can raise a toast soon enough, I hope,” he said, “but perhaps not just yet.”

July 24

Captain Black’s predictions have proven accurate. The prosecution spent the last four days proving that Lingg manufactured bombs. Not a difficult feat, given the contrivances and tools found in his flat, in combination with the “eyewitness” testimony of his landlord and onetime comrade, William Seliger, now turned state’s evidence, who claims to have assisted in the bomb-making. What did prove difficult to establish was any link between Lingg’s bombs and the one thrown in Haymarket, or between Lingg and ourselves—since most of the defendants had never met Lingg prior to the indictments and the few of us who had, knew of him in a distant way only.

Several professors of chemistry and the like were called upon to examine the few fragments of the Haymarket bomb that have been recovered. They testified that they’d found comparable percentages of various metals—though in different proportions, they acknowledged—in that bomb and in the ones Lingg had manufactured at home. This was still a long way from proving that it was one of Lingg’s bombs that had been thrown in Haymarket, and even further away from proving that Lingg himself had thrown it—since it’s been clearly established that the closest he ever got to Haymarket that evening was some two miles distant.