Question: What happened before the spies could strike?
About the article "Grand Central Terminal", section "Layout".

Candidate passages:
The greatest amount of documents about fascist censorship comes from the military commissions for censorship.
This is also due to some facts: first of all the war had brought many Italians far from their houses, creating a need for writing to their families that previously did not exist.
Secondarily, in a critic situation as a war can be, obviously military authorities were compelled to a major activity to control eventual internal oppositions, spies or (most important) defeatists.
Finally, the result of the war could not allow fascists to hide or delete these documents (which it is supposed might have happened for other ones before the war), that remained in public offices where they were found by occupying troops.
So we can now read thousands of letters that soldiers sent to their families, and these documents revealed as a unique resource for sociology (and general knowledge about those times).
The work was daily organized, resumed and composed in a note that daily was received by Mussolini or his apparatus and by the other major authorities.
Notes reported, i.e., what soldiers could think about relevant events, what was the opinion in Italy, similar arguments. 
A Midrash taught that no other people sent to perform a religious duty and risk their lives on a mission could compare with the two spies whom Joshua sent.
The Rabbis taught that the two were Phinehas and Caleb.
The Midrash noted that says, “Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two spies secretly (, "cheresh").” The Midrash read the word , "cheresh" (“secretly”), as , "chares", “earthenware,” to teach that the two spies took with them earthenware pots and cried, “Here are pots!
Whoever wishes, let him come and buy!” so that no one might detect them or say that they were spies.
The Rabbis taught that Rahab was one of the four most beautiful women who ever lived, along with Sarah, Abigail, and Esther.
The Rabbis taught that Rahab inspired lust by the mere mention of her name.
Rabbi Isaac taught that saying Rahab’s name twice would cause a man immediately to lose control.
Rav Nachman protested that he said Rahab’s name twice and nothing happened to him.
Rabbi Isaac replied that he meant that this would happen to any man who knew her.
A Midrash explained that speaks of Rahab’s hiding “him” instead of “them” because Phinehas, as a prophet, had the power to make himself invisible.
A Midrash deduced from and that Rahab lied to the king, and was prepared to be burned to death in punishment for doing so, for she attached herself to Israel.
A Midrash taught that for hiding the spies, God rewarded the convert Rahab with priestly descendants.
Reading a Midrash noted that Rahab, like Israel, Jethro, and the Queen of Sheba, came to the Lord after hearing of God’s miracles.
Rabbi Eleazar recounted that Rahab knew in that the Canaanites had lost heart because they had lost their virility.
The Rabbis taught that Rahab’s attribution in of God’s presence to both heaven and earth demonstrated greater faith in God than Jethro or Naaman, but not as much as Moses.
Rabbi Samuel son of Nahman faulted Joshua in for keeping faith with Rahab in disobedience to God’s command in to “utterly destroy” all of the Canaanites.
The Mekhilta taught that as the events of took place, Rahab converted to Judaism, at the end of her fiftieth year.
She said before God that she had sinned in three ways.
And she asked to be forgiven on account of three things — on account of the red cord, the window, and the wall.
“Then,” in the words of “she let them down by a cord through the window, for her house was upon the side of the wall, and she dwelt upon the wall.”A Midrash deduced from that Rahab received a prophetic vision of what the spies’ pursuers would do. 
The driver, Willem Horne, could not remember what had happened and was acquitted. 
Spies was put on trial for conspiracy in the murder of Officer Mathias Degan with seven other men.
The defense initially sought to split the defendants into two groups.
Spies was to stand trial with three others (Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe), separated from the "Monday Night Conspirators” (Louis Lingg, George Engel and Adolph Fischer), the more extreme defendants alleged to have attended a planning meeting in the Greif’s Hall basement the night before the bombing.
However, defense attorney William A.
Foster shocked his colleagues and Spies by telling the judge the motion of severance musn’t delay the trial and was merely perfunctory.
Spies passed a note to another attorney that read, “What in the hell does Foster mean?
I thought our motion was meant seriously.” Albert Parsons would later turn himself in and all eight defendants were tried as a group.
Spies would maintain his innocence and, despite the costly courtroom mistake, showed solidarity with his comrades through the trial, appeals, and at the gallows.
Spies was one of three defendants, along with Lingg and Fischer, who were implicated in the possession of bombs.
Spies testified he first obtained the dynamite out of curiosity.
“I wanted to experiment with dynamite just the same as I would take a revolver and go out and practice.” He kept the explosives on hand to impress reporters.
“The reporters used to bother me a good deal, and they were always up for a sensation and when they came to the office I would show them these Giant cartridges…they would go away and write up some big sensational article.” (Giant Powder was a brand of dynamite.)
During the trial, the jury was allowed by the judge to consider as evidence articles written by the defendants in support of political violence, conversations about their desire for revolution, and other past materials.
On the stand, Spies confirmed he had received an 1884 letter from Johann Most, an anarchist author of a how-to pamphlet on dynamite.
Most's letter said he would proxy Spies 20 or 25 lbs.
of “medicine,” which prosecutors said was code for dynamite.
In their appeal, the defense argued that police seized the letter from Spies’ desk without a warrant, but the appellate judge said he could not pursue the matter because defense lawyers had not objected to the letter’s admission during the trial.
Gottfried Waller, a fellow anarchist, testified that at the meeting at Greif’s Hall, two of the Monday Night Conspirators agreed that the code word “Ruhe” would be published in the Arbeiter Zeitung to call anarchists to arms.
The word appeared in the newspaper’s “Letterbox” section on May 4, the day of the bombing.
Theodore Fricke, the "Arbeiter Zeitung’s" bookkeeper, testified that Ruhe was written in the hand of August Spies.
Malvern Thompson, a grocer, testified he observed Spies preparing for the Haymarket rally in Crane’s alley, where he heard Spies ask Michael Schwab, “Do you think one is enough or hadn’t we better go and get more?” and a reference to “pistols” and “police.” Thompson said he heard Schwab tell Spies, “Now, if they come, we will give it to them.” Thompson said the two were joined by a third man who Thompson later identified as Rudolph Schnaubelt, the lead suspect as the bomb thrower and Schwab’s brother in law.
Spies handed something to Schnaubelt, who stuffed it in his pocket, Thompson testified.
Witness Harry Gilmer tesitified he saw Spies climb down from the wagon and light the fuse for the bomb thrown by Schnaubelt.
At his sentencing, Spies denounced the police and prosecution witnesses.
“There was no evidence produced by the State to show or even indicate that I had any knowledge of the man who threw the bomb, or that I myself had anything to do with the throwing of the missile, unless, of course, you weight the testimony of the accomplices of the State’s Attorney and (Inspector John) Bonfield, the testimony of Thompson and Gilmer, by the price they were paid for it.”Spies also charged that one witness, Gustav Legner, could prove his alibi but was threatened by police and paid to leave Chicago.
(Legner sued the "Arbeiter Zeitung" for libel for repeating Spies’ claim of bribery, denying he was told to leave town.
Legner said he asked Spies before leaving the city if he should testify and was told he would not be needed.
The "Arbeiter Zeitung" agreed to print a retraction.)
In 1887, Spies and his co-defendants appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court (122 Ill. 1), then to the Supreme Court of the United States, where they were represented by John Randolph Tucker, Roger Atkinson Pryor, General Benjamin F. Butler and William P. Black.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari (writ of error) by unanimous decision (123 U.S. 131).
In January 1887, while still in prison, Spies married Nina van Zandt (1862–1936).
She was a graduate of Vassar College and the only child of a wealthy Chicago chemist.
She published an article on the trial for the Chicago Knights of Labor.
After Spies's death she married Stephen A. Malato, an attorney, in 1895.
They divorced in 1902, and she reverted to the surname Spies. 
Parsons addressed a rally at Haymarket Square on May 4.
This rally was set up in protest of what happened a few days before.
On May 1, 1886, the first May Day, a massive strike in support of the eight-hour work day occurred in Chicago.
Two days later police fired on workers on strike at the huge McCormick Reaper Works, killing six.
August Spies and others organized the rally at the Haymarket in protest of the police violence.
Parsons originally declined to speak at the Haymarket fearing it would cause violence by holding the rally outdoors, but would change his mind during the rally and eventually showed up while Spies was speaking.
The mayor of Chicago was even there and noticed that it was a peaceful gathering, but he left when it looked like it was going to rain.
Worried about his children when the weather changed, Albert Parsons, Lizzie Holmes, his wife Lucy, and their children left for Zeph’s Hall on Lake Street and were followed by several of the protesters.
The event ended around 10 p.m. and at the end of the event, after Parsons had already left and as the audience was already drifting away, a large group of policemen came and forcefully told the crowd to disperse.
At that point a bomb thrown into the square exploded, killing one policeman and wounding others.
Gunfire erupted, resulting in 7 deaths and many others wounded.
No one knew who threw the bomb but chaos emerged as police began firing into the crowd.
Numerous protestors and policemen died, with most of the police receiving wounds from friendly fire.
Parsons was drinking a schooner of beer at Zeph’s Hall when he saw a flash and heard the explosion followed by gunfire.
Authorities apprehended seven men in the days after the events in the Haymarket.
These men were ones that had connections to the anarchist movement and many people thought them to be promoters of radical ideas, meaning that they could have been involved in a conspiracy.
Parsons avoided arrest and moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he remained until June 21; afterward, he turned himself in to stand in solidarity with his comrades.
William Perkins Black, a corporate lawyer, led the defense, despite inevitably becoming ostracized from his peers and losing business for this choice.
Witnesses testified that none of the eight threw the bomb.
However, all were found guilty, and only Oscar Neebe was sentenced to 15 years in prison, while the rest of them were sentenced to death.
Samuel Fielden and Michael Schwab asked for clemency and their sentences were commuted to life in prison on November 10, 1887 by Governor Richard James Oglesby, who would lose popularity for this decision.
These three men received pardons from Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, securing their freedom from incarceration on June 26, 1893.
In the week before his execution, "The Alarm" was published again for the first time since the Haymarket events, with a page 2 letter by Albert Parsons written from Prison Cell 29 on death row.
In his communique, Parsons named Dyer D. Lum as his editorial successor and offered final advice to his supporters:"To other hands are now committed that task which was mine, in the work and duty, as editor of this paper.
Though fallen, wounded perhaps unto death, in the battle for liberty, the standard — the press — which my hands bore aloft in the midst of the struggle is caught up by other hands, and will be again and again, if needs, till the crimson banner waves in triumph over the enemies of peace, brotherhood, and happiness.
* * *"And now to all I say: Falter not.
Lay bare the inequities of capitalism; expose the slavery of law; proclaim the tyranny of government; denounce the greed, cruelty, abominations of the privileged class who riot and revel on the labor of their wage-slaves."Farewell.
"On November 10, 1887, condemned prisoner Louis Lingg killed himself in his cell with a blasting cap hidden in a cigar.
The next day, Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel were executed by hanging.
Parsons himself could have had his sentence commuted into life in prison rather than death, but he refused to write the letter asking the governor to do so, for this would be an admission of guilt.
Parsons' final words on the gallows, recorded for posterity by Dyer D. Lum in "The Alarm," were: "Will I be allowed to speak, oh men of America?
Let me speak, Sheriff Matson!
Let the voice of the people be heard!
O—" But the signal was given and Parsons' words were cut short by the springing of the trap-door.