The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-07-19
A MARVELLOUS STORY.

The first witness in the trial of the Chlca-
go Anarchists has made some astounding
revelations. The story that Gottfried Wal
Ter, the Swiss, told on Friday and Saturday
is so remarkable that the most credulous
will suspend judgment until other witnesses
shall be examined. And yet there has been
nothing, either in the utteranees and deeds
of the Anarchists to disprove single feature
of this story. Their ayowed purpose has
been the subversion of law and order; the
riot at Haymarket shows that they were
bold enough to resort to any means what
ever. Walters story, if true, shows that the
riot of May was part of an elaborate plan
of destruction. If not the main part it was
fully as murderous as any of the deeds left
unexecuted would have been.
Waller says that he was a member of the
Socialist society called Lehr und Weir
Verein, an association for instruction and
military drill. On the night before the day
of the Haymarket riot he went to hall on
Lake street where the armed division of his
society usually met. The notice of this
meeting was an advertisement in the Ar
better Zeitung newspaper, consisting of the
letter "T. and the words "Come on Mon
day." About eighty men answered this call
They were representatives of the groups"
or lodges into which the Socialists of Chicago
seem to have been collected. Waller himself
was chairman of the meeting. Fischer and
Engel, now prisoners at the bar, were present
and active advisers. 1t was decided to call a
meeting of workingmen the next evening
the meeting now known as the famous Hay
orIvo+ I,
Lake street hall were not to go to this meet
ing, but were to send committee. The
riots at the Mccormick reaper works had
just resulted in the death of several men, and
the eighty Anarchists over whom Waller pre-
sided seem to have been thoroughly intent on
an attack on the police. The Haymarket
meeting was intended as a decoy Any at
tempt on the part of the police to disturb it
was to be the signal for a general onslaught
on all the police stations of the city. The
committee to attend the Haymarket meeting
was composed Of one or two men from each
group" Their duty does not seem to have
been to throw bombs or shoot policemen, but
rather to observe what was done and report
the groups" each acting Independently but
on concerted plan, were to attack the police
all over the city.
The Haymarket meeting came off as
planned. The police interfered as the An
archists had hoped. There was one of the
most terrible riots ever seen in this country
and the Anarchists seem to have gained a
wholesome terror of the police, for they did
not attempt anything more. But Waller tes-
titles positively that they had planned to do
much more. The plan was drawn up at the
meeting in the Lake street hall and voted on
Engel put the question, and all present
raised their hands in favor of the plan. Ac-
cordngly it was arranged that if anything
happened at the Haymarket meeting, the
committee from the groups" should report
each to his own group if the trouble should
come in the evening; if in the day time
the groups" were to be called out by the
word 'Ruhe," published in the Arbeiter
Zeitung. The call once issued the 'sgroups"
were to attack the police in their stations,
using bombs and firearms, or any other i'm
plements of slaughter.
This murderous plan, if it existed, was
never carried out. The lawyers for the
prosecution expect to prove that it did ex-
list; that it had been maturing for long
time. Their efforts will be watched with
great interest.