The Labor enquirer., 1886-08-14
The Anarchist Trial.

The Anarchist Trial.
For the Enquirer.
The events of the past week have put
a new and entirely different face upon
the great trial in Chicago. All that Mr..
Solomon promised in his opening speech
to the jury has been done. Every par
ticle of evidence offered by the state to
show the committal of crime has been
met and disproved by the defense. Gill
mars character has been shown, by the
testimony of about doz Witnesses,
some of them prominent citizens of Chi
cago, to be notori usly bal. Everyone
of the witnesses testified that he is not
to be believed under oath. Further
than this Mr.. Spies presence on the
speakers wagon at the time of the ex-
plosion las been clearly proven by sew
eral witnesses. Men who stood in the
alley at the time the bomb was thrown
have sworn positively that it was not
thrown from there. The state made a
great effort to prove that Spies melted
the men to attack McCormick's factory
on the third of Nav. The evidence now
produced shows that Spies warned the
people to keep away from the factory.
In short the evidence against Spies has
been completely swept away by over
whelminQ testimony on the side of the
defense.
Mr. Fielden also has been completely
vindicated. 1t has been proven by men
who were with him at the time of the
explosion that he did not fire at the po-
lice: that be never said, Here come the
bloodhounds; you do your duty and l
will do mine;;" that his reply to Captain
Ward, when the latter ordered the
meeting to immediately and peaceably
disperse," was simply: why, captain,
this IS peaceabe meeting" and that he
knew nothing of the haymarket meeting
until requested to speak there. Anyone
reading the examination of Mr. Flelden
on Friday and Saturday. could not but
be struck with the truthfulness of his
testimony. He is the soul of Candor,
and his answers and graphic account Of
the now historic scene at the haYmarket,
| impressed al who were in the court
room. Even the capit4llstic newspapers,
bad as they are, were forced to admit
thi,. Nor was his testimony in the least
shaken by the searching cross examlna-
ton of Mr. Ingraham. He frankly aud
freely stated that great part of tue re
port of his haymarket speech was cor
rect, and explained sentences which ap
peared obscure. He explained that he
had used the words, stab the law,
throttle it," in a metaphorical sense, just
as an ardent democratic speaker would
use the same words against the republi-
can par y; he had meant the whole sys-
tenn. Sentence by sentence he analyzed
his speech as it was read to him and his
whole manner was deeply impressive.
More than twenty witnesses have tes-
tilted that not shot was fired that night
! by anyone but policemen; several have
sworn that the police approached the
crowd on a run, and that many Of them
had revolvers in their hands. The de-
fense offered to prove bv one witness
that the police had been heard to say be-
fore leaving the station, that blood would
flow before II o'clock, but Judge Gary
would not allow the testimony. An
other witness did testify that one of the
officers in command had told him (the
witness) that he would make short work
of the Anarchists if he could catch them
in crowd without their women and
children.
Alibis have been proven in the cases
of Parsons, Fischer and Schwaa. Half
a dozen people have sworn that the last
named gentleman was addressing a
meeting in Lake View -four miles dis
tant from the havmarket) at the time oi
the explosion. 1t has been proven that
both Fischer and Parsons were at Zlpp's
saloon, several blocks away, at the same
time. Mr.. Parsons, Immediately upon
concluding his speech, thinking it was
going to rain, went, in company with
Mrs. Parsons, Mrs Holmes and Others
to Zepp's hall, where II was expected
the meeting would continue.
In the face of this overwhelming mass
of testsmony the capitalistic papers in
sist that the case for the prosecution IL
not in the least weakened. While
printing detailed. but garDled, accounts
of the testimony each paper daily comes
out with one or two lying editorials
Business men have not time to read the
mass of testimony from day to day, and
they form their opinions from readi ing
these editorials, which purport to b.
condensed reports of their news col
umns.
IL is thought that Messrs. Spies ant
Parsons Will be placed upon the stant
on Monday and Tuesday. and that th'