Workmen's advocate., 1890-05-31
POLICE PLOTS IN CHICAGO.

There is not and has never been in this | world more villanous organization of conspirators for the blackmailing of | plutocrats, the persecution of working | men, and the commission of crime ge- nerally, than the Chicago police. Vested by law with mighty powers, and fur thermore sustained in their violations of every constitutional right by the cow ardly despots that they profess to serve and to protect from imaginary dangers, they have established and perfected, in a great center of American civilization and in the broad light of the Nineteenth Century, asystem of terrorism unparal- leIed in the dark ages.
 Strange it is, to be sure, that the people of Chicago should for a moment submit tosuch tyranny; but more extra ordinary still that the people of the United States, whose indignation was so deeply stirred of late by the Siberian outrages," should not rise and demand that the republic be no longer disgraced in Chicago by a body of assassins and perjurers armed wish the triple enginery of police, war and law.
 The capitalistic press itself the New York World, for instance, whose mur, derous, boodthirsty utterances con- cerning the anarchists are some of the reddest stains on the black records of capitastic journalism-is compelled by the most obvious dictates of common sense to denounce as a police plot the reported attempt to blow up the Hay market monument. And yet, if the po- | ilNt tlnu lb HtttSSdi1 lo NiIuiIhlt selves and to accomplish at the same time the original object of their evident plot, scoundrels will be found ready to swear away the liberty and life of some poor, obscure, defenceless workingman, around whom web of forged evidence will have been spun with hellish artful- ness.
 A few weeks ago we gave in these columns the report of strike in a cigar factory of Chicago. The ill-treated workers had repaired to the headquar- ters of the Union, when the superinten. dent of that factory--a MT. Vallens-fell upon them with n detective and war rant, and had some of them arrested fol conspiracy. It now turns out that ano, ther detective, a worthless fellow whose previous trade was cigar. making, and who had been engaged by this MT Val lens to work out case against the strik, CTS, swears that the leaders Conspired to break the fingers of "scabs" so as tc main them for life, and, furthermore to abduct and poison the superinten dents children. The monstrosity of the plot, taken in connection with the peace ful character of the strikers, the higl esteelh in which some of the leaders in volved are held by organized labor, tn, bad reputation of the detective, the nasty, willful and rancorous temper o the superintendent, etc., shows that tht whole story is a police fabrication of the grossest kind, And yet, some of the Chicago papers not only insult the com mon sense of theiE. readers by treating it seriously, but attempt to prejudice the public by display of flaming head lines and shower of dastardly com ments.
 In view of the fact that Chicago ap pears to be held so tightly in the grasI of its rascally police that but few of it, citizens have manhood enough left ir them to denounce such outrages, Is il not high time for the people of other great cities to demand that this oppres sion shall cease and to make themselves