The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1907-10-12
THE TIA. YIN 1A.RKET
AND AFTERWARDS

northwest SIDE" The suspicious char,
acter Of some Of these discoveries is
described. 35:,"#Eft
Mr.. Russell then continues:
BY no good hap, 1 must think, the
operating Of the dragnet and the sort
ing Of the fish therein fell to Michael
). Setback, captain Of the Chicago
avenue station on the north side. a
man OF restless energy and, let us say,
OF small discretion. I have often
wondered whether his decisions result
ed from a kind Of self-hypnotism or
from mere mania; but certainly he
saw more anarchists than vast hell
could hold. Bombs, dynamite, dag
gers, and pistols seemed ever before
MIN; IN the end, there was no society
nor association, however innocent or
even laudable, among the foreign-born
population, that was not to his mind
an object Of grave suspicion. The
labor unions he knew were composed
solely of anarchists; the Turner socie-
ties met to plan revolution; the liter
airy guilds plotted murder, and the
Sunday schools taught destruction.
Every man that spoke broken English
and went out O. nights was fearsome
creature whose secret purpose was to
blow up the board of trade or loot
Marshall Fields store. Into the pres
ence Of a police captain in this reason
able frame Of mind was brought one
trembling alien after another, and
from the cells into which they were
flung presently grew a crop Of confess
sions that cemented the structure Of
conspiracy into compact and durable
whole"
The Charge and Trial.
Out of this slowly evolved the desig-
nation of August Spies, Michael
Schwab, Samuel F1elden, Adolph
Fischer, George Engel, Oscar Neebe,
and Albert Parsons as the responsible
persons. All were arrested except
Parsons, who later, upon advice of his
counsel, gave himself up. Afterwards
there was added to the group Louis
Lingg. According to Mr.. Russell,
"Lingg's was the hand that made the
bomb; Lingg was the friend Of Ru-
dolph Schnaubelt, who threw the
bomb; and if I do not greatly err, the
whole shocking business in Desplaines
street was of Linggs sole conceiving.
He was the originator and leader OF
the Lehr und Weir Verein the only
anarchist1c society in Chicago: he was
the undisguised and venomous enemy
of all society; and he was of such ex~
traordinary strength Of body and ca
pacity of mind that here truly was one
man whom orderly persons had reason
to fear.'
Regarding the trial, Mr.. Russell
makes clear what the accused were
tried for:
'The world Of men outside of our
country seems to have accepted the
belief that the defendants were tried
on the charge that they were accesso-
ries before the fact of the murders Of
Michael J. began and others, began
being the first Of the wounded police
men to die of his hurts. The manner
in which they were accessory was al
alleged to be that in speeches
and writings the. had instigated
MANY aspects of the trial were I'M
usual. Men admitting a deep-seated
prejudice against the accused or even
a belief in their guilt were allowed to
sit on the jury. The defendants were
convicted on the ground that they had
fnstigated the crime; and yet, so far
as the trial was concerned, nobody
knew who committed the crime. To
this day the record on that point re-
mains incomplete; for Schnaubelt was
never brought into the case, his part
IN, ho Of iy~ 1ff ;a1Jx
closed. So far as the record goes, the
bomb that night in Desplaines street
| might have fallen by accident or been
| hurled by a lunatic or by somebody
| that never heard Of the accused men.
But the eight men were convicted,
| nominally by the jury, in reality by a
misinformed public opinion resolutely
| bent upon their death; and they were
| sentenced. Neebe to fifteen years i'm
! prisonment, the remaining seven to be
hanged. While the fourteen months
battle against the verdict was waged
! to and through the supreme court of
the United States, the men were con-
fined in the Cook county jail. It was
often my duty to see them there Steel
bars, reinforced by a steel netting,
separated LUon from VlSllOTS, Out
| through this barrier conversation was
not difficult. With all except Lingg, I
had many conversations. All, even to
| Parsons, regarded me, because Of my
| newspaper connections, as their deadly
enemy and part of the machinery OF
the "capitalist press" that had dragged
them down; but that once admitted on
both sides, they were always ap-
proachable and grew to be even cor
! dial"
| Mr.. Russell then gives his personal
Impressions of each of the condemned
men, describing their various charac-
teristics. OF Parsons he speaks the
most highly. He presents vivid word
picture Of Lingg, whom he describes
as the strangest man he has eve,
known and the least human. Linge
was the one really dangerous man
among the seven, and the only anar-
| chist." ~-..s
90, Vain Protests.
! The story Of Nina Van zandt, the
strange woman who courted Spies
after he was condemned and was mar.
ried to him by proxy at her own mo.