Page:The Chicago Martyrs (1899).pdf/102

 94 know that there was such a meeting. In fact, I was not in Chicago. I was in Ohio and the meeting was conducted in German; I cannot speak German; I do not know the German language; I do not understand it. I do not know these men. I never saw Schroeder or Waller in my life until I saw them on the witness stand here. Lingg, the first time I ever saw him in my life was when I came into this court room and surrendered for trial, and saw him sitting in the prisoner’s box. Why, your honor, it is ridiculous. It is an absurdity; it is a misconception of the whole situation and conjunction of circumstances in connection with this whole affair when I was away from the city, and this is a sentence passed upon me for being connected with a conspiracy which, the prosecution claims, was organized for the purpose and resulted in the daethdeath [sic] of Mathias Degan at the Haymarket square on the 4th of May.

Referring again to the informer Waller's testimony; the State's attorney is reported by the Herald, of July 17, as saying after the adjournment: "This man's testimony is going to convict the prisoners;" that is, Waller. How preposterous! The two informers disclosed no fact that bore the semblance of a conspiracy, which in law is an agreement to do a criminal act. Now, I was not there. I did not know anything about it. I do not speak German. I do not know these men. I never saw them before. I don't know who the men were at the meeting. The only man that I know that is connected with this matter, I believe, is Engel; him I have met before, I don't know whether he was at the meeting or not. I did not know there was such a meeting. I never requested it to be called. Now, the State's attorney says that this man's testimony is the thread upon which he proposed to connect me with this conspiracy to do an unlawful thing, which resulted in the death of Mathias Degan at the Haymarket on the 4th of May. How preposterous! These informers disclose no fact that bears the semblance of a conspiracy, but on the contrary, their testimony simply revealed a noble and a fraternal and a patriotic purpose; that—quoting the language of Schroeder himself—"if the police made an attack upon the workingmen unlawfully again, they would help the workingmen to resist it, or to defend themselves." Waller testified in chief, and reiterated it in cross-examination, that Engel and Fischer, these noble and brave Germans, offered a resolution at Greif's Hall on the announcement that six men had been wantonly and brutally murdered by the police at McCormick's, that if other men should come into enconuter with the police we should aid them, and further swore that this plan was to be followed only when the police, by brutal force, should interfere with the workman's right of free assemblage and free speech.

Now, then, where is the foul and dastardly criminal conspiracy here? Where is it? So preposterous was it on its face to call such a noble compact to do a lawful thing a conspiracy, that it became necessary, in the face of a dozen witnesses, both for the prosecution and the defense, to swear that the bomb came from the pavement on Desplaines street, south of the alley, between the alley and Randolph street, a statement made by Bonfield himself to reporters about half an hour after the tragedy occurred, and published in the Times on May 5, the following morning—Louis Haas, Bonfield's special detective on the ground, at the coroner's inquest, swore the bomb was thrown from the east side of Desplaines street and about fifteen feet, he believed, south of the