Page:The Chicago Martyrs (1899).pdf/33

 Rh man to require so many police. They searched the whole house and they found a revolver. That is a deadly weapon and a dangerous weapon. I don't think anybody have revolvers but Anarchists and Socialists and labor agitators. They found a red flag, too—a flag of that size (about a foot square) that my little boy played with, and my wife used at a masquerade ball. My wife told me that when the police—these honorable men who protect law and order—got on the wagon they waved that flag and hollered and hurrahed just like a lot of wild Indians—and they were wild Indians in those days. They searched hundreds of houses, and money was stolen and watches were stolen, and nobody knew whether they were stolen by the police or not. Nobody but Captain Schaack; he knows it. His gang was one of the worst in this city. You need not laugh about it, Captain Schaack. You are one of them. You are an Anarchist, as you understand it. You are all Anarchists, in this sense of the word, I must say.

Well, these are all the crimes I have committed. They found a revolver in my house, and a red flag there. I organized Trades Unions. I was for reduction of the hours of labor, and the education of the laboring men, and the re-establishment of the Arbeiter-Zeitung—the workingmen's newspaper. There is no evidence to show that I was connected with the bomb throwing, or that I was near it, or anything of that kind. So I will ask you to hang me, too; for I think it is more honorable to die suddenly than to be killed by inches. I have a family and children; and if they know their father is dead, they will bury him. They can go to the grave, and kneel down by the side of it; but they can't go to the penitentiary and see their father, who was convicted for a crime that he hadn't anything to do with. That is all I have got to say. Your honor, I am sorry I am not to be bung with the rest of the men.