Page:The Chicago Martyrs (1899).pdf/6

IV the court interpreter. Who that hears the bold, impassioned utterances of the handsome young fellow can ever forget the scene? His manner is that of a caged tiger; his bearing supremely defiant. His words, even as translated by the interpreter, burn into the very souls of his auditors. Even the court and the attorneys show signs of uneasiness and disquietude as he boldly hurls his denunciations into their very teeth. Brave Lingg! His proud spirit could illy brook the confinement of prison bars. His chosen place would have been the battle field. Engel is stolid, almost phlegmatic, yet there is wondrous power in the easy delivery and flowing language of our German comrade. His speech is also made in his native tongue, and, as with Lingg, is translated by the court interpreter.

One of the longest and ablest of the speeches made is that of our Comrade Fielden. I have heard Fielden many times on the lake front and at other public places in Chicago, but his address to the court—and as he rightly said—to the world on this memorable October day is undoubtedly the greatest of his life. His honest, straightforward manner, his moderate language, his telling criticisms of the testimony of the purchased witnesses who testified against him, make a deep and lasting impression upon all. Even the bloody-minded Grinnell afterwards condescends to remark that if Fielden's speech could have been made to the jury it would have had great weight with them.

The last and longest speech is made by the brilliant little Texan, Comrade Parsons. As he rises to his feet with his formidable bundle of papers, his friends present feel that he will, like the true agitator that he is, make the greatest agitation speech of his life. Like Fielden he feels that this is the supreme hour; that what he says will go far beyond the narrow confines of the little court room, and that the whole world will some time judge him and the cause for which he pleads by his present utterances. So vivid is this impression upon him, so anxious is he that not a word, not a sentence shall by any possibility be misconstrued, that he repeats many of his most important statements and sentences over and over again. As he stands proudly before the court Parsons shows himself to be mercurial, excitable, intense. At times during the delivery of his long speech his elegant form dilates, his voice rings, and his black eyes blaze with righteous indignation; at other times his voice grows tender and his eyes humid with suppressed emotion. Again he fixes his piercing gaze upon first one then another of his persecutors, as if to read their very souls. His expressive gestures as much as his burning language are evidence of his deep feeling and fervid oratory. Parsons' oft-repeated appeal to any sense of justice which still might lurk in the hard heart of his unjust judge is one of the most touching incidents of the long trial. As well might he appeal to the wooden chair upon which that judge negligently reclines.

The famous speeches are at an end; the able arguments of the counsel for the defense are closed; the motion for a new trial is denied; the sentence of the court is pronounced and the condemned are conducted to their cells to await their doom.

Few people, even among those of a radical tendency, seem to realize the full significance of the Chicago martyrdom. Many sympathetic friends still look upon it as a great calamity: It was sad that the bomb was ever thrown at all; it was a pity that the leaders of the radical movement in Chicago did not