Page:The Chicago Martyrs (1899).pdf/69

 Rh appetites, men with passions; men with desires; men with sentiments as fine, perhaps, some of them, as those of some of the most intelligent portions of the community; men being driven to the wall. They will continue to be unless the system is changed. When I have told you, or indicated, rather, how the people's means of existence have gradually been concentrated into the hands of the smaller quantity and number of the community, it is an indication that points unerringly to a danger. I wish society would avert this. I have said upon the witness stand that it was not pleasant for me to contemplate anything of the kind. It is not a pleasant thing, but in the interest of peace, as I told these people.

Your honor, there is one thing I wish to say about my own particular case, and then 1 have done. Dynamite has been spoken of here, and it has been charged by Mr. Ingham that all of us knew that violence was to be used at the Haymarket. If he didn't say as much, it was indicated as much in that assertion that we were all equally guilty. That may be so. I don't now the extent to which any of the others are guilty. Fischer, Lingg, and Engel are men that I have not associated with for a year. I knew Fischer; I didn't know Lingg. Mr. Engel I have seen, but quite a while before the Haymaiket affair, and I know at one time he did not belong to our organization—had left it, and so had Fischer, and I didn’t know they belonged to it. I could not have been then conspiring with them to do anything in the Haymarket square on the 4th of May. I hadn't seen these other gentlemen since the Sunday previous. I believe I didn't see Mr. Parsons on that Sunday at all and had not seen him for a week before that. I don't know what the ingredients of dynamite are. I had never seen, before I came into this court room, a dynamite bomb. I have never seen any experiments or taken part in any experiments with dynamite in any shape or form. And I never knew—and I only know now, if I may believe the testimony of the detectives in this case—that there was dynamite kept in the Arbeiter-Zeitung building. I say these things, not because I believe that I shall be believed—because I know, as I have stated before, that every defendant, almost, asserts his innocence, and it is about all that he can do—and it undoubtedly has been the case that many a man, as guilty as he could possibly be, has said with as much apparent sincerity as I say it today, that he was innocent, and yet was guilty—but I wish to say this, that if the State's attorney or the authorities of this city should arrest уour honor tomorrow for any crime they choose to charge you with, they could prove you guilty if they wanted to. That is an advantage that they have. Whether it is intentional—and I am not going to charge anything of the kind against any man—I know that intentional falsehoods have been stated here, I will charge that where I know it—I will not injure any man's feelings; I will not charge for the sake of saving my life, any man with being a murderer, until I know him to be that; I do not and cannot know, having been confined the length of time I have, what influences may have been brought to bear upon the State's attorney, that there should have been the evidence brought in here against me which has been, and which I know to be false—therefore, I will not charge that it was intentional to convict me on his part, but I have suggested here that he can find out many things if he will look up certain records that I have referred to which will con-