by Howard Fast
“Go ahead. You haven’t told me all you want to tell me. You told me what I know. Go ahead then, and if you believe something to be the truth, you’re entitled to such a belief; but don’t give me oaths. Yours are no better than mine, and God knows I have sworn to this and that enough times.”
XII
Schilling said:
—I told you how Parsons, his wife, and the two children were in Zepf’s Hall when they heard the noise the bomb made, exploding. A good many people were there in the hall. The meeting had just broken up. But when the explosion came, it was the same with all of us, tight and silent, and afraid, too. A black thing hung over the city. War had already been declared. We had talked too much about organized labor; we had asked for the right to work no more than eight hours each day. We were organizing those whom no one had ever dreamed. of organizing, and men were saying aloud that it was right for them to live and not starve to death; so for that we had to be broken; we had to be taught a lesson; we had to be whipped back into the sewers from which we had crawled. Yes—that was our reaction when we heard the explosion. And so, for a little while, we were silent and afraid, and nobody dared to go outside.
—And then the first of them came running from Desplaines to tell what had happened. Do you want truth? No one could tell a clear story then; some were wounded, some beaten and bleeding, some hysterical. A nine-year-old boy had his scalp laid open. A big stout woman, Mrs. Crane, had a bullet hole in her neck, and yet she had run all the way. And more than that—no, it’ was not nice.
—But even if no one knew exactly what had happened, we knew it meant sorrow; we knew it meant a witch hunt and a pig hunt all together, and that they would be after us. Hadn’t there been enough wild talk of dynamite? Hadn’t Gould said that hand grenades were the right medicine for us? Hadn’t the City of Chicago been presented with a beautiful, shiny new Gatling gun which, as the Tribune informed us, could chew up workers faster than a dog chews sausage? A bomb had exploded; no one knew who threw it, even now no one knows; but it was enough that a bomb had exploded.
—I think Lucy realized first that Parsons had to get away. Then others found themselves looking at Parsons. Whatever it was, large or small, they would go after Parsons first. He knew it; his wife knew it. It did not matter that he wasn’t there, that he had not even known that such a meeting had been scheduled; Parsons was marked. You sit in a court of law—you wait for a jury’s decision; yet I tell you that five years ago this man Albert Parsons had been condemned to death, and they were only waiting to execute sentence upon him.
—I tell you this, that even as he realized that he must go away, get out of Chicago, hide somewhere, he remembered that he had no money. I speak of the literal, Judge Peter Altgeld. We would sit sometimes with a glass of beer and talk of the old days, when we were boys on the road; then you know what it is to be without money. I mean without money. Without five cents, without ten cents, without even two pennies. Yes, a man, a wife, two children. How did they live? I told you that before. You are a rich man in a graystone house, but I ask for understanding even while I insult you. They had no money. Parsons whispered with his wife for a few minutes, then with some of his friends, and then he had to borrow. He wouldn’t have borrowed to eat, but he borrowed to save his life. Don’t you think that the man was afraid; I told you enough about him before for you to know differently, and I will tell you more later. He had to live because he felt he had work to do. So he borrowed five dollars, the price of freedom, and he went home with his wife and children, and then he disappeared.
—What will you say?—that Parsons shouldn’t have gone? Then I say that everyone who spoke at that meeting or showed his face there should have gone. Or perhaps you’ve forgotten what happened in Chicago during the next few days. I wasn’t at the meeting—I was no anarchist, as you know well enough, yet within a week they were screaming for my blood too. Schilling should die; Schilling should be strung to the highest lamppost! Of course, we all knew that they would be after Parsons first; whatever happened in those few days after the first of May, it would have been an excuse to get Parsons. But in our wildest dreams and fears, we never thought it would be such a witch hunt. Yes, we knew they were organized better than we were, but we thought that truth was a force. Well, we know better now; truth is no force; the force is in men. You read the stories they printed, the crazy distortion of fact, how they accused the few hundred citizens left around the speaker’s stand that night of being a bloodthirsty, armed mob.
—But did you read what they did to the workers in their homes? The police went mad, but it was a planned madness. This was what they wanted. They held meetings with the businessmen, and demanded money, money—and they got it, by the thousands. Then they went through Chicago like a whirlwind, beating, murdering, torturing, dragging people out of their homes in the middle of the night, arresting anyone and everyone whom they called suspicious. A workingman’s shirt was all you needed. They filled their jails. My God, it was like nothing ever seen in this land, and maybe like nothing ever seen in any other land either.
—And you ask why Parsons fled. At least Parsons was tried; if he had stayed in Chicago, they would have shot him down on the streets like a dog.
—But to get back to Parsons. He and Lucy left Zepf’s Hall and went home, still carrying the children, who had finally cried themselves to sleep. It might be noted that most of the men at Zepf’s Hall that night were not anarchists, not socialists, but members of the Furniture Workers’ Union, and they thought it was right for Parsons to go, they covered him. Mrs. Holmes went with them, and that was a good thing, because by now Lucy was going to pieces. Parsons himself was half dead from weariness, lack of sleep. And when he saw how Lucy was, he changed his mind and said he would stay. Then, after they put the children to bed, the women pleaded with him. Well, they convinced him that he should go. Lucy stayed with the kids, and Lizzie Holmes walked with him to the depot, and bought him a ticket for Turner Junction. She lived there, and her husband was at home. I know this isn’t important. I just want to tell you, in the best way I can, about people who loved Parsons enough to risk their lives for him.
—You know what happened in the next few days. Every Pinkerton in the middle west was thrown into Chicago. They arrested maybe a thousand, but it was Parsons they wanted, and a Pinkerton who turned him up could have had ten thousand dollars from the businessmen’s association alone. And when the charge against Parsons became murder, then anyone who sheltered him became an accessory. But just look at the whole thing again, just briefly, just with a little more patience, my friend, before I go on to finish my story of Parsons. First, they indict thirty-one men for this bomb-throwing from which one policeman died and God know how many workers. Then a dozen are selected to be charged with wilful murder. But one of them has escaped and never returns. Three become witnesses for the state. Eight are left, Parsons, August Spies, Michael Schwab, Sam Fielden, who learned from me, remember that, my friend, Sam Fielden whom I taught to fight for his people, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Oscar Neebe, Louis Lingg—those eight are charged with murder.
—I don’t have to go over the trial with you. Better, my friend, that some day you will go over the trial, step by step, word by word, line by line, and see whether ever before such a mockery was made of justice, or what goes for justice. No, we’ll argue afterward. Now I don’t have to go into the incredible selection of jurors, the false testimony, the way Lingg was murdered in his cell, the way these men were convicted, and the way their conviction was upheld from the lowest to the highest court. Now, only, I want to finish my story of Parsons. Only a few minutes more.
—He went to the Holmes’ house, where Mr. Holmes gave him shelter. There he remained for a few days, and then, because it was so close to Chicago, because Mrs. Holmes had been arrested, he moved on. He shaved off his mustache, became an itinerant worker, and moved on to Wisconsin. He stayed with the Hoans, at Waukesha, doing odd jobs, turning back to his old trade of carpenter. You s
ee, he was sheltered; in eight states, there were men who would die for Parsons, and gladly. Am I sentimental? How many had told me that when he came into a room, it was like Christ entering! Then, because those who had trusted him were on trial for their lives, because for him there was no life underground, no life apart from the working people, no life apart from his wife and children, he came back to Chicago and gave himself up.
—The rest you know, how he appeared in court, how he went on trial, and how he was condemned, with the others, to be hanged by the neck today until he is dead. Then why am I bothering to speak about Parsons at all, and why should I bore you with this Haymarket affair, you who listen so patiently, when for a year and a half now, you have heard so much of it? Only this: when they die, something inside of me will die, and I do not want that something inside of me to be destroyed. Because you are Judge Pete Altgeld, and because I believe you are a different kind from the men I see in power.
—So I put in my pocket a statement from Captain Black, their lawyer. Last Tuesday, just before Lingg was found dead in his cell, Black went to see Parsons and begged him to plead for executive clemency. Because now people are being troubled that something like a saint should die. They are remembering that Christ was also accursed to those who ruled. So they say, if only Parsons pleaded for mercy, the governor would have pardoned him. Black went to Parsons and begged him to plead for mercy. Because if Parsons dies, comething will die inside of Black too. But Parsons refused. It’s a terrible thing to die, so how can I say it so simply? Parsons refused; he would not plead for his life. He explained why, and afterwards Black wrote down what he said. I just want to read that to you, and then I am through.
XIII
On the Judge’s mantel, the clock, cradled between the expressionless busts of Minerva and Augustus, began to strike ten. The two men listened to the strokes. Schilling was drawing the paper from his pocket, and the Judge, as if loath to confront him, kept staring at the fireplace, where already only embers remained from the fine log.
“Shall I read it?” Schilling asked.
“I’ve missed court already.”
“Maybe I’ve talked too much.”
“Go ahead and read it,” the Judge said coldly.
“All right,” Schilling nodded. “Here is Parsons’ statement. He said to Black: ‘Captain, I know that you are right. I know that if I should sign this application for pardon, my sentence would be commuted. No longer ago than last Sunday night Melville E. Stone, the editor of the Daily News, spent nearly two hours in my cell, urging me to sign a petition, and urging me that if I would do so I should have his influence and the influence of his paper in favor of the commutation of my sentence; and I know that means that my sentence would be commuted. But I will not do it. My mind is firmly and irrevocably made up, and I beg you to urge me no further upon the subject. I am an innocent man—innocent of this offense of which I have been found guilty by the jury, and the world knows my innocence. If I am to be executed at all, it is because I am an anarchist, not because I am a murderer; it is because of what I have taught and spoken and written in the past, and not because of the throwing of the Haymarket bomb. I can afford to be hung for the sake of the ideas I hold and the cause I have espoused if the people of the State of Illinois can afford to hang an innocent man who voluntarily placed himself in their power.
“‘And I will tell you, Captain, what is the real secret of my position, but in confidence. I do not want anything said about it until after the 11th. I have a hope—mark you, it is a very faint hope—but yet I do hope my attitude may result in the saving of those other boys—Lingg, Engel and Fischer. Spies, Fielden and Schwab have already signed a petition for clemency. And if I should now separate myself from Lingg, Engel and Fischer, and sign a petition upon which the Governor could commute my sentence, I know that it would mean absolute doom to the others—that Lingg, Engel and Fisher would inevitably be hung. So I have determined to make their cause and their fate my own. I know the chances are 999 in 1,000 that I will swing with them; that there isn’t one chance in a thousand of my saving them; but if they can be saved at all it is by my standing with them, so that whatever action is taken in my case may with equal propriety be taken in theirs. I will not, therefore, do anything that will separate me from them. I expect that the result will be that I shall hang with them, but I am ready.’”
Schilling finished, folded the paper, and said, “That is all.” But the Judge was staring intently at the fire, and the ticking of the clock seemed to fill the entire room.
“That is all,” Schilling said. “In a little while, Parsons will be hanged. In another hour, I think.”
“Yes—”
“Five days ago, they murdered Louis Lingg, who was to die with the men today. That was not clever; that was stupid. When such things happen, even a judge in a stone house isn’t safe.”
“Now you’re out of your head!” Altgeld said angrily, glad at last to have something to strike back with. “Lingg committed suicide, and when he did, he killed whatever chance Parsons and the others had.”
“Suicide! Has a man ever in this world committed suicide by putting a dynamite fuse in his mouth and igniting it, so that with half of his face torn away he suffered the tortures of the damned before he died? And for effect, there were little dynamite bombs found all over his cell. My God, Pete, will you listen to me? They saw that maybe it would be a terrible thing if Parsons and the others died; they saw sympathy was changing. So they went into Lingg’s cell, beat him unconscious, planted those ridiculous little bombs all around the cell, placed a fuse in his mouth, and killed him. You live in a land where this happens. How will you sleep at night?”
“You’re excited,” the Judge said. “Calm down.”
“I’m excited—yes, I’m excited. I look at that clock over there and count the minutes before they kill four men. I’m excited! I came to you because I believe in you, because I said to myself Pete Altgeld can pull down the walls of that jail, even now.”
“I can’t.”
“You could go to your phone. You could call the governor. You could fight! They might listen to you. No one in this city is happy today.”
“It would do no good.”
Watching the Judge’s face, anxiously, keenly, Schilling accepted a verdict, appeared to grow old and tired at once, and at the same time, rose to go.
“Wait a minute,” the Judge said.
“For what?”
“Let me say one word for myself, George! What kind of a son of a bitch do you think I am?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You got a fire inside you, and you think anything you touch will burn. My God, man, be sane! What good would it do if I called the governor? Don’t you understand there’s nothing I can do now? Nothing! It’s too late. If you want to blame me for before, then blame me. Ask me why I didn’t sign the petition. Ask me why I didn’t let my voice be heard.”
Schilling shook his head.
“Now it’s too late for me to do anything, George.”
“I got to go,” Schilling said.
“Why don’t you stay here? Let me give you a drink.”
“I got to go,” Schilling repeated.
“Sit down.”
“It’s all right,” Schilling said, smiling slightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, the next day. I’m not angry at you. But I got to go.”
“I could explain more fully—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Only the world doesn’t end because Parsons dies. Pull yourself together. Even if these men are saints, the thing they represent is our enemy—”
“And that justifies their death?”
“Maybe it does. Justice isn’t an abstraction, it’s a function of—”
“Go on,” Schilling said.
“George, go home and get some rest.”
Emma came into the room. She stood at the doorway, watching them for a moment, and then she said, “George, will you have something to
eat?”
He shook his head. “Thank you, Emma.”
“Peters is on the phone—from court.”
“Tell him to adjourn for the day.”
“A reporter from the Inter-Ocean called,” she said quietly. “He wanted to know if you have any statement on the execution.” She hesitated a moment, and then added, “I told him, no.”
“Thank you, Emma,” the Judge said.
Schilling began to go. It was half past ten. The Judge asked, “Where are you going, George?” and the little carpenter answered, “I don’t know.” “I’m sorry, George.” “It doesn’t matter now,” Schilling said. “I think I’ll go out and walk for a while. It’s a nice day.” And then he left. Emma went to the door with him. When she came back, the Judge was still sitting as she had left him.
“Has it happened yet?” she asked.
“No—in a little while, I suppose.”
“Schilling wanted you to do something, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Can you do anything?”
The Judge shook his head.
“I don’t think Schilling is angry with you,” she said. “He has very high regard for you.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Anyway, this horrible thing will be over.”
“It will be over,” the Judge said.
“I called Joe Martin’s office, but he had left. I didn’t want to say where he was in front of Schilling. He went to witness the hanging. I think that’s disgusting. His secretary was very much excited. She said she’d get a message to him, and he’d come here later. Peters was pleased with having a holiday. Will you have lunch at home?”