For the day in question a meeting of the Lumber-shovers’ Union had been called in the vicinity to receive the report of a committee who had waited on their employers with reference to the eight-hour question. The Socialists, learning of this, determined to make use of the opportunity. The union was composed of over six thousand lumber workingmen, three thousand Bohemians and over three thousand Germans, and had no connection with the McCormick strike, but it occurred to the Central Labor Union that, inasmuch as many of them were adherents of Socialism, it would be no difficult matter to incite them to riotous demonstrations. On the day preceding, Spies had been delegated by his union to address the gathering. The president of the Lumber Union, Frank Haraster, had become cognizant of the Anarchists’ intentions, and had taken occasion to warn the men against either listening to Socialistic orators or participating in a riot. But there were mutterings of discontent, and the crowd was in a revengeful mood. There were no less than 8,000 people at the gathering—some estimated the number as high as 15,000. Some were intent on revolution, and others had been drawn to the scene through idle curiosity. It only needed a spark to create a tremendous conflagration. Anarchists were busy among the various groups that had collected. For several days they had labored early and late in the locality to stimulate revolutionary action. Their plans had been carefully concocted, and their network of conspiracy extended in every direction. They had opened channels of subterranean communication, and so arranged their mines of Socialistic powder that at the appointed time they hoped to produce an explosion that would reverberate throughout the globe. That appointed time, they figured, had arrived with the inauguration of the eight-hour movement, and in the lock-out at McCormick’s the first opportunity was presented for a general upheaval. This was their hope and the burden of their care. When, therefore, a coterie of trained Anarchists appeared on the scene of trouble,—evidently by a preconcerted arrangement,—with the Nation’s flag reversed and trailing in mud and muck, the wildest excitement was aroused, and only a leader was necessary to connect the electric currents of suppressed hostility to start an outburst of violent deeds.