Anarchy and Anarchists: A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the ConspiratorsSchaack, Michael J.
History
Anarchy and Anarchists: A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators
It was at a large restaurant, on the 3d of May, at noon, that he met
a well-known attorney, to whom he was introduced and with whom he
had some conversation of a joking, bantering nature. The attorney
testified before the grand jury subsequently as to this conversation,
and the substance of it will be found in the chapter devoted to a
review of its proceedings. But it transpires that there was some
further conversation that does not appear in the report of the grand
jury investigation, but which has since been brought out through
the recollection of another party, and, which, while it was given
in an off-hand way, fully showed that Spies desired to make a great
impression on the mind of his casual acquaintance as well as to
intimate the existence of some secret understanding for bringing
on bloodshed. On that occasion Spies, after being assured that the
attorney was not an Anarchist, remarked:
“You had better be one, for in less than twenty-four hours a Socialist,
well armed, with a market on his shoulder, will appear out of every
door, and whoever has not got the sign or pass-word will be shot down
in his tracks. I am about going out now to McCormick’s factory, west of
here, for the purpose of addressing a multitude of workingmen, and I
will raise h——l before I get through.”
Besides his fancy for popular restaurants, there was another
peculiarity about Spies. He frequently attended the German theaters,
ostensibly for the recreation he might find in the plays, but the
principal motive was the cultivation of the actresses’ acquaintance.
Introductions, which he sought eagerly, were followed by invitations to
wine suppers. He was good company, and his lady acquaintances were not
averse to accepting his invitations even though he was an Anarchist.
Possibly they doubted the sincerity of his convictions—although they
entertained no question about the reality of his cash. None of them,
however, seem to have visited him during his incarceration, save one, a
tall woman who now lives on Wells Street near Chicago Avenue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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