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
On the morning of May 8, at eight o’clock, we all met for general
consultation behind locked doors in an inner room, and, while thus
occupied with the case, I was notified that a lady desired to see me on
important business. I immediately responded, and as I entered the main
office I was confronted by a woman very heavily veiled. She briefly
stated her mission and said that she desired an interview in private. I
took her into another office, and, after the door had been locked, she
said:
“You must excuse me. I will not uncover my face. Don’t ask me anything
about myself, and I will tell you something.”
She was a German lady, well educated, and she spoke in an earnest,
truthful manner. Being assured that no questions would be asked to
establish her identity, she then told me where to send and what would
be found at the indicated place. Before making her exit she remarked:
“You will have to attend to this matter this very day and before four
o’clock.”
Her information proved highly interesting and valuable, and I thanked
her for it. In less than half an hour one of the detectives was set
to work on her “pointers,” and before two o’clock he returned to the
station with “a good fat bird” and a lot of new evidence. Who the lady
was is a mystery. She left the station as mysteriously as she had
entered.
In the evening of the same day we met again and put together the
results of each one’s investigations. The work accomplished was
surprising to all. Mr. Grinnell called, and, seeing what had been done,
was more than pleased. At this time we had some of the Anarchists
already behind the bars. That night we worked until two o’clock the
next morning, and it was half an hour later when I directed my steps
homeward. As I neared my house, I saw the indistinct outlines of a
man standing close to a large bill-board about ten feet north of my
residence. The figure proved to be a tall man, and, as I came to a
halt, the stranger spoke up in German:
“Is this Mr. Schaack?”
“I am,” I replied, “and what are you doing standing there?”
The stranger asked me to wait for a moment, and I complied, hardly
knowing what to make out of the man’s intentions toward me at such
an unseemly hour in the morning; but at the same time I kept my
eye steadily upon him for any hostile demonstrations. The strange
individual hurriedly placed a cloth of some sort over his face, and
I began to think some Anarchist had been commissioned to murder me.
Still, the coolness and self-possession of the man and the seeming
absence of the usual bluster incident to the commission of a foul crime
reassured me. Noticing all this, by way of making the man understand
that I was prepared for him if he had any murderous intentions, I said:
“If you make any attack upon me I will kill you dead!”
“_Mein Gott, nein._ I only want to tell you something,” was the reply.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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