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
The moment the work of impaneling the jury had begun, the outside
Anarchists began to exert themselves to put some of their own men into
the jury-box. When they found that the State was too vigilant, however,
they next set about to secure such witnesses as could be counted upon
to swear their friends out of jail. Take the evidence of the strongest
witnesses put on the stand by the defense, and the critical, unbiased
examiner will readily discover that many of them were simply perjurers.
But the labors of the reds were in vain, and when they began to realize
that the jury did not seem impressed with the character of their
evidence, the outside barbarians grew desperate and resolved on a new
line of tactics.
One day I received a note from one of my men warning me to protect the
jury. The Anarchists, he said, were working out a scheme to injure some
of the jurors, and if they could succeed in that, they were confident
the case would have to be begun anew. If the case ever came up again,
no man would care to risk his life in a trial of the conspirators, and
their brothers would go free. If, however, the State should secure a
full set of jurors, they would give them a dose of dynamite, and that
would certainly end the case. Then they could keep on with Anarchy and
make the capitalists cower before them. This plan, I was informed, had
met the entire approval of the gang.
I conferred with Mr. Grinnell, and as a result we doubled the watch to
protect the jury. We made it a point also to know when the jurors went
out for a walk or a drive, and, without their knowledge, trustworthy
men were always with them or near them until their return. The hotel
in which they were quartered was only about two hundred feet from
the Criminal Court building, but whenever they came to the court in
the morning, or went to their meals during recess, or left the court
building after each day’s adjournment, twelve detectives along the
line kept vigilant watch of all suspicious characters. Besides the
detectives there were fifteen officers in uniform, and during the last
three days of the trial we even redoubled our vigilance. There were
twenty-five officers on the street, twenty-five more in the court-room,
and twenty-five men about the building. All these men were in uniform,
so that the “cranks” could see them, and it proved to be a very good
precaution. During the night, detectives and regular patrolmen were
watching inside and outside at the jurors’ hotel.
[Illustration: WATCHING A SUSPECT.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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