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
Mrs. Seliger’s experience on the 4th day of May, when she witnessed
the preparation of the bombs, she described as terrible. There she was
forced to remain all day, she said, seeing eight men working on the
murderous weapons, some making one kind of bombs, some another, others
fitting them and loading them with dynamite, and others again putting
on the caps and fuse. Throughout the whole operation she was obliged
to listen to their bloodthirsty conversation, how they would blow up
the police stations, patrol wagons and fire-engine houses, kill all the
militia, hurl bombs into private residences, and murder every one who
opposed them.
Mrs. Seliger viewed affairs differently and told the conspirators that
there were more chains than mad dogs. Another thing they overlooked,
she said, was their own families, and should they carry all their
threats into execution their families would be made to suffer to the
end of their days in misery and want. Remonstrances, however, were
useless.
They worked until dark, and then they separated to meet in the evening
at No. 58 Clybourn Avenue. Her husband and Lingg ate supper, and
then the two put a lot of the bombs into a satchel and started for
the designated place. Lingg carried the satchel down stairs and was
followed by Seliger.
This was a trying moment, but Mrs. Seliger proved equal to the
emergency. Just as Seliger reached the third step, she grasped his arm,
threw her arms about his neck, and, like a loving, devoted wife, asked
him for God’s sake not to become a murderer.
“If you ever loved me and ever listened to me when I spoke,” she
whispered fervently into his ear, “I want you to listen to me now. I
don’t ask you to stay at home, but I want you to go with that villain
and see that he does not hurt any one. Restrain him from carrying out
his murderous ideas. If you do this, I will creep on my knees after you
and will be your slave all my life.”
[Illustration: A NOBLE WOMAN’S INFLUENCE. A KISS THAT PREVENTED
BLOODSHED.]
These tender words touched a sympathetic chord in the heart of Seliger,
and he promised to do as she had requested, while she sealed the
promise with a loving kiss. As subsequent events and his testimony
in court proved, he faithfully carried out that promise, and by that
injunction of his wife and that fervid kiss of a true woman, hundreds
of lives and millions of property were saved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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