basement, 54 West Lake Street, we started out May 4 on the North Side to do harm—that is, to shoot and kill anything that opposed us. The word ‘Ruhe’ in the ‘Briefkasten’ was adopted at our meeting May 3. It was to be used as a signal word. If it should appear the next day in the _Arbeiter-Zeitung_, then every man was to be ready with his arms or guns; that then the riot would commence, and they should watch for the signal. ‘Right and fest’ were passwords for the armed men should there be any fighting at McCormick’s. With the signal they should all come out with their bombs and arms, no matter whether it happened in the day or in the night. They should attack the armed officers of the law and the State militia. All of us armed men thought at one time that the police would not fight us, because they were all married men, and if they should fight us they would not do it so very hard. The plan was to call out a meeting first and have no speakers there. The police would then come and drive us away. They then should fire on the police. There were a lot of armed people at the meeting, I know. But the police did not interfere, so they got speakers at the meeting. Finally the police came out, and the mob did what they had agreed to do. Afterwards fault was found, and they said the North Siders were cowards. When Spies and others were arrested, the armed men all said that, should anything happen to those men, there would be a riot. In reference to the report about the shooting of six of our men at McCormick’s factory, I will say that what I saw and read in that circular calling for revenge made me mad at the officers. At that meeting Engel called on us to take revenge on the police officers, because they had killed six of our men. There were about seventy-five of us, so far as I know, on the North Side, to do the work on Tuesday night, May 4, and Lingg was mad because there were no more men coming after bombs. At Neff’s Hall Tuesday night, May 4, we all looked to Lingg as a leader of the North Siders. I know of no one else who could make bombs. Some one found fault with Lingg at Neff’s Hall on Tuesday night because he came so late with his bombs. Then Lingg asked why they had not come after the bombs. They all knew, he said, where he lived. Lingg was very angry. Schablinsky lives near me, and he got bombs from him. There were about nineteen men in the vicinity of the Chicago Avenue Station on the night of May 4, to attack the station when the police should come out on the wagons to answer a call from the West Side Haymarket. The men, seeing all this, lost their courage because the police, they said, passed them so quick, and then they said to one another, ‘Why should we attack and lose our own lives for the sake of others?’ When the wagon was gone, they saw lots of officers coming on foot to the station. Then the men went away. The North Siders, the armed men, were to meet in Neff’s Hall May 4, in the