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
Some time after the other interviews, I visited him and asked him if he
entertained any hostility towards the police. He replied that during
the McCormick factory riot he had been clubbed by an officer, but he
did not care so much for that. He could forget it all, but he did not
like Bonfield. If it had not been for Bonfield, he said, the street-car
men, in their strike in the summer of 1885, would have had things all
their own way, and that would have changed everything all over the city
in a business way.
“If I could only kill Bonfield,” he vehemently declared, “I would be
ready to die within five minutes afterwards.”
Lingg was a singular Anarchist. In every act and word he showed no care
for himself, but he always expressed sympathy for men who had families
and who were in trouble. He showed that he was a man with a will, and
that if he set his mind to the accomplishment of an end he would bend
all his energies to attain it.
There was another peculiarity about Lingg which distinguished him from
the rest of his associates. Although he drank beer, he never drank to
excess, and he frowned upon the use of bad or indecent language. He was
an admirer of the fair sex, and they reciprocated his admiration, his
manly form, handsome face and pleasing manners captivating all.
On the 27th of May, Lingg and Engel were taken in a patrol wagon to
the Harrison Street Station, where the “art gallery” of the Police
Department was kept, to have their photographs taken. On the way,
Loewenstein remarked to Lingg:
“Louis, you want to look your prettiest, so that you will make a good
picture.”
“What difference does it make whether a dead man’s picture looks good
or bad,” was the reply, uttered in a most serious manner and in a
strong tone of voice.
From the gallery the Anarchists were driven to the County Jail, and
that was the last time they ever saw the streets of Chicago or breathed
the air outside of prison walls.
From the day Lingg entered the jail he became surly and ugly to all the
officers, but he implicitly obeyed all prison rules. He held himself
aloof from everybody except his fellow Anarchists, and would have
nothing to say to any one except his friends or his sweetheart.
Lingg was very fond of children, and when those of Neebe, Schwab or
others called at the jail he would play with them and seemed to extract
much amusement from their little pranks and antics.
Mrs. Klein often visited him and always brought a baby, in which Lingg
seemed to take a special interest. Lingg and Mrs. Klein conversed
freely together, and he seemed to enjoy her visits greatly. Whenever
she called she brought him fruit of the season and choice edibles with
which to vary his prison fare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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