Haymarket (35 page)

Lucy had sat silent and erect throughout the discussion. Even now, as she spoke, she barely moved. “I do not choose to give an opinion,” she said firmly. “I believe that Albert will do what he believes is wise and right. In making that decision, he wishes to take into consideration the views of his attorneys.” It was clear from Lucy’s tone that she would not be drawn out further.

“Well then,” Black said after a moment’s pause. “I suggest a formal vote. There is obviously a range of opinion in the room and we need to attach our names to it. What say you? Should Parsons turn himself in?” Black and Salomon voted in the affirmative, Foster in the negative, and Zeisler abstained. Captain Black said that he would compose a letter to Parsons conveying the vote and the essence of the discussion. “I’ll express my personal belief that we’ll be able to establish his innocence and secure his acquittal, and my further belief that the effect of his participation in the trial cannot but be advantageous to his codefendants. But be assured, gentlemen, that I’ll also convey the counterview expressed here today, preeminently by Mr. Foster, that his return is fraught with very real danger to his own safety and freedom.”

All four men pushed back their chairs as if to rise in adjournment when, to their surprise, Lucy spoke again: “I believe, gentlemen, that my husband is more aware than even Mr. Foster of the degree of hazard involved in the step he is about to take. On his behalf, I thank you for the earnest consideration you’ve given his inquiry.”

Parsons had felt from the start that he should stand trial with his comrades, but hadn’t wanted to appear indifferent to the opinions of those closest to him. The letter from Captain Black, though conveying a divided vote, fell on the side of his return. From Lucy, he heard that Lizzie and William Holmes had expressed strong opposition to his “delivering himself to the Philistines.” But Lucy, he knew, disagreed with them, though she’d steeled herself against openly expressing an opinion.

On June 19th Parsons sent word through Daniel Hoan that he’d be starting for Chicago the following evening. That afternoon he suggested to his friends in Waukesha that they accompany him to Spence’s Hill, his favorite spot. For a time he sat quietly apart, letting the balmy spring air caress his spirit. Then he rejoined the group, his mood cheerful and affectionate. At one point, in a burst of boyish humor, he laid himself out full length on the ground and rolled down the long hill—jumping up at the bottom, flushed and laughing. He later told Hoan that he had no faith in the courts.

That night, one of Hoan’s sons hitched a team to a light wagon and they, carrying Parsons’s city clothes in a basket, set off on the twenty-mile ride to Milwaukee. From there he caught a 3:00
A.M
. train to Chicago. As the train neared Kinzie Street, where it always slowed down, Parsons decided to jump off, thinking he’d be at greatest risk of being spotted if he went all the way in to the depot. But the train was moving faster than he thought, and he hit the ground with a thud, rolling over and over down the incline. He looked up to see a young Irish policeman staring down at him, asking if he was hurt.

“No, I thank you. A bit shaken up is all. I be fine.” Parsons affected the slow, ungrammatical speech of a poor country farmer to match his ill-fitting clothes and scraggy beard.

“Why’d ya jump off, anyway?” the officer asked.

“ ’Cause the Kinzie stop is near to where I be headed,” Parsons answered, keeping his composure but fearful of more questions.

“Then you know where you’re goin’, do ya?”

“Yes indeed, officer. Been there many a time. Thanks for your concern. Good day to you, sir.” Parsons hurried off.

“Take better care now,” the officer called after him, oblivious to the
opportunity that could have catapulted his anonymous life into full-scale celebrityhood.

Parsons went straight to the home of a friend, who greeted him with hugs and tears. While Albert changed clothes, shaved off his beard, and blackened his moustache and hair, the friend sent off a note to inform Lucy that her husband had safely arrived. Her heart in her mouth, Lucy set out with the children. Over the past six weeks, she’d been kept under constant surveillance, never able to leave home without being followed. Assuming that detectives were dogging her steps on this morning, too, she acted as if she were out on a casual walk—pausing to tie Albert Jr.’s shoelace, encouraging Lulu to linger over an attractive bed of flowers—even as she felt near to bursting with wild impatience. Luck was with her: she and the children managed to slip into the friend’s house without being seen. She and Albert fell into each other’s arms and Lucy, who never cried, burst into racking sobs.

Word was at once conveyed to Captain Black that Parsons had arrived in the city and was prepared to turn himself in. Various comrades worked all morning to complete the necessary arrangements. At 2:00
P.M
. Albert and Lucy embraced, assuring each other that all would be well. Albert fiercely hugged Lulu and Albert Jr., then stepped into a waiting hack and told the driver to go directly to the Criminal Courthouse.

Captain Black was pacing agitatedly in front of the building when the cab pulled up and Albert stepped out. Black silently gripped Albert’s hand and offered him his arm, and the two men mounted the stairway leading into the building. As they entered the courtroom and headed toward Judge Joseph Gary’s bench, several people instantly spotted Parsons and word of his presence spread like an electric current through the court. Then, just as Captain Black was about to address the bench and dramatically announce that Albert Parsons had come to surrender himself for trial, State’s Attorney Grinnell, who’d been appointed chief prosecutor in the case, jumped to his feet and shouted, “Your Honor, I see Albert Parsons in the courtroom! I move that he be placed in the custody of the sheriff.”

Infuriated at Grinnell’s attempt to convert a surrender into an arrest, to deflate the magnanimity of Parsons’s act, Black angrily addressed the bench: “Mr. Grinnell’s motion, Your Honor, is as gratuitous as it is cruel. As should be apparent, Mr. Parsons has himself made the decision to
appear in court.” Parsons broke in to say, “I present myself for trial with my comrades, Your Honor.”

Judge Gary told him to take his place among the defendants and ordered that another chair be brought. Walking over to the dock, Parsons was warmly greeted by the others and shook hands with each. Smiling, he sat down among them.

June 22, 1886

So it is done. I sit here in my cell, early morning, waiting to be taken to court for the second day of the trial. I hardly slept last night, thinking of Lucy and the children, of how frightened little Lulu became when the bailiff broke apart our embrace yesterday and gruffly told her: “Go home with your mother.” But I mustn’t linger over such scenes, of which, I fear, many more are to come, if I’m to sustain my spirits, to say nothing of my sanity.

Which is why I’m turning again to this journal after more than five—or is it six?—years. I must stay occupied, or as much as is possible in this chicken coop they’ve put us in on the upper tier of the Cook County jail. “Murderers Row” they call it—guilty before being tried—and it is accessible only by a flight of narrow iron stairs at one end of the corridor. Each of us lives in a stone cell that measures six feet by eight and has wire grating on the front just large enough to squeeze our fingers through (poor Neebe, with his huge hands, can barely manage it, and with some pain). My cell, number 29, is the first on the tier, then Fischer follows at 30, Fielden at 31, and so on down the line, with Spies, Engel, Schwab, and Lingg in the middle and Neebe in the last cell. The air barely circulates, but the thick stone walls make it less stiflingly hot here than in the courtroom.

We’ll be in court every weekday from 9:30 to 5:00, which will leave many hours still to fill. For most of them, we’ll be confined to our cages, with two armed guards constantly pacing back and forth in front of us. In the courtroom as well, we sit jammed together in a row to the left of our counsels’ table, closely guarded—on the assumption, I presume, that
we’d otherwise be lobbing bombs at the packed rows of spectators.

Twice a day we’re allowed short visits, and are also permitted to exercise in the narrow corridor that runs in front of the cells. But we’re never allowed out of doors. When locked in our cells, we can call to each other, most easily to our immediate neighbors. We can have brief private conversations only in passing. Under these conditions, time hangs heavily. At least the authorities allow us writing materials and books, and surely these will prove my salvation.

As Spies and I passed each other in court yesterday during an adjournment, he said to me, “You know you’ve run your neck right into the noose, don’t you?” He said it with a sort of mocking admiration, his eyes twinkling with affection. I heard nearly the same words from one of our counselors, a Mr. Foster, as we were being escorted from court later in the day, but in his case they were said with considerable anger, which took me by surprise. He’s a rough sort and told me straight out that if I’d been set on turning myself in, I should at least have waited until the jury had been impaneled. That way, he went on, I’d have had a separate trial, and at a time when the public’s bloodlust was no longer at fever pitch. I’d also not be in jeopardy, as I now am, of having the “infamous” materials presented in court against “anarchist fanatics” like Lingg and Fischer (how did a man who employs such words get assigned to our case?) rub off on “a more moderate type” like me.

Affronted at Foster’s bad temper, I replied curtly that I felt it my duty to stand by my friends in adversity. That seemed further to excite his ill will—I don’t know what else to call it. “I suppose,” he said with sarcasm, “that you think it was the
manly
thing to do. Well, I have news for you, Mr. Parsons: manliness doesn’t demand that one play the fool and willfully subject oneself to the prejudices of an inflamed public opinion. I can assure you that in the city they’re not calling you manly for having turned yourself in. They don’t even credit you with sincerity—other than with a sincere eagerness to play the martyr. That, and a sincere contempt for the law, a function of your having foolishly decided—am I not right?—that you’ll escape punishment because you’re the only American-born prisoner among the eight.”

Foster’s wrath so baffled me that I held my peace. Telling Spies about the exchange later, I learned something of its cause. Yesterday morning, apparently, just before I turned myself in, Foster made a motion for
separate trials for each of the defendants, and he and Judge Gary had a bizarre exchange over it. Foster proclaimed that although the court as a matter of justice ought to grant his motion, he didn’t expect that it would. To which Gary gave an acid reply: “Well, Mr. Foster, I shall not disappoint you”—and promptly turned the motion down. In response, Foster aimed his tobacco wad at the cuspidor ten feet away and hit it dead center. This produced some tittering, and a few gasps, in the courtroom, but infuriated Spies. “How dare our own counsel,” he said, “and on the very first day, further prejudice our case by going out of his way to insult the court? Surely Foster knows—everyone knows—that Gary is strongly biased against us as it is.”

“
I
didn’t know it,” I said, “He’s long been outspoken against unions, but I thought he had the reputation for presiding in a fair and impartial manner.”

“That’s his reputation,” Spies replied, “but whether it’s warranted you can soon enough decide for yourself. I think he’s dead-set against us. And Foster’s grandstanding will only make matters worse. Captain Black is as good a man as ever lived, but I find it inexplicable that he’s added Foster to our legal team.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “Foster is the only criminal lawyer he could get. Didn’t Foster volunteer his services after Black had been turned down everywhere?”

“Yes, shrewd lout that he is. He must have decided, as a new arrival in the city, that he could win attention—and clients—by participating in such a trial.”

June 24

I’m beginning to see what Spies means about Judge Gary. The process of jury selection has begun, and hour after hour has passed without a single candidate being deemed acceptable. Nor has one industrial worker been called; it’s as if a whole class of people has been disqualified before the process even began. Gary apparently disregarded the standard procedure for safeguarding a fair trial—drawing the names of prospective jurors out of a box containing many hundreds taken randomly from the rolls of the citizenry.

June 26

It seems—we’re learning as we go along—that when choosing jurors in a murder case, the law allows for an unlimited number of challenges based on “cause,” or demonstrable bias, but Judge Gary has been overruling every such challenge. This forces Captain Black to use a “peremptory” challenge when he wants to disqualify a prejudiced juror. The trouble is, the number of peremptory challenges allowed is limited (each defendant is allotted twenty). With Judge Gary overruling him on every motion to dismiss for cause, the Captain says he must begin accepting as jurors men who show
some
degree of fairness and candor. Otherwise, he warns, we’ll run out of peremptory challenges and have to accept a far more viciously hostile set of jurors. He told us today, shifting his body uncomfortably, that we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that we’ll end up with a jury convinced of our guilt before hearing a word of testimony.