I went to a special meeting on the night of the 4th of May, at 107 Fifth avenue, and it was necessary that I should go there, for I was treasurer of the organization, otherwise I should not have been at the Haymarket meeting. On the Sunday Previous I met a man at No. 54 West Lake street, who told me he had been at a meeting of the Trade and Labor Assembly, and at that time the organizer of the Central Labor Union came to me and asked me to speak Tuesday night at Workingmen’s Hall, No. 376 West Twelfth street. I think I agreed to go there. Monday night I was at No. 54 Lake street, and spoke to the wagon makers, and went home; Tuesday I was out of town all day. I went ten miles in the country as a teamster, in which business I have been engaged in deluding the workingmen and making money out of them! I was out of town all that day, and could not personally have known of any arrangements for the meeting at the Haymarket until I got to No. 107 Fifth avenue, about 8 o'clock. I should have gone to the other meeting, but what little things change so much the current of a man’s life 1 Just the fact of my seeing an advertisement in the News will cause my death, for if I had not seen it 1 should not have gone. I have committed no more crime, and have no more knowledge or intention of committing crime, than I had when I was on my wagon that day. It has been ingeniously urged that the American Group never met there before, meaning to convey the idea to the jury that they went, there in pursuance of a conspiracy. The fact of the matter is that they met there many a time, and there were many reasons why an honest man might have assumed that their meeting there that night was not suspicious, for all the halls in Greiff's were occupied long before, for the days on which they were to be used came during the eight hour excitement. Even if it were true that the American Group had not met there before, this is a plausible reason in itself. I have shown the jury here a handbill calling upon the working-women to organize, and it was for that reason that I was called to No. 107 Fifth avenue, on the night of the 4th of May; and after Rau came back from the Haymarket, he said there was nobody there but Spies and a large audience. That is enough to show that Spies should know I was at No. 107.
Your honor has repeated my Haymarket speech very frequently here, and it would seem as though it was a tender morsel to roll under the tongue of those interested in this conviction. On that occasion I said that Mr. Foran had made a speech in the House of Congress. I claim here that there is no man that understands the English language but will say that there was more threat, more violence, more of an incitement to riot in the speech of Foran than anything said on the Haymarket that night. Foran's speech was published in Chicago. In discussing the Arbitration Bill he said that it was useless for the workingmen of this country to expect a remedy for their grievances by legislation. He said further: "Only when the rich men of this country understand that it is dangerous for them to live in a community where there are dissatisfied workingmen, then and not till then will the labor question be solved." There is nothing in the speeches of the Haymarket that is as violent as that. What would have been said throughout the country if the police force of Washington had gone into the chamber of Congress and cleaned it out on account of what Foran had said? Would it have been justified anywhere?
