I do not suppose that there ever was a criminal asked to state why death should not be passed upon him, that ever succeeded in convincing the judge that it should not. I do not expect that this will be any exception to the rule. I can only conclude that the reason this is asked of each prisoner is that he may, having failed to convince the jury that has tried him, convince the great jury that will sit upon his case when he is gone, that he is not guilty. I expect to succeed in convincing the latter, though I have failed in the former. I claim here now, on a reasonable interpretation of the language which I have used at the Haymarket, and which 1 have admitted I have used, and there is not a man in the row by the State’s attorney who will claim that I have shown a desire on this witness stand to deny anything that I have done—everything that I have done has been open and above-board. If there is anything that I have hated in this world ever since I knew anything at all, it was trickery. If I had been a trickster I could have possibly been somewhere else today.
I have been charged with having said: "Throttle the law!" Your honor will bear in mind that I had quoted from Foran's speech when I said that and it was a deduction, assuming that Foran spoke the truth. If it is true as Foran says, that nothing can be got by legislation-legislation is supposed to be for the interests of the community—if it is not for their interest, it certainly operates against that portion of them whose interests it does not subserve.
Legislation cannot be made that will not affect somebody in some particular way. It must affect them in some way. Then if nothing can be got by legislation, and hundreds of men are paid every year to legislate for the community, it is a foregone fact, and its logic cannot be disputed, that if that portion of the community which can receive no benefit from legislation does not throttle that law which is doing this legislation it will throttle them. The word "throttle" is supposed to be a terrible word. There would not have been anybody in this community who would have claimed that the word is a bad word to use if the bomb had not been thrown on the night of May 4. It is a word widely used as meaning to abolish; if you take the metaphors from the English language, you have no language at all. It is not necessary, your honor, that because a man says "throttle the law" he means "kill the policemen." There is no such necessary connection. If I were to advise a man to kill Phil. Armour, would you conclude by that that I advised somebody to kill his servant or somebody employed by him? I was speaking, of these laws which could do no benefit to the working classes, and which have been referred to by Foran. Now, policemen generally are not men of very intellectual calibre. They are not men who ought in any civilized community to be made the censors of speech or of the press. If I, on that night, had used language which could reasonably have been interpreted as being incendiary, how is it that every witness on both sides of this case has testified that the meeting was getting on more peaceful during the delivery of my speech? Surely that shows that the meeting did not understand it as inciting to riot, and that it had no such effect upon the meeting.
When Harrison left Mr. Bonfield, it is claimed by both of them that Harrison said to Bonfield, "I guess there is no danger. There will be no trouble." And Bonfield says, "Well, I will keep the police here and see if there will be
