The Chicago Martyrs by John P. Altgeld

ADDRESS OF SAMUEL FIEyDEN.
they were right or wrong, and to compare their views with the views of gen­
.tlemen who continually asserted that the"y were wrong. Tfose gentlemen
were invited there to discuss the question, and would have been given an
opportunity. and as much time as any Socialistic speaker in that meeting to
reply to the creed of Socialism. I do not think it was claimed that I said anything
very indammatory at that meeting. The city was placarded with bills
inviting the professional and business men to come there and discuss those
questions with us. They did not come in any great force. I was charged
with having, at Mueller's Hall, as chairman of the meeting, called ,upon the
audience to dispute with the Socialists and controvert anything that might
have been said in behalf of private capitalism, as this would be the last opportunity
before we beg~n to take their property. The man who testified to that
knows under what circumstances it was said. It was said because the critics
on Socialism had charged us with a desire to take the property of others, instead
of examining into our position; and the audience understood it was a
joke as a sort of a take-off on the criticisms on Socialism.
It is well known that the reporters of the papers are a most intelligent (1)
class of men. I do not know any class of people among whom I have found
so many stupid people, and I have a very extensive acquaintance with them.
With regard to what was stated about me at one time, when I was charged
with making indammatory statements here, I wish to say that at that time
I was in Cincinnati, and I can prove it by a thousand persons of Cincinnati.
Mr. Spies went with me to the depot the night before and bought me a ticket.
I will speak a little further about my friends, the reporters, because the reporters
have been depended upon to ~roduce the ~onviction in th!s case. It
is well known in this and every readmg communIty that reports m the newspapers
cannot be depended upon. There is not a public speaker in this country
but what has had cause to complain of the reports ~f his s~eeches in t~e
newspapers. So intolerable has thIS become that the chIef magIstrate of thIS
country, I ss than a year ago, stated-and it was pUblished all through the
country-that there never was an age in the world in which newspaper lying
existed to the extent that it does now, and' there nev~r was a country in which
it existed to the extent that it does in this. Since my incarceration in jail,
Mr. Harrison has been so utterly disgusted with the promises of the.reporters
to correctly report news, that he has given orders to his subordinates at the
headquarters of the city department to refuse to give them any more news.
"It is no use; ,you will lie about it. I have tried you and tried you, and you
have lied about it, and I, will give you no more news," he has said. And yet
we have been convicted on this kind of testimony. Reporters have been
brought here to prove that I was a conspirator and was intending to sack
Michigan avenue, intending to create a riot and revolt in this city, by quotations
from my speeches. I 'have shown you, my friends-I am speaking to
you as well as to the court, and I am speaking to the country-that reports of
newspapers cannot be depended upon, and a man whose lifb is placed in jeopardy
on the bare report of a newspaper reporter, is as liable to .be mur~er~d
as not. At Twelith street Turner Hall I made a speech concernIng the, flot ill
London. On that occasion I stated that the same caUBeIil in Chicago. would
produce the same results that we had seen in London, and that the privileged
ADDRESS OF SAMUEL FIELDEN.
classes ~f this city who had read of the homeless and down-trodden and des-'
parMeli poor of London creating the havoc and consternation that they h~d
in the east end of London by throwing bricks through the Oarleton Olub windows,
need not be surprised if the same causes here would bring out a
mob which would march down Michigan avenue and throw a brick through
t:h e window of the Oalumet Club. I said that the same causes existing here
would produce the same resultf.'. A reporter of one of the morning papers
came into the hall after I had got tbrou~h, and was sitting down in the hall,
and the next morning he stater! that Samuel Fielden had said that he would
1ea