The Chicago Martyrs by John P. Altgeld

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44
ADDRESS OF SAMUEL FIJ!:LDEN.
meetings were for. I was not indicted for inciting to riot. If I had b.een; I
colIld have brought a good deal of this evidence in. Twenty men were'm ,the
witness room ready to testify to the Board of Trade meeting and the language
used there on that and other occasions where we had spoken; but we thou~ht
we were being tried for murder. We found out afterwards we were bemg
tried fot Anarchy, and that was the reason we did not think it necessary to
bring those men upon the stand. There was a separate indictm~nt for inciting
to riot, as well as the indictment for murder, and that eVIdence would
have been proper to combat the charge of inciting to riot.
After the Board of Trade demonstration we came back to No. 107 Fifth
avenue, and Mr. Parsons and Spies and I spok(;l from th~ window. I told the
people on that occasion that they had shown that they dIsapproved of Boards
f Trade' that they had possibly put a bee in the bonnet of the Board of
~rade me~. I advised them to go home and study political economy and
learn what was their position in society, but not one word advising them to
go to Marshall Field's. But it is very cle~r why there ~hould have been so
much testimony brought in here regardmg Marshall FIeld. The fore~an of
the jury was one of Marshall Field's salesmen. He depended upon hIm for
his daily wages; he depended on him for preferment. A .witness was br?ug~t
. here who testified before the coroner's jury to hearmg a conversatIon m
~~ane's alley previous'to the Haymarket meeting, between Spies and Schwab,
and got them held to the grand jury, an,d Marshall ~ield has ~iven that man
a job. This is brought in before the man on the Jury, who IS dependent on
Marshall Fi~ld (or his living. He has given a job to the man who gav~ s,uch
damaging testimony before the coroner's jury in order to get our conVIctIOn.
Why was it not plain to anybody why there should have been so much Marhall'Field
lugged in htlre? When it was shown to the employee of Marshall
~ield who is on the jury, that his employer has given a job to the principal
witn~ss against the prisoners, since giving his evidence again.st them at t?e
coroner's inquest, was it not a hint to the juror as t~ what ~md of a. verdict
his employer wanted? On no occasion, except as lllustratl~g a pomt, has
anybody, at any Socialistic meeting tha~ I ever attended, ~dvIsed anybody to