The Chicago Martyrs by John P. Altgeld

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ADDRESS OF SAMUEL FIELDEN
he became a captive,. he tells them of the pleasures of his youth; he tells
them as they listen to the Numidian lion's roar, that tomorrow it will feast'
and E~tisfy its hunger upon them, "Yesterday I met in the ~(ena a glad!ator,
and I killed him. I thought of the time when I was a child on the hills of
T a of a little boy that belonged to aneighbor, and who shared with me
my hu~ble meal as we tended our f'eparate flOCk~ on the hillsides, ~nd when
,I lifted the cowl of the gladiator that I had kIlled, I found that It was the
comrade of my youth, . Why should it be that 'We should struggle? Why
should it be that we should fight? Why should it be that we should kill each
other for the amusement of the Roman nobles?" And I say now, in an era
in which there is an intense struggle for existence amon gthe class that has
no money or property, that it is a struggle for the amuseme~tof the proper~y
nobles. The children that play together in t~e streets of C?lCago.and the Villages
that dot this continent from the AtlantI~ to the Pacific, WIll grow up
and engage in a life and death struggle for eXistence, for the. amusement and
for the benefit of nobody but their masters, the American nobles. I say, ~y
friends, as you draw the line tighter and tighter, the conflicts th~t are gomg
on and will go on between these men, will array. the~ agai~st theIr m~sters.
If I can say anything in the interests of humamty, m the lllterests of liberty,
equality, and fraternity, I would say it ~ow. Take heed, t~ke heed! The
time, my friends, is not far off. The swift process ~f re~uctlOn of the masses
into a condition of depravity and degradation, as IS eVlllced b:J: the number
of men out of employmeI},t, shows us clearly where we ar~ going..W~ cannot
deny it. No think·ing man, no re~soning man, n? .fnend of hiS kmd, can
ignore the fact that we are going rapld!y on to a preCIpICe. If I call a halt, I
consider that in the interest of humamty. I make no threats. I have never
made any threats. I have merely spoken and told the people what was the
natural result of present existing conditions. I tell them now that I do not
advise any man to commit any act which would render himself lia?le to t~e
law or to punishment; but I say to those.who have the means of. eXIstence III
th 'r possession that there may come a bme when the people "1'111 no longer
bee~rowded tog~ther, when the rats, as Mr.. Grinnell has said, will come out
of their holes. I would ask you to read Victor Hugo, read in that grand work,
~'The Hunchback of Notre Dame," the description of the vermin that crawled
out of the Latin quarter. Unpleasant as these are, they are human beings.
Look at the result of the degradation that the masses had been brought to,
d at the time of the French Revolution of 1789. They knew nothing. They
anI knew the blind rage of an enraged tiger to kill something-to destroy
on y h l'f
something, when their condition had become so desparate t. at I e was no
longer desirable and death had no terrors. It is a lesson of hIstory. No man
ever willfully throws his life away.
It is not probable that there will be any revolt in America, that there
will be any rebellion in any country u~der the.sun, until t~e tin:e has co~e
when the people can no longer live. They "1'111 nev~r do It untIl then. It IS
for society to think; it is for them to compare. It WIll not. do ~or a man to
look around at his little home, his own hearthstone~an? Imagme how comfortable
he is, and think because of that, that everythlllg IS lov~ly and eve~yt!>;ng
is safe. It is not. Outside are the men who are sufferlDg; men WIth
ADDRESS OF SAMUEL FIELDEN.
appetites; men with passions; men with desires; men with sentiments as
fine, perhaps, some of them, as those of some of the mORt intelligent portions
of the community; men being driven to the wall. They will continue to be
unless the system is changed. When I have told you, or. indicated, rather,
how the people's means of existence have IZradually been concentrated into
the hands of the smaller quantity and number of the community, it is an indication
that points unerringly to a danger. I ·wish society would avert this. I
have said upon the witness stand that it was not pleasant for me to contemplate
anything of the kind. It is not a pleasant thing, but in the interest of
peace, as I told these people.
Your honor, there is one thing I wish to say about my own particular
case, and then I have done. Dynamite has been spoken of here, and it has
been charged by Mr. Ingham that all of us knew that violence was to be used
at th'l Haymarket. If he didn't say as much, it was indicated as much in
that assertion tbat we were all equally guilty. That may be so. I don't
know.the extent to which any of tb.e others are guilty. Fischer, Lingg, and
Engel are men that I have not associated with for a year. I knew Fischer; I
didn't know Lingg. Mr. Engel I have seen, bnt quite a while before the
Haymarket affair, and I know at one time he did not belong to our organization-had
left it, and so had Fi~cber, and I didn't know they belonged to it.
I could not have been then conspiring with them to do anything in the Haymarket
equare on the 4th of May. I hadn't seen these other gentlemen since
the Sunday previous. I helieve I didn't see Mr. Parsons on that Sunday at
all Rnd had not seen him for a week before that. I-don't know what the
ingredients of dynamite are. I had never seen, before I came into this court
room, a dynamite bomb. I have never seen any experiments or taken part in
any experiments with dynamite in any shape or form. And I never knewand
I only know now, if I may believe the testimony of the detectives in this
case-that there was dynamite kept in the Arbeiter-Zeitung building. I say
these things, not because I believe that I shall be believed-because I know
as I have stated before, that every defendant, almost, asserts his innocence:
and it is about all that he can do-and it undoubtedly has been the case that
many a man, as guilty as he could possibly be, has said with as much apparent
sincerity as I say it today, that he was innocent, and yet was guilty-but
I wisb to say this, that if the State's attorney or the authorities of this city
should arrest your bonor tomorrow for any crime they choose to charge you
with, they could prove you guilty if they wanted to. That is an advantage
that tlJey have. Whether it is intentional-and I am net going to charge
anything of the kind aQ'ainst any man-I know that illtentional falsehoods
have been stated here, I will charge that where I know it-I will not injure
any man's feelings; I will not charge for the sake of saving my life, any man
with being a murderer, until I know him to be that; I do not and cannot
know, having been confined the length of time I have, what influences may
have been brought to bear upon the State's attorney, that there should have
h en the evidence brought in here against me which has' been, r.nd which I
know to be false-therefore, I will not charge that it was intentional to
('I livid mo 011 llis part, but I have enggested here that he can find out manv
t,Ii1l1j(e If ho will look up certain records that I have referred to which 'Will co;-
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