"Hadn't we better go to the meeting now?" I asked.
Lingg was as quiet as ever, and spoke just as slowly as usual.
"If you will," he said; "it is a mile to the Haymarket, and the meeting
is called for nine o'clock; they won't begin till eight or ten minutes
past, and even if the police break up the meeting they won't do it
before nine-thirty or a quarter to ten. We have lots of time. . . . Before
we go, Rudolph, I want you to promise me one thing. I want you to
escape; it is part of our plan for spreading terror that the thrower of the
first bomb should go scot-free. Nothing spreads terror like sequence
and success. I want you to promise that whatever happens you will
keep away, and not give yourself up."
"I promise," I replied hastily. "Shall I throw it in any case?" I asked,
feverishly passing my tongue over my dried lips, and longing, I suppose,
for even the chance of a respite.
"If the police do not interfere," he said, "we are too glad to keep
quiet; but if they come to break up a quiet meeting, if they draw their
clubs and begin to bludgeon, I should throw it; and if you can remember
as you throw it, throw yourself down on your hands and knees, too;
the shock will be tremendous."
"Shall we go, then?" I asked, and turned to look for the grip; but
Lingg had picked it up. Of a sudden he put it down again and put his
hand on my shoulder; his eyes on mine were full of kindness.
"There's time, Rudolph," he said, "even now, to turn back. I cannot
bear to think of your being in it. Leave it to me. Trust me; it will be
better."
With that strange feeling of equality still thrilling in me, I
exclaimed, "No, no; you mistake me. I am more than willing; all those
injured and murdered people are calling to me. Don't let's talk, man.
My mind is made up. From head to foot I am one purpose."
He threw back his head, then picked
up my grip, and we left the
room. As we passed through the little shop, the boy told us that Engel
had gone to the meeting half an hour before, and we set off at a good
round pace. So wrought up was I, so excited, I had not noticed that the
beautiful day was all overcast, that a thunderstorm was clouding up, till
Lingg drew my attention to it.
A minute afterwards, as it seems to me now, we had reached our
goal; we were in Desplaines Street, between Lake Street and Randolph
Street. Desplaines Street is a mean thoroughfare on the west side,
three or four hundred yards from the river, and fully half a mile from
the edge of the business centre downtown. The Haymarket, as the
place was afterwards called, is nearly a hundred yards away. As we
came up from the south we passed the Desplaines Street police station,
presided over by Inspector Bonfield; there was already a crowd of
police at the door.
"They mean business," said Lingg, "tonight, and so do we."
When we got to the outskirts of the meeting we saw the mayor of
the city, with one or two officials; the mayor was an elderly man called
Carter Harrison. He had been asked to prohibit the meeting, but was
unwilling to interfere with what might be a lawful
assembly; he attended
in person to prevent any incitement to rioting.
The speakers' stand was a mere truck-wagon, placed where a blind
alley intersected the street, in the centre of the block. We were at the
rear of the building occupied by the Crane Brothers' great elevator factory.
I should think two or three thousand people were already gathered together.
Spies had finished speaking as we came up. He was followed by
Parsons, who rose to the height of the argument if ever a man did. He
began by asking the crowd to be quite orderly; he assured them that if
they kept order, and simply gave expression to their grievances, the
American people would hear them with sympathy, and would see that
they had fair play. He really believed this claptrap. He went on to say
that their grievances were terrible; unarmed men, women, and children
had been shot down. Why were they shot? he asked, and then
began his reform speech.
The mayor listened to everything, and evidently saw nothing in the
utterances to object to. "Parsons's speech," he said afterwards, "was a
good political speech." After Parsons had made an end, the
Englishman, Samuel Fielden, with his bushy beard, stood up and began
to prose. Some
rain-drops fell,
a lull came in the rising wind; darkness
began to overshadow us. Evidently the storm was at hand.
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