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July 25 we called amass-meeting on Market Square, at which A. R. Parsons and John McAuliffe made the principle speeches. The city had been under the greatest excitement for several days, and the announcement of this meeting brought together at least 40,000 people. On occasions of great public excitement Albert R. Parsons was a host as a public speaker. His capacity at times like these to address himself to the feelings of the workers was something marvelous. The Inter-ocean declared that the subsequent mischief during that strike in Chicago was all due to Parsons' speech. The next evening another meeting was called at the same place, but was dispersed by the police, who demolished the speaker's stand into kindling wood and clubbed the unarmed workers right and left. Fred Courth, a cigar-maker, was knocked senseless. We carried him up in the old Vorbote office, dressed in his wound, which consisted of a deep gash in his head, the marks of which are visible to this day. The same day (July 26) the Furniture-Worker's Union called a meeting at the Vorwaerts Turner hall at the request of their bosses, who desired a mutual conference for the settlement of whatever grievances were between them. The police, hearing of this meeting, immediately proceeded to break it up. Mr. Wasserman, the then proprietor of the hall, attempted to prevent them from entering, but they knocked him down, over his prostrate form broke through the door, and, without any notice to the assemblage, commenced shooting and clubbing. One of the members of the union (Tessman) was shot dead, while many others were badly wounded. The matter was subsequently made a test case in the Courts, and Judge McAllister rendered one of his famous decisions on the right of public assemblage. I have often thought of this case in connection with the Anarchist trial. It was claimed by the friends of the defendants, and never successfully refuted, that Bonfield, in ordering the attack on the Haymarket meeting, assaulted the right of public assemblage, and that whatever means were employed by the citizens there assembled to repel this invasion, were both justifiable and lawful. To this the friends of the police replied that if the attack was unlawful they could find redress in the Courts. But what redress did the Furniture-Worker's Union secure for the murder of its member Tessman? Poverty, as a rule, is at a
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