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fendants. The New York Times advised that very course to involve the leaders and thus break down the eight-hour movement which was then sustained by 335,000 men. A. R. Parsons rehearsed on the trial his Haymarket speech, and it is of record. It was a strong, statistical, philosophical argument. At its conclusion Capt. Black, counsel for the defense, asked: 'When you were referring in your speech to Jay Gould or to the southwestern system do you remember any interruption from the crowd or any response?' to which A. R. replied: "Yes, I omitted that in rehearsing my speech before the court just concluded. Some one said: "Hang him! hang Gould!" My response to that was that it was not a conflict between individuals, but for a change of system, and that socialism designed to removed the cause which produced the pauper and the millionaire, but did not aim at the life of individuals.'"
"Reporter English of the Chicago Tribune and several other reporters present corroborated this statement. In fact it was originally drawn out of the reporters present before A. R. Parsons took the stand. It was proven by ten witnesses that A. R. Parsons was in Zepf's hall, at the corner of Randolph and Desplaines streets, when the shell exploded, and yet he is condemned to death for having incited some one to throw the fatal bomb. It was proven that Lingg was two and a half miles away on Clybourn avenue at that hour; that Schwab was speaking elsewhere, seven miles distant; that Engle was with his family at home; that Neebe was not eve present, and knew nothing of the meeting; that Parsons had finished and left the ground with his family, and that the only two of the eight present were Fielden and Spies, and they were on the speakers' stand when attacked and ordered to disperse by 200 armed policemen."
"Is it true he voluntarily surrendered?"
"It is true that conscious of his innocence, A. R. Parsons voluntarily came into open court on the first day of the trial and took his seat with the accused defendants at a time when the inflamed prejudices of the police rendered it doubtful if justice could be rendered with the entire machinery of the law in their hands. This act tended largely to disarm the hostility of disinterested men who believed in fair play, and that justice should be done through the heavens fall."
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