witness stand at the subsequent trial as to the mildness of the speeches.

In the audience was the mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison, who was quickly
satisfied by its peaceful nature and went in person to Police Captain
Bonfield with instructions to call off police reserves and send his men
home. They would not be needed.

Just as the last speaker, Samuel Fielden, was saying, "_In
conclusion----_," a good part of the crowd had been driven home by rain
which began falling when he started his speech--a squad of armed police
descended upon the Haymarket Square. Mumbling orders for the crowd to
disperse, they fell upon the assembled men and women with clubs and guns.

At that moment, someone--to this day unknown--threw a bomb into the midst
of the meeting, killing one policeman outright and wounding scores of
people.

These are the facts of the Haymarket meeting and the events which lead up
to it. What the press made of it was the prelude to one of the rawest
frame-up trials in American history.

All the leading radicals in the city were rounded up and arrested. Many
more were indicted in their absence and heavy rewards were posted for
their capture. Among these was Albert Parsons, who had left before the end
of the meeting, and had fled to a safe hiding place when the man-hunt
began. The newspapers from coast to coast, our worthy _New York Times_ not
excepted, howled for their blood, raved about an Anarchist plot to blow up
Chicago, seize the government, murder, arson, pillage, rape--the whole
program which William Randolph Hearst has made only too familiar to the
American public.