Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1886 — THE ANARCHIST TRIAL. [ARTICLE]

THE ANARCHIST TRIAL.

The Prosecution Close Their CaseAttorney Salomon Opens for the Defense. Ah Interesting Story as toHow Oapt. Schaack Hunted Down the Conspirators. > IChicago telegram.] After the presentation of some purely formal evidence as Io the time and place of Officer Degan’s death, and the reading of various incendiary articles from anarchistic journals, the State closed • its case against the bomb-throwers on Saturday. During the reading of the articles, which grew more virulent as the Ist of May approached, the red and black flags and inflammatory banners of the socialists were presented to the jury. When the State had rested, the attorneys for the defense moved that Oscar Neebe be discharged, and followed by a motion that all the defendants except Spies and Fischer be dismissed. These motions were argued at some length, but were overruled by the court, which held that where there is a general advice to commit murder, the time and occasion not being foreseen, the adviser is guilty if the murder is committed. Mr. Salomon then made the opening statement for the defense. His effort was not remarkable in any way except in that it practically admitted very much that was claimed by the prosecution. His chief arguments centered upon two points: First, there cannot be accessories without a principal; second, the defendants did not throw the bomb. Upon the first of these points he held that the State must prove that somebody was a principal in committing the murder before it could convict the defendants as accessories. The manufacture of bombs, the intent to use dynamite, and the preparation for a revolution by force were admitted by Mr. Salomon, who made fully as many points for the State as for his clients. At this stage of the case a brief and authentic record of the clever work of Captain Schaack and his assistants will be of interest. Captain Schaack has only six detectives in his -district or under his control. These are Schuttler, Lowenstein, Whalen, Hoffman, Stiff, aud Rehm. These are 1 the men that gathered the evidence that hung Mulkowski, and it was these same men who gathered practically all the evidence against the anarchists. Acting under the general direction of Captain Shaack, they worked night and day and left no stone unturned until every fact was laid bare. The morning of May 5, the day after the massacre. Captain Schaack had a consultation with Chief Ebersold. “I want to work independently in this case,” said Shaack; “I want no help from the Central Station. Your detectives here can work by themselves, and I and nay men will work by ourselves.” Chief Ebersold agreed. At that time Lieutenant Shea, chief of the detective department and its force of thirty men, had arrested Spies, Parsons, Schvvab, Fielden, Fischer, and several others openly ’ identified with the anarchists or connected with the anarchic publications, and had seized the stuff in the Ar better-Zeitung Building. Schaack called in his six men and gave them their instructions. The second morning afterward (May 7) he had learned of bombs having been made in one or two houses on Sedgwick street, and also in a certain place in the lumber' district. In those two days, it might be stated, the whole city was practically scoured by those six men in their search for a bomb factory. The work had not been completed, but had merely narrowed down to certain districts and had resulted in certain pointers from which that information of May 7 was gath-. ered. Schuttler and Lowenstein and some officers in uniform were sent to the two houses on Sedgwick street, one of which was Seliger's (No. 442), and the other a few doors off on the opposite side of the street. Oppenheimer, the escaped inform■r, said that when the officers were going toward Seliger’s he and Lingg were standing on the opposite sidewalk and that they discussed the feasibility of making a rush for the house and getting in in time to arm themselves and kill the officers in case they were actually bound for Seliger’s. But the unconscious; officers were too quick in their movements and got to the house first. Then Lingg said he would hide, and instructed Oppenheimer to send his trunk to No. 71 West Lake street in case the officers did not take them away. It was then that Schuttler and Lowenstein found the Lingg - Seliger arsenal and all the infernal machinery for bomb manufacture. The officers, held possession of the place until everything was taken to Seliger was found at work at Meyer’s carpentershop the same evening, and was lodged in the East Chicago Avenue Station. This was the first arrest of importance as leading djj-ectly to the conspiracy. That night Thielen came to see what his friend Seliger was arrested for, and he too was put under lock and key. It was then that Lingg first was heard of. Thielen was the first informer, but it was some days before he willingly told anything. His talk the first night, however, regarding Seliger’s lodger, Lingg, and Seliger’s talk on the same subject, led Schacck to believe that Lingg was an important factor in the case. Schuttler and Lowenstein then bent all . their energies to Lingg’s capture. They tracked him first by an express wagon he had hired to deliver his tool-chest at Twelfth and Clark streets. Then they traced him to Canal street, and then to the lumber district, frequently losing the trail and then catching it again. Finally, -the 14th, they located him in the little cottage on Ambrose street, where they arrested him. Lingg was an unconscious infprmer. He was defiant; he desired to ccqieeul nothing regarding himself, opd- in uis reckless noods he disclosed many things that were valuable. Then Thielen squealed. A host of conspirators were hunted down by these six detectives and arrested. Assistant State’s _ Attorney Furthman, whom Schaack describes as better than any two detectives in the city, interviewed the prisoner’s daily and nightly in their native tongue, and kept a record of all their statements.

" A lawyer walked down the street recently, with his length of arms taxed to hold a lot of law-books. To him a friend, pointing at the books, said: “Why, 1 thought you carried all that stuff in your bead?” “I do,” quickly replied the lawyer, with a.knowing wink; “these are for. the judges.” { A young lawer, who had long paid his court to a young lady without much advancing his suit, accused her one day of being “insensible to the power of love.” “It does not fbllow,” she archly replied, “that I am so because I am not to be . won by the power of attorney.” A MAN who had been arrested as a vagrant protested he had a regular trade and calling—-to wit. smoking glass for total eclipses of the sun; and as these occur only a few times in a century, he was not to blame for being out of employment a good deal. OFF on a lark —Its flying wmg-feathere.