The morning of his and his comrades’ execution, he loudly recited–proclaimed–Heinrich Heine’s The Silesian Weavers to the prison wing. The sublime conviction of Haymarket Martyr, the German-born George Engel is noted for history in the months after his judicial murder. Includes a just translated letter written by him while awaiting the gallows. Words that remain both a solace and an inspiration.

‘Reminiscences of George Engel’ from The Alarm (Chicago). Vol. (new) 1 No. 7. January 28, 1888.

Pen Pictures of the Labor Leaders Slowly Strangled in the Name of Christian Civilization.

George Engel, the Loving Husband, Kind Father, and Devoted Adherent to Principle–His Account of the “Conspiracy.”

GEORGE ENGEL.

George Engel, the oldest of the condemned men, was the least understood of them all. Born in 1839, he was advancing well into middle life, but the same enthusiastic spirit that stirred the hearts of his more youthful comrades animated him. If age brought wisdom it did not dampen his ardor. To the jail officials he was morose and unsociable, they said. Calm and reticent in his manner, he never sought to make friends with those appointed to guard him but it was less moroseness than dignity. To those who knew him intimately those who were admitted into his full confidence–his genial, equitable nature and unchanging good humor were marked characteristics. Never for an instant, from the moment of his arrest to his death, did he harbor the thought of disloyalty to conviction–of accepting life by renunciation of principle. In his family circle a kind father and loving husband, winning respect and confidence from those brought into contact with him, he endeared himself to hundreds who sadly congregated around his bier to pay the last rites of affectionate remembrance. It was by his wish that the body of his young comrade Louis Lingg was taken to his home to be buried with his own.

Upon the evening of May 4, 1886, as the testimony shows, he was at home, and when informed of the tragic events of the evening rebuked Walter, who subsequently was brought up to play the role of informer, for expressing a wish to wreak revenge upon the police. He remained quietly at his usual avocation, not dreaming that he was implicated in any crime meriting punishment. Arrested once he was dismissed, and not for several days afterward was he again arrested. He had made no effort to escape, but fearlessly attended to his daily duties, ready at any time to appear if wanted.

Waller’s testimony fastened upon him the authorship of “the plan,” given in my last number when writing of Fischer. He had dared to propose resisting the police if attacked by them, and no testimony introduced by the state showed that “Engel’s plan” ever incorporated aught more than was included) under that hypothetical “if.” After his arrest for eight days his family remained in ignorance of his whereabouts. No Information could be obtained from the police. Capt. Schanck in whose charge he was, refused all information, and his wife and child were left in a state of painful doubt. Day after day they visited the station, but even the fact that he had been arrested was studiously concealed. The sweat-box, that characteristic feature of the modern inquisition, was brought into play to break, his spirit and terrify his soul with threats. On the eighth day his daughter Mary again visited the station and insisted upon knowing the truth. While there she heard a voice singing downstairs in one of the lower cells; she recognized her father’s voice. Eight days shut off from all contact with the outer world, subject to threats and bribes, George Engel was singing the “Marseillaise.” His daughter asked: “Who is that singing?” The redoubtable captain, unheeding her anguish and lying like a thief, replied: “O! some drunken fellow downstairs.” But, knowing better, she stoutly maintained her ground and insisted upon seeing him. At last her request was granted, and when brought up his beard, which had grown unchecked in the meantime, gave to him such a rough appearance that she could scarcely realize that it was indeed her father, who had always been so studiously neat in his appearance. Capt. Schaack had told him that if he would only tell all he knew and become a witness he would be provided for, a comfortable living would be guaranteed him for the rest of his days; but sturdy George Engel could not be tempted and beguiled the weary hours with singing the “Marseillaise.” Though assured that his life would be the fatal alternative, he remained unmoved by fear or favors.

The night before the execution he conversed pleasantly with his guards and indulged in a little quiet humor with a well-meaning clergyman who had developed a sudden interest in the welfare of his “soul.” To the clergyman he said: “In the shadow of the gallows, as I stand, I have done nothing wrong. I have not done everything right during my life, but I have endeavored to live so that I need not fear to die. Monopoly has crushed competition and the poor man has no show, but the revolution will surely come, and the working man will get his rights. Socialism and christianity can walk hand in hand together as brothers, for both are laboring in the interest of the amelioration of mankind. I have no religion but to wrong no man and try and do good to everybody.”

At 1:30 o’clock the “death watch” was changed. Deputy Charles W. Peters, who was with Engel, said: “I have had three hours conversation with Engel, and braver, calmer man never lived. He is perfectly resigned to his fate, and expresses no sorrow for anything. On the contrary, he says he would repeat his actions if he had the opportunity. He said: “Any man who is a true socialist, thoroughly imbued with its glorious principles, can go bravely to the scaffold and die for them.” “Did he refer to his family?” “Yes, and in terms so affectionate and eloquent that I was astonished, never having believed him capable of such a fine feeling. He said to me: They did not tell me that it was my last visit with my wife and daughter, but I thought it was. The parting was hard, but I tried to comfort them and cheer them. From the very first I have prepared them gradually for what is now to happen. I told them not to indulge in false hopes. I have always believed that we would die. I was not in favor of appealing the case to higher courts; I knew, it was useless. But our death will do more for socialism than our lives could. It has grown stronger and faster since our arrest than ever before. The time is coming when we will be vindicated. Socialism is too great, too grand, too good to die.”

This remark was typical of the man. Of himself he thought nothing; of the cause for which he was about to die, all. That his death might do more for mankind than his life with him became a faith-a faith that the theologue, wrapt up in the narrow belief of selfish immorality, could not understand nor appreciate.

Early in the morning his voice rang out the song he loved so well, and his comrades caught up the refrain and joined in with a will that woke the echoes throughout the building. He also recited the following poem by Heinrich Heine:

With tearless eyes, in despair and gloom,
Gnashing their teeth, they sit at the loom.
Thy shroud we weave, Germany of old,
We weave to it the curse three-fold.

We are weaving, weaving, weaving.

A curse to the false gods we prayed to in vain,
In the winter’s cold, in hunger and pain.
Our hope, our waiting, all were naught:
He fooled us, he mocked us–a terrible thought.
We are weaving, weaving, weaving.

A curse to the king of the rich,
For none of our misery his heart did reach.
He takes our money, the very last cent:
To shoot us like dogs his soldiers he sent.
We are weaving, weaving, weaving.

A curse to the state, O false fatherland.
Shame and disgrace are nursed by the hand.
Where blossoms are early broken by storm,
And in rot and mold delights the worn.
We are weaving, weaving, weaving.

The rattling loom, the shuttle’s flight,
We are busy weaving, day and night.
Thy shroud we weave, Germany of old,
We weave into it the curse three-foll.
We are weaving, weaving, weaving.

Of his bold and undismayed conduct on the scaffold the world knows. His last word to his comrades was in a whisper to Fischer, which, whatever it was, called out a smile from both. In a moment more the caps were drawn over their faces and their eyes looked upon their fellow men no more. Then Engel’s voice was heard in loud and clear tones shouting “Hurrah for anarchy!” Capt. Schanck, who was on the roof of the jail, heard it and said: “That’s old Engel; he never could keep quiet!”

Gentle, thoughtful, loving George Engel, thy unflinching devotion and unswerving loyalty has not been lost upon the world. Rest in peace; thy spirit will still live in other hearts and animate other breasts.

GEORGE ENGEL’S APPEAL.

His Review of the Testimony and Statement of the Motives Which Prompted His Actions.

While the defense committee and their friends were petitioning the prisoners to humble themselves to secure the boon of life imprisonment, where they might reflect upon the benefit derived from abandonment of principles, George Engel, calmly prepared to face death, wrote the following letter. It originally appeared in the Arbeiter Zeitung, but is here given for the first time in English. In the future we will be given other papers and letters written by the martyrs for liberty’s cause. This one is as follows:

COOK COUNTY JAIL, Oct. 3, 1887.

To the Citizens of the United States and of the City of Chicago: When these lines shall be published I shall, in accordance with the will of an intelligent jury, have become a victim fallen in the social battle.

I protest against a sentence–based upon perjury and instigated by the greatest highway robbers of the nineteenth century–the Citizens’ association. Branded as a criminal, I appeal to all who have known me and my family for the past thirteen years I have lived here, the latter still living at the old place in spite of political and social differences which may have existed between myself and some of my neighbors, not one of them loving truth, not one of them can or will say that I was ever guilty of anything not in the strictest harmony with the welfare of my fellow man. As a socialist, and more especially as an anarchist, they have never loved me, but, prejudiced as they were, none have reason to hate me. Living isolated from those who thought otherwise, I studied the social relations of man. In the following lines I will give a sketch of the crime for which I am condemned to die, leaving it to the public to decide. Since, facing death, I have no reason to equivocate it will be superfluous to state that I am telling the truth.

Listen, then…For some six months before my arrest I had addressed public audiences on the action to be taken by the proletariat in case the revolution should break out. I explained to my fellow workmen how the monopolists everywhere procure the most modern weapons, and becoming alarmed at the rapid increasing doctrines of socialism among the people, they raised the cry for more police and militia, advocated the arming of working men for defense, that they should make use of the improved war material invented by science. Knowing them to be too poor to lay gatling guns and other expensive arms used in modern warfare, I told them how they could procure practical weapons cheap. This I taught and still believe, since working men, becoming superfluous through the constant introduction of labor saving machinery, were being driven to the wall and the natural right to life denied them by the powder and lead employed by their masters.

I certainly did not think of May 4. I often spoke to meetings, the last time on Sunday, May 2, on Emma street. At that time it will be admitted that I could not possibly have known of the police wantonly killing a number of working men at McCormick’s shops on the following day. All my speeches were in reference to the social revolution in the near future.

On Monday, May 3, in the evening, I happened to drop in to a meeting at 54 West Lake Street. The chairman, Waller, the state’s witness later on, recognized me, and at his request I repeated my address given the day before. Upon its conclusion retired and went home. Consequently I am in utter ignorance of the subsequent proceedings.

On the evening of May. 4, I was engaged with a few friends at my home in playing cards. About half-past 10 this same Waller came to my house and told us of the episode at the Haymarket. In response to his question as to the best course to pursue I advised him to go home. That my action in the whole affair at the time was deemed unimportant is proven by the fact that while I was arrested I was discharged and for twelve days remained unmolested–i.e., to May, 18–during which time the police seemed to be in ignorance of my dangerous character. In the meantime the daily press had made an infernal machine out of the sheet iron box found at my house. It was discovered that I had made radical speeches and had actually advised working men what to do in case the world’s revolution should take place. With such evidence the police concluded to make me choose between death and becoming a traitor to my comrades, I preferred death to treason to my fellow men, and this is why my condemnation followed.

A damnable perjurer was that working man who testified that he made the above sheet-iron box. The fact is that several times during the year I had occasion to buy sheet iron off this scoundrel. During his time I had a lease of three houses and a contract for repairs on them, for which I needed the sheet iron. This, my dear fellow citizens, is a truthful sketch of my “crime,” and I leave it to your calm judgment to decide whether my political adversaries did not murder me for exercising the right of free speech, which I had supposed was guaranteed by the constitution of the United States, of which I am a citizen.

It must indeed be a weak government that cannot stand criticism from its citizens. And when today I assert that such a government is not worth longer existence it is with the ardent wish that the hour may not be far distant when, for the welfare of its own citizens, this government may break down. I willingly sacrifice my life if in any manner it will teach working men who are their true friends and who are their enemies. With social revolutionary greetings, GEORGE ENGEL.

The Alarm was an extremely important paper at a momentous moment in the history of the US and international workers’ movement. The Alarm was the paper of the International Working People’s Association produced weekly in Chicago and edited by Albert Parsons. The IWPA was formed by anarchists and social revolutionists who left the Socialist Labor Party in 1883 led by Johann Most who had recently arrived in the States. The SLP was then dominated by German-speaking Lassalleans focused on electoral work, and a smaller group of Marxists largely focused on craft unions. In the immigrant slums of proletarian Chicago, neither were as appealing as the city’s Lehr-und-Wehr Vereine (Education and Defense Societies) which armed and trained themselves for the class war. With 5000 members by the mid-1880s, the IWPA quickly far outgrew the SLP, and signified the larger dominance of anarchism on radical thought in that decade. The Alarm first appeared on October 4, 1884, one of eight IWPA papers that formed, but the only one in English. Parsons was formerly the assistant-editor of the SLP’s ‘People’ newspaper and a pioneer member of the American Typographical Union. By early 1886 Alarm claimed a run of 3000, while the other Chicago IWPA papers, the daily German Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers’ Newspaper) edited by August Spies and weeklies Der Vorbote (The Harbinger) had between 7-8000 each, while the weekly Der Fackel (The Torch) ran 12000 copies an issue. A Czech-language weekly Budoucnost (The Future) was also produced. Parsons, assisted by Lizzie Holmes and his wife Lucy Parsons, issued a militant working-class paper. The Alarm was incendiary in its language, literally. Along with openly advocating the use of force, The Alarm published bomb-making instructions. Suppressed immediately after May 4, 1886, the last issue edited by Parson was April 24. On November 5, 1887, one week before Parson’s execution, The Alarm was relaunched by Dyer Lum but only lasted half a year. Restarted again in 1888, The Alarm finally ended in February 1889. The Alarm is a crucial resource to understanding the rise of anarchism in the US and the world of Haymarket and one of the most radical eras in US working class history.

PDF of full issue: https://digitalcollections.crl.edu/record/1117363?ln=en