Michael Ceraolo, poet [photo by Jesus Crisis]
“Government must defend itself;
life and property must be protected,
and law and order must be maintained;
murder must be punished,
and
if the defendants are guilty of murder,
either committed by their own hands
or by some one else acting on their advice,
then if they have had a fair trial,
there should be in this case no executive interference”
Pretty much the words one would expect
from a tycoon who spent $100,000
of his own money on the campaign
that elected him Governor of Illinois;
he would be another in the line of elected officials
who had done and would do nothing
for the remaining three inmates
convicted in the Haymarket case
(George Bernard Shaw on some of those officials:
“If seven men must die for the Haymarket explosion,
civilization can better afford to lose
the seven members of the Illinois Supreme Court”)
But
this official was John Peter Altgeld:
“no man has the right to allow his ambition
to stand in the way of the performance
of a simple act of justice”
(something
never even thought by Kennedy)
and
“If I decide they are innocent
I will pardon them if I never hold office another day”
And so:
“The record of the trial
shows that the jury in this case was not drawn
in the manner juries usually are drawn”
that bailiff Henry Ryce had been appointed
as a special bailiff to summon prospective jurors,
that Ryce had successfully impaneled
“a prejudiced jury which he believed would hang the defendants”
and findings of fact:
“until
the State proves from whose hand the bomb came,
it is impossible to show any connection
between the man who threw it and these defendants”
and
“It is further shown here
that much of the evidence given at trial
was a pure fabrication;
that
some of the prominent police officials in their zeal,
not only terrorized ignorant men by throwing them into prison
and threatening them with torture
if they refused to swear to anything desired,
but
that they offered money and employment
to those who would consent to do this”
And thus:
“I am convinced that it is clearly my duty
to act in this case for the reasons already given,
and I,
therefore,
grant an absolute pardon to
Samuel Fieldin,
Oscar Neebe,
and Michael Schwab
this 26th day of June,1893″
And
then the attacks began,
by
those stern guardians of right and wrong,
the press,
all
having little to do with the substance of the message:
“an alien himself”
who
“does not reason like an American,
does not feel like one,
&nb
sp; and
consequently does not behave like one”
who
“has encouraged anarchy, rapine and
the overthrow of civilizations”
And
for those who think nastiness and name-calling
are recent phenomena in politics,
these statements
from the re-election campaign in 1896,
uttered
by a future President
(who will remain deservedly nameless in this poem),
Altgeld was:
“one who would connive at wholesale murder”
a man who
“would substitute
for the government of Washington and Lincoln
a red welter of lawlessness and dishonesty
as fantastic and vicious as the Paris Commune:
(red-baiting never goes out of style,
sadly)
And
such attacks worked,
as they usually do:
Altgeld was defeated,
his courage
not rewarded in the short run,
and
in constant danger of being forgotten
in the long run
* * * * *
This poem comes from Michael Ceraolo’s work-in-progress Profiles in Courage: An Alternate Array. We also recommend these Michael Ceraolo poetry collections:
Euclid Creek – available from Deep Cleveland Books
Cleveland Scores Early – from Kendra Steiner Editions
Cleveland Haiku – from Green Panda Press
John Peter Altgeld (by Michael Ceraolo)
29 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted 2000s, American, Ceraolo (Michael), Cleveland, Poetry
inJohn Peter Altgeld