Fischer compares his connection to the Haymarket bomb to that of State's Attorney Grinnell. What is the intended rhetorical effect of this comparison, and what does it imply about his view of the prosecution's true motivations or the fairness of his trial?

From the book

an offset to Gilmer. He was unimpeached. No one questioned his veracity. He stood here as an honest man. Gilmer did not. The State's attorney, in his eagerness to produce this result—and, by the way, right here I want to say, it is no particular credit for the prosecution to bring about this verdict. All the rules of evidence and procedure were reversed on this trial. Instead of being considered innocent until our guilt was established, we have been held guilty unless we could establish our innocence. Why, the whole capitalistic press, the whole of the police, ​ the bankers, millionaires,…

ds its best portrayal in the words of State's Attorney Grinnell, himself one of the chief actors in this gigantic crime. At the conclusion of the trial he was interviewed by the agent of the Associated Press, who sent out a full report from which I quote as follows: "Do you propose to go ahead at once and bring other leaders of Anarchy to the halter?" Mr. Grinnell replied: "We intend to leave the Anarchists alone for a time, and see whether they have now learned what the right of free speech means in this country, and whether they still hold it to mean that they may incite men to riot,…

erson connected with the trial that is now over, every Anarchist might as well consider that his death knell is sounded. We have their names and will bring every one of them to the gallows. Let them understand that." I suppose your honor has attended the opera bouffe called " The Mikado ." You will recollect that the lord high executioner of the mikado of Japan, like Grinnell, had them all "on the list." Grinnell proposes to continue to perpetrate acts which Mayor Harrison says could not be done in any monarchical country with safety, and which, if done in London, would shake Queen Victoria's…

ine who testified on the witness stand, went with me to Zepf's Hall, and we sat down at a table and had a glass of beer. At the moment I was going to sit down, my ​ friend Parsons came in with some other persons, and after I was sitting there about five minutes the explosion occurred. I had no idea that anything of the kind would happen, because, as the State's witnesses testified themselves, there was no agreement to defend ourselves that night. It was only a meeting called to protest. Now, as I said before, this verdict, which was rendered by the jury in this room, is not directed against…

re they any better than I am? Are their motives any better than my own? Let us look at this thing from every standpoint. Perhaps, on the other hand, the dread missile was hurled in revenge by some poor man or woman, or child even, whose parent or protector or friend was killed by the police in some one of their numerous massacres of the people before. Who knows? And if it was, are we seven to suffer death for that? Are we responsible for that act? Or, might it not be that some person with the fear of death in his eyes threw that bomb in self-defense? And if they did, am I responsible for…