MONDAY, 28 APRIL 2003
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Poem: "Keep It Low," by Betty Szold Krainis from A Baseball Bat and a Book of Poems (Ti-Jean Press).

Keep It Low

Betty Krainis is my name.
Table tennis is my game.

And if this game you want to win
What you need most is -- discipline,
That plus top and bottom spin.

The fact is --
It takes practice.

Yet though I practice all the time,
My bottom spin's not worth a dime.

What saves me is I'm ever ready.
Hence the nickname Steady Betty.

No matter what your age or sex is
The game requires swift reflexes.

The surest way to waste your foe
Is CONCENTRATE -- and keep it low.

Watch the ball. Don't get tense,
Forgo your slam, use strong defense.

Change your pace, wear lucky clothes,
Move about, stay on your toes.

Forget the score -- but don't forget
To get the ball across the net.

And if your forehand's not so fine,
Serve to the middle or down the line.

The way to banish nerve attacks?
Inhale deeply, then relax.

Some folks choose to die in Venice.
My living will is table tennis.

Literary Notes:

It's the birthday of novelist Harper Lee, born Nelle Harper in Monroeville, Alabama (1926). She is famous for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), in which she used her hometown as the model for the fictional town of Maycomb. The novel tells the story of a girl named Scout, whose father is a lawyer defending a black man in court. At one point he says to his daughter, "As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it -- whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash." The novel won the Pulitzer Prize. She wrote, "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." She grew up wanting to be a lawyer, like her father, and spent her free time hanging around the courthouse and playing golf. One of her childhood friends was Truman Capote. In 1959 Capote asked her to come with him to Holcombe, Kansas, to help him research the murder of the Clutter family for his novel In Cold Blood (1966). He asked her partially because she was so good at getting people to talk, and partially because she was taller and tougher than he was. It was a good thing, because the townspeople loved her, and they thought he was pretty odd.

It's the birthday of one of the founders of photojournalism, Erich Salomon, born in Berlin, Germany (1886). Photography was his hobby, and he bought one of the first cameras with a high-speed lens, which could take pictures in dim light. He hid the camera in an attaché case and photographed famous people at parties without their knowing it. As a result, his pictures seemed unusually relaxed and unposed, in comparison to those of other photographers of his time. The pictures were wildly popular and published in magazines around Europe. A writer for the London Graphic, referring to Salomon, coined the phrase "candid camera."

It's the birthday of novelist Lois Duncan born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1934). She's the author of suspense novels for young adults such as I Know What You Did Last Summer (1973) and Killing Mr. Griffin (1978).

It was on this day in 1789 that a group of sailors mutinied on the British ship called the Bounty. The event inspired the novel Mutiny on the Bounty (1932) by Charles Nordhoff and James Hall, which is one of the most popular historical novels of all time.

 

TUESDAY, 29 APRIL 2003
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Poem: "Everyone Sang," by Siegfried Sassoon.

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away…O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing
      will never be done.

Literary Notes:

It's the birthday of novelist Rafael Sabatini, born on Jesi, in the marches of central Italy (1875). He lived in England and is known to us today as the author of the novel Captain Blood (1922). But most critics consider his novel about the French Revolution Scaramouche (1921) to be his masterpiece. It begins, "He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony."

It's the birthday of poet Yusef Komunyakaa, born James Willie Brown Jr. in Bogalusa, Louisiana (1947). He won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Neon Vernacular (1993) and he is considered by many critics to be one of the most important African-American poets writing today.

It's the birthday of editor and publisher Robert Gottlieb, born in New York City (1931). Growing up, he did almost nothing but read. He read three to four books a day after school, and could read for sixteen hours at a time. As a teenager he read War and Peace in one day, and while attending Columbia University, he read Marcel Proust's six volume Remembrance of Things Past in seven days. He got a job at Simon and Schuster and his first major project was a manuscript by a man named Joseph Heller with the working title of "Catch 18." Because there was another book in the works entitled Mila 18, Gottlieb suggested that Heller change his title to Catch-22. Gottlieb went on to edit Doris Lessing, Ray Bradbury, John Cheever, and many others. He also served briefly as the editor of the New Yorker magazine.

It's the birthday of Emperor Hirohito, born in Tokyo (1901). He was the Emperor of Japan during World War II, and the Japanese people believed that he was a living god. Historians disagree about whether he supported Japan's expansionist policies, but Allied propaganda made him out to be as evil as Hitler. After the war was over, Hirohito was allowed to remain emperor, to help stabilize his country, though he lost most of his power. When he announced the surrender of Japanese forces over the radio on August 15, 1945, it was the first time that his voice had ever been recorded or broadcast. People across Japan gathered around their radios to hear him. Unfortunately, they couldn't understand him, because he spoke in an ancient form of Japanese. Throughout the reconstruction of his country, he always appeared in public wearing shabby ill-fitting suits, to show, symbolically, that he shared the hardships of his people.

It's the birthday of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, born in Brooklyn, New York (1954). He grew up in the Long Island town of Massapequa. He knew he wanted to be a comedian in his early teens. The first time he ever did stand up comedy, he panicked and forgot what he was planning to talk about. After forty seconds of silence, he finally remembered his topics but couldn't remember what to say about them so he just said, "The beach. Driving. Shopping." He became famous for his role on the TV show, Seinfeld, which was one of the first American sitcoms that was totally free of morality. He had two rules for every episode: "No hugging," and "No learning."

The founder and namesake of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, Matthew Vassar, was born on this day in Norfolk, England (1792). He made a fortune in the brewing business and, inspired by his niece, Lydia Booth, created the first women's college. On February 26, 1861, he presented the College Board with a small tin box. It contained half of his fortune, $408,000, and a deed of conveyance for 200 acres of land for the college site and farm. Vassar Female College opened in September 1865 with 353 students and a faculty of 30. Courses ranged from botany to music, with an annual fee for tuition and residence of less than $400. The students would sing, "And so you see, to old V.C., Our love shall never fail. Full well we know that all we owe, to Matthew Vassar's ale."

WEDNESDAY, 30 APRIL 2003
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Poem: "Just Married," by Peter Schmitt from Country Airport (Copper Beech Press).

Just Married

Oh, they can be forgiven such innocent
indulgence, the couple whose car we saw

in the darkened parking garage today --
the white spray paint filling the rear window,

"Just Married," and the date, now more than two
weeks old. Let them enjoy this extended

moment as long as they can, let them feel
this way always. For their lives, all history,

could have begun on that day. Regardless
that the buoyant numerals and letters,

like the asking price of a car, would appear
insensibly reversed if, driving, they glanced

back; the message looms between them and the world
which will always be trying to gain on them.

and if in noon glare their first full wedded day
they cut with a room service knife the strings

to the cans clinking like obligations,
they will not let go yet this brief announcement.

Oh, the elements might eventually
combine to erase them, enough downpours,

or the blistering sun, but by the time
the words no longer quite ring true, it will be

their own hands that make them vanish. Then let it
end happily, in a bright lather of suds,

gentle hiss of the hose and the radio,
the two together, hands crossing the glass

until what is revealed are their own faces:
hovering where their older, wiser friends

had been that day, imprinting the letters
the numbers, and giving them their first push down

that road in a storm of rice and flowers.

Literary Notes:

It was on this day in 1900 that the legendary train engineer Casey Jones died in a train wreck. He was known for his speed, and he often bragged that his trains always came in on time. He was driving the Cannon Ball express from Memphis, Tennessee, to Canton, Mississippi, trying to make up time because the train was overdue, when his fire man warned him that there was another train up ahead. He ordered his fireman to jump, but he stayed on the train, one hand on the break and the other on the whistle. Though the Cannon Ball crashed and Jones was killed, the passengers were saved because of his efforts to slow the train down. An engine wiper, Wallace Saunders, wrote the first ballad about him, followed by many others, including some versions in German and French.

It was on this day in 1939 that the New York World's Fair opened to the public. It was the height of the Great Depression, and Mayor La Guardia thought that the theme of the fair should be The World of Tomorrow. Planners built the fairground on Flushing Meadows, which had been a garbage dump.

It's the birthday of Eugen Bleuler, born in Zollikon, Switzerland (1857). One of the most influential psychiatrists of all time, he introduced the term "schizophrenia."

It's the birthday of filmmaker Jane Campion, born in Wellington, New Zealand (1954). She's famous for her films about women who don't fit into society, including Sweetie (1989) and The Piano (1993), which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

It's the birthday of poet, critic and nature writer Annie Dillard, born Annie Doak in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1945). She's the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), which won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. Dillard has written many other books of essays, including The Writing Life (1989).

It's the birthday of short story writer Josip Novakovich, born in Daruvar, Croatia (1956). Though he grew up in Croatia, he came to the United States as a young man and has written several books in English, including the memoir Apricots from Chernobyl (1995) and the book of short stories Salvation and Other Disasters (1998).

It's the birthday of poet and critic John Crowe Ransom, born in Pulaski, Tennessee (1888). His father was a Methodist minister who moved from one congregation to the next, so Ransom grew up in a series of small towns. As a professor at Vanderbilt University, he taught several young men who would become important American poets, including Robert Penn Warren and Allen Tate.

It's the birthday of singer/songwriter Willie Nelson, born in the small farming community of Abbott, Texas (1933). He grew up during the Great Depression, was raised by his grandparents and aunts, and earned his keep by picking cotton. His grandfather, a blacksmith who played guitar on the side, gave Willie his first guitar and his only music lessons. After high school, he worked during the day as a door-to-door salesman of Bibles, encyclopedias, vacuum cleaners, and sewing machines. In 1959 he wrote "Night Life," a song that was eventually recorded by more than 70 artists and sold over 30 million copies. He only made $150 from the song, when he sold the copyright. He used the money to buy a second-hand Buick, and he drove to Nashville, hoping to become a country music star.

THURSDAY, 1 MAY 2003
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Poem: "Postcard from Harmony Parking Lot," by Wyn Cooper from Secret Address (Chapiteau Press).

Postcard from Harmony Parking Lot

The teens have gathered, because they are teens.
They wear brown shirts faded to beige, black
boots, low-slung jeans. The way they stand
is called jaunty. Cigarettes burn through
their words, smoke blows through their hair,
and the way they stare at passersby blends
reptile with bird, spleen with wonder,
your past with their present to you.

Literary Notes:

Today is the anniversary of the day in 1931 when the Empire State Building opened to the public. In Washington, D.C., President Herbert Hoover took a break from a cabinet meeting to flick a switch and, like a lit Christmas tree, the lights went on in the building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street in New York City. It was built remarkably fast, in just over a year. At 102 stories, it was the tallest building in the world until 1974. Passers-by often stood in crowds around the construction site, watching the steelworkers, who looked like trapeze artists, they were so high above the city.

It's the birthday of Joseph Heller, born in Brooklyn, New York (1923). He grew up in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. He flew bomber missions during World War II, and most of his targets were bridges, but he once had to bomb a village, and that made him uncomfortable. He always felt a little guilty in between missions, sitting around while his friends were out risking their lives, but one of his tent mates had a typewriter, so he started writing stories to pass the time. About ten years after the war he began to write Catch 22 (1961). The novel is about a World War II bomber pilot named Yossarian, and it begins with him in the military hospital. Yossarian tries to get himself declared insane so he can stop flying bombing missions. Unfortunately, there is a regulation called Catch-22, stating that if you want out of combat duty you aren't crazy. Heller wrote, "[A pilot] would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to." Catch 22 got mixed reviews, but it became a great favorite during the 1960's and is now considered one of the most important novels of the 20th Century. The phrase "Catch-22," is now a part of the American lexicon, defined by one edition of the Oxford English Dictionary as "a condition or consequence that precludes success, a dilemma where the victim cannot win."

It's the birthday of poet and literary critic Sterling Allen Brown, born in Washington, D.C. (1901). One of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, he wrote books analyzing African American culture like The Negro in American Fiction (1937).

It's the birthday of Italian-American writer Niccolo Tucci, born in Lugano, Switzerland (1908). He worked during World War II writing propaganda for Mussolini, and he later described the job as, "Wasting the best years of my life serving and praising one of the greatest imbeciles and criminals of the century." After the war, he came to the United States and began publishing fiction in the New Yorker magazine. He is the author of the novel Unfinished Funeral (1964) and the collection of stories The Rain Came Last (1990).

It's the birthday of novelist and short story writer Bobbie Ann Mason, born in Mayfield, Kentucky (1940). She is the author of several books of fiction about her native western Kentucky, including Love Life: Stories (1989) and the novel Feather Crowns (1993).

It's the birthday of English essayist, poet and dramatist Joseph Addison, born in Milston, England (1672). He and a man named Richard Steele published a daily periodical called the The Spectator, to which they both contributed essays. He is known for introducing ordinary, easy-to-understand language into the English essay.

It's the birthday of novelist and screenwriter Terry Southern, born in Alvarado, Texas (1924). He co-wrote the screenplays for the films Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Easy Rider (1969). While living in Paris after serving in World War II, he co-wrote the novel Candy (1958), an erotic retelling of Voltaire's Candide, about a young, upstanding, Christian woman who can't seem to resist the advances of any man she bumps into. It was one of the only novels written in English ever banned in France.

FRIDAY, 2 MAY 2003
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Poem: "First Practice," by Gary Gildner from First Practice (University of Pittsburgh Press).

First Practice

After the doctor checked to see
we weren't ruptured,
the man with the short cigar took us
under the grade school,
where we went in case of attack
or storm, and said
he was Clifford Hill, he was
a man who believed dogs
ate dogs, he had once killed
for his country, and if
there were any girls present
for them to leave now.
                        No one
left. OK, he said, he said I take
that to mean you are hungry
men who hate to lose as much
as I do. OK. Then
he made two lines of us
facing each other,
and across the way, he said,
is the man you hate most
in the world,
and if we are to win
that title I want to see how.
But I don't want to see
any marks when you're dressed,
he said. He said, Now.

Literary Notes:

It's the birthday of one of the most famous monarchs in history, Russian Empress Catherine the Great, born Sophie Auguste Friederike in the Prussian province of Pomerania, now part of Poland (1729). When she was fifteen she was married to the 16-year-old Grand Duke Peter, heir to the Russian throne. He was a sickly youth who played with toy soldiers, and Catherine was bored and miserable. She had many affairs, and she later hinted that her husband hadn't fathered any of her three children. Peter became Czar in 1761 when his aunt Elizabeth died, and he immediately began to offend the Russian people by refusing to mourn the dead empress, whom he had hated. The country began to sink into chaos, and at the end of June 1762, Catherine conspired with the army to have her husband arrested, and he died in a scuffle with his guards. In order to show that she now led their country, Catherine borrowed an old green army uniform, and rode out to meet her soldiers on a white horse. They wept and cheered at the sight of her. As the ruler of Russia, she encouraged the humanities, helping to promote book publishing, journalism, architecture, and the theater. She sponsored the first school for girls in Russia and established a system of elementary schools, all of which led to Russia becoming one of the most important cultural centers in Europe.

It's the birthday of English author and dramatist Jerome K. Jerome, born in Walsall, England (1859). He wrote many books, including The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886), but he is best known for his humorous play Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (1889).

It's the birthday of Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl, born in Budapest, Hungary (1860). He was the founder of modern political Zionism, which gave birth to the nation of Israel. In 1894, as a Paris correspondent for a Vienna newspaper, he covered the treason trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army. The display of anti-Semitism he witnessed at the trial convinced him that Jews had to leave Europe and start their own country. He helped found the World Zionist Organization, but he died after the Zionist Congress rejected a British offer of land for Jewish settlement in East Africa. His body was eventually taken to Israel, where Mount Herzl near Jerusalem was established as a tribute to his memory.

It's the birthday of Dr. Benjamin Spock, born in New Haven, Connecticut (1903). His Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946) was a bestseller during the period after World War II, when parents across America were raising the baby-boom generation. In 1943, having observed children and their health for ten years, Spock decided to write a book about taking care of them. Previous parenting guidebooks had encouraged parents to be stern with their children, and they were written as a list of commends. Dr. Spock not only encouraged parents to be affectionate, he also encouraged them to follow their own instincts. The first sentence of his book was, "You know more than you think you do."

It's the birthday of lyricist Lorenz Hart, born in New York City (1895). He wrote the lyrics to songs like "Blue Moon," (1934) "My Funny Valentine," (1937) and "The Lady Is a Tramp" (1937). Hart wrote verse in his spare time and was drifting around in his twenties when someone introduced him to Richard Rodgers, a teenage composer who wanted a lyricist. Their show The Garrick Gaieties (1925) became a huge success. Hart and Rodgers fought all the time. Hart often accused Rodgers of encouraging the orchestra to drown out his lyrics. Rodgers replied, "Do you want the audience to go out whistling the lyrics?" Hart didn't like working hard, keeping appointments, or meeting deadlines, and Rodgers called him "a partner, a best friend -- and a source of permanent irritation."

SATURDAY, 3 MAY 2003
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Poem: "A Parrot," by May Sarton from Collected Poems 1930-1973 (W. W. Norton & Co.).

A Parrot

My parrot is emerald green,
His tail feathers, marine.
He bears an orange half-moon
Over his ivory beak.
He must be believed to be seen,
This bird from a Rousseau wood.
When the urge is on him to speak,
He becomes too true to be good.

He uses his beak like a hook
To lift himself up with or break
Open a sunflower seed,
And his eye, in a bold white ring,
Has a lapidary look.
What a most astonishing bird,
Whose voice when he chooses to sing
Must be believed to be heard.

That stuttered staccato scream
Must be believed not to seem
The shriek of a witch in the room.
But he murmurs some muffled words
(Like someone who talks through a dream)
When he sits in the window and sees
The to-and-fro wings of wild birds
In the leafless improbable trees.

Literary Notes:

It's the birthday of singer, actor Bing Crosby, born Harry Lillis Crosby in Tacoma, Washington (1903). He starred in a series of musicals in the 1930's, but many critics think his best performances are in the road movies he made in the 1940's with his golf-buddy Bob Hope, including Road to Morocco (1942). In 1944, a director asked him to play a priest in an upcoming film, but Crosby, a devout Catholic, thought that playing a man of the cloth would be bad taste. The director insisted, and Crosby ended up winning an Academy Award for his performance in the movie Going My Way (1944). After he starred in the musical White Christmas (1954), the title song became his trademark, and he sang it on television almost every holiday season.

It's the birthday of Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, born in Florence (1469). He was a statesman and ambassador, but in 1513 he was accused of conspiring against the government. He was thrown into prison and tortured, but he never admitted his guilt. When the government finally released him, he went into exile, and wrote a book called The Prince (1532), in which he described how an ideal ruler should accept that he lives in an immoral world, and use whatever means he could to secure order in his country. He wrote, "Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking."

It's the birthday of folk singer Pete Seeger, born in New York City (1919). His mother was a violinist and his father was a musicologist. As a teenager he rebelled against his parents' love of music, and decided he wanted to be a painter. But the first time he heard the sound of a banjo at the Folk Song and Dance Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, he fell in love with folk music and dropped out of Harvard.

It's the birthday of the "Godfather of Soul" James Brown, born in a one-room shack in the pinewoods of Barnwell, South Carolina (1928). His family gave him up for dead after his delivery, because he wasn't breathing or moving, but his aunt Minnie picked him up and blew into his mouth, and he screamed for the first time. As a singer, he became known for his scream. He also developed a sequence in his live performance, in which he collapsed to the floor exhausted, but as members of his band helped him off the stage, he suddenly threw off their arms, as though he'd been resurrected, and continued on with the show. He began a recording career with a song called "Please Please Please" (1956). It was a huge hit, and went to number six on the R & B charts. He went on to record such songs as "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (1965) and "I Got You (I Feel Good)" (1965).

It's the birthday of poet, novelist and essayist May Sarton, born Eléanore Marie Sarton in Wondelgem, Belgium (1912). Sarton published many novels in her lifetime, including Faithful Are the Wounds (1955) and collections of poetry like A Private Mythology (1966). But she is perhaps best known for her published journals, including Journal of a Solitude (1973). She wrote, "These are not hours of fire but years of praise,/The glass full to the brim, completely full,/But held in balance so no drop can spill."

SUNDAY, 4 MAY 2003
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Poem: "Follower," by Seamus Heaney from Selected Poems, 1966-1987 (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux).

Follower

My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

Literary Notes:

It's the birthday of Irish poet Thomas Kinsella, born in Dublin (1928). He's the author of many books of poetry, including Notes from the Land of the Dead (1972) and Blood and Family (1989).

It's the birthday of Horace Mann, born in Franklin, Massachusetts (1796). He was the first great American advocate of public education. He believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal.

It's the birthday of Thomas Henry Huxley, born in Ealing, England (1825). The grandfather of Aldous Huxley, Thomas was an English biologist and educator. He coined the word "agnostic." His strong public support of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution earned him the nickname "Darwin's bulldog."

It's the birthday of Israeli novelist Amos Oz, born Amos Klausner in Jerusalem (1939). As a child he watched Israel become a nation. In 1948 he filled sandbags along with other schoolchildren in preparation for the siege of Jewish Jerusalem in the War of Independence. He left home at fifteen against his father's wishes to become a peasant-soldier on a kibbutz, and he changed his last name to Oz, which means strength in Hebrew. He has written many novels, including My Michael (1968) and The Same Sea (2001).

It's the birthday of novelist and short story writer David Guterson, born in Seattle, Washington (1956). He worked for many years as a high school teacher, and the two books he always assigned were Romeo and Juliet and To Kill A Mockingbird. When he wrote his first novel, he combined the story of star-crossed lovers with a courtroom drama about race. The novel was Snow Falling on Cedars (1994), about the murder trial of a Japanese-American in the wake of World War II, and it won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.

It was on this day in 1886 that the Haymarket Square Riot broke out in Chicago. The day before, on May 3rd, police had shot several lumber workers, killing one of them, after a strike at the McCormick lumber plant turned violent. To protest the police actions, a second demonstration was held in Haymarket Square on May 4th. It was a peaceful demonstration, attended by the mayor and about 1500 men, and after it started to rain, most of the crowd went home. The final speaker, a man named Samuel Fielden, was about to finish his speech when the police arrived and demanded that the crowd disperse. Fielding shouted, "We are peaceable," and suddenly a bomb flew through the air, trailing sparks. It struck the ground near the police and exploded, killing seven policemen. The surviving policemen attacked the crowd with their clubs and pistols. The identity of the bomber was never proven. Thirty-one prominent labor leaders were arrested, eight were convicted of having planned the bombing, and four were hanged, with almost no proof. Among the men hanged was August Spies, who shouted from the gallows, "There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you hear today!"