A history of the Chicago
events
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Not many people know why May Day became International
Workers Day and why we should still celebrate it. It all
began over a century ago when the American Federation of
Labour adopted an historic resolution which asserted that
"eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labour from and
after May 1st, 1886".
In the months prior to this date workers in there
thousands were drawn into the struggle for the shorter day.
Skilled and unskilled, black and white, men and women,
native and immigrant were all becoming involved.
Chicago
In Chicago alone 400,000 were out on strike. A newspaper
of that city reported that "no smoke curled up from the tall
chimneys of the factories and mills, and things had assumed
a Sabbath-like appearance". This was the main centre of
the agitation, and here the anarchists were in the forefront
of the labour movement. It was to no small extent due to
their activities that Chicago became an outstanding trade
union centre and made the biggest contribution to the
eight-hour movement.
When on May 1st 1886, the eight hour strikes convulsed
that city, one half of the workforce at the McCormick
Harvester Co. came out. Two days later a mass meeting was
held by 6,000 members of the 'lumber shovers' union who had
also come out. The meeting was held only a block from the
McCormick plant and was joined by some 500 of the strikers
from there.
The workers listened to a speech by the anarchist August
Spies, who has been asked to address the meeting by the
Central Labour Union. While Spies was speaking, urging the
workers to stand together and not give in to the bosses, the
strikebreakers were beginning to leave the nearby McCormick
plant.
The strikers, aided by the 'lumber shovers' marched down
the street and forced the scabs back into the factory.
Suddenly a force of 200 police arrived and, without any
warning, attacked the crowd with clubs and revolvers. They
killed at least one striker, seriously wounded five or six
others and injured an indeterminate number.
Outraged by the brutal assaults he had witnessed, Spies
went to the office of the Arbeiter-Zeitung (a daily
anarchist newspaper for German immigrant workers) and
composed a circular calling on the workers of Chicago to
attend a protest meeting the following night.
The protest meeting took place in the Haymarket Square
and was addressed by Spies and two other
anarchists active in the trade union movement, Albert
Parsons and Samuel Fielden.
The police attack
Throughout the speeches the crowd was orderly. Mayor
Carter Harrison, who was present from the beginning of the
meeting, concluded that "nothing looked likely to happen to
require police interference". He advised police captain John
Bonfield of this and suggested that the large force of
police reservists waiting at the station house be sent home.
It was close to ten in the evening when Fielden was
closing the meeting. It was raining heavily and only about
200 people remained in the square. Suddenly a police column
of 180 men, headed by Bonfield, moved in and ordered the
people to disperse immediately. Fielden protested "we are
peaceable".
Bomb
At this moment a bomb was thrown into the ranks of the
police. It killed one, fatally wounded six more and injured
about seventy others. The police opened fire on the
spectators. How many were wounded or killed by the police
bullets was never exactly ascertained.
A reign of terror swept over Chicago. The press and the
pulpit called for revenge, insisting the bomb was the work
of socialists and anarchists. Meeting halls, union offices,
printing works and private homes were raided. All known
socialists and anarchists were rounded up. Even many
individuals ignorant of the meaning of socialism and
anarchism were arrested and tortured. "Make the raids first
and look up the law afterwards" was the public statement of
Julius Grinnell, the state's attorney.
Trial
Eventually eight men stood trial for being "accessories
to murder". They were Spies, Fielden, Parsons, and five
other anarchists who were influential in the labour
movement, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Michael Schwab,
Louis Lingg and Oscar Neebe.
The trial opened on June 21st 1886 in the criminal court
of Cooke County. The candidates for the jury were not chosen
in the usual manner of drawing names from a box. In this
case a special bailiff, nominated by state's attorney
Grinnell, was appointed by the court to select the
candidates. The defence was not allowed to present evidence
that the special bailiff had publicly claimed "I am managing
this case and I know what I am about. These fellows are
going to be hanged as certain as death".
Rigged jury
The eventual composition of the jury was farcical; being
made up of businessmen, their clerks and a relative of one
of the dead policemen. No proof was offered by the state
that any of the eight men before the court had thrown the
bomb, had been connected with its throwing, or had even
approved of such acts. In fact, only three of the eight had
been in Haymarket Square that evening.
No evidence was offered that any of the speakers had
incited violence, indeed in his evidence at the trial Mayor
Harrison described the speeches as "tame". No proof was
offered that any violence had been contemplated. In fact,
Parsons had brought his two small children to the meeting.
Sentenced
That the eight were on trial for their anarchist beliefs
and trade union activities was made clear from the outset.
The trial closed as it had opened, as was witnessed by the
final words of Attorney Grinnell's summation speech to the
jury. "Law is on trial. Anarchy is on trial. These men have
been selected, picked out by the Grand Jury, and indicted
because they were leaders. There are no more guilty than the
thousands who follow them. Gentlemen of the jury; convict
these men, make examples of them, hang them and you save our
institutions, our society."
On August 19th seven of the defendants were sentenced to
death, and Neebe to 15 years in prison. After a massive
international campaign for their release, the state
'compromised' and commuted the sentences of Schwab and
Fielden to life imprisonment. Lingg cheated the hangman by
committing suicide in his cell the day before the
executions. On November 11th 1887 Parsons, Engel, Spies and
Fischer were hanged.
Pardoned
600,000 working people turned out for their funeral. The
campaign to free Neebe, Schwab and Fielden continued.
On June 26th 1893 Governor Altgeld set them free. He made
it clear he was not granting the pardon because he thought
the men had suffered enough, but because they were innocent
of the crime for which they had been tried. They and the
hanged men had ben the victims of "hysteria, packed juries
and a biased judge".
The authorities has believed at the time of the trial
that such persecution would break the back of the eight-hour
movement. Indeed, evidence later came to light that the bomb
may have been thrown by a police agent working for Captain
Bonfield, as part of a conspiracy involving certain steel
bosses to discredit the labour movement.
When Spies addressed the court after he had been
sentenced to die, he was confident that this conspiracy
would not succeed. "If you think that by hanging us you can
stamp out the labour movement... the movement from which the
downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in misery and
want, expect salvation - if this is your opinion, then hang
us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and there,
behind you - and in front of you, and everywhere, flames
blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out".
Revolutionary politics
Over a century after that first May Day demonstration in
Chicago, where are we? We stroll though town with our union
banners - about the only day of the year we can get them out
of head office. Then we stand around listening to boring
(and usually pretty meaningless) speeches by equally boring
union bureaucrats. You have to keep reminding yourself that
May Day was once a day when workers all over the world
displayed their strength, proclaimed their ideals and
celebrated their successes.
It is important that "once upon a time" it was like that.
We can do it again. We need independent working class
politics. No collaboration with government and bosses. Real
solidarity with fellow workers in struggle, not a blinkered
sectional outlook. We still need a further reduction in
working hours, without loss of pay, to make work for the
unemployed.
We need revolutionary politics. That means politics that
can lead us towards a genuine socialism where freedom knows
no limit other than not interfering with the freedom of
others. A socialism that is based on real democracy - not
the present charade where we can choose some of our rulers,
but may not choose to do without rulers. A real democracy
where everyone effected by a decision will have the
opportunity to have their say in making that decision. A
democracy of efficiently co-ordinated workplace and
community councils. A society where production is to satisfy
needs, not to make profits for a privileged few. Anarchism.
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