The
Haymarket Affair
Fatima
Hussain
The
United States Civil War led to a depression era caused by an economic
recession between the years of 1873 and 1879. During these years,
factory workers faced undesirable working conditions, long hours, and
low wages. Following these years, the national economy began to
improve but working conditions in industrial factories did not
change. In fact, many would argue, that factory workers faced more
obstacles. The obstacles they faced mainly consisted of difficulty in
unionizing. Workers were also exploited through the introduction of
piece-rates, in which they would have to repeat the same task all day
and got paid for how much they produced by the end of the day. They
had to keep up with the production pace or they risked the chance of
getting replaced. One of the main turning points in the U.S. working
class history was the Haymarket Affair. This paper will examine the
events leading up to and following the Haymarket Affair and the
historical impact that it had in the United States.
Chicago
was a major industrial center of the United States in the late 19th
century, and many workers fled to this area to find jobs. A large
number of them were immigrants, mainly German and Bohemians from
Northern and Western Europe. The wages of workers in factories ranged
from $1.00 to $2.00 per day and working days were approximately 9 to
14 hours, six days a week. There were no maximum regulations set for
the work week during the late 19th
century. These regulations would come along later with the New Deal
in the 1930s. Due to these unforgiving circumstances, many workers
tried to form unions. During this time it was very popular to join
socialist or anarchist labor.1
Employers would often
respond by repressing these unions by refusing to negotiate with the
workers and sometimes even worsening the conditions of the workers
who joined unions.
The
idea of an eight-hour work day was very appealing to workers
nationwide. A convention led by the Federation of Organized Trades
and Labor Unions on October 1884 unanimously set the date of May 1,
1886 as the day that workers would take charge and institute the
eight-hour work day. As the day approached, labor unions nationwide
began to prepare to strike in support of the eight-hour work day. On
May 1, approximately 30,000 to 40,000 workers walked out of their
jobs and participated in Chicago’s first “May Day” parade, in
which marchers chanted the eight-hour-day song: “Whether you work
by piece or work by the day, Decreasing the hours increases the
pay.”2
It
was not until two days later, May 3, 1886 that havoc was wreaked at
Chicago’s International Harvester plant, called the McCormick
Reaper Plant. Approximately 1,400 workers – most of them of German
origin – were on strike for the eight-hour day and $2.00 wage. They
also wanted to end wage-cuts and the piece-work system which paid
them only according to how much pieces they made by the end of the
day. Three hundred policemen guarded the plant’s entrance in order
to protect the safety of the “scabs” who had replaced the
striking workers. At the end of the day, strikers stoned the factory
windows and bothered the “scabs.” Soon enough, fighting erupted
and a conflict arose between the policemen and the strikers. Four
strikers were killed, and others were injured. None of the “scabs”
or policemen were seriously injured or killed.
As
news spread of this unfortunate event, different people had different
opinions about what should be done. The German-language working-men
anarchist newspaper, Arbeiter
Zeitung, called for
workers to unite and protest the police brutality the next day in
Haymarket Square, a widened portion of Randolph Street in the city of
Chicago. Meanwhile, the event was belittled by the New
York Times, which
reported, “It was just ‘a collision’ between policemen and a
‘mob’ of 7,000 or 8,000 anarchist workmen and tramps –
‘maddened with free beer and free speech’”.3
The
protest did happen, with a crowd of about 3,000 people gathering at
Haymarket Square to listen to speeches of socialism and anarchism by
such men as August Spies, the editor of Arbeiter
Zeitung, Albert
Parsons, the editor of Alarm, a Working People’s Association
English-language newspaper, and Samuel Fielden. The speakers
emphasized the importance of continuing the eight-hour strike and not
backing out and warned the crowd about police violence. Fielden, a
recognized anarchist, was reportedly on stage at the time, speaking
passionately and creating an uproar in the crowd when a group of
policemen arrived. Someone then threw a bomb at the police platoon.
One policeman, Matthias Degan, was killed along with an undetermined
number of protestors. The police responded to the bomb by firing at
the crowd, killing four protestors and six other policemen.
Chicago
authorities rounded up eight anarchists whom they put on trial. The
prosecution argued that “although there might be no proof that any
one of these eight had thrown the bomb, they were responsible for it
having been thrown.”4
Of the eight accused, two were not even present at Haymarket Square
when the bomb was thrown. The eight men were found guilty on October
9, 1886. It was never proven that any of the men had thrown the bomb.
In fact, it was never proven who threw the bomb in the first place.
There
were allegations made against the accused men but there was no solid
proof against them. For example, Police Lieutenant Quinn, a commander
of policemen present in Haymarket that day, reportedly stated in
court that as the policemen arrived, Fielden said “Here come the
blood-hounds – you do your duty and I’ll do mine.”5
Quinn also accused Fielden of pulling a revolver from his hip and
pointing it at Captain Ward and officers behind him, just as the bomb
exploded.
After
many unsuccessful attempts at an appeal, Louis Lingg committed
suicide in his cell (which would add to people’s suspicion) while
Engel overdosed on drugs but did not die. Alfred Parsons, Adolf
Fischer, George Engel, and August Spies were hanged on November 11,
1887. The other three were sentenced to a life-time of prison. It
wasn’t until June of 1893 that the survivors were pardoned by
Governor Louis Altgeld due to insufficient evidence.
Americans
throughout the nation thought it their duty to blame these men during
the time of the trial and execution. They believed that even though
the men might not have been directly guilty, they were definitely
guilty by association to their political philosophy. James Russell
Lowell, an American poet and diplomat, famously announced, “the
rascals are well hanged.”6
This shows that the trials were heavily influenced by public opinion.
Supporters
of the eight accused men, such as actor-manager-playwright Steele
MacKaye, were convinced that the trial was a prime example of police
brutality. Another supporter, writer William Dean Howells, felt so
strongly about the wrongness of the verdict that he wrote a series of
novels about the issue; the most important being A
Hazard of New Fortunes
(1888).
Why
did the wealthy businessmen oppose the idea of shorter workday, even
though so many workers were willing to put themselves in physical
danger to get it? “One reason businessmen opposed the idea of a
shorter work day was that they did not want to see working-class men
with the leisure to read the inflammatory newspapers and books by
Reds—Socialists, Marxists, anarchists, and other radical and
revolutionary theorists and leaders—or with the time to attend
agitating lectures and meetings.”7
During the late 19th
century, employers and law enforcements feared radical anarchist and
socialist thought and wanted to put an end to it through the use of
their power. Unfortunately, this usually resulted in violence between
workers and employers and police officers. This is exactly what
happened at the Haymarket Affair on May 4, 1886.
The
Haymarket affair was a historical moment in the history of the
working class in the United States. Many people died either at the
hands of police, because of the bomb, or because of the court trial
hangings. In a way, these killings had to happen to prove to
employers that an improvement in working conditions is what the
factory workers not only wanted, but also needed.
1
Edward de Grazia, “The Haymarket Bomb,” Law and Literature,
Vol. 18, No. 3 (2006): 284.
2
Edward de Grazia, “The Haymarket Bomb,” Law and Literature,
Vol. 18, No. 3 (2006): 286.
3
Edward de Grazia, “The Haymarket Bomb,” Law and Literature,
Vol. 18, No. 3 (2006): 284.
4
Anna George deMille, “Henry George: Haymarket and Tariff Reform,”
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 5, No.
4 (1946): 546
5
“Tracing the Conspiracy: Second Day of the Trial of the
Anarchists. An Informer Who Duped the Prosecution – Important
Testimony by Lieut. Quinn.” New York Times, July 1886.
http://search.proquest.com/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/94330183/13D1877D5C84E8A4A24/14?accountid=14172
6
Everett Carter, “The Haymarket Affair in Literature,” The
American Quarterly, Vol. 2 Issue 3 (1950): 271
7
Edward de Grazia, “The Haymarket Bomb,” Law and Literature,
Vol. 18, No. 3 (2006): 285.
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