Thompson: Activists, Editors, or Terrorists?

Kurt Thompson

May 1, 2013

Activists, Editors, or Terrorists?

Political expression can be a very dangerous concept. It has been common throughout most of human history for a regime in power to suppress any person or persons in opposition to it. It is a widely held belief in our democracy that suppression does not occur because free speech and expression form the foundation of our government. Sadly, this is not the case. Violent suppression of political opposition occurred with some regularity in industrial America. One example that illustrates this perfectly is the persecution of eight anarchists after the Haymarket Square bombing. Some of these men were not even present at the time of the bombing; yet, they were arrested and executed for a conceived conspiracy surrounding the explosion. Two of these eight in particular were arrested and tried because they were organizers for pro-labor organizations and political parties as well as editors at major pro-labor newspapers. The prosecution’s evidence surrounding these two, Albert Parsons and August Spies, was mostly from their own publications that urged worker solidarity against the capitalists in Marxist terms. In the end, Albert Parsons and August Spies were not executed for conspiracy; they were executed for Anarchism and the Eight Hour Movement.

The lives of these two men, prior to Haymarket, can help explain why they gained a wide base of support and notoriety in Chicago’s radical labor movement. Albert Parsons was born in Alabama in 1848; he was one of ten children. His parents died when he was a young boy and he was raised mostly by his siblings. He lived on the frontier in Texas until he was eleven at which time he left his brothers household to live with his sister in Waco, Texas. There he was apprenticed to a newspaper editor to learn the trade. As the civil war approached, Albert was eager to volunteer and fight for the confederacy. He served both as a regular in the Confederate army and as an irregular soldier in a unit known as the “Lone Star Grays”. After the war he traveled throughout the Midwest and eventually settled with his wife in Chicago in the summer of 1873. He immediately got work as a reporter in the city and started attending pro-labor political gatherings. This was his political career in socialism, he ran for local office several times and even once for the United States senate. After a less than spectacular political career, he becomes directly involved in labor organization and joins several revolutionary organizations. Moreover, he becomes a prominent speaker in the Chicago area and even starts his own newspaper in 1884¹. Albert’s newspaper, The Alarm, would come to contain much of the prosecution’s evidence against the eight anarchists.

August Spies lived a different lifestyle when compared to Albert Parsons. He was born in 1855 in the German state of Hesse. His father was a successful government official and August was in training to follow in his father’s footsteps; but, he died suddenly in 1871. After this incident, August and his mother immigrated to America. He immediately became involved in the pro-labor political scene. After witnessing what he perceived to be grave injustices, Spies joined the socialist labour party in 1877 and led the congress in Pittsburgh that launched the International Working Peoples Association. Eventually August Spies became head editor of the German pro-labor newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung in 1884². Albert Parsons and August Spies together accurately reflected a large percentage of the voting body of Chicago at the time. Parsons, a native born American, was able to appeal to American workers in Chicago. While Spies was a German immigrant among hundreds of thousands of immigrants and was able to communicate with them more easily than an American would.

The Haymarket Gathering was organized hastily in response to police brutality that occurred the day before at the McCormick company factory. Spies was addressing a rally of striking McCormick workers down the street from the factory when the work day ended at the plant. Upon hearing this, a large group of workers left Spies speech and moved towards the strikebreakers, or scabs, leaving the factory. Once there these workers starting harassing the scabs and the police were called to intervene. Police reinforcements numbered in the hundreds. They used clubs and revolvers to disperse the crowd. In the end, at least four workers were killed and many more wounded. Spies saw all of this and immediately after started to organize the Haymarket demonstration. A handbill printed promoting the gathering at Haymarket came to be known as the “Revenge Circular”. Some of these flyers contained the lines “Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force”³. This would be used in the trial to prove that August Spies was a dangerous ringleader inciting the masses of workers to violence.

The same tactic was used against Albert Parsons. During the trial, the prosecution cited over forty different articles from The Alarm as evidence proving that parsons was a menace to society. Some of those articles were dated years before the bombing. The most common theme of these articles was dynamite: its production, storage, and use. Some passages seem to praise dynamite as the true emancipator of workingmen, not the democratic system of voting. One such article was title “WORKMEN to ARMS!” published April 24, 1886; the article promoted war against the capitalist system and contained the line “One pound of dynamite is better than a bushel of Ballots”⁴. This view of dynamite as a powerful tool for political or social change was not held solely by the anarchists. In fact, August Spies noted that the February 23^rd 1885 edition of the Chicago Tribune contained many descriptions and illustrations of bombs and other “Infernal Devices”⁵. The paper also included instructions on handling and using dynamite. Spies also references other issues of the Chicago tribune as praising dynamite as a useful strikebreaking tool.

At first glance, the language used in “The Alarm” and “Arbeiter-Zeitung” seems to justify the prosecution. However, violent rhetoric like this is not limited to anti-capitalists. In fact it was common throughout the political system of the United States. August Spies pointed out the hypocrisy very effectively when he read a section from “Fond Du Lae Commonwealth”, a republican newspaper, during his closing remarks. He read aloud “To Arms Republicans! Work in every town in Wisconsin for men who aren’t afraid of Firearms, Blood or Dead Bodies…The grain stacks, houses and barns of active democrats should be burned…meet them on the road…or anywhere and Shoot Them.”⁶ Clearly this pamphlet encouraging republican action is as violent if not more violent than any “Arbeiter-Zeitung” article. Furthermore the messages in “Arbeiter-Zeitung” and “The Alarm” are more focused on uniting and organizing workers to overthrow what they see as an unjust system, whereas the republican newspaper is preaching simple suppression of a rival political party. The existence of such extremists within the mainstream of American politics proves that the Anarchists were more likely hanged for opposing political views than for conspiring to bomb a peaceful rally that they themselves organized.

The vilification of these men also had to do with the difficult nature of their political philosophy. In his final speech to the court Albert Parsons attempted to re-frame socialism and anarchism. Parsons offered up the notion that violent revolution is not necessary for the accomplishment of socialisms goals. For example, he discussed the eight hour movement; the original impetus for the early May demonstrations. In his eyes, the eight hour workday would help ease the suffering and of the working man and consequentially prevent or even circumvent a violent revolution. In his own words “The Eight-Hour System of Labor is the Olive Branch of Peace.”⁷ From Parsons point of view activists like himself were trying to be the intermediary between the capitalist class that was the root cause of society’s problems and the workers of society.

The Haymarket affair is remembered internationally on May 1^st or May Day. The fact that the United States is one of the few countries to not celebrate May Day shows that the Haymarket affair is one of the black eyes of American history. In a society that preached freedom and equality eight men were singled out because they were different and spoke out against the status quo. Of these eight, five of the men became martyrs for their political philosophy. Despite being only activists and editors, Albert Parsons and August Spies were hung as terrorists. Mr. Spies said it best to the judge who sentenced him, “You may pronounce the sentence upon me, Honorable Judge, but let the world know that in A.D 1886, in the states of Illinois eight men were sentenced to death because they believed in a better future.”⁸

1Albert, Parsons. Libcom.org, "Parsons, Albert 1848-1887:autobiography." Last modified May 1, 2013. Accessed May 7, 2013. http://libcom.org/library/autobiography-parsons.

2August, Spies. Libcom.org, "Spies, August 1855-1887:autobiography." Last modified May 1, 2013. Accessed May 7, 2013. http://libcom.org/library/spies-august-autobiography.

3Henry David, History of the Haymarket Affair; A Study in American Social-Revolutionary and Labor Movements, (New York: Russel and Russel, 1958), 189-195.

4Albert, Parsons. Chicago Historical Society, "Illinois vs. August Spies et al. The Alarm (Newspaper) article, "Workingmen to Arms!," 1886 Apr. 24 trial evidence book. People's Exhibit 59.." Last modified 200. Accessed May 7, 2013. http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/exhibits/X051-100/X0590.htm.

5August , Spies, Schwab Michel , Neebe Oscar, Fischer Adolph, Lingg Louis, Engel George, Feilden Samuel , and Parsons Albert. Chicago Historical Society, "The Accused, the accusers: the famous speeches of the eight Chicago anarchists in court when asked if they had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon them. On October 7th, 8th and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois.." Last modified 2000. Accessed May 7, 2013. http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/books/b01/B01.htm.

6August , Spies, Schwab Michel , Neebe Oscar, Fischer Adolph, Lingg Louis, Engel George, Feilden Samuel , and Parsons Albert. Chicago Historical Society, "The Accused, the accusers: the famous speeches of the eight Chicago anarchists in court when asked if they had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon them. On October 7th, 8th and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois.." Last modified 2000. Accessed May 7, 2013. http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/books/b01/B01.htm.

7August , Spies, Schwab Michel , Neebe Oscar, Fischer Adolph, Lingg Louis, Engel George, Feilden Samuel , and Parsons Albert. Chicago Historical Society, "The Accused, the accusers: the famous speeches of the eight Chicago anarchists in court when asked if they had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon them. On October 7th, 8th and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois.." Last modified 2000. Accessed May 7, 2013. http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/books/b01/B01.htm.

8August , Spies, Schwab Michel , Neebe Oscar, Fischer Adolph, Lingg Louis, Engel George, Feilden Samuel , and Parsons Albert. Chicago Historical Society, "The Accused, the accusers: the famous speeches of the eight Chicago anarchists in court when asked if they had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon them. On October 7th, 8th and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois.." Last modified 2000. Accessed May 7, 2013. http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/books/b01/B01.htm.