Haymarket affair: Difference between revisions

| caption = This 1886 engraving was the most widely reproduced image of the Haymarket massacre. It shows Methodist pastor [[Samuel Fielden]] speaking, the bomb exploding, and the riot beginning simultaneously; in reality, Fielden had finished speaking before the explosion.<ref>[http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/dramas/act2/tragedyEnacted/momentOfTruth_f.htm Act II: Let Your Tragedy Be Enacted Here, Moment of Truth], 2000, ''The Dramas of Haymarket'', Chicago Historical Society</ref>

| map_type = United States Chicago Central

| map_size =

| coordinates = {{Coord|41|53|5.6|N|87|38|38.9|W|type:event_scale:100000_region:US-IL|display=inline,title}}

| goals = Eight-hour work day

| status =

| result =

| concessions =

| side1 = [[Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions]]

| leadfigures1 = [[August Spies]]{{Executed}}<br /> [[Albert Parsons]]{{Executed}}<br /> [[Samuel Fielden]]

| casualties1 = '''Deaths''': 8 (including 4 who were executed)<br />'''Injuries''': 70+<br />'''Arrests''': 100+

| casualties_label = Casualties and arrests

| sidebox = {{Campaignbox US Labor strikes}} {{Campaignbox general strikes}}

The '''Haymarket affair''', also known as the '''Haymarket massacre''', the '''Haymarket riot''', the '''Haymarket Square riot''', or the '''Haymarket Incident''', was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at [[Haymarket Square (Chicago)|Haymarket Square]] in [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], United States.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cityofchicago.org/Landmarks/S/SiteHaymarket.html |title=Originally at the corner of Des Plaines and Randolph |publisher=Cityofchicago.org |access-date=March 18, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090506053947/http://www.cityofchicago.org/Landmarks/S/SiteHaymarket.html |archive-date=May 6, 2009 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> The rally began peacefully in support of workers striking for an [[eight-hour day|eight-hour work day]], the day after the events at the [[Mccormick Harvesting Machine Company|McCormick Harvesting Machine Company]], during which one person was killed and many workers injured.<ref name="eb">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Haymarket-Riot|title=Haymarket Riot {{!}} History, Outcome, & Knights of Labor|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2019-09-01}}</ref> An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing retaliatory gunfire by the police caused the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; dozens of others were wounded.<ref name="eb"/>

 

 

 

The evidence put forward in the court trial was that one of the defendants may have built the bomb, but none of those on trial had thrown it, and only two of the eight were at the Haymarket at the time.<ref>Timothy Messer-Kruse, ''The Haymarket Conspiracy: Transatlantic Anarchist Networks'' (2012)</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Carl|title=Act III: Toils of the Law|url=http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/dramas//act3/act3.htm|work=The Dramas of Haymarket|publisher=Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University|access-date=December 30, 2017}}</ref><ref>See generally, {{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/hadc/transcript/volumek/401-450/K405-497.htm |title=Testimony of Harry L. Gilmer, Illinois vs. August Spies et al. |access-date=December 30, 2017 |last=Gilmer |first=Harry L. |date=July 28, 1886 |work=Haymarket Affair Digital Collection |publisher=Chicago Historical Society }}</ref><ref>See generally, {{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/hadc/transcript/volumek/301-350/K312-361.htm |title=Testimony of Malvern M. Thompson, Illinois vs. August Spies et al. |access-date=December 30, 2017 |last=Thompson |first=Malvern M. |date=July 27, 1886 |work=Haymarket Affair Digital Collection |publisher=Chicago Historical Society }}</ref> Seven were sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison. Illinois Governor [[Richard J. Oglesby]] commuted two of the sentences to terms of life in prison; another died by suicide in jail before his scheduled execution. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887.<ref name="eb"/> In 1893, Illinois Governor [[John Peter Altgeld]] pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the trial.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-gildedage:24061 |title=Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe and Schwab |last=Altgeld |first=John P. |date=June 26, 1893 |website=digital.lib.niu.edu |access-date=2019-12-10}}</ref>

 

==Background==

 

 

===May Day parade and strikes===

In October 1884, a convention held by the [[Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions]] unanimously set May 1, 1886, as the date by which the [[Eight-hour day|eight-hour work day]] would become standard.<ref name='How May Day Became a Workers Holiday-resolution'>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A627662 |title=How May Day Became a Workers' Holiday |access-date=January 19, 2008 |date=October 4, 2001 |work=The Guide to Life, The Universe and Everything |publisher=BBC |quote=(It is) Resolved ... that eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labor organizations throughout this district that they so direct their laws so as to conform to this resolution by the time named. }}</ref> As the chosen date approached, U.S. labor unions prepared for a [[general strike]] in support of the eight-hour day.<ref name='How May Day Became a Workers Holiday-strike'>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A627662 |title=How May Day Became a Workers' Holiday |access-date=January 19, 2008 |date=October 4, 2001 |work=The Guide to Life, The Universe and Everything |publisher=BBC }}</ref>

 

 

{{multiple image

}}

 

 

 

===Rally at Haymarket Square===

 

<blockquote>

 

 

 

====Bombing and gunfire====

A home-made [[Fragmentation (weaponry)|fragmentation bomb]]<ref name=NYTBomb>{{cite news|title=Chicago's Deadly Missile|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C03E0DF1738E533A25756C1A9639C94679FD7CF|access-date=February 28, 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 14, 1886}}</ref><ref name=LaborBomb>{{cite journal |last1=Messer-Kruse |first1=Timothy |last2=Eckert |first2=James O. |last3=Burckel |first3=Pannee |last4=Dunn |first4=Jeffrey |title=The Haymarket Bomb: Reassessing the Evidence |journal=Labor |date=1 May 2005 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=39–52 |doi=10.1215/15476715-2-2-39 }}</ref> was thrown into the path of the advancing police, where it exploded, killing policeman Mathias J. Degan<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Flinn |first1=John Joseph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_yYDAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA322 |title=History of the Chicago Police: From the Settlement of the Community to the Present Time, Under Authority of the Mayor and Superintendent of the Force |last2=Wilkie |first2=John Elbert |date=1887 |publisher=Under the Auspices of the Police Book Fund |pages=320–323 |language=en}}</ref> and severely wounding many of the other policemen.<ref name=NYTMay5>{{cite news|title=Rioting and Bloodshed in the Streets of Chicago|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30F1EF83D5C10738DDDAC0894DD405B8684F0D3|access-date=February 29, 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 5, 1886|format=PDF}} This is the same article datelined May 4, reproduced elsewhere.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hallwas |first=John E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C6UfAQAAIAAJ |title=Illinois Literature: The Nineteenth Century |date=1986 |publisher=Illinois Heritage Press |pages=183 |language=en}}</ref>

 

 

In all, seven policemen and at least four workers were killed. Avrich said that most of the police deaths were from police gunfire.<ref>Avrich (1984), p. 208.</ref> Historian [[Timothy Messer-Kruse]] argues that, although it is impossible to rule out lethal friendly fire, several policemen were probably shot by armed protesters.<ref name=":0" /> Another policeman died two years after the incident from complications related to injuries received that day.<ref name="the bomb">{{cite web|url=http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/dramas/act2/act2.htm |title=Act II: Let Your Tragedy Be Enacted Here |access-date=December 30, 2017 |year=2000 |work=The Dramas of Haymarket |publisher=Chicago Historical Society }}</ref> Police captain [[Michael Schaack]] later wrote that the number of wounded workers was "largely in excess of that on the side of the police".<ref name="Schaack">{{cite book |last=Schaack |first=Michael J. |title=Anarchy and Anarchists. A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe. Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed. The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy, and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators |url=http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/anarchy/ |access-date=January 19, 2008 |year=1889 |publisher=F. J. Schulte & Co |location=Chicago |oclc=185637808 |chapter=The Dead and the Wounded |chapter-url=http://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/AAA/Anarchy.09.pdf |quote=After the moment's bewilderment, the officers dashed on the enemy and fired round after round. Being good marksmen, they fired to kill, and many revolutionists must have gone home, either assisted by comrades or unassisted, with wounds that resulted fatally or maimed them for life. ... It is known that many secret funerals were held from Anarchist localities in the dead hour of night. |page=155 }}</ref> The ''Chicago Herald'' described a scene of "wild carnage" and estimated at least fifty dead or wounded civilians lay in the streets.<ref>''Chicago Herald'', May 5, 1886, quoted in Avrich (1984), pp. 209–210.</ref> It is unclear how many civilians were wounded since many were afraid to seek medical attention, fearing arrest. They found aid where they could.<ref name="NYTMay5" /><ref name="Dead and Wounded">Schaack, Michael J. (1889), ''Anarchy and Anarchists'', pp. 149–155.</ref><ref>Nelson, ''Beyond the Martyrs'', pp. 188–189.</ref>

===Aftermath and red scare===

[[File:Mathias J. Degan (ca. 1886).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Engraving of police officer Mathias J. Degan, who was killed by the bomb blast]]

 

 

==Legal proceedings==

The police assumed that an anarchist had thrown the bomb as part of a planned conspiracy; their problem was how to prove it. On the morning of May 5, they raided the offices of the ''Arbeiter-Zeitung'', arresting its editor August Spies and his brother, who was not charged. Also arrested were editorial assistant Michael Schwab and Adolph Fischer, a typesetter. A search of the premises resulted in the discovery of the "Revenge Poster" and other evidence considered incriminating by the prosecution.<ref name = "Core" >Schaack, [http://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/AAA/Anarchy.10.pdf "Core of the Conspiracy"], ''Anarchy and Anarchists'', pp. 156–182.</ref>

 

 

===Defendants===

 

<blockquote>Charged with making an unlawful, willful, felonious and with malice aforethought assault on the body of Mathias J. Degan causing him mortal wounds, bruises, lacerations and contusions upon his body.</blockquote>See [http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/hadc/transcript/volume1/000-050/1003B-022.htm Grand jury indictments for murder, 1886 June 4.| Chicago Historical Society, Haymarket Affair Digital Collection.]</ref> Of these, only two had been present when the bomb exploded. Spies and Fielden had spoken at the peaceful rally and were stepping down from the speaker's wagon in compliance with police orders to disperse just before the bomb went off. Two others had been present at the beginning of the rally but had left and were at Zepf's Hall, an anarchist rendezvous, at the time of the explosion. They were ''Arbeiter-Zeitung'' typesetter [[Adolph Fischer]], and the well-known activist [[Albert Parsons]], who had spoken for an hour at the Haymarket rally before going to Zepf's. Parsons, who believed that the evidence against them all was weak, subsequently voluntarily turned himself in, in solidarity with the accused.<ref name = "Core" /> A third man, Spies's assistant editor [[Michael Schwab]] (who was the brother-in-law of Schnaubelt) was arrested, as he had been speaking at another rally at the time of the bombing; he was also later pardoned. Not directly tied to the Haymarket rally, but arrested for their militant radicalism were [[George Engel]], who had been at home playing cards on that day, and [[Louis Lingg]], the hot-headed bomb-maker denounced by his associate, Seliger. Another defendant who had not been present that day was [[Oscar Neebe]], an American-born citizen of German descent who was associated with the ''Arbeiter-Zeitung'' and had attempted to revive it in the aftermath of the Haymarket riot.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://famous-trials.com/haymarket/1175-defendants |title=Meet the Haymarket Defendants |publisher=University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law |access-date=December 30, 2017 }}</ref>

 

 

[[File:Lingg bomb.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=A unexploded dynamite bomb with fuse.|Exhibit 129a from the Haymarket trial: Chemists testified that the bombs found in Lingg's apartment, including this one, resembled the chemical signature of shrapnel from the Haymarket bomb.]]

 

At the last minute, when it was discovered that instructions for manslaughter had not been included in the submitted instructions, the jury was called back, and the instructions were given.<ref>Messer-Kruse (2011). pp. 123–128</ref>

===Executions===

[[File:Chicagi 1887.jpg|thumb|right|Execution of defendants—Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies]]

 

===Identity of the bomber===

Among supporters of the labor movement in the United States and abroad and others, the trial was widely believed to have been unfair, and even a serious [[miscarriage of justice]]. Prominent people including novelist [[William Dean Howells]], celebrated attorney [[Clarence Darrow]],<ref>John A. Farrell, ''Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned'' (New York: Doubleday, 2011), p. 5 and passim.</ref> poet and playwright [[Oscar Wilde]], playwright [[George Bernard Shaw]], and poet [[William Morris]] strongly condemned it. On June 26, 1893, Illinois governor [[John Peter Altgeld]], the progressive governor of Illinois, himself a German immigrant, signed pardons for Fielden, Neebe, and Schwab,<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 27, 1893 |title=Anarchists Pardoned |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19766055/3_men_pardoned_for_haymarket_bombing/ |newspaper=Port Huron Daily Times |location=Port Huron, Michigan |page=1 |via=[[Newspapers.com]] |access-date=May 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627173145/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19766055/3_men_pardoned_for_haymarket_bombing/ |archive-date=June 27, 2018 |url-status=live }} {{Open access}}</ref> calling them victims of "hysteria, packed juries, and a biased judge" and noting that the state "has never discovered who it was that threw the bomb which killed the policeman, and the evidence does not show any connection whatsoever between the defendants and the man who threw it".<ref>Quoted in Stanley Turkel, ''Heroes of the American Reconstruction: Profiles of Sixteen Educators'' (McFarland, 2009) p. 121.</ref> Altgeld also faulted the city of Chicago for failing to hold Pinkerton guards responsible for repeated use of lethal violence against striking workers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Morn |title=The Eye That Never Sleeps |page=99 |isbn=0-253-32086-0 |year=1982 |publisher=Indiana University Press }} On April 9, 1885, Pinkertons shot and killed an elderly man at the McCormick Harvester Company Works in Chicago. On October 19, 1886, they shot and killed a man in Chicago's packinghouse district. [[Labor spies#A historical overview|More info]].</ref> Altgeld's actions concerning labor were used to defeat his reelection.<ref>[http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/dramas/act5/absolutePardon/theFriendOfMadDogs_f.htm ''ACT V Raising the dead: Absolute Pardon,''] Chicago Historical Society (2000)</ref><ref>[http://www.nga.org/cms/home/governors/past-governors-bios/page_illinois/col2-content/main-content-list/title_altgeld_john.html ''Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld''] National Governors Association (2011).</ref><ref>[http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_debs_bio_altgeld.html ''The Debs Case: Labor, Capital, and the Federal Courts of the 1890s, Biographies, John Peter Altgeld''] Federal Judicial Center.</ref>

 

 

Christopher Thale writes in the ''[[Encyclopedia of Chicago]]'' that lacking credible evidence regarding the bombing, "...the prosecution focused on the writings and speeches of the defendants."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Thale|first=Christopher|title=Haymarket and May Day|url=http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Chicago|publisher=Chicago History Museum, Newberry Library and Northwestern University|access-date=April 1, 2012}}</ref> He further notes that the conspiracy charge was legally unprecedented, the judge was "partisan," and all the jurors admitted prejudice against the defendants. Historian Carl Smith writes, "The visceral feelings of fear and anger surrounding the trial ruled out anything but the pretense of justice right from the outset."<ref>{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Carl|title=Act III: Toils of the Law|url=http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/dramas/act3/act3.htm|work=The Dramas of Haymarket|publisher=Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University|access-date=December 30, 2017}}</ref> Smith notes that scholars have long considered the trial a "notorious" "miscarriage of justice".<ref>{{cite web|last=Smith|first=Carl|title=Introduction|url=http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/dramas/overview/main.htm|work=The Dramas of Haymarket|publisher=Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University|access-date=December 30, 2017}}</ref> In a review somewhat more critical of the defendants, historian Jon Teaford concludes that "[t]he tragedy of Haymarket is the American justice system did not protect the damn fools who most needed that protection... It is the damn fools who talk too much and too wildly who are most in need of protection from the state."<ref name="Teaford" /> Historian [[Timothy Messer-Kruse]] revisited the digitized trial transcript and argued that the proceedings were fair for their time, a challenge to the historical consensus that the trial was a travesty.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Mann |first1=Leslie |title=Reworking infamous Haymarket trial |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |date=2011-09-14 |url=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-14/entertainment/ct-ent-0915-museum-general-haymarket-20110915_1_separate-trials-haymarket-square-haymarket-incident |access-date=2017-11-01 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

The association of May Day with the Haymarket martyrs has remained strong in Mexico. [[Mary Harris Jones|Mary Harris "Mother" Jones]] was in Mexico on May 1, 1921, and wrote of the "day of 'fiestas'" that marked "the killing of the workers in Chicago for demanding the eight-hour day".<ref>Roediger, Dave, "Mother Jones & Haymarket", in Roediger and Rosemont, eds., ''Haymarket Scrapbook'', p. 213.</ref> In 1929, ''[[The New York Times]]'' referred to the May Day parade in [[Mexico City]] as "the annual demonstration glorifying the memory of those who were killed in Chicago in 1887".<ref>Foner, ''May Day'', p. 104.</ref> ''The New York Times'' described the 1936 demonstration as a commemoration of "the death of the martyrs in Chicago".<ref>Foner, ''May Day'', p. 118.</ref> In 1939, Oscar Neebe's grandson attended the May Day parade in Mexico City and was shown, as his host told him, "how the world shows respect to your grandfather".<ref>Avrich, ''The Haymarket Tragedy'', p. 436.</ref>

 

 

==Suspected bombers==

* {{cite book |last=Harris |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Harris |title=The Bomb |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T2YRAAAAYAAJ |year=1908 |publisher=John Long |location=London |oclc=2380272 }}

* {{cite book |last=Hucke |first=Matt |author2=Ursula Bielski |title=Graveyards of Chicago: The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries |year=1999 |publisher=Lake Claremont Press |location=Chicago |isbn=0-9642426-4-8 }}

* {{cite book |last=McLean |first=George N. |title=The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924062284462 |year=1890 |publisher=R.G. Badoux & Co |location=Chicago }}

* {{cite book |last=Parsons |first=Lucy |author-link=Lucy Parsons |title=Life of Albert R. Parsons : with brief history of the labor movement in America |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofalbertrpar00pars |year=1889 |publisher=L. E. Parsons|location=Chicago }}

* {{cite book |last=Smith |first=Carl |title=Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman |year=1995 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=0-226-76416-8 }}

 

* [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ichihtml/hayhome.html Chicago Anarchists on Trial: Evidence from the Haymarket Affair 1886–1887], [[American Memory]], [[Library of Congress]]

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20121128083358/http://dig.lib.niu.edu/gildedage/haymarket/index.html The Haymarket Bomb in Historical Context], [[Northern Illinois University]] Libraries

* [[hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.haymarkt|Haymarket Affair Collection]]. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

 

[[Category:Anti-anarchism in the United States]]

[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in Chicago]]

[[Category:History of anarchism]]

[[Category:History of labor relations in the United States]]