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May Day greetings from Workers Solidarity
to all out net readers.
from Workers Solidarity No 28
paper of the Irish anarchist
Workers Solidarity Movement
TRADITIONALLY, May 1st has been a day with
special significance for the labour movement. A day
of worldwide solidarity, a time to remember and
demonstrate our common interests_and common goal -
the emancipation of labour.
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 their
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 retreat before 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.
HAYMARKET
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.
POLICE
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".
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 been 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
had 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 os 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
One hundred and seven years after years after that first May
Day demonstration in Chicago, where are we? It has become
little more than an institution. 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 and proclaimed their ideals.
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, no more
PESPs. Defiance of the Industrial Relations Act, not passively
giving up. Real solidarity with fellow workers in struggle, not
a blinkered sectional outlook.
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.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at
PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland
Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive
by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")
in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM