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Title: Labor Agitator
Author: Alan Calmer
Date: 1937
Language: en
Topics: Albert Parsons, biography
Source: Retrieved on 17th May 2021 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/bright/aparsons/calmers/calmerstoc.html

Alan Calmer

Labor Agitator

CHAPTER I. TEXAN BOYHOOD

ALBERT PARSONS’ ancestors fought for religious liberty in England and

were among the pilgrim fathers of Massachusetts. In the seventeenth

century, five brothers of the family name landed on the shores of

Narragansett Bay. In the centuries that followed, their descendants

helped to establish and build the American nation.

The first Parsons to attain renown was “Uncle Jonathan,” he was

reverently, and affectionately, called. He was an old Puritan,

strong-minded and passionate, second only to his friend, George

Whitefield, among the revivalist ministers of the day. Like Albert

Parsons of Haymarket fame, old Jonathan was something of a traveling

agitator: his preaching tour, on which he delivered sermons to eager

audiences, horrified the conservativ-minded clergymen of New England.

Liberty-loving Jonathan could not endure British tyranny. According to

one story, he denounced the English oppressors from his pulpit and, in

the very aisles of his church, mustered a company which marched to

Bunker Hill where another Parsons lost his arm in the famous battle of

the Revolution.

Jonathan’s son was Major-General Samuel Parsons, the first members of

the Patriot party and the revolutionary Committee of Correspondence in

Connecticut. As early as 1773 the General despatched a letter to

Agitator Sam Adams, urging that a continental be held. ‘The idea of

inalienable allegiance to any prince or state,” he wrote, “is an idea to

me inadmissible; and I cannot but see that our ancestors, when they

first landed in America, were as independent of crown or king of Great

Britain, as if they never had been its subjects.”

General Parsons fought in a number of Revolutionary battles. He helped

plan the expedition which led to the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by

Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain boys. He saw heavy fighting at Long

Island, and then at Harlem Heights and White Plains. He served under

General Washington in New Jersey. Later the commander-in-chief placed

him in charge of the entire Connecticut front, depending upon him for

the defense of the state. He gave battle to the British at Norwalk,

forcing them to retire in confusion.

After the war, General Parsons was appointed first judge of the

Northwest Territory. Although he was past fifty, he became a

frontiersman, traveling back and forth. One day his canoe overturned in

the rapids of the Big Beaver river and he was drowned.

Samuel Parsons, a namesake of the Revolutionary general, left New

England early in 1830. He married Elizabeth Tompkins, and together they

trekked down the coast to Alabama. They set up a shoe and leather

factory in Montgomery. Here Albert R. Parsons was born June 20, 1848,

just after the Mexican war. His father was one of the outstanding

figures in the community and was highly respected as a public-spirited

citizen; he led the temperance movement in the state.

Albert’s mother also came of pioneer stock. One of her ancestors had

been a trooper in General Washington’s bodyguard, serving under him at

Trenton and Brandywine, weathering the privations of Valley Forge, and

helping to drive the Hessians out of New Jersey. Like her husband, she

was a devoutly religious person, loved by her neighbors as well as by

her ten children.

At least this was the picture which Albert’s eldest brother, William,

gave him of his parents. He retained only the flicker of an impression

of his mother, who died when he was still a baby. And before Albert was

five his father followed.

Albert went to live with his brother’s family, whose home was on the

Texan frontier. In later years he treasured the remembrances of his

boyhood, spent near the border. Life on the Texas range during the

eighteen- fifties was an adventurous affair. Indian raids and out-law

attacks were things of the present. Buffalo and antelope ran over the

plains. While still a boy, Albert became an expert rifle-shot; he always

remembered the praise he had won for his marksmanship and hunting, as

well as his skill in riding the fiery Mexican mustangs. He thought

often, too, of days spent on his brother’s farm in the valley of the

Brazos river, so far from the next house that he couldn’t hear the

barking of their neighbor’s dog or the crowing of the cock.

When he was eleven, Albert was sent to Waco, city, to live with his

sister’s family and to get some schooling. He was soon apprenticed to

the Galveston Daily News. It was an honor to be employed by the biggest

and most influential paper in the state, his brother wrote to him;

espicially, he added, when it was edited by Mr. Willard Richardson. His

brother, who had run a small paper of his own in Tyler city, always

spoke with reverence of Richardson, the leading Texan editor of the

time.

Albert worked on the paper as a printer’s devil and as carrier. Running

through the streets of the town, making new friends and acquaintances

every day, he changed from a frontier boy into a city youngster.

CHAPTER II. WITH THE CONFEDERATE ARMY

A FEW Years later the Civil War broke out. Albert and the people he knew

were greatly agitated. The city whirled with excitement. Meetings were

held, speeches were made. Civic spokesmen called for action.

Albert’s employer, old “Whitey” Richardson-who looked like a

conventional Portrait of the Southern gentleman was a leader of the

secession movement. He carried on a vigorous campaign against his

political enemy, Sam Houston-conqueror Of Santa Anna and father of the

Texan Republic. Houston hoped the civil conflict could be averted and

the Union Preserved. but when Texas joined the Rebels, he was deposed as

governor of the state.

All of Albert’s friends were rabid Confederates. They got together to

make Plans-they wanted to get into the fighting before it would all be

over. Carried away by the war fever, the Young Texans immediately

organized a local volunteer company, which they named the Lone Star

Grays. Albert was only thirteen, and was very short compared to the

rangy natives, but he wiggled his way into the infantry squad.

Of course the whole thing was nothing more than an exciting adventure to

him. He was too young to wonder about the real reasons behind secession

and, besides, if he did have any ideas about it they were merely carbon

copies of “Whitey” Richardson’s opinions. Everybody Albert knew was a

hot partisan of the Confederacy; his circle of acquaintances did not

include any of the followers of Sam Houston, nor did he know any of the

numerous German abolitionists who populated the state and who valiantly

opposed the slaveowners.

When the war started, Federal garrisons withdrew from the Texas forts

and fled toward the sea coast at Indianola, intending to embark for

Washington. They were immediately pursued by the local Confederates.

Albert’s company, the Lone Star Grays, converted the Morgan Passenger

ship into a cotton-clad and joined the chase. Protected by the

breastworks of cotton piled on the deck of their improvised gunboat,

they formed into the Gulf and cut off the escape of some Union troops.

Texas however, was far removed from the center of hostilities. Many of

the young men thought they would never get into the fight if they stayed

at home; so they formed independent companies and proceeded eastward to

the battle zone.

Albert decided he would join the Rebel army, too; he made up his mind to

leave for Virginia and serve under Lee. But when he asked his guardian’s

permission, old “Whitey” took hold of his ear and ordered him to remain

at home.

Looming over young Albert, Richardson lectured his apprentice. “It’s all

bluster, anyway,” he told him. “The war will be ended in the next sixty

days, and I will be able to hold in my hat every drop of blood that’s

shed.”

That settled it. Albert just had to get into action before it was all

over. He had no way of traveling to Virginia, but he took “French” leave

and joined his brother, Richard, who captained an infantry company at

Sabine on the Texan coast. Albert drilled with the soldiers and served

as a powder monkey for the artillery.

One day he learned that the Federals were sending a transport army to

invade Texas by way of the Pass. The Federal fleet, led by two gunboats,

came up the channel, bombarding the Rebel fort. Holding their fire until

the enemy was about twelve hundred yards away, the Texans opened a

counter-attack. The third round of shot penetrated the steamdrum of the

leading gunboat and she hoisted the white flag. The guns of the fort

were then trained on the other: a shot carried away the tiller rope; the

vessel grounded. The transports turned around and went back to New

Orleans. Not a man had been lost on the Confederate side.

When the Union army invaded once more, it was under the command of

General Banks, who made for the mouth of the Rio Grande. He landed on

the coast and hoisted the Union flag on Texan soil. Meanwhile, Albert

had joined a cavalry detachment stationed on the west bank of the

Mississippi. Albert became a member of the renowned McInoly cavalry

scouts. He was with his brother’s brigade when General Bank’s forces,

retreating down the Red river, were attacked by Parson’s dismounted

cavalrymen who, armed only with rifles, charged the ironclad gunboats of

the Union fleet at Lane’s Landing.

By the time he was seventeen, after serving four years in the military,

Albert took part in the last skirmish of the Civil War, occurring just

before news reached the state of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

CHAPTER III. SCALAWAG

AT the close of the war, Albert returned to his home in Waco. All the

property he owned was a good mule- but it proved to be quite a valuable

possession. He ran into a man who had to get out of the state in a

hurry; the man had forty acres of corn in his field standing ready for

harvest; Parsons traded the mule for the corn.

Then he rounded up a number of Negro slaves and offered them regular

farmhands’ wages if they would help him reap the harvest. They jumped at

the opportunity, for it was the first salary they had ever received.

He made enough out of the sale of the corn to pay for half a year’s

tuition at the local university, which he had long dreamed of atending.

There he studied moral philosophy and political economy.

His instructors, and everybody else who knew him, liked Albert. He was

wild as a buck when he returned from the front — but so were all the

young Texans. He moved in the best society and was welcome wherever he

went. To his neighbors he was a clean-cut, gritty, pleasant and —

considering everything — a well-mannered young man.

By the time he was twenty, however, something happened which was to

suddenly end his popularity. He had begun to think for himself, and he

found it impossible to accept many Southern conventions that he had

formerly taken for granted. Working as a typesetter didn’t give him much

of a chance to tell people about his new convictions — but it did

increase his desire to do so. Since these new beliefs were decidedly

unorthodox, there was no place where he could put them into print; so he

started a small weekly paper of his own, calling it the Spectator. In it

he advocated the support of the Reconstruction measure granting civil

rights to the Negroes.

Part of the reason for arriving at this conclusion was very personal. “I

was strongly influenced in taking this step,” he later wrote, “out of

respect and love for the memory of dear old ‘Aunt Easter,’ then dead,

and formerly a slave and house-servant of my brother’s family, she

having been my constant associate and having personally raised me, with

great kindness and a mother’s love.”

In the main, however, his new, humanitarian convictions had grown out of

his reading and independent thinking, based on what he saw and heard

during the years after his return from the war. He had found that in

spite of the defeat of the Confederacy, the old slaveowners — thanks to

President Johnson’s proclamation of amnesty and pardon — were back in

power. Things hadn’t changed very much. Many of the Negroes continued to

work for their former masters; most of the landowners even believed that

slavery would be perpetuated. During this period, Negro suffrage was

shelved. At first Parsons had more or less accepted the situation, but

he was shocked by several incidents in which Negroes, demanding their

freedom, were hounded by his neighbors.

When the Radical Republicans were victorious in the Congressional

elections of ’66, drastic changes took place. As in other rebel states,

the conservative government of Texas was swept away. General Sheridan,

appointed commander of the “Fifth Military District” which included

Texas and Louisiana, set up Radical-Military rule. Carpetbaggers as well

as native loyalists organized the Negroes into Union Leagues. Radical

Republican papers, usually edited by Southerners who were sneeringly

called scalawags, sprang up in the state and clamored for Negro rights.

This was the wave which caught Parsons; his paper was started in Waco

for this purpose. The Spectator appeared in 1868, during the tensest

moment of the Reconstruction struggle in Texas, after Sheridan had been

forced out by President Johnson and succeeded by General Hancock, a

Democrat whose sympathies were with the Southern planters. The latter

organized guerrila gangs terrorizing the new freedmen and intimidating

the Republicans. Out of these early groups rose the spectre of the Ku

Klux. Bands of giant horsemen, shrouded in white, raided Negro

settlements, whipped and even murdered their victims.

It was during this critical time that Parsons first tried his talents as

an editor. He became a Republican, went into politics. He took to the

stump, upholding the rights of Negro suffrage. The Reconstruction acts

had been passed and the Negroes had their first chance to vote in Texas.

The enfranchised slaves came to know and idolize Parsons as their friend

and champion.

Naturally these new activities cut Parsons off from most of his former

friends. His army comrades cursed and threatened him. He was branded a

heretic, a traitor, a renegade. His life was endangered. Since his arch

enemies made up most of the reading audience in Waco, there was no

chance of continuing with the Spectator, and it soon expired.

Nevertheless, he continued his newspaper work. He became a traveling

correspondent for the Houston Daily Telegraph, which had been a

conservative paper before the Republicans carried the state. This new

job took him on a long trip through northwestern Texas, on horseback.

While he was in Johnson county, where he had once lived with his

brother’s family, he met an attractive young girl of Spanish-Aztec

descent. She lived in a beautiful section of the country near Buffalo

creek with her uncle, a Mexican ranchero. Parsons lingered in the

neighborhood as long as he could; three years later he returned to marry

Lucy Eldine Gonzalez.

Shortly before his marriage he became a minor office holder under

Grant’s administration. He served as reading secretary of the Texas

State Senate, of which his brother William was a member, and later as

chief deputy collector of the U.S. Internal Revenue at Austin. In 1873,

when the Republicans were defeated in the state elections, he resigned

and joined a group of Texan editors in a tour which took him as far east

as Pennsylvania. In the course of the trip he decided to settle in

Chicago. He wrote to his wife, who joined him at Philadephia, and

together they reached the Windy City late in the summer of 1873.

CHAPTER IV. CONVERSION

JUST as Parsons and his wife reached Chicago, the crisis of ’73 struck

the nation.

Ever since the war, huge factories had been changing the urban skyline.

Industrial capital was on the make. Armies of workers streamed into

manufacturing centers. Mass production became the order of the day.

Trade unions expanded. Profits skyrocketed. Prosperity soared.

Then came the crash. Early in the fall of ’73 — financial panic! The

price of securities, which had risen to new highs during the boom years,

suddenly collapsed. The wave of feverish speculating and inflation was

over.

Old houses folded up. In September the firm of Jay Cooke, monetary

pillar of the states, shut its doors. There was consternation in Wall

Street. After seven wild days the Stock Exchange closed down. Meeting

with financiers, the President urged a moratorium to stem widespread

disaster. There was a run on the Union Trust. Banks were besieged by

frenzied deposirtors. In Chicago, on a “black Friday,” five big banking

institutions — beginning with the Union National, largest financial

concern outside of New York — were suspended. Life savings were swept

away.

Economic distress spread through the land. Bewildered workers straggled

out of factory gates. They hung disconsolatley around public squares.

The spectre of unemployment drifted along the streeets of American

cities.

Layoffs. Wagecuts. Strikes. Evictions. Breadlines. Starvation. Street

demonstrations against poverty — met with clubs and bullets.

Parsons, however, was lucky enough to land a job as soon as he got to

Chicago. After subbing for a while on the Inter-Ocean, he became a

regular typesetter for the Times. He joined Typographical Union No. 16.

It was a hard winter. In Chicago, tens of thousands who had helped

rebuild the city after the great fire, were thrown out of work. Along

the wide avenues, swept by the freezing winds of the lake, children

cried for bread, for shelter. Meetings of unemployed workers formed

spontaneously. They paraded through the streets holding ragged banners,

with BREAD OR BLOOD scrawled in big black letters. Public attention was

directed toward the needs of the poor.

A procession marched on the Relief an Aid Society to appeal for help,

but a committee elected by the demonstrators was refused an audience.

Several yeares before, over a million dollars had been contributed to

the Society for the victims of the fire. Labor organization now began to

agitate for an accounting of the large sums collected. They charged the

Society with speculation and misuse of funds.

Parsons followed the case in the newspapers. He was puzzled by the

campaign of abuse directed against the protesting labor groups: they

were denounced in the daily press as “Communists,” “Loafers,” “Thieves,”

“Cutthroats.”

He wondered what was behind the whole thing. He decided to look into the

matter; what he found convinced him that the complaints were justified.

Then why did the press and pulpit vilify the labor bodies that made the

charge of corruption? He was quick to see the parallel between the

Chicago situation and the way his Texan neighbors had treated the

Negroes. It was the rulers against the slaves, whether wage or chattel.

In his own way, through his own experience, he was beginning to glimpse

the shape of the modern class struggle.

Parsons stopped at street corners to listen to the “agitators.” He went

to labor meeting. He wanted to understand the new problems which the

crisis was pushing forward. He found that the small band of Socialists

in the city were the only ones who seemed to know the answers to the

problems he wanted to solve. They seemed to know exactly why and how

poverty could root itself in the middle of great wealth and plenty.

But he found it hard to understand the Socialists. Most of them were

Germans. He couldn’t read their paper, couldn’t get hold of more than a

pamphlet or two in English. These were hardly enough to solve the new

problems cascading through his mind.

For several years, as the depression slid downward, he became more and

more concerned over the “labor question.” One of the new products of he

crisis was the emergence of “tramps” as they were called, not hoboes but

educated men, skilled workers looking for jobs. He encountered legions

of them in the streets of the city. And police squads guarded the

depots, turning away new “vagrants” who migrated from other centers in

search of work.

One spring evening, near Market street, Parsons was given a handbill. It

announced a mass meeting at the Turner Hall on West Twelfth street. P.J.

McGuire, of New Haven, it said, who was making a lecture tour under the

auspices of the Social-Democratic party of North America, would be he

leading speaker and would discourse on the crisis, its cause and remedy.

When Parsons reached the hall, it was packed. Someone was talking, but

Parsons recognized him as a local agitator.

Just before eight o’clock, a group of men walked briskly through the

hall. People in the audience clapped. The main speaker had arrived.

Tired and dusty, he stepped to the platform.

Parsons listened to a moving address, delivered with the warm, lyrical

eloquence of the Irish.

“We have come together without bands of music or waving banners,”

McGuire began, dusting his sleeves as he got under way. “We have no

money to hire polisher speakers or to prepare great demonstrations. But

we have come with something more than these — we have come with the

truth in out hearts, and the truth must surely prevaill...

“Shall I recount all the wrongs against the workingman? I could as well

describe the separate stones which compose the Alleghanies or the number

of sands on the ocean beach...

“The workingman labors with all his strength, not for himself and those

rightly dependent upon him, but for every mean despot who has money in

his pocket and no principle in his heart.

“I am a stranger to many of you, but one cause has made us brothers.

Together we must lift the burden of poverty and oppression from the

shoulders of the working class....”

His earnestness stirred the crowd. Parsons listened intently.

At the end of the meeting McGuire got up and urged them to join the

party. As Parsons passed out of the hall he turned in his name.

The affair was so successful that McGuire spoke again the following day,

in the old Globe Hall on Desplaines Street. He talked for only a short

while, so there was time for questions and discussion. This was Parsons’

chance. Perhaps he would now get an authoritative answer to some of the

problems consuming his thoughts.

He jumped up. His clear, ringing voice cut through the hall. Everybody

turned toward him. He was well-dressed, distinguished. His long, black

hair brushed back, his waiscoat buttoned high, his body slim and wiry,

the eyes alert and smiling, the long curve of his moustache neatly

trimmed — Parsons commanded attention.

“Do I understand, sir,” he said, with a certain dignity, “that in the

cooperative state, so ably outlined by the speaker, all persons will

share and share alike regardless of what they produce?”

A ripple of voices spread through the hall. It was an important

question. Others must have been wondering about it.

“Do I understand,” he continued, his tone sharpening, “that your party

is for a whack-up-all-around institution, in which the parasite will

find a loafers’ paradise at the expense of the industrious worker?”

He sat down. Spots of applause broke through the audience. People talked

to each other excitedly. They waited with impatience for the answer.

It was a stock question for McGuire. It had been asked of him so many

times, he had explored the issued so often, that his reply by now was

nearly flawless. Atracted by Parsons’ striking voice and confident

bearing he phrased his remarks with particular care, directing his

answer straight to Parsons, speaking as if they were alone in a room

together.

The Social-Democratic party, he pointed out skillfully, wished only to

nationalize the land and the instruments of production and exchnge. Such

a reorganization of society was in the interests of the workingman, who

would be rewarded with the just value of his labor. As for the idler,

and that included the capitalist, he would have to pitch in and do his

share-or starve.

McGuire handled the whole thing adroitly. Parsons was fully convinced.

And it won the approval of others in the audience. From that time on,

the English section of the Social-Democratic party in Chicago thrived.

CHAPTER V. SOCIALISM IN THE SEVENTIES

PARSONS joined the Social-Democratic party during a period when unity

was the central issue of the labor movement. In the spring of ’76 the

party sent delegates to a congress which was called for the purpose of

consolidating all the labor forces in the country. The conference was

also attended by other socialist groups and by members of the Knights of

Labor. However, the gathering was split largely between socialists on

the one side and greenbackers, with their money-reform schemes, on the

other. They couldn’t agree on a program and, when the sessions were

over, unity had not been accomplished.

Nevertheless, the get-together did a lot of good: it paved the way for

uniting the various socialist factions, including the Social-Democratic

party to which Parsons belonged, into a single organisation. During the

summer, this fusion was effected. Radicals of various brands--made up

chiefly of followers of Lassalle (political reformists who were

indifferent to trade union action) and members of the old First

International (who stressed the importance and need of trade union

organization which, they pointed out, was the way in which the

proletariat as a class carried on its daily struggle against

capital)--met in Philadelphia and organiaed the Workingmen’s party of

the United States.

“Political liberty without economical independence being but an empty

phrase,” the constitution adopted at the congress read, “we shall in the

first place direct our efforts to the economical question.”

Participating in politics was not to be thought of until the movement

was “strong enough to exercise a perceptible influence, and then in the

first place locally in the towns or cities, when demands of a purely

local character may be presented.”

This stand was largely a victory for a small group of First

Internationalists, headed by Marx’s friend, Sorge. However, McGuire, who

led the Social-Democratic party delegates, won a concession for his

adherents: he moved that the executive committee be given the power to

permit local election campaigns wherever advisable.

It was decided that the executive committee should be located in

Chicago; and Philip Van Fatten, who lived in the city and whom Parsons

knew, was later elected national secretary. Candidates who belonged “to

no political party of the propertied class” were admitted into the

Workingmen’s party, although it was decreed that “at least three-fourths

of the members of a section must be wages-laborers.”

Parsons followed the news of the convention in the pages of the

Socialist, edited from New York; by decision of the “Union” congress,

held at Philadelphia, this newspaper was now changed to the Labor

Standard, and became the English organ of the new Workingmen’s party.

One of the treats in the paper was the poetic efforts contributed

regularly by John McIntosh. Parsons, who was very fond of verse and

could recite reams of it from memory, soon added McIntosh’s long

“socialistic ballad” on “The Tramp” to his repertoire:

We canvassed the city through and through,

Nothing to work at--nothing to do;

The wheels of the engines go no more,

Bolted and barred is the old shop door;

Grocers look blue over unpaid bills,

Paupers increase and the poorhouse fills.

He was overjoyed to find an English paper which saw things through the

eyes of the workers, especially since the Chicago sheets continued to

castigate the Socialists, dubbing them “Robbers,” “Loafers,” “Tramps,

“Bandits.”

The capitalist press angered Parsons beyond endurance. As he walked home

from work, he felt an overwhelming desire to shout to the workers on the

street to tell them the truth about the class struggle, to carry to them

the message of the Workingmen’s party. Outside of John McAuliffe, there

was no decent English mass speaker in the Chicago section and, while

Parsons admired his impetuous rhetoric, McAuliffe was inclined to be a

bit wild and incoherent.

Soon Parsons was making use of the experience he had gained on the stump

in Texas. His resonant voice and his good presence quickly made him one

of the very best agitators in the city. He spoke whenever and wherever

he could: in parks, in vacant lots, on street corners, in halls and

private houses. But the crowds were rather small. Often, after putting

up posters and handing out leaflets, and speaking, he had to give his

last nickel to pay for the hall rent and, late at night, walk all the

way home-and to work early the next morning.

Just before the Philadelphia “Union” congress was held, and the

Social-Democratic party merged into the Workingmen’s party, Parsons

helped to work out an excellent idea for their local July Fourth picnic.

Parsons was was unable to be there himself--he had to speak at a meeting

sponsored by Knights of Labor in Indianapolis --but the idea worked out

very well.

After parading through the Chicago streets, the Socialists gathered

around the platform at Ogden Grove, their picnic grounds. Later in the

day Van Fatten arose and, on the hundredth anniversary of the American

Revolution, read the Chicago Workingmen’s Declaration of Independence,

paraphrased after the original:

“...We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created

equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights; that among

these are life, liberty and the full benefit of their labor....”

It was a good stunt. After the new Declaration was read, in both English

and German, the three thousand listeners, with cheers and loud applause,

adopted it unanimously.

As Parsons became more active, he was perplexed by the squabbling which

took place among the Socialists, who had all joined the Workingmen’s

party. There seemed to be two groups of extremists. Merging into one

party had evidently not dissolved the differences between the warring

factions. One still demanded immediate participation in politics, while

the other, which had come out on top at the “Union” congress, was

against such activity. However, the former refused to give up its aims

and soon took its first political steps.

In New Haven, the political activists won Van Patten’s permission to

nominate local candidates. Their example was followed in other cities.

Early in 1877, a Chicago group decided to enter the city spring

elections. Without consulting anybody, they held a mass meeting and

passed a resolution to that effect. Although angered by this highhanded

move, their opponents decided not to oppose it, because they wanted to

avoid a split in the party. Only one candidate was nominated — Parsons,

for alderman of the fifteenth ward. The party ticket stressed chiefly

demands of an immediate local character, such as abolition of the

contract system on city works, better hours and wages for city

employees, etc.

Concentrating upon the fifteenth ward, which was in a working-class

section, the party “imported” canvassers from other parts of the city,

worked day and night and, when the count was taken, polled four hundred

votes — one-sixth of the total cast in that ward. It was something of a

moral if not a political victory.

CHAPTER VI. THE RAILROAD UPRISING

JULY, 1877. The great depression nosed downward, hit rock bottom. Even

employed workers got barely enough for food. They grew sullen,

desperate.

The railroads posted a notice of another wage cut. Accumulated

resentment rose, brimmed over. Spontaneous protests broke out; a

“striking mania” sped along the railway lines of the nation.

A running battle took place in Baltimore. With fixed bayonets, troops

marched to the depot. Beleaguered by an indignant crowd, the soldiers

fired volleys into the throng, shooting workers straight through the

heart.

In Pittsburgh, factory hands turned out to help the railroad men. They

took over the switches; the trains couldn’t move. Almost the entire city

supported the strikers. “Butcher” Hartranft, governor of the state, sent

“hussars” from Philadelphia. They attacked the people: scores were

killed and wounded. The enraged citizens drove the troops into a

roundhouse, seized arms and ammunition and counter-attacked. The

besieged soldiers had to shoot their way out of the city.

A regiment in Reading, made up almost wholly of Irishmen, fraternized

with the strikers. “The only one we’d like to pour our bullets into is

that damned Bloodhound Gowen,” they said, referring to the notorious

coal and rail magnate, who had smashed the miners’ union.

U.S. regulars swept through strike-ridden Pennsylvania. Marines were

landed. Troop trains with gatling guns — mounted on gondola cars in

front of locomotives — pushed through the state. “Give the strikers a

rifle diet for a few days and see how they like that kind of bread,”

were the instructions of “King” Scott, railroad president. The press

howled, raved, ranted; the pulpit ran a close second with its abuse.

Only after weeks was the strike smashed, the state blockade broken.

The strike wave rolled westward. Huge demonstrations moved through the

streets. Men marched at night with torchlight flares to show the rags on

their backs and the hunger in their their faces. BREAD OR BULLETS read

their banners.

“It is impossible to predict how or when this struggle will end,” said

the Labor Standand editorially. “End as it may it will accomplish more

for the cause of labor than years of mere oratory.” “It is life or death

with us,” said one of the rank-and-file leaders, “and we’ll fight it to

the end.”

Traffic was almost wholly paralyzed from the Atlantic to the

Mississippi, from the Canadian border to the Virginia line and the Ohio

river. In St. Louis the situation developed into a general strike. It

was led by the Workingmen’s party. Committees marched into the mill and

factory: laborers downed tools. Mass meetings raised the demand for the

eight-hour day. Steamers on the Mississippi were halted until the

captains agreed to increase wages. Business houses closed down. The city

was in the hands of the workers for almost a week. Finally the rich St.

Louis merchants, recovering from their panic, raised an army, equipped

it with muskets and raided labor centers, putting down the strike by

force. The Socialist leaders were seized and charged with conspiracy

against the government. “Order” was restored.

Chicago was ignited too. On Sunday morning, July 22, Parsons learned

that Pittsburgh was in the hands of the strikers. An emergency

conference of the party was called and a mass meeting arranged for the

following day. They issued a leaflet which began: “Workingmen of

Chicago!...Will you still remain disunited, while your masters rob you

of all your rights as well as all the fruits of your labor? A movement

is now inaugurated by the Money Lords of America to allow only

property-holders to vote! This is the first step toward Monarchy! Was it

in vain that our forefathers fought and died for Liberty?...”

About twenty thousand spectators gathered at the Workingmen’s party

demonstration, held on Market square near Madison street. Workers

marched from various sections of the city, converging at the meeting

place with torchlight processions, carrying slogans reading WE WANT WORK

NOT CHARITY, WHY DOES OVER-PRODUCTION CAUSE STARVATION? and LIFE BY WORK

OR DEATH BY FIGHT.

George Schilling introduced Parsons, the main speaker of the evening.

Parsons was developing into a remarkable agitator, was learning how to

speak to the masses, to hold the attention of multitudes.

He looked over the seething square. It was the largest assembly he had

ever addressed. The listeners seemed tense, rigid, straining toward him.

He mounted to new peaks of oratory; his gestures and his inflexions were

flawless. At last the tension snapped, waves of approbation crashing

through the crowd.

“Fellow workers, let us remember that in this great republic that has

been handed down to us by our forefathers from 1776 — that while we have

the republic, we still have hope. A mighty spirit is animating the

hearts of the American people today....When I say the American people I

mean the backbone of the country (loud cheers), the men who till the

soil, who guide the machine, who weave the fabrics and cover the backs

of civilized men. We are part of that people (from the crowd — “We

are!”), and we demand that we be permitted to live, that we shall not be

turned upon the earth as vagrants and tramps.

“While we are sad indeed that our distressed and suffering brothers in

other states have had to resort to such extreme measures, fellow

workers, we recognize the fact that they were driven to do what they

have done (“They were!”)....We are assembled here tonight to find means

by which the great gloom that now hangs over our republic can be lifted,

and once more the rays of happiness can be shed on the face of this

broad land.”

He turned next to an attack upon the press, which he said filled its

columns “with cases of bastardy, horseracing and accounts of pools on

the Board of Trade.” It never saw fit, he said, “to go to the factories

and workshops and see how the toiling millions give away their lives to

the rich bosses of the country.”

At last he wound up: “It rests with you to say whether we shall allow

the capitalists to go on or whether we shall organize ourselves. Will

you?” he shouted to the crowd, and many answered. “Then enroll your

names in the grand army of labor — and if the capitalists engage in

warfare against our rights, we shall resist them with all the means that

God has given us.”

McAuliffe, who followed, was even more emphatic. “If the nation must go

to a monarchy,” he roared, “it must go over the dead body of every

workingman in the country. I am not in favor of bloodshed. But if the

Fort Sumpter of the workingmen is fired upon, I register a vow, by all

that is high and holy, that my voice, my thought and my arm shall be

raised for bloody, remorseless war....

“Let there be peace if we can, and war (a voice in the crowd- “if

necessary”) -if necessary.”

When he reached home Parsons was drenched in sweat. After a hard day’s

work in the composing room, mass speaking was no lark. He was sunk in

exhaustion; but he couldn’t get to sleep. His throat ached, and mental

excitement kept him wide awake. He saw the excited faces lifted toward

him, the roar of the crowd in his ears, their acclaim rushing through

his body, their applause echoing through his brain.

CHAPTER VII. “LEADER OF THE COMMUNE”

As usual, Parsons reported for work early next morning. The story of his

speech, however, had already appeared in the press, one of the papers

denouncing him as the “Leader of the Commune.” When he got to the

composing room, the foreman told him to clear out, he was fired. And he

was soon to learn that he had been blacklisted in his trade.

He shuffled out of the Times building in a daze. He wandered down the

street, walking mechanically homeward; but he soon caught hold of

himself and decided to report at the party center on Market street — he

wanted to check on the progress of the strike and see what he could do

to help.

The strike had started in the city the night before, when the switchmen

of the Michigan Central Railroad walked out. Now it spread to the

firemen and brakemen and moved from yard to yard, and even to shop,

factory, mill and lumber company.

Before the day would be over, not a train would move out of Chicago, Van

Fatten told Parsons exultantly.

They worked together at the office all morning, making plans for another

open-air rally, and signing up strikers who wanted to join the

Workingmen’s party.

About noon, two hard-looking men came in, and told Parsons that the

mayor wanted to see him. Puzzled, Parsons accompanied them to the City

Hall, where he was ushered into a room filled with a number of well

dressed citizens and police officials. In spite of his protests, Parsons

was grilled by Chief of Police Hickey, who probed into every corner of

his life. Hickey insulted and browbeat him, trying to make him say that

the Workingmen’s party had started the strike.

Parsons had been through an excruciating twenty-four hours. He was

almost entirely spent. He gripped his chair, answering quietly,

straining to keep his reserve. Every time he denied responsibility for

the strike, the spectators buzzed and muttered.

“What’re we waiting for,” he heard one say. “Let’s lock him up and get

it over with.”

For two hours he parried questions. Finally, Hickey gave up, turned

around, and consulted with several of the civilians in the room. They

talked for a few minutes, arguing with each other. Then Hickey turned

back.

“All right,” he snapped, “you can get out of here.” He pushed Parsons to

the door. “I’m giving you some advice, young man,” he said. “Your life

is in danger. Those men in there belong to the Board of Trade and they

would as leave hang you to a lamp-post as not. You’d better get out of

town and get out quick.”

He shoved Parsons into the corridor, slammed the door. The place was

dark and empty. Somehow he got into the street.

Feeling tired and depressed, he stumbled downtown. Later, when he passed

the Tribune building, he decided to see if he could get a job on the

night shift. As he reached the composing room, he met Manion, chairman

of his union, and they talked for a while. All of a sudden somebody

grabbed him from behind and swung him around.

“Come on, get the hell out of here.” Two men held his arms and another

began shoving him to the door.

Parsons tried to get away. “I came in here as a gentleman and I won’t be

dragged out like a dog,” he shouted, twisting to break loose. Then he

felt the barrel of a gun against his head.

“You’d better keep quiet or we’ll throw you out the window.” Parsons

stopped struggling.

They jostled him down the five flights of stairs. “One word out of you

and we’ll blow your brains out.” They knocked him into the street.

“Next time you put your face in this building you’ll get what’s coming

to you.”

Parsons barely caught his balance and ran down the street. He felt sure

they were going to send a bullet through his back. His utter

helplessness made him half-mad with rage.

As he moved down Dearborn street, his anger began to subside and he

recovered his normal mood, The weather was not too warm and the night

was pleasant. But the streets seemed hushed, deserted. When he turned

west on Lake to Fifth avenue, he saw soldiers sitting on the curb.

Muskets leaned against the walls of the huge buildings that lined the

street. A regiment of National Guards idled around; they seemed to be

waiting for orders to march. Lucky they didn’t know him. He passed by

and reached home.

Later that night he went over to Market square where the party was

holding another meeting. He stood in the crowd listening to the

speakers. An ex-soldier came up to the platform and showed the wounds he

had received “while fighting for this glorious country.” All at once

Parsons heard the clatter of hoofs, the crack of pistols, screams of

pain. Mounted police charged into the gathering. They mowed a wedge

through the mass of flesh. A tremendous roaring cacophony rose, swelled,

ebbed. The throng broke, the listeners scattered. A tumultuous rush of

feet drowned out the thud of descending clubs....

Next morning, Wednesday, was misty; vapor clouds hung over Lake Michigan

and the city streets. Blood splashed on the Black Road, near the

McCormick Reaper Works. Everywhere the strikers gathered, leaderless;

everywhere they were shot, clubbed, dispersed. On the Randolph street

bridge a crowd of spectators (“Rioting Roughs” the Chicago Tribune

called them) were brutally attacked.

Later, Parsons learned from a German comrade that the police had swooped

down on the Furniture Workers’ meeting at Turner Hall, breaking in the

door and shooting directly into the assembly; caught in the unexpected

onslaught, the cabinet makers had stampeded like cornered animals,

clambering up the pillars, hiding behind the stage, jumping out of

windows, or breaking out of the hall and running the gauntlet of more

cops stationed on the stairs.

A pitched battle took place at the Halsted street viaduct immediately

after, with charge and counter-charge, until a body of cavalry, with

drawn swords, rode through the massed workers, leaving many dead and

wounded on the bridge.

By this time the Board of Trade had mobilized a formidable army.

Infantry regiments patrolled various districts, firing on the slightest

pretext. Thousands of special deputies, “citizens’ patrols” and bands of

uniformed vigilantes like the Boys in Blue and Ellsworth Zouaves,

smashed down upon parades of silent strikers, marching with set faces.

Troops of cavalry clattered through the streets at a sharp trot, their

bridles jingling the horses’ hoofs kicking against the cobblestones. In

great panic, the Board of Trade had despatched couriers to General

Sheridan, who was campaigning in the Sioux country; and by Thursday

several companies of veteran Indian fighters, bronzed and grizzled and

covered with dust, rode into the city, their repeating rifles slung over

their shoulders. They were quartered in the Exposition building and sent

marauding groups through the murky streets to end any sign of protest.

With the frenzy of a holy crusade, the Chicago strike was suppressed.

As in the other cities, the Workingmen’s party, the Socialists, suffered

most. Their halls were demolished, their leaders arrested, their

membership shot and beaten. Ruling class violence attained its worst

excesses in Chicago and created a tradition of bitter hatred which was

to shape the future course of the radical movement.

CHAPTER VIII. POLITICAL ACTION

LONG after the strike, Parsons couldn’t find work. He tried every

newspaper in Chicago, but it was no use, he couldn’t get anywhere near a

composing room. He was blacklisted. He and his wife went hungry.

Soon he was spending most of his time in party work. Before he knew it,

he was drawn into the top leadership of the Workingmen’s party and was

made an organizer. He became a “professional revolutionist,” giving all

his energies to his job. It became his daily routine and his diversion,

his food and lodging, his conscious existence and even part of his

dreams. His life and experience merged into the history of the party.

Parsons began his new duties at the beginning of a period of extreme

ferment in the labor movement. The great strike wave of ’77, broken by

relentless terrorism, and coming after four years of devastating crisis,

lifted thousands of workers to class consciousness. Having learned the

lesson of solidarity, they banded together for mutual protection. Then

they pushed slowly ahead to take the offensive.

Hard times still hung over the country. The protests of the workers

against wagecuts and layoffs, their efforts to build and strengthen

their trade unions, were ruthlessly crushed by local, state and national

government. The lesson of this armed suppression seemed too obvious to

be overlooked: strikes could not be won, living conditions could not be

bettered, if the armed forces of the government stood in the way. So the

workers turned toward independent political action. They wanted to

nominate their own candidates, to elect their own representatives, men

who would not side with the employers but would fight for the demands of

their own class.

The political-minded faction in the Workingmen’s party was quick to see

the new trend of labor. Particularly in Chicago, where the extremity of

conditions had leveled away the barrier between jobless Yankees and

foreign Socialists, a large English-speaking branch of the party was

being built, under the leadership of Tom Morgan, a hard-working,

conscientious organizer. In the fall of ’77 they nominated a county

ticket, with Parsons for Clerk and one of his comrades, Frank Stauber,

who ran a hardware store on Milwaukee avenue, for Treasurer. They polled

about seven thousand votes. And in other cities, the elections were also

very encouraging.

It was to be expected, then, that at the congress of the Workingmen’s

party — held in Newark during December of the same year — the political

wing would come out on top. Parsons, who was the only delegate from

Chicago, participated in the convention proceedings, which were designed

to clear the deck for political action. The constitution, with its

obstacles to immediate election campaigning, was completely revamped.

The structure of the party was overhauled — sections were divided into

wards and precincts, and united into the State organizations. Even the

name was changed — to the Socialistic Labor party. The executive

committee was removed to Cincinnati — where the Socialists had just

polled nine thousand votes — while Van Fatten was reelected national

secretary.

In the spring city elections of ’78, the Chicago Socialists, under their

new name, the Socialistic Labor party, made history. By this time they

had rigged up a real political machine. Concentrating upon the

working-class districts, they mapped out a thorough campaign, holding

one mass rally after the other. Stauber received 1416 votes, nearly as

many as the combined count of his Democratic and Republican rivals, and

was elected alderman of the fourteenth ward. Parsons and another

comrade, running for similar positions in two adjoining wards, lost by

the slimmest margin, and were undoubtedly counted out of office. “We

shall contest the election in the fifteenth and sixteenth wards,” wrote

a Chicago correspondent to the National Socialist, new organ of the

party, “where the most shameful tricks were resorted to, in order to

count out our candidates.”

One of the chief reasons for this political victory was the cooperation

of the trade unions, which stood solid behind the party ticket. “On

election day, hundreds of members of the newly amalgamated Trades

Unions, left their work and helped us,” wrote a labor reporter from

Chicago.

But how did the party win the support of the trade unionists, many of

whom were hostile at this time to the use of political measures? The key

man in effecting this coalition was Parsons. He belonged to the English

branch, which led the political movement in the Chicago section of the

Socialistic Labor party; at the same time he was an active unionist. In

fact, he was elected president of the Amalgamated Trade and Labor Union

of and Vicinity, which he helped organize. He was also on the central

committee of the International Labor Union, a nationwide movement to

organize the unorganized, led by George E. McNeill and backed by the

Labor Standard- which opposed the political ventures of the party and

was no longer an official publication.

Many of the trade-union Socialists in Chicago were German immigrants,

who were very suspicious of the native-born members of the party.

Nevertheless, Parsons was able, through his organizing his eloquence and

his personal charm, to overcome this distrust and to win their complete

confidence. Thus he was able to swing their support behind the party

ticket.

Throughout the spring and summer of ’18, the Chicagoans prepared for the

coming state elections. Parsons was not so busy in this campaign as he

had been in the preceding ones, for he was spending most of his time in

trade union work. Among other things, he brought McNeill to Chicago to

speak at a trade union picnic just before the local Fourth of July

celebrations. After a morning spent in dancing and singing, at the

inevitable Ogden Grove, the comet player — as one worker-correspondent

described the occasion — “called the great assembly together, and

Comrade Parsons after a few appropriate remarks, introduced Mr. George

E. McNeill of Boston, president of the International Labor Union,” who

spoke on the eight-hour day.

“Just as soon as we recover from the fatigues of the glorious Fourth,”

wrote another reporter, “the engineering minds of the party must go to

work and break ground for the coming fall campaign.”

As election day drew nearer, Parsons spoke with Morgan and McAuliffe at

several large open-air gatherings. Occasionally he also covered these

meetings for the National Socialist. Of one rally he wrote:

“The broad street, from side to side up and down for nearly a block, was

filled with an immense throng of earnest and intelligent workmen. The

‘Cause and Remedy of Poverty’ was discussed from the Socialistic

standpoint, showing that destitution, ignorance and crime, was an

unnatural condition...and that universal poverty among the masses was

the penalty inflicted by nature for the crime of violating her laws....”

In the same despatch, Parsons outlined his general point of view at this

time, which favored both economic and political action. By organizing

trade unions and by working through the party at the polls, the workers

would “ere long,” he said, “call a halt to the increasing power of

aggregated wealth which is surely turning out once fair America into a

land of paupers, tramps and dependent menials.”

But if Parsons was so confident of the future of socialism during this

period, his optimism was far surpassed by his fellow speaker, John

McAuliffe. “Pass the word down the line,” the rhetorical Socialist

shouted at one public gathering, “Forward march! Onward, to perfect

organization and the independence of Labor from class servitude! Ho! all

ye oppressed, ye weary and heavy laden, come gather under the protecting

shelter of the banner of Socialism...under whose folds the wage workers,

the masses, shall be inspired to deeds of heroism and drive the fell

monster — poverty — from off the earth forever.”

CHAPTER IX. “THE BALLOT THE MISSILE”

SCIENCE THE ARSENAL, REASON THE WEAPON, THE BALLOT THE MISSILE.

Under this flamboyant slogan, which was now the guiding principle of

their party, the Socialists moved from one success at the polls to

another. The slogan was probably the creation of John McIntosh, labor

bard, who now edited the party newspaper. Besides contributing a topical

poem to almost every issue of the National Socialist, he often

embroidered the aims of the party in ornate prose.

“We desire to inflict upon men a Promethean agony,” he declared, in an

editorial note, “chaining them to a sense of misery, feeling the vulture

of harrowing, harassing discontent forever preying upon their peace. We

want them to be victims of a fierce, gnawing, intolerable conviction of

a personal injury — a withering sense of infernal outrage, so utterly

absorbing as to stop up all avenues to enjoyment cultivating a

thirsting, savage longing for relief — but, remember, through the ballot

box. No murder, no arson, no violence of any kind; unless insisted on by

combining bosses — then up and at it like a whirlwind.”

Parsons’ trade union work tended to draw him away from the National

Socialist. The paper was edited from Cincinnati under the supervision of

Van Fatten, who now lived there and who had steered the Socialists in

their present political direction. The unionists in the party favored

the Labor Standard, and there was a feud between the two papers. Because

he was immersed in trade union organization, Parsons found the Labor

Standard more receptive to his interests; he acted as reporter for it

and even became its Chicago agent. He also began to develop differences

with the National Socialist, and was denounced in its pages.

However, the National Socialist was running into financial trouble;

factional struggles had almost completely destroyed the Cincinnati

section of the Socialistic Labor party and the newspaper could get no

local support. Meanwhile, the Chicago section was proceeding with plans

for an English paper of its own. In view of these circumstances, Van

Fatten made several trips to Chicago and, after threshing the whole

matter out with Morgan, Parsons and others, he patched up the split and

effected a plan whereby the new local paper, to be called the Socialist,

would become the national English organ of the party. Parsons was

appointed assistant editor.

In preparation for the coming state elections, the new paper was

launched early in the fall of ’78. September and October were busy

months for the Chicagoans. Their campaign apparatus had been improved a

great deal. They held a convention late in September and nominated a

complete state ticket.

One of the high spots of the campaign was their election rally songs,

composed by their “untamed troubadour,” W. B. Creech. He had a new tune

for almost every occasion. At large meetings the crowd would usually

listen to the pyrotechnics of John McAuliffe, who was running for

Congress. “Let us yank, and thunder, and roar, and storm, and charge, at

the ballot box,” he would declaim, “and having thus peaceably, yet

boldly, won the victory, we will enjoy it, or know the reason

why....Fellow workers,” he would end, “be true to yourselves, desert the

enemy, and the morn following election, Labor’s sun will rise radiant

with glory!” Then the crowd would yell for Creech; he would step sprily

to the platform and in his strong, clear voice, sing:

Then raise your voices, workingmen,

Against such cowardly hirelings, 0!

Go to the polls and slaughter them,

With ballots, instead of bullets, 0!

Or, after a less fiery address, he would chant:

Let us rally once again;

We must work with might and main;

Bear a hand, Old Politics to throw away;

Stand for Socialistic light,

And each man demand his right--

Shorter hours to work and for us better pay.

His lyrics were printed on the front page of the Socialist and were sung

wherever the workers assembled. At an election rally held during a

Sunday afternoon on the corner of Larrabee and Crosby streets, Parsons

opened the meeting by singing Creech’s “Socialist Wagon”:

...So come, my friends, and join us,

And you’ll never rue the day,

For we’ll change this present system

To the Socialistic way.

He read the local platform and urged the spectators not to vote for the

old parties because they were “simply the agencies by which the

possessory class would mislead, divide and then plunder the worker of

the fruits of his labor.” A little later he introduced McIntosh, who had

come to Chicago; and the “poet laureate” of the Socialistic Labor party

helped out by reciting some new verses, which were boisterously

applauded.

The last weeks before election, meetings multiplied. Torchlight parades,

brass bands, calcium-lighted platforms for the speakers-were nightly

events. On vacant lots, in the open street, with a wagon or beer barrels

for a speaking stand — wherever a spot could be found, Parsons and his

comrades electioneered.

November 5 was bright and clear. Men standing on wagons and waving the

Union and the red flags, drove through the streets. VOTERS, DO NOT VOTE

AS HERETOFORE FOR CORRUPTIVE POLITICIANS AND OFFICE SEEKERS — read one

of their banners. Socialist voting was heavy in working-class sections,

in the fifteenth and sixteenth wards, especially in the evening when the

laborers came from the shops to cast their ballots. In spite of all

sorts of tricks and interference, the party elected three

representatives and one senator to the state legislature.

The evening after election, the Socialists celebrated at their

headquarters, which was lighted up brilliantly, the entrance illuminated

with Chinese lanterns. What a contrast it presented to the office of

their rivals, the Greenbackers, for the latter had made a very poor

showing. “Notwithstanding the Greenback party sought to bargain with

everybody willing to sell out to the highest bidder,” the Socialist

declared gleefully, “the Socialists, who stood firm and unwavering, have

by far outnumbered them in votes.”

Celebrations lasted for more than a week and culminated in a large mass

meeting where the elected representatives spoke. In the center of the

stage stood a life-size portrait of a prominent European Socialist,

guarded by pictures of Lincoln and Washington, and surrounded by a sea

of emblems and red flags. From the gallery were suspended the trade

union banners, and pyramids of Stacked guns were in the background.

Creech was ready with a stirring song, and everybody joined in the

chorus:

Raise aloft the crimson banner,

Emblem of the free,

Mighty tyrants now are trembling,

Here and o’er the sea.