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Title: The Chicago Martyrs Author: Freedom Press Date: November 1, 1888 Language: en Topics: Freedom Press, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Chicago, Haymarket Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 3 -- No. 26, retrieved on August 29, 2019, from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=2971. Notes: Freedom Press, London
When this number of Freedom appears, we shall be on the eve of
anniversary which every worker, every lover of liberty, ought to engrave
in fiery letters on his heart. On November 11, 1887, five Anarchists who
bad been the most devoted champions of the workers' emancipation were
put to death at Chicago, merely to give satisfaction to the
capital-owners and labor-robbers of America, who loudly cried for their
blood, hoping that that blood would extinguish the revolt of the labour
slaves.
On that day Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fischer were strangled on the
scaffold by order of the middle class judges of Chicago. Lingg who was
condemned to the same fate, deprived the bloodhounds of the pleasure of
seeing his corpse, too, on the scaffold, and exploded in his mouth a
small tube filled with explosive matter: while Schwab and Fielden were
sent to endure one for 15 years and one for life, the horrid treatment
of the American jails.
That day will be an historical date-not because five new martyrs were
added to the already awfully long list of those who gave their lives for
the sake of Freedom-but because it opens a new page in the history of
the struggles of Humanity for its emancipation. Engel, Fischer, Lingg,
Parsons and Spies, Schwab and Fielden, were not aiming at a political
change in the institutions of the United States. What they struggled and
died for, was a thorough change in the economical conditions; what they
wished to overthrow was the yoke of Capital, not that of a despotic or
tyrannical government.
Therefore the middle classes of America-all those, in fact, who live
upon the sweat of the worker-had sworn to them so terrible a hatred.
They knew, these rich people, that they could bring no distinct charge
against any of those seven whose death they so loudly asked for. But the
Anarchists had written and spoken against the tyranny of the idlers;
they had called the workers to organize in order to dispossess the
capitalists and to socialize capital and land; they had reconstituted
the International Workmen's Association; they had declined all kinds of
compromises in the war against Capital, and so they could be bribed
neither by money nor by the attractions of position in the ruling
classes. They were Anarchists, and their manly voices were listened to
by the suffering masses. And that was enough: the hatred of the rich
people towards these terrible foes knew no limits. For eighteen months
they cried out in their papers and meetings: "Kill them! Let the workers
know that the rope will be the appointed end of their leaders, whatever
the part they may have directly taken in the Movement. They are followed
by the masses-they must die!"
We have witnessed many atrocities during the last ten years, when the
struggle for liberty has taken so acute a character all over Europe,
bringing some fifty or sixty men and women to the scaffold, while
thousands have been condemned to a slow death in prisons or exile. We
have grown accustomed to see tribunals denying the simplest forms of
justice. But, apart from the case of Lisogub who was hanged in Russia
for having given money to the Revolutionary Party, we never saw anything
approaching the contempt of all established forms of justice which we
saw at Chicago. Never such immense sums of money so freely spent by the
rich in obtaining the desired sentence.
Now that so many witnesses have been heard, it is known that in fact the
Anarchists were not the promoters of the eight-hour movement in America.
Despising compromise, they refused to join it. But, when they saw that
-peaceful strikers-men, women and children-were clubbed and shot down
like mad dogs, by the Chicago uniformed police and the private police of
the rich capitalists of Chicago-the Pinkerton's men-they went to the
meetings and tried to arouse among the workers the consciousness of
their rights. It is proved, moreover, that when wild excitement followed
in Chicago the butchery by which both he police of the State and the
Capitalists tried to suppress the strike, Parsons and Spies did their
best to prevent a bloody conflict which would have led to the defeat of
the workers. It is proved, on the other hand, that the chief of the
Chicago police wished to have an armed conflict and thought "to make
short work " of some 3000 Socialists if he only "could get them in a
corner without their wive's and children." It is known that owing to the
efforts of Parsons, Spies and the others, the Haymarket meeting was of a
peaceful character.
But that was not in the plans of the police. They rushed on the peaceful
meeting, hoping to have now the opportunity of making "short work" which
would crush the eight-hour movement, and then a bomb was thrown in their
midst, killing a dozen of them and wounding another dozen. But it is
known now that none of those who died on the scaffold had anything to do
with the bomb: the judges themselves recognized it.
But what did it matter to them! They took seven men who were most
prominent by their activity and their unlimited devotion to the cause of
the people, and they said to them: "You were the soul of the movement
and therefore you will be executed!"
A cry of indignation arose among the workers of America and Europe at
this condemnation; and it would have been still more unanimous if it
were believed that so wild a sentence could ever be carried out.
Eighteen months had elapsed since May 1886, and the workers were sure
that, passions being calmed by time, the capitalists of Chicago would
never dare to execute the sentence which had been openly bought by the
dollars of the Association of the rich labor-robbers of Chicago.
But the cowards had forgotten nothing. They had once trembled for their
purses-now they cried for blood. In proportion as public opinion
awakened and loudly demanded the withdrawal of the shameful sentence of
death, the bloodhounds of the capitalist press yelled louder and louder.
Never, never, saw we such a really cannibalistic spirit as that shown by
the capitalist press of the States in October last. Take all history,
search all its pages, you will find nothing like what we saw that time
in America! Even during the excitement which followed the civil war of
1871 in France and the fall of the Paris Commune, the sight offered by
the organs of the wealthy classes was less disgusting than that of the
American capitalist press before the legal murder of November last.
After having exhausted all imaginable and unimaginable means for
maintaining the sentence of death, they wrote every day: "The death
clothes are sewn for the Anarchists." . . . "The rope to hang them has
been ordered. It has been handed over to the hangman." . . "Experiments
are made to ascertain its strength." Such was the news eagerly
communicated day by day to the readers, in a prominent place, by all the
leading papers, of New York and Chicago. "The rope supports such a
weight. It will do: the scoundrels will have become thinner when they
know that they will be hanged." "Too much philanthropy in all that,"
added a middle-class joker; "they, ought to be hung by a rope which
would break twice or thrice." "How best to hang them? All at once? Or by
twos? Whom first? Parsons and Spies? No; better Engel and Lingg first:
Spies is nervous, better let him suffer while his friends will be
suspended in space! " And so on, and so on every day!
True, the man coward is the most sanguinary of all beasts : the cannibal
reappears under the modern frock-coat and evening dress of those who
before had trembled for their smart clothes.
And all this was carefully brought under the notice of Spies and
Fischer, Parsons and Schwab, Engels, Lingg and Fielden.
But they remained calm. Until the morning of the 11th they were writing
letters and answering the numerous telegrams they were receiving.
Priests, calling themselves Christians, annoyed them with their
hypocritical words: they sent them away. Engels discussed Anarchy with
his warder. Fischer told to another that he had dreamed of his father's
house in Germany, and how be felt like a child again with all the
freshness of childhood. They sang the "Marseillaise" while the hangman
made' experiments with a new "scientific" trap on the scaffold.
And, when they were called for, they marched, quiet and firm, to their
death.
"Men and women of America," began Parsons, but his voice was stifled by
the white cap.
"This is the most beautiful moment of my life! Long live Anarchy!"
exclaimed Fischer. Engels loudly cried: "Hurrah for Anarchy!" and Spies
added :
"Our silence after death, comrades, will be more powerful than our
voices during life!"
Yes, their voices loudly speak from the grave, and call the workers to
continue the struggle for Freedom.
The courageous wife of Parsons, Lucy Parsons, has come to England and
will cheer English workers in their struggle for the emancipation of
mankind.