Left-Wing and the 'Other' History: The Haymarket Affair

The Haymarket Affair was one of the major turning points in labour and leftist history in the United States. An explosion at a labour rally in Chicago killing seven police officers and four civilians led to a red scare, and a deep lasting impact on the labour movement. Today we shall look at the Haymarket Affair, the background to the Affair, and the impact that it had on the American labour movement.

American Labour before 1886

The Knights of Labor's logo

Industrialisation in the United States resembled industrialisation elsewhere - workers had to work long hours in dangerous conditions in return for little pay. By 1890 12% of the American population owned 80% of the country's wealth; in contrast, during the 1880s 45% of workers earned barely enough to keep themselves above the poverty line. A fifty-nine hour work week was common for many industrial labourers, and the periodic economic depression, such as the devastating 'Panic of 1873', could cause instant unemployment. At a drop of a hat in the 1880s just under a third of workers faced the risk of unemployment. Labour leader Samuel Gompers once claimed that a manufacturer had once declared that, 'I regard my employés as I do a machine, to be used to my advantage, and when they are old and of no further use I cast them in the street'. It is hard to verify this claim, Gompers never stated which manufacturer stated this, but it is easy to see why these statement's may have been made. Following the end of the US Civil War in 1865 industrial production in the north boomed: 1874-1882 Bessemer steel ingot production jumped from 191,933 tons to 1,696,450; in Pennsylvania from 1875-1885 steel production rose from 148,374 to 1,109,034 tons; and the production of iron and steel rails doubled from 1874 to 1880. This expansion, when times were good, meant that jobs were in high demand - if you quit or could not keep up there was someone to take your place. Fairly often exploitation was incorrectly blamed on immigration. Factory owners hired desperate labourers from China, Europe, and Mexico who were willing to work for lower wages and longer hours in poorer working conditions; instead of blaming exploitative industrialists nativist workers, and labour organisers, blamed immigrants. Sections of the movement could be very antisemitic - August Spies blamed 'Jewish capital' on exploitation.

However, groups started emerging, primarily trade unions, to resist exploitation. As argued by Bruce Nelson, the American labour movement had no real history of labour agitation as their counterparts in Europe had. In 1878 a leftist publication named The Socialist argued that, 'With us there is no necessity for an appeal to arms involving a bloody revolution. We have a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution, and under them we have the right, now enjoyed for a century, of promolgating [sic] our ideas and of establishing a party in support of them'. US labour, consequently, had nativist and conservative streaks, and radical anarchist and Marxist streaks. While the International Workers of the World (IWW), formed in 1905, was co-founded by figures including Irish women, Jewish eastern Europeans, and a mixed-race woman, the Knights of Labor (KOL) supported the Chinese Exclusion Act. This diversity of ideology largely existed due to the diversity and size of the labour movement. The KOL had managed to get 700,000 members by the Haymarket Affair in 1886, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 managed to cripple several states, and the Molly Maguires (an Irish union) in Pennsylvania terrorised mine overseers. One thing that united all unions was the desire for an eight-hour work day, and that became the focus of the movement before 1886.

Chicago and Anarchism

In the industrial Chicago the labour movement naturally flourished. A multi-ethnic and polyglot crowd between 20,000 and 40,000 people came to the Exhibition Building in March 1879 to celebrate the anniversary of the Paris Commune. In 1880 40.7% of the population was foreign born - the overwhelming majority being German making up a third of the populace. Employment was also divided along nativity; white-collar jobs were dominated by those who were native-born whereas immigrants dominated blue-collar work. There was often little interaction between communities, the German-republican Illinois Staats-Zeitung in 1871 stated, 'Between the Germans and the Irish, the Germans and the Americans there is, on the whole, little social intercourse'. Following the crushing of the 1848 Revolution German radicals had fled to the US, and they brought with them their ideas. As early as 1854 Chicago's first socialist paper was founded, the German-language Der Proletarier, and by 1865 the First International had its own section in the city. Throughout the 1870s openly socialist parties had been formed in Chicago, and in 1883 the major socialist party, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, joined the anarchist International Working Peoples' Association (IWPA). The campaigns for an eight-hour work day were particularly strong in Chicago due to the vibrancy of the labour movement. 

Albert and Lucy Parsons

Anarchists were particularly prevalent in Chicago. We'll briefly look at some of the leading anarchists here. Two key figures was the husband and wife pair of Albert and Lucy Parsons. We know more about Albert's upbringing than Lucy - born in 1848 he was the youngest of a family of ten, and surprisingly he originally served as a Confederate soldier. Returning to civilian life he started criticising slavery, white supremacy, and secession after seeing Confederate general James Longstreet start supporting Reconstruction, his studies at Waco University, and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan. Opening a Radical Republican paper, The Spectator, he began campaigning for equality for whites and African-Americans. Meanwhile, Lucy Gonzalez was an orphan at the age of three, and took pride in her Mexican-Creek indigenous heritage - she once stated that 'I am one whose ancestors are indigenous to the soil of America' to a crowd of London socialists. However, she was regularly described as 'Negro' or 'mulatto' by papers in Waco and Chicago - her biographer Carolyn Ashbaugh concluded that Lucy was born a Texan slave. Regardless, Albert and Lucy rebelled against post-war white supremacy and married in Austin in 1872 - due to Lucy's indigenous ancestry they could marry. However, due to their politics they were forced to leave Texas for the north in 1873 - Albert's brother stated that 'He was practically a political exile. He had either to fight every day or leave'. Moving to Chicago they became heavily involved with the local labour movement.

August Spies

The Parsons were not the only important anarchists in 1880s Chicago. August Spies was born in Germany in 1855 but migrated to New York in 1872 when his father died. Working alongside other immigrants he realised that the 'Land of Opportunity' was severely flawed, and seeing police brutality against police meant that he fully embraced socialism. While in Chicago he became one of the major editors of the Chicago Arbeiter-Zeitung, and his disappointment with the Socialist Labor Party drew him to anarchism. Spies was not the only German to be active in the Chicago anarchist scene - Adolph Fischer from Bremen became one of Arbeiter-Zeitung's major contributors, Michael Schwab became the paper's deputy editor, Louis Lingg was an active union member, and, after his release from British prison in 1882, leading anarchist Johann Most arrived in the US. Although operating from New York Most built up ties with radical German emigres, such as Spies, in Chicago. Germans were not the only migrants to become active in the movement. English migrants weren't discriminated against as other migrants, but that did not prevent Samuel Fielden from engaging in workers' liberation. A Methodist pastor he became the treasurer for the International Working Men's Association, and wrote for the Arbeiter-Zeitung.

The Haymarket Affair

The Arbeiter-Zeitung's call to the rally

In 1885 the powerful iron moulders union had threatened a strike at the McCormick plant; the plant owners brought in private police and strikebreakers, including the infamous Pinkertons, to clash with the union. Fearing a costly clash, the mayor and major business leaders got the company to settle on the union's terms - this peace lasted until February when the introduction of new machinery weakened the union. This emboldened the company to announce that the factory would operate on a nonunion basis causing a new strike. On May 3, 1886 four strikers were killed by police enraging the labour movement. Already the unions were emboldened thanks to May Day. Two years prior it was decided that on May 1 a general strike would occur across the country to protest for an eight-hour workday - in Chicago Albert and Lucy Parsons had led a march of 80,000 in favour of this. The strike and protests had been peaceful, so August Spies was disgusted upon seeing the one-sided violence. He published a leaflet denouncing the murder, but his compositor, Hermann Pudewa, added 'Revenge' to the text without consulting Spies. Published in English and German (although not the other major language Czech) it read:

Revenge! Workingmen to Arms!!! Your masters sent out their bloodhounds - the police... They killed them to show you, 'Free American Citizens', that you must be satisfied and contented with whatever your bosses condescend to allow you, or you will get killed!

The German edition was even more direct calling for 'Slaves... avenge the atrocious murder that has been committed upon your brothers today and which will likely be committed upon you tomorrow'. Schwab in Arbeiter-Zeitung wrote that 'The war of the classes is at hand. Yesterday workingmen were shot down in front of McCormick's factory, whose blood cries out for revenge!'. The next day, May 4, at 8.15 PM at the Haymarket several speakers arrived to speak for a crowd of over 2,000, however, the speakers believed a lot more would come. Spies gave the first speech, in English, saying 'There seems to prevail the opinion in certain quarters that this meeting has been called for the purpose of inaugurating a riot, hence these warlike preparations on the part of so-called "law and order". However, let me tell you at the beginning that this meeting has not been called for any such purpose. The object of this meeting is to explain the general situation of the eight-hour movement and to throw light upon various incidents in connection with it'. Despite starting radical Spies' speech toned down his rhetoric, and Albert Parsons followed him declaring that the only hope of workers was with socialism. The Haymarket rally remained peaceful. Even the mayor, Carter Harrison, felt safe enough to be in the crowd; this may have been as he was more pro-union compared to past mayors. Parsons, in his speech, even denounced attacking individuals. When he mentioned railway speculator Jay Gould causing someone to yell 'Hang Him!' Parsons responded by stating, 'This is not a conflict between individuals, but for a change of system, and socialism is designed to remove the causes which produce the pauper and the millionaire, but does not aim at the life of the individual...Kill Jay Gould, and like a jack-in-a-box another or a hundred others like him will come up in his place under the existing social conditions'.

The type of bomb used at Haymarket

Shortly after 10 PM when Parsons finished his speech Samuel Fielden started his own speech, and the mayor started to head home with other members of the crowd. Parsons, Lucy, their children, and French anarchist Lizzie Holmes even started backing out of the limelight. As Fielden's speech was seen as being more inflammatory, the police decided to close the rally down. However, disaster struck. As Fielden stepped down from the stand a bomb flew over their heads and into the ranks of the police. The bomb was so powerful that windows were shattered for blocks around. Henry Spies reportedly asked 'What's that?' for August to reply 'A cannon, I believe'. Mayor Harrison had been getting ready for bed when the bomb went off and he originally thought a thunder storm had broken out. The startled police started firing their pistols adding to the casualties. Sixty-seven casualties came from the Haymarket Affair - seven officers were killed (most died of their wounds days later), four civilians were killed, and the rest were injured. According to Paul Avrich, most of the injuries had been thanks to the shots fired by frightened police officers. The Chicago Tribune had even stated that the police had been 'Goaded to madness' and were 'unable to distinguish between the peaceable citizen and the Nihilist assassin'. Despite the bomb, in the words of Avrich, 'it was the police and not the anarchists who were the perpetrators of the violence at Haymarket'.

After the Bomb

Drawings of the seven sentenced to death

A red scare erupted after the Haymarket 'Riot'. It was made worse thanks to nativist, anti-immigrant hysteria - ironic considering that the same year the Statue of Liberty was erected in New York. Germans and Bohemians were directly blamed for the violence and subjected to increased police repression. Of the eight who were arrested for the bombing seven were immigrants - showing anti-German hysteria six of them were German. We still do not know who was behind the bomb. Parsons and the Workmen's Advocate believed an agent provocateur was behind the bomb in order to destroy the eight-hour movement, the Advocate proclaimed 'that the bomb was thrown by a Pinkerton'. The police, and recently historian Timothy Messer-Kruse, blamed anarchist Rudolph Schnaubelt, the brother-in-law of Michael Schwab, who later fled to avoid arrest. Meanwhile, the police was arresting anarchists and raiding pro-eight-hour movement offices. The Arbeiter-Zeitung was one such to be raided. Eight anarchists were put on trial for being accessories to the murder. They were: Albert Parsons, Samuel Fielden, Adolph Fischer, Michael Schwab, August Spies, militant radical George Engel, Arbeiter-Zeitung writer Oscar Neebe, and known bomb-maker Louis Lingg. Of those put on trial, only two were present at Haymarket that night, and Neebe was even having a cards game night when the bomb went off. Their trial was done in an atmosphere of prejudice where the judge showed open hostility, and the media whipped up anti-immigrant frenzies. 

All eight anarchists were declared guilty, where seven were sentenced to death, and Neebe to fifteen years. This outraged the labour movement worldwide drawing condemnation from figures as widespread as the writer Oscar Wilde to playwright George Bernard Shaw. Appeals were made and the governor decided to reduce Fielden's and Schwab's executions to life imprisonment, and Lingg commit suicide on November 10 via a smuggled explosive. On 'Black Friday', November 11 1887, the four remaining individuals - after saying bye to their families and singing Marseillaise - were executed via hanging. In 1893 the progressive German-born John Peter Altgeld was elected governor of Illinois, and he was very sympathetic to the labour movement. According to leading anarchist Mother Jones, Altgeld 'committed political suicide by his brave action' of pardoning the three remaining Haymarket anarchists. In his own words, he described them as victims of 'hysteria, packed juries, and a biased judge'. 

Aftermath and Legacy

Parsons in later life

Thanks to the Haymarket Affair the eight men were martyred, the 'Haymarket Martyrs', and they became the symbols of the labour movement. The Haymarket Affair initially weakened the labour movement. Middle-class support for workers and anarchism started to diminish as it was seen as being by foreign, violent, radicals. Police captain Michael Schaak, who had been in charge of the investigation of the bomb-throwing, in 1889 wrote Anarchy and Anarchists accusing anarchists of being as bloodthirsty and foreign to generate hatred to both anarchists and immigrants. The somewhat conservative KOL saw most of its members leave, so much so that the Panic of 1893 resulted in the destruction of the union. However, the blatant abandonment of judicial process divided American society and enabled the martyrdom of the eight. Lucy Parsons remained a very significant figure in the labour movement, and she joined with other leading leftists, including James Connolly whom we saw when we looked at the Easter Rising, to form the IWW. Unions managed to shake the nation during the 1892 Homestead Strike and the 1894 Pullman Strike, however, Altgeld's support of both the Pullman strikers and the Haymarket martyrs made conservative opponents smear him. Future president Theodore Roosevelt said that he 'condones and encourages the most infamous of murderers' and 'would substitute for the government of Washington and Lincoln a red welter of lawlessness and dishonesty as fantastic and vicious as the Paris Commune'. Regardless, the Haymarket Affair remained a key point of reference for the American Left. Lucy Parsons ensured that the labour movement continued, and through the twentieth century Chicago has continued its history of radical politics.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984)

-Bruce Nelson, Beyond the Martyrs: A Social History of Chicago's Anarchists, 1870-1900, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988)

-Leon Stein and Philip Taft, (eds.), The Accused and the Accusers: The Famous Speeches of the Eight Anarchists in Court, (New York, NY: Arno Press, 1970)

-'The Haymarket Tragedy', in Mother Mary Jones, The Autobiography of Mother Jones, 1925, Marxists.org

-Philip Foner, (ed.), The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs, (New York, NY: Humanities Press, 1969)

-Henry David, The History of the Haymarket Affair: A Study in the American Social-Revolutionary and Labor Movements, (New York, NY: Russell and Russell, 1936)

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