A history of the Chicago events

Not many people know why May Day became
International Workers Day and why we should
still celebrate it. 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
there 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 give in to 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.

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.

The police attack

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".

Rigged 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 ben 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 may have 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 is
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

Over a century after that first May Day
demonstration in Chicago, where are we? 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,
proclaimed their ideals and celebrated their
successes.

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. Real
solidarity with fellow workers in struggle, not
a blinkered sectional outlook. We still need a
further reduction in working hours, without loss
of pay, to make work for the unemployed.

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.

This text is online as a PDF file so you can
print it out and distribute it at local
demonstrations.
 http://struggle.ws/about/mayday.htmll