The Haymarket
The Haymarket is an absolute tragedy in US history, there is no way around it. It is and should be considered one of the greatest failures in the US judicial system. The American Federation of Labor had declared an 8 hour work day to go in effect on May 1st 1886. There were large demonstrations around the country in support of the 8 hour work day. An “eight-hour agitation everywhere” was reported in labor weeklies. As is the nature of labor disputes, there was a backlash to this request coming down from on high.[1]
On May 3rd 1886, 6,500 workers gathered to hear a speech by August Spies, in which he espoused support and requested solidarity for the eight-hour work day. As the workers were leaving they ran into strikebreakers. The police showed up and attacked the workers killing one and injuring many. In response Spies called for a mass rally the next night.[2] There were many workers who identified themselves as anarchist during this time and many were involved in pushing the eight-hour day forward.
On May 4th 1886, a crowd gathered next to the Haymarket in Chicago. August Spies was the first speaker and he began at 8:30 pm. The rally was to express the worker’s grievances on the death and injury of their fellow workers. After rain began to fall and people began to disperse the mayor of Chicago left the rally and on his way home stopped by the police station and is reported to have described the rally as peaceful to the officers.[3] However as the workers began to leave the Haymarket around 10:30 another crowd crept in and surrounded them. The scene was described by a reported of the Chicago Herald in a story that ran on May 5th 1886.
“The silent marchers came nearer, until the gas lamps on Randolph street threw their flickering light upon them. Then a hundred stars and a thousand brass buttons flashed in the horizontal and perpendicular lines at the street intersections.”[4]
The police and some strikebreakers surrounded the workers and as they began to engage them a bomb was thrown from an alley. The identity of the bomb thrower has never been uncovered, some say it was a Pinkerton others say it was an anarchist. Regardless the police began firing on the crowd. The number of spectators that were wounded or killed by police fire has never been obtained, but many lay on the street when the dust settled. Seventy police officers were wounded and much of the damage was by friendly fire.[5]
There was public and police outrage against the anarchists and eight men were arrested and put on trial for the entire event; Spies, Parsons, Schwab, Fielden, Fischer, Engel, Lingg and Neebe. All were convicted even though the prosecution admitted there was no connection between the men and the bomb. Of the eight men on trial only three were in attendance at the rally and only two were present when the bomb was thrown. Nevertheless all eight were convicted; one to 15 years and 7 to death. In the end three men were hung at the gallows and one killed himself in jail. Four remained in prison until John P. Altgeld (the governor of Chicago) pardon all eight. The pardon ended Altgeld’s political career but it gave the innocence back to the eight rightfully innocent men, even though four had perished already.[6] The song’s impetus is the identity of bomb thrower.
The Haymarket
Tuesday evening in Chicago
Workers gathered at the Haymarket
They held a rally for the fallen
Of one day before
Three days prior, Albert Parsons
Led 80,000 on a march
And they demanded an eight-hour workday
In 1886
Back at the Haymarket the cops surrounded
All the workers who came out
In support of their murdered comrades
As August Spies spoke to the crowd
In support of the workers
He reassured everyone there of the rally’s peaceful purpose
And after all the words were spoken
Something flew from the night
Once a bomb falls from the sky
Guns will soon begin to fire
And so they did into the crowd they surrounded
Workers and Pinkertons, Policemen and Civilians
Haymarket, Haymarket who threw that bomb?
[1] Ed. Foner, Philip S. The Haymarket Autobiographies. (USA, Humanities Press Inc.: 1969), 2.
[2] Ibid, 5.
[3] Altgeld, John P. Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe & Schwab: The Haymarket Anarchists. (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company: 1986), 6.
[4] Ed. Kogan, Bernard R. The Chicago Haymarket Riot: Anarchy on Trial. (Boston, D.C. Heath and Company: 1959), 12.
[5] Ed. Foner, Philip S. Haymarket Autobiographies, 6.
[6] Altgeld, John P. Reasons for Pardoning, 5.
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