COSTS OF INDUSTRIALISM

Transcription

1 HAYMARKET AFFAIR

2 COSTS OF INDUSTRIALISM Gulf between haves and have nots growing larger due to the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution By 1890 nearly 80% of the Nation s wealth was controlled by just 10% of the population. Nearly 50% of American industrial workers lived below the poverty line. For most industrial laborers, working life meant long hours of toil for little pay and few benefits.

3 LABOR MOVEMENT Demanding the right to share in the country s prosperity, some workers organized labor unions.

4 CHRONOLOGY "Haymarket Affair" is a convenient term of reference for a controversial series of events that occurred in Chicago during the years 1886 and Some of the events and the circumstances surrounding them are disputed or not fully understood. The identity of the bomber has never been established for certain. The events that are generally agreed to belong to the narrative of Haymarket are: May 1, Coordinated strikes and demonstrations are held nationwide, to demand an eight-hour workday for industrial workers. May 3, McCormick Reaper Works factory strike; unarmed strikers, police clash; several strikers are killed.

5 CHRONOLOGY Evening of May 4, A meeting of workingmen is held near Haymarket Square; police arrive to disperse the peaceful assembly; a bomb is thrown into the ranks of the police; the police open fire; workingmen evidently return fire; police and an unknown number of workingmen killed; the bomb thrower is unidentified. May 5-6, Widespread public outrage and shock in Chicago and nationwide; police arrest anarchist and labor activists, including seven of the eight eventual defendants (Albert Parsons fled the city only to surrender himself on June 21).

6 CHRONOLOGY May The grand jury indicts 31, charged with being accessories to the murder of policeman Mathias J. Degan; eight are chosen to stand trial: Albert Parsons, August Spies, Oscar Neebe, Louis Lingg, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden. June 21, July 15, Jury selection commences; 981 citizens are questioned during the voir dire process; the resultant panel of twelve are largely businessmen, clerks or salesmen; the jurors, like the public at large, hold preconceived notions about the defendants' connection to the bombing.

7 CHRONOLOGY July 16, August 11, Trial testimony begins; 227 testify including 54 members of the Chicago Police Department and the defendants Fielden, Schwab, Spies and Parsons; the defendants are prosecuted not as perpetrators but as responsible for instigating the violence; a guilty verdict and death sentence are considered inevitable. August 19, The jury convicts the defendants and sentences Neebe to fifteen years in the penitentiary and the others to death by hanging. October 7, 8, 9, The convicted deliver speeches to the court before sentencing. October 9, Judge Gary delivers his speech and the final decision.

8 CHRONOLOGY March Legal counsel for the convicted appeal the case to the Illinois Supreme Court. September 14, Illinois Supreme Court upholds rulings and verdict. November 2, The U.S. Supreme Court denies an appeal, despite an international campaign for clemency. November 10, Louis Lingg commits suicide in his jail cell. November 11, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fischer are executed. November 12, Fielden and Schwab are transported to Joliet Prison where they join Oscar Neebe.

9 CHRONOLOGY November 13, In Chicago, the funeral procession of Lingg, Parsons, Spies, Engel, and Fischer in Chicago is witnessed by 150, ,000 people. June 26, Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld pardons Neebe, Fielden, and Schwab.

10 WORKINGMEN TO ARMS!

11 ANARCHISM In an letter to the editor (1885) of a Chicago anarchist newspaper called The Alarm it read: Dynamite! Of all the good stuff, this is the stuff. Stuff several pounds into an inch pipe in the immediate neighborhood of a lot of rich loafers and light the fuse. A most cheerful and gratifying result will follow. [It] beats a bushel of ballots all hollow, and don t you forget it. A year later, during a labor rally in Chicago s Haymarket Square, someone threw a bomb that killed or fatally wounded seven policemen. Two of The Alarm s editors and two others were hanged despite the fact that no concrete evidence connected them in any way to the actual offense.

12 TERRORISM Anarchists argued that government was in itself an oppressive device used by the rich and powerful to rob the toiling masses. All anarchists hoped for the eventual disappearance of the state, but some believed that the process could be quickened by calling the toiling working class to revolution. Some anarchists advocated the use of antiestablishment violence that would expose the vulnerability of the ruling classes. Many foreign-born prolabor activists favored propaganda of the deed.

13 HYSTERIA Though no one knew who was responsible for the bomb, blame was cast upon anarchists, and the belief grew that these individuals represented a foreign conspiracy that was attempting to destroy the nation. Politicians and industrial capitalists used the Haymarket riot and the public s fear of the anarchists to help destroy the burgeoning labor movement. Eight agitators were rounded up after the Haymarket bombing and charged with being accessories to murder. The trial was conducted by a blatantly biased judge in a hostile atmosphere, for the overwhelming majority of Americans feared radicals. They despised the foreign savages, desperate fanatics, and pirates who deserved to be repressed, swiftly, sternly and without parley.

14 FELONS OR SCAPEGOATS? Seven men were sentenced to death, and one to jail. One committed suicide in his cell Nov. 10, Governor Richard Oglesby commuted the sentence of two more to life imprisonment. The other four died on the gallows. Six years later, Governor John P. Altgeld pardoned the three survivors in an act of courageous political suicide. Despite the real but limited threat of anarchist violence, the Haymarket eight were treated unfairly under the law.

15 HAYMARKET FIVE

16 NATIVISM Support for the labor movement weakened by the violence of the 1886 strikes ( Great Upheaval yr. of intense, violent clashes). Throughout the 1890s the government sided with business against labor unions (e.g. Homestead Strike & Pullman Strike) Although the U.S. has always portrayed itself as a sanctuary for the world s victims of oppression and poverty, nativism and intolerance have pervaded most of our nation s history. Immigration and nativism pervade American history with roughly equal persistence. The Haymarket Affair was America s first red scare. Nativists fears of immigrants and radicals lingered for years; triggered national wave of fear in equating foreign birth with anarchism and terror. Fear: immigrants brought European radicalism to foment labor unrest.

17 XENOPHOBIA