A Non-Native Movement?

Hello all, this continuing issue of the Haymarket Blog features a look at the conversation that exists between different historians regarding the events through out the first week of May, 1886, in Chicago. There are, obviously, many different accounts written by historians about this important time period in American history. The various sources that contributed to the ideas in this blog and represent some of the different angles that historians have utilized to better understand this event and the movement that it represented. The sources utilized for the information of this blog are Paul Avrich's "The Haymarket Tragedy", "Beyond the Martyrs" by Bruce C. Nelson, "All-American Anarchist, Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement" by Carlotta R. Anderson, an excerpt from James Green's, "Remembering Haymarket: Chicago's Labor Martyrs and Their Legacy", details from the website of The Chicago Historical Society, a look into the ideas of "State Socialism and Anarchism" by Benjamin R Tucker and, finally, "The Autobiographies of The Haymarket Martyrs".
A very common historical judgment of what happened at Haymarket Square and after is that injustice was served to the Anarchist movement leaders. This is typical in most accounts written. It is important to understand that the person responsible for the deadly bomb was never found. Furthermore, many of the leaders indicted were not even present at the legal demonstration at Haymarket. Of the defendants, Albert R. Parsons, August Spies (pronounced Spees), Samuel J Fielden, Michael Schwab, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, and Oscar Neebe, only Spies, Parsons, and Fielden were present at the rally (Foner 8). Thus, historians commonly report that the men were not on trial for the act of murder but for the ideas of Anarchy they represented and the resultant murder that it caused.
What becomes important in the study of this time period goes beyond the injustice served to the martyrs. What historians have discovered about the cause of the labor movement in Chicago and the first American "Red Scare" sheds light on early American radicalization. There are many reasons why Chicago was one of the focal points of working party agitation in the late nineteenth-century. Chicago, during this time period, was a tremendous boom town. The presence of a new industrial society, in the same equation with the opportunistic location of Chicago, resulted in historic immigration. "Beyond the Martyrs" focuses on these industrialization ideals and the ethnic make-up of the immigrants in understanding the rise of the working party in Chicago. In this book it is suggested that the tremendous ethnic variety of the immigrants led to shared experiences of alienation (Nelson 24). The struggles of the lower working class led to an identification with class status more than an association with ethnicity (Nelson 24). Furthermore, Nelson suggests that the concentration of German immigrants, first and second generation Germans equaled 33 per cent of the city, led to an influx of Socialist ideas, imported across the Atlantic, consequently published in the various ethnic newspapers in Chicago (Nelson 17). Additionally, the drastic ebb and flow of the work cycle resulting in various depressions, one 1873-1878, and 1882 through 1886, produced sustenance problems. In 1885, it is reported that "39 percent of the working classes were in enforced idleness." (Nelson 13). What this resulted in was a huge separation of wealth and a situation ripe for various, separate types of ethnicity to come together in labor dispute.
So then, why did America get caught up in a frenzy that resulted in the execution of the movements leaders and the failure of the eight hour labor movement. First of all, the public perception was influenced by many different outlets. In a time period where communication was limited, newspapers had the distinct power to influence many. Paul Avrich states, "The press, as extracts indicate, was bitterly one-sided in its reports of the incident." and "Throughout the country newspapers and journals called for severe reprisals." (Avrich 217). A quote from the St. Louis Globe Democrat says, "There are no good Anarchists except dead Anarchists." (Avrich 217). Additionally, Theodore Roosevelt, is quoted as stating that his cowboys "would like a chance with rifles at Chicago's unruly mobs." (Avrich 218). So the public was caught in a frenzy for revenge. The idea that socialism was considered foreign and attributed to immigrants furthers this cause.
The irony of the perception that Socialism and Anarchism is a foreign invention begs a little research in itself. First of all, the leader of the Anarchist movement, a confederate soldier, Albert Parsons, happens to be as American as they come. His many American descendants fought in the major U.S. wars, including the Revolutionary war (Foner 27 - 28). Another testament to Socialism and Anarchism being native to American soil, from the words of Benjamin Tucker who was the founder and editor of one of America's most famous periodicals Liberty, is that the economic ideas of Socialism originate briefly in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations, but, are pronounced more soundly by an American, Josiah Warren (Tucker 12 - 13). It is from these ideas that the Frenchman Pierre J. Proudhon and the German Karl Marx developed their point of view (Tucker 13). Thus, in contrast to the popular opinion of the American press and the profiting elite, socialism can be considered an American and European creation.
The disruptions to profit and productivity that the various labor parties caused are understandably the reasons that the elitist of the country were interested in developing a mass frenzy about the horrors of Anarchism and Socialism. The tenets of Anarchism run directly counter to the ideas of a Capitalistic society. In fact, the process of making profit off another man's work is the idea that is divergent between the two systems. Anarchism features the idea that "the only reason why the banker, the stockholder, the landlord, the manufacturer, and the merchant are able to exact usury from labour lies in the fact that they are backed by legal privilege, or monopoly; and that the only way to secure to labour the enjoyment of its entire product, or natural wage; is to strike down monopoly." (Tucker 13). The fact that the tenets of this movement seek to completely destroy the status quo of the American capitalistic system is the fuel for the anti-labour party fire of late nineteenth century America. In the words of Karl Marx' Communist Manifesto, "Let the ruling classes tremble." (Anderson 47).
The effects the Haymarket Affair had on the labor movements were severe. The death and injury caused by the one anonymous toss of a bomb stalled the movement for an eight hour workday as well as drastically decreased the relevancy that various labor unions had. Capitalism took on more steam as the nineteenth century wore on culminating in the huge corporations of the turn of the century such as the Carnegie, Morgan steel enterprise. The effect on American public opinion, against various strains of communism was obvious in the McCarthy scares of the 50s, as well as the general feeling against the Soviet's communism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Carlotta R., All American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement (Detroit: Wayne State University Press,1998).
Avrich, Paul, The Haymarket Affair (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984).
Green, James, Remembering Haymarket: Chicago's Labor Martyrs and Their Legacy,in Taking History to Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000).
Foner, Philip S., ed. The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs (New York: Pathfinder, 1993).
Nelson, Bruce C., Beyond the Martyrs: A Social History of Chicago’s Anarchists 1870 - 1900 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988).
Tucker, Benjamin R., State Socialism and Anarchism, and other Essays (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles Publisher Inc., 1972).

Those Darn Hooligans!!

Under a sky that was showing promise of rain, during the first week of May, now notoriously reserved for observations and celebrations of the working class, Chicago became one window by which the American public views the struggle of the working element. On the front page of the Chicago Daily Tribune dated May, 5, 1886, the story of the previous days' melee is displayed. The obvious conservative view point of the report is important to notice. The police officers names and injuries were the first topics reported in the article, ideally they are the heroes of the situation. Second in the column, was the title "Incendiary Speech". The paper offers that "A rabid character, Sam Feldman" gave the speech. The speech placed the culpability of the problems between worker and boss on the latter. Feldman states, "The Socialist's are not going to declare war; but I tell you war has been declared upon us." To an applauding crowd he furthermore states, "I know you have [resistance] too. You have been robbed. You will be starved into a worse situation."(1.) According to the story this is the point when the police began to edge its line formation down Displaines Street toward the rally. An unseen person, allegedly an anarchist, launched the bomb from the crowd towards the police officers. When it exploded a melee began that would last the day.
The Chicago Daily Tribune served as the news wire for this event and is responsible for the light in which American Society viewed the participants.
An eventful beginning of May in Chicago sprouted from the demand for an eight hour work day. According to the Chicago Daily Tribune the Lumber Hands joined together and refused to work. The paper states, "The way things looked yesterday in the lumber district it seems that the strikers will be left out until starved into submission or until angry housewives and starving children force them to resume work."(2) The paper further states that few of the strikers are part of the highly organized Knights of Labor. The descriptions of the strikers proposed by this article are important to note. It describes the protesters as a "blood thirsty mob of anarchists." They "marched through the streets with an American flag turned upside down and two flaunty rags that had just been soaked in fresh blood. The crowd consisted of Bohemians and Poles and presented a solemn appearance. Not a Knight of Labor was among them."(3) The fact that the Knights of Labor, a somewhat respected labor party, is noted as not being responsible for the riot is one way in which the paper demonstrates the aggressors' unattractiveness. The allusion to the angry housewives and starving children is obviously another effort to label the protesters as inhumane and wrong. This tone persists throughout the descriptions of the weeks events.
For the Chicago Tribune the journalistic prejudice is not born in 1886. For example, on December 25, 1873 the paper has an article entitled "Our Communists." On Christmas day the paper felt it should give a brief sketch of the socialist movement. The column describes the movement as an affront to private property. It prints a copy of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which describes history of man as a warring of classes.(4) The mood of the article is obvious in the following statement, "The Internationalist, or Socialists, in this country are but recent growth, but in Europe they have been agitating for years, and the outrages by the Communists, who sprang from the Socialists, ...are still in everybody's minds, and it is but natural that our citizens should look with dread upon the demonstrations made this week (1873) under the auspices of such men."(5) This is another example of the viewpoints proposed by the journalistic columns of the Chicago Daily Tribune.
This momentous week in Chicago had various protests daily. Among these strikers included railway workers, machinists, lumberers, and women. A riotous mob was gathering strikers as it walked the city. Commonly, the police were involved and directly confronted strikers, protesters, and finally rioters. Starting with the first protests, "Police will be disposed about the city at points where trouble is thought most likely to occur, and others will be held to act at a moments notice. The entire force will be on active duty until a more settled condition of things exists."(6) For places of employment through out the town where workers wanted to work officers were supplied to help to maintain peace. The Michigan Central Road expected no problem from its workers, nevertheless, Chief Ebersold "intended to give them police protection against any intimidation from strikers of other roads." (7) Some detectives were even called on to replace striking workers. (8). Ideally, the confrontation between the police and the protesters embodied the professed confrontation between the working classes and capital, of the era, that the organizations wanted to draw attention to.
This momentous time period illustrates America's fascination with anti-socialism that would proliferate into the following century. Anarchy's central station in Chicago coupled with the Bohemian make-up of the city married the ideal with immigrants. According to the 1884 school census of the city a third of the population was German.(9).
The displays of violence and antagonism from the strikers of Chicago and throughout the country resulted in failure. The mass media as well as the opinion of main-stream America became afraid of the movement and the people behind it. This is evident in the rather quick trial and sentencing of the leaders of the Anarchist movement in Chicago. This reaction of the public and the political fallout resulting from it should be considered as America's first red scare.

The purpose of this blog will continue on this theme of prejudicial trends of the American public influenced by popular media, whether the protesting characters should be considered heroes or terrorists, and why the Haymarket events should be considered the First Red Scare.

SOURCES
1. The Chicago Daily Tribune, Front Page-no title, May 5, 1886.
2. The Chicago Daily Tribune, "A Storm of Strikes", May 2, 1886.
3. ibid.
4. The Chicago Daily Tribune, "Our Communists", December 25, 1873.
5. ibid.
6. The Chicago Daily Tribune, "A Storm of Strikes", May 2, 1886.
7. The Chicago Daily Tribune, "Will Work Unless Prevented", May 3, 1886.
8. ibid.
9. Nelson, Bruce, "Beyond the Martyrs", {Rutgers University Press}, 1988, p. 16.

Introduction to Haymarket Blog

Hello all,

I am M. C., a history major at UNLV. This blog that I am introducing looks to investigate the many important ideas and theories regarding the Haymarket Riots in Chicago in 1886. The fact that the title of this event bears so many names demonstrates the many viewpoints it encompasses. The situation that occurred in Chicago, on May 5, 1886, is referred to as the Haymarket Tragedy, Affair, Riot, Bombing, Massacre, Melee, and Event. Likewise, the characters of this event are labeled either criminals/terrorists or martyrs. The ambiguity of historical account of this topic make it relevant and interesting. The Haymarket Bombing is very likely the first American Red Scare.