III.

Haymarket Rally Called to Protest Police Violence

A meeting was called at Haymarket Square on May 4 by a group of mainly German-born anarchist workers as a protest against police violence. Both Spies and Parsons addressed the rally, which drew about 3,000 workers. Parsons departed shortly after his speech. Chicago mayor Carter Harrison also attended the rally to ensure that it was peaceful. During Parsons’s speech, Harrison approached Chief Inspector John Bonfield and said the inspector could probably discharge some of the police units brought in as a reserve because the rally appeared to be peaceful. Harrison, too, then left the square.

The crowd dwindled to about 500 workers. The last speaker was Samuel Fielden, and during his speech the police attempted to disperse the meeting. In the ensuing riot a bomb was thrown. Police fired into the crowd. Seven policemen were killed and many injured; so were many civilians.

In the wake of the riot, Chief Inspector Bonfield told news reporters that the bombing was the result of an anarchist conspiracy. Newspapers around the country editorialized against the anarchists, and much of the opinion betrayed a distinctly anti-immigrant tone. The Chicago Times editorialized: “Let us whip these slavic wolves back to the European dens from which they issue.” The Chicago Tribune described the anarchists as “the worst elements of the Socialistic, atheistic, alcoholic European classes.” The Tribune wrote that the “enemy forces” consisted of the “scum and offal” and the “inhuman rubbish” of Europe, citing Germany and Bohemia in particular. The Tribune also used the occasion to editorialize against the general strike, which appeared to be spreading. But a massive police presence as a result of the riot and a new resolve among employers meant that the general strike for the eight-hour day began to wane. By May 15 most workers were returning to their jobs.

Chicago police had kept under surveillance a number of anarchists living on the city’s North Side. Following police raids on homes, labor meeting halls, and the offices of foreign-language and radical newspapers, the police discovered a bomb-making factory in a house on the North Side and sought to arrest an anarchist named Louis Lingg. Soon after, a grand jury indicted eight anarchists who had attended the protest in Haymarket Square. All eight were charged with being accessories to the crime, on the ground that they had publicly and frequently advocated violence.