The origins of May Day

[Joe Black]

       The Origins of May Day

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.


---  
To distribute the text where you are go to 
http://struggle.ws/about/mayday.html 
where you will find PDF files of a leaflet and 
a poster


******************************
Struggles in Ireland
http://struggle.ws

International Anarchism
http://struggle.ws/inter.html

Zapatista Index
http://struggle.ws/zapatista.html

____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1