The first of May arrives, the great 8-hour strike is inaugurated. Forty thousand men are standing out for it in Chicago. Chicago is the stronghold of the movement, and 40,000 more threaten to join in the demand. An 8-hour mass-meeting is held on the Haymarket, Tuesday May 4. A bomb is thrown, several policemen killed, the leaders are arrested, indicted for conspiracy & murder & 7 of them sentenced to death. What's the result?
It worked as the monopolist press said it would. The labor leaders are "picked out and made such examples of as to scare the others into submission." Strikers were "summarily locked up. This method would undoubtably strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of the working classes.," said the Times.
The 8-hour strike is broken & the movement fell to pieces all over the country.
Commenting on the business situation on the 8th day of May, 1886, 4 days after the Haymarket tragedy, Bradstreet in his weekly review said, as telegraphed through the Ass. Press & published in all its Chicago papers, "Of the 325,000 men who struck for 8 hours about 65,000 have gained it. Chicago was the center of the strike but the movement all over the country has greatly weakened in the past few days.
Stocks were very much depressed the first two days of the week (the 3 & 4 of May the day of the McCormick & Haymarket trouble) but have recovered their strength the last days of the week." The 8-hour strike is practically ended, since the Haymarket affair in Chicago. The desired result was attained. Prices of stocks, bonds, etc. were restored. It was accomplished by the fatal Haymarket bomb.
Who threw that bomb? Who inspired its throwing? John Phillip Deluse, a saloonkeeper, living in Indianapolis Indiana makes an affidavit supported by the affidavits of three other men who were present & witnesses and heard it, (all four men well-known citizens of Indianapolis) & that a stranger stepped into his place on Saturday, May 1st with a satchel in his hand which he placed upon the bar while he ordered a drink. The stranger said he came from New York City & was on his way to Chicago. He spoke of the labor troubles, pointing to his satchel he said: "I have got something in here that will work. You will hear of it." Turning at the door as he went out he held up his satchel & pointing to it again said, "You will hear of it soon."
The prediction of this man came to pass. It was heard & heard round the world. The description of this man tallies exactly with that given by the Witness Burnett who saw him throw the bomb at the Haymarket.
The Leaders as well as many others not at the meeting of the Haymarket were arrested & punished, the others "scared into submission" and resulted as the New York Times said: viz. "This method will undoubtably strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of the working classes."
The conspiracy to bring about this result originated among the monopolists of New York City at Pinkerton's headquarters.
Was Police Inspector Bonfield, & States Attorney Grinnell a party to it? Was the millionaire "Citizens Association" of Chicago a party to it? They have I understand supplied unlimited sums of money to bring about our conviction. I solemnly believe all these men were either parties to the Haymarket tragedy or to the conspiracy for our conviction. This conclusion is irresistable when taken in connection with the admitted fact that to bring about our conviction the Constitution and the law has been ruthlessly trampled under foot.
Without fear or favor or reward I have given the untiring energies of the past ten years of my life to ameliorate, to emancipate my fellow wage slaves from their hereditary servitude to capital. I do not regret it; rather while I feel the satisfaction of duty performed, I regret my inability to have accomplished no more than I have done. During these ten years (from 1876-1886) I have traversed the states of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania & New York sometimes under the auspices and the direction of Knights of Labor at other times Trades Unions & Socialist organizations. Covering this space of time I have addressed probably a half-million workingmen & women, and organized or assisted in organizing many labor organizations. No man can say I have ever yet betrayed a trust, violated a pledge, or swerved from my conception of duty in the Labor movement.
I have worked for my living & supported myself since 12 years of age. I have made some enemies. My enemies in the South States consisted of those who oppressed the black-slave. My enemies in the North are among those who would perpetuate the slavery of the wage-slave. My whole life has been sober & industrious; was never under the influence of liquor, was never arrested for any offense, & voluntarily surrendered for trial in the present case. I married in 1872 and since 1873 have lived in Chicago with my family. In all my labors for the up-lifting & emancipation of the wage-worker I have had the earnest honest, intelligent, unflagging support of that grandest, noblest, bravest of women - my loving wife. We have two children; a boy of 7 years, & a girl 4 years old.
For free speech and the right of assembly five labor orators & organizers are condemned to die. For free press and free thought three labor Editors are sent to the scaffold. "These eight men," said the attorneys of the monopolists "are picked out by the grand jury because they are the leaders of thousands who are equally guilty with them and we punish them to make examples of them for the others." This much for opinions sake, for free thought, free speech, free press & public assembly. This Haymarket affair has exposed to public view the hideous enormities of capitalism & the barbarous despotism of government. The tragedy & the effects of it has demonstrated first; that government is power; and statute law is license, because it is privilege. It has shown the people - the poor - the wage-slaves - that law, statute law, is a privilege, & that privileges are for sale to those who can buy them. Government enacts law; the police, the soldiers & the jailors at the behest of the rich enforce it. Law is license. The whole earth & all it contains has been sold to a few who are thus authorized by statute law - licensed- to rob the many of their natural inheritance. Law is license. The few are licensed by law to own the land the machinery the houses, food, clothes & shelter of the people - whose industry; whose labor created them. Law is license; law - statue law - is the coward's weapon, the tool of the thief. By it humanity has ever been degraded & enslaved. By law mankind is robbed of its birthright, liberty transformed into slavery; life into death; & the fair earth into a den of thieves & murderers. The untold millions, the men, women & children of toil, the proletariat are by law deprived of their lives, their liberty & their happiness. Law is license.
Anarchy - natural law - is liberty. Liberty is the natural right to do what one pleases, bounded & limited only by the equal right of every one else to the same liberty. Privileges for none; equal rights for all. Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.
The trial, throughout was a travesty on justice. Every law natural & statute was violated in response to the clamor of the capitalist class. Every capitalist newspaper in the city, with one exception, called for our blood before the trial began, demanded our lives during the trial & since. A class jury, class law, class hate has done its work, we are its victims. Every juryman swore he was prejudiced against our opinions, we were tried for our opinions & convicted because of them. The jury according to its own statements since the verdict (they served nearly 2 months) entertained themselves each night with either card playing or they played the fiddle, the guitar, the piano, & "sang songs" & gave parlor recitations & theatricals. They had carriage rides at the expense of the people to one (#140) hundred & forty dollars, and their "grub" bill was #3.50 per day at a fashionable hotel, amounting to over #2,300. They had a fine time, a very pleasant & merry time. Mr. juryman Todd said he was a "clothing salesman and a Baptist." "Then" said he "this was a picked jury, they were all gentlemen." Of course, these gentlemen, who have a profound contempt for the vulgar dirty working classes had to bring a verdict befitting gentlemen. So highly appreciated was their verdict that Chicago millionaires proposed & so far as any one knows did contribute a purse of one hundred (#100,000) thousand dollars to this jury as a reward for their verdict. The jury has besides been lionized, wined, dined, banqueted, & given costly presents, & sums of money, since the rendering of their verdict. The influences which are at work forcing upon the people the Social Revolution arise out of the capitalist system. Necessity is the mother of invention; it is also the father of progress & civilization. The justification for the social revolution is recorded throughout all the pages of history. Our fathers proclaimed it in the Immortal Declaration, July 4th 1776 as follows:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers form the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT."
Will the coming revolution be a peaceable or violent one?
But now, when the workingmen of America refuse to "give their consent to be any longer governed" by the profit-mongers, labor exploiters, children slayers & home despoilers, they are at-once put down, & kept down by the strong arm of military power, against their will and without "their consent," in the name of "law & order."
It is against this barbaric use of force, this violation of every natural right, that Anarchists protest, and for protesting, die!
The only fact established by proof as well as by our own admission, cheerfully given before the jury, was that we held opinions and preached a doctrine that is considered dangerous to the rascality & infamies of the privileged, law-created-class known as monopolists, to whom with the prophets of old we say: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and sliver are cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you; and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasures together for the last days." - James v.1-3.