Labors Martyrs | Page 3

in absolute peace.
One Chicago daily, the Mail, actually carried an editorial addressed directly to Parsons and Spies. It called them every vile name that the censorship would pass and stated that any disorder which might occur should be laid at their door.
In many industries the workers decided to stay out on strike after May 1. One of these was the McCormick Reaper Plant in Chicago. On May 3, August Spies was invited by the strike committee to address the pickets at the factory gate. Just as he finished speaking, the police charged down upon the assembled workmen with clubs and guns. First reports had it that six were killed outright and scores wounded. Chicago papers were quick to point out that only two had lost their lives!
Spies rushed back to the office of the German radical paper, the Arbeiter-Zeitung, of which he was the editor. Hastily he wrote up a leaflet denouncing the police attack, calling for revenge "if you are the sons of your grandsires who have shed their blood to free you." It ended with a dramatic call to arms, which Spies upon re-reading ordered stricken out. The typesetter left it in and at the Haymarket trial which followed it provided the prosecution with some of its most valuable ammunition in firing the hatred of the jury.
That same evening a committee of trade unionists decided to hold a protest meeting in the Haymarket Square in Chicago, on the night of May 4. Several thousands people attended. Spies opened the meeting and stated its purpose: to discuss the question of the eight-hour day and to protest the police shootings at the McCormick plant. Parsons, who had just returned to the city from a speaking tour was hurriedly sent for and rushed over with his wife, Lucy Parsons, and their two children, to lend a hand.
The speakers stood on an empty wagon for a platform and addressed the crowd for about two hours. Reporters covering the meeting, instructed to take down only the "most inflammatory" remarks made, testified from the witness stand at the subsequent trial as to the mildness of the speeches.
In the audience was the mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison, who was quickly satisfied by its peaceful nature and went in person to Police Captain Bonfield with instructions to call off police reserves and send his men home. They would not be needed.
Just as the last speaker, Samuel Fielden, was saying, "In conclusion----," a good part of the crowd had been driven home by rain which began falling when he started his speech--a squad of armed police descended upon the Haymarket Square. Mumbling orders for the crowd to disperse, they fell upon the assembled men and women with clubs and guns.
At that moment, someone--to this day unknown--threw a bomb into the midst of the meeting, killing one policeman outright and wounding scores of people.
These are the facts of the Haymarket meeting and the events which lead up to it. What the press made of it was the prelude to one of the rawest frame-up trials in American history.
All the leading radicals in the city were rounded up and arrested. Many more were indicted in their absence and heavy rewards were posted for their capture. Among these was Albert Parsons, who had left before the end of the meeting, and had fled to a safe hiding place when the man-hunt began. The newspapers from coast to coast, our worthy New York Times not excepted, howled for their blood, raved about an Anarchist plot to blow up Chicago, seize the government, murder, arson, pillage, rape--the whole program which William Randolph Hearst has made only too familiar to the American public.
On June 21, 1886, the trial began. Eight men were singled out as victims--August Spies, Albert Parsons, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab and Oscar Neebe. Efforts to postpone it until the hysteria had died down failed. The men who came forward to defend the Haymarket victims were conservative lawyers headed by one, Captain Black. Convinced of their innocence and enraged by the efforts to railroad them to the gallows, they did their best to provide adequate defense. But they had illusions about the justice available in the American courts. They planned, for instance, to have Parsons walk into the courtroom and surrender himself, asking for a fair trial! This they were sure would make a "good impression" on the judge and jury!
The judge, Judge Gary, gave one of the most shameful performances that this country has ever seen, and it has seen plenty from its judges. He helped choose the jury---to make sure it would convict. He questioned men who stated they had already formed an opinion about the case, had definite prejudices against Anarchists, Socialists and all radicals, were not certain they could render an