Da Bomb

Just read a review of book about the Haymarket Riot. Can't say much about James Green's actually book ("Death in the Haymarket") since the reviewer forgot to say whether he liked it or not, but I learned some interesting things about an event I had heard of, but was unclear on the specifics.

The Haymarket Riot occurred in Chicago on May 4th, 1886. The meeting was intended to be a protest about a striker who had been shot by the police the day before. Things were tame until a speaker's language became more incendiary. 180 police descended on the rally to break it up and were met with a bomb, killing 7 police and 4 citizens. 8 anarchist's were tried, 7 receiving death sentences and 1 life.

2 aspects of this event really stood out to me. The first was just how revolutionary the worker's movement was at the time. They spoke about violence often and were very intrigued by the potential of the latest invention, dynamite. The words that instigated police action were Fielden saying, "'The law is your enemy. Keep your eye on it, throttle it, kill it, stab it, do everything you can to wound it.'" These were men who grew up in the aftermath to the Civil War and many foresaw a next epic battle coming, between labor and capitol. They even had agreed on a secret code word (Ruhe) whose placement in their newspaper's letter page signaled it was time to seize the city.

But what really stood out to me was how preposterous the sentences were. Only 2 of the 8 were even at Haymarket when the bomb was thrown and none were actually thought to be the bomber, who would never be caught. Instead they were given death sentences solely for their rhetoric and its potential to cause a riot. As the Judge of the case later said, "They incited, advised, encouraged the throwing of the bomb that killed the policemen, not by addressing the bomb-thrower specially... But by general addresses to readers and hearers.'" Inciting a write generally? It seems that it was the sign of the times, as the St. Louis Globe-Democrat wrote, "The only good anarchist is a dead anarchist."

The Governor would reduce 2 of the sentences to life (making 3 total) and those 3 would later be pardoned. And, 1 of the Haymarket 8 would get a jump on things by blowing himself up in jail. But on November 11th 1887 Parsons, Spies, Fischer, and Engel sang the "The Workers' Marseillaise" together and then were hung.