The Haymarket Riot

The Haymarket Riot is a very important event in the American workers’ history. I will present to you an article from the Omaha Bee newspaper from 6th of May 1886 which described the events from the previous days.

 Before I begin, I want to give a brief introduction to the social situation at the time. In 1877 the great railroad strike took place and it marked the beginning of a significant amount of unrest among the working class in the next years. The crisis at the time, the long working hours and the consistent reduction of wages, left the already poor workers in almost unbearable condition. The strikes were stopped with the help of the police and the people found themselves in the previous position. However, from that point the creation and participation in labour unions grew rapidly among the workers. Chicago became the centre of the Workings’ People Association at the time. One of our main protagonists Richard Parsons was part of the association.

The reasons for the riots

 The Haymarket riot is the reaction to an event that happened a day earlier- on 3rd of May when workers gathered in front of McCoormick Harvesting Machine factory for a demonstration and were eventually fired at by the police. Three men were killed and the people from the anarchist movement were outraged. The main questions at were about the working hour and the conditions of work, the police and state violence and many believed that the entire capitalist enterprise should be crashed. Although a law on the 8-hour working day was passed in 1869 it was highly ineffective due to the corruption in the authorities and the willingness of employers to always increase their profits. The laws did not benefit “ordinary people” but only rich industrials.

Flyers were printed out and a rally was organised for the very next day. In the first batch of flyers appeared the sentence Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force! But Spies insisted on removing it. As the police were trying to stop the rally a man threw a bomb and seven police officers were killed. After the event 8 men were convicted and four of them were executed- Spies, Parsons, Engel and Schwab. They became symbols of the struggle between capital and labour.

Anarchism movement

The role of the anarchists in very important during the strikes. Their philosophy shaped the format and the aims of the strikes. According to the Oxford dictionary anarchy comes from the Greek word anarkhia which means without a ruler, or contrary to authority. It is the political ideology that a state without government is the right state. It was the product of people’s disappointment with the severe inequalities between classes and the fact that the state gives privileges mostly to the rich.

The main characters in the event is Albert Parsons-who was resented and feared by the capitalists and who was editor in the Alarm newspaper. He was also taking active part during the Great Upheaval. He came from Alabama to Chicago with his wife who was an Afro- American.

August Spies was the editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung and one of the main targets of the local authorities.

• Pierre Joseph Proudhon- ‘’Property is theft” meaning an ownership that used exploitation over the employees and was protected by the state it’s laws and the police
• One of the speakers, Samuel Fielden, said that “A million men hold all the property in this country. The law has no use of the other fifty- four millions”

 The Outcome

8 men went to trial and 5 were sentenced to death. The defendants were hated by the police, the press and most of the society; the jury panel was very prejudiced and hostile to the defendants; the arrests and searches were often without a warrant. Some believed that the supplies for bombs that the police has found in Parson’s and Spies’ offices were staged. The interesting thing in this case is that at the end there was no one who was found truly responsible for throwing the bomb. In his defence Spies said that he was not involved in the bombing, but he was going to be executed because of his believes and that the whole ‘’conspiracy” was staged. The truth is that his rhetoric  was undoubtedly extreme and very influential.

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