revolutionary teachings. Thus we find that at a labour demonstration which the socialists organised in August, 1883, only a few German trade unions, the typographical, the furniture workers, and the house carpenters, besides the Lehr und Wehr Verein officially participated. Nor, apparently, did any trade union. avail itself prior to 1884 of the invitation to send delegates to the central committee of the Black International. However, the advent of depression radically altered the situation. In February, 1884, the local Progressive Cigar Makers' Union held a mass meeting to discuss the comprehensive programme for labour legislation recommended to the legislature by Governor McLane of Maryland. Thomas J. Morgan and Waltheich, members of the Socialist Labor party, spoke in favour of the programme, and Spies and Grottkau against it. The latter secured the adoption of a resolution which declared "that the only means whereby the emancipation of mankind can be brought about is the open rebellion of the robbed class in all parts of the country against the existing economic and political institutions." 88

The same union took the initiative in organising a new progressive central trade union body. In June, 1884, it issued a call to the unions in the city to secede from the conservative Amalgamated Trades and Labor Assembly and to form a central labour union with a progressive policy. The German unions of metal workers, carpenters and joiners, cabinet makers, and butchers sent delegates. At first the growth of the new central body was slow. One year after its formation the majority of the trade unions in the city were still affiliated with the old central body, but towards the end of 1885 the strength of` the rival bodies became considerably less uneven the Central Labor Union having 13 unions, mostly German, some of which, however, were the largest in the city, and the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Assembly counting 19 affiliated unions.

From the time of its formation the Central Labor Union was on exceedingly friendly terms with the central committee of the Black International and took part in the processions which the latter organised from time to time. In June, 1884, the following trade unions participated in such a procession

88 Chicago Vorbote, Feb. 20, 1884.

and listened to speeches by Parsons: custom tailors, Typographical No. 9, carpenters, tanners, butchers, cabinet makers, and Progressive Cigar Makers.89 In October the Central Labor Union adopted a declaration of principles, which, starting out with the assertion that land is a social heritage, that labour creates all wealth, that there can be no harmony between capital and labour, and that strikes as at present conducted by trade unions are doomed to fail, declared that it was "the sacred duty of every workingman to cut loose from all capitalist political parties and to devote his entire energy to his trades or labour union .. in order to stand ready to resist the encroachment by the ruling class upon our liberties." The recommendation to cut loose from politics and to devote their entire energy to the trade or labour union meant something very different from a return to "pure and simple " trade unionism. This is evidenced by the fact that at a public debate held between the Central Labor Union and its rival, the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Assembly, the former openly took its position with the Black International.90

Many of the individual trade unions went even further. The officers of the carpenters' and joiners' union admitted, in reply to an attack in the New York Der Sozialist, that but few of its 368 members were not anarchists. This union had been formed in October, 1884, with 40 members, as a rival to the regular union affiliated with the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. It became the nucleus of an attempted international union intended to be an extremely decentralised organisation, in accordance with the anarchistic aversion to centralised power.91 As seen above, a similar union was established by metal workers, of whom, in addition, a considerable number formed themselves into an Armed Section of the Metal Workers' Union of Chicago, with the object to "prepare for the revolution by learning how to use arms." 92 The headquarters, however, of the revolutionary metal workers' movement were not in Chicago, but in St. Louis. 93

89 Ibid., July 2, 1884.

90 The Alarm, Feb. 7, 1885. The Socialist Labor party members remained with the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Assembly.

91 Chicago Vorbote, Mar. 4, 1885, and May 20, 1885.

92 Ibid., June 23, 1885. See above, II, 297, 298. A revolutionary cigar makers' union was formed in the same month.

93 In St. Louis a Central Labor Union,

During the summer and autumn of 1885 the principal activity of the Chicago Central Labor Union was agitational. It conducted mass meetings and processions. On the Sunday preceding Labor Day, it organised a grand march to offset the Labor Day parade of the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Assembly, which had secured Mayor Harrison and the labour congressman, Martin A. Foran, as speakers. The number of participants at the revolutionary parade was estimated at 10,000,94 but this figure is doubtless strongly overdrawn, since the daily papers in Chicago made no mention of it. Indeed, the revolutionary movement did not become a matter of general public attention until Thanksgiving Day of 1885, when a great parade occurred at Chicago in which the principal figures were the Englishspeaking element and the unemployed, who had been organised by Parsons and his aides. As long as the movement consisted mainly of the German trade unions, the public took little notice of it.

The English-speaking element was organised, not in trade unions, but in "groups of the International." The centre of this movement was occupied by the editorial staff of The Alarm. The first copy of the paper, which appeared October 9, 1884, contained, besides the Pittsburgh manifesto, several editorials by A. R. Parsons, and an article "dedicated to tramps," by Lucy E. Parsons, which closed with the words "Learn the use of the explosives." The "tramps," that is, the unemployed, who grew particularly numerous in 1884, the year of the lowest depression, proved to be very responsive at this time. Thanksgiving Day of 1884, Parsons had organised a procession of about 5,000,95 largely composed of the unemployed. The procession halted in Market Square and was addressed by Parsons, Spies, Griffin, and Schwab. The Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung commented upon it in the following words: "Yesterday took place the birth of a new phase in the social struggle. Hitherto the revolutionary movement has been restricted to the better situ

modelled upon the Chicago pattern, was established in January, 1885, in opposition to an existing trades council which was accused of being under the influence of politicians. The Central Labor Union was composed of nine German and four English-speaking trade unions and had

96

for its main object the agitation of the eight-hour day. Die Parole (St. Louis), Feb. 3, 1886.

94 Estimated by the Chicago Vorbote. 95 Estimated by the Chicago Vorbote. 96 Nov. 28, 1884.

ated and the more intelligent German, Bohemian and Danish workingmen. . . . Since yesterday this is no longer the case. Yesterday, the typically American working class carried the red flag through the streets and thereby proclaimed its solidarity with the international proletariat."

About this time there existed in Chicago 13 groups of the Black International, including "one vigorous English speaking organisation," with a total membership of over 1,000. The English-speaking, or American, group had been organised by Parsons in November, 1883, with but 5 members; its agitation was at first comparatively without results, but after the appearance of The Alarm, it soon became the most active group in the city. In October, 1884, its membership was 45 and in April, 1885, it increased to 90.97 It held two mass meetings every week and periodically sent out such agitators as Spies, Parsons, Griffin, and Gorsuch on speaking tours over the country. Largely as a result of their efforts, American groups were in existence in June, 1885, in Alleghany City, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, Covington (Kentucky), New York City, Cleveland, and Philadelphia, and, during the following month, Parsons alone organised 8 American groups in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska.

The movement among the foreign nationalities kept pace with the American. In November, 1885, there were 11 Bohemian groups in the country, and the total number of groups reached over 100, located in 43 different cities. The total membership does not lend itself to a ready estimate since the information bureau published no statistics. Assuming, however, the average membership of a group to be between 50 and 70, the total membership of the Black International at that time was about 5,000 or 6,000, and of this number about 1,000 were Englishspeaking. 98

Chicago with its 2,000 organised Internationalists at the end of 1885 remained throughout the entire life of the Black International the city where the movement had its deepest roots,

97 The Alarm, May 16, 1885.

98 Eight papers were published under the auspices of the International: 1 in English, The Alarm; 5 in German, the New York Die Freiheit, the Chicagoer

Arbeiter-Zeitung, Fackel, and Vorbote, in Chicago, and Die Parole, in St. Louis; and 2 in Bohemian, the Chicago Bondoucnost and the New York Proletar.

where the best brains of the organisation were centred, and the only city where the English-speaking wage-earners of the kind then filling the ranks of the Knights of Labor were attracted into the revolutionary movement. This movement reached its climax in the spring of 1886 at the time of the general labour movement for the eight-hour day, and met its tragic collapse at Haymarket Square.

The Central Labor Union began an active agitation for the eight-hour day in November, 1885. Its attitude and motives were quite characteristic and they strongly differentiated the revolutionary trade unions from the other trade unions and the Knights of Labor. A resolution introduced by Spies at a meeting in October was adopted "with enthusiasm." It ended as follows: 99 "Be it Resolved, That we urgently call upon the wage-earning class to arm itself in order to be able to put forth against their exploiters such an argument which alone can be effective: Violence, and further be it Resolved, that notwithstanding that we expect very little from the introduction of the eight-hour day, we firmly promise to assist our more backward brethren in this class struggle with all means and power at our disposal, so long as they will continue to show an open and resolute front to our common oppressors, the aristocratic vagabonds and the exploiters. Our war-cry is 'Death to the foes of the human race.""

The Central Labor Union had already outstripped the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Assembly and consisted in April, 1886, of 22 unions, including the 11 largest ones in the city.1 True to the spirit of the above declaration, it did not take the initiative in the eight-hour struggle but allowed an Eight-Hour Association of Chicago, which was specially organised for this purpose, to lead the movement. This association was organised in November and comprised the Amalgamated Trades and Labor Assembly, the Socialist Labor party, socialists (who

99 Chicago Vorbote, Oct. 14, 1885.

1 These unions were as follows: Туроgraphical No. 9, Fringe and Tassel Workers, Fresco Painters, Furniture Workers (Pullman), Bakers No. 10, South Side Bakers' Union, Lumber Workers, Hand Labor Union, Hod Carriers' Union, Brewers and Malters, Beer Barrel Coopers, Brickmakers, International Carpen

ters, International Carpenters (Bohemian), Independent Carpenters and Joiners, Carpenters and Joiners (Lake View), Wagon Workers, Harness Makers, Butchers, Progressive Cigar Makers, Metal Workers, No. 1, 2, 3, and the Metal Workers' Union (Pullman). Chicago Vorbote, Apr. 24, 1886.