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.'

1

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: Typographical 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.

remained loyal to the Assembly), and the Knights of Labor. Yet, when the movement was well under way, the Central Labor Union generously contributed its share. On the Sunday preceding the first of May it organised an eight-hour monster demonstration, in which 25,000 took part, with addresses by Parsons, Spies, Fielden, and Schwab. The Internationalists also took an active part in the struggle against the McCormick Harvester Works, which had begun several months earlier but shaded into the eight-hour movement. In the middle of February, the McCormick trouble took on the form of a lockout, following upon the demand of the men that the company should stop its discrimination against their fellows who had been identified with a former strike at the same plant. On March 2, Parsons and Schwab addressed a meeting of the locked-out men to protest against the employment of detectives, and they addressed several other meetings at subsequent dates.

Meanwhile, the general eight-hour movement in the city started out with good promise. About 40,000 employés struck on the first day of May and the number was almost doubled within four days. Of these, 10,000 were lumber-shovers and labourers, 10,000 metal workers, 20,500 clothing workers, 7,000 furniture workers and upholsterers, and 2,500 employés of the Pullman shops.2 Indeed, the movement assumed larger proportions in Chicago than elsewhere in the country and the outcome would probably have been proportionately successful, had it not been for the tragic event on the fourth of the month.

On the third of May, a group of striking lumber-shovers held a meeting near the McCormick reaper works and were addressed by Spies. About this time strike-breakers employed in these works began to leave for their homes, and were attacked by some of the bystanders at the meeting. The police arrived in large numbers and, upon being received with stones, fired and killed four and wounded many. Burning with indignation Spies rushed to his office where he prepared and issued a call for revenge which contained the words: "Workingmen, arm yourselves and appear in full force." A mass meeting of 3,000 met at 7:30 P. M. on the following day, May 4, on Haymarket Square, to protest against the shooting by the police. The

2 Bradstreet's, May 15, 1886.

meeting was addressed first by Spies, then by Parsons, the latter confining himself to the eight-hour question. Fielden spoke last. Meanwhile a threatening rainstorm dispersed the crowd, leaving a few hundred to listen to Fielden's speech. Mayor Harrison, who had attended for the purpose of influencing the meeting to maintain order, also left with the bulk of the crowd. Soon after, a squad of 180 police formed in line and began to advance upon the remaining crowd. Fielden cried out aloud to the captain that this was a peaceable meeting. While the captain was turning around to give an order, a bomb was hurled at the police, killing a sergeant and throwing about sixty to the ground. The police immediately opened fire. On the next day, Spies as well as six other Internationalists, were arrested. Albert R. Parsons escaped but gave himself up during the trial.

3

It is unnecessary to describe here the period of police terror in Chicago, the hysterical attitude of the press, or the state of panic that came over the inhabitants of the city. Nor is it necessary to deal in detail with the trial of the accused anarchists. One view of it was expressed by Governor John P. Altgeld in 1893 in his Reasons for Pardoning Fielden, Neebe, and Schwab, which elicited a reply from the presiding judge.

3 They were Michael Schwab, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, immigrants from Germany; Oscar Neebe, an American of German parentage, and Samuel Fielden, an Englishman. Three other men, Waller, Schrader, and Seliger, were arrested and later turned informers.

4 Governor Altgeld pointed out that the jury had been drawn in an unusual way, namely, Judge Gary appointing a special bailiff to go out and summon such men as he, the bailiff, chose, instead of having a number of names drawn out of a box that contained many hundred names; that the judge by his ruling had made it extremely difficult for the lawyer for the defendants to get consideration for his charge that the jury had been packed; that the judge through adroit questioning of the prospective jurors had made it possible for many to be placed upon the jury who candidly admitted their prejudice against the defendants, including a rela tive of one of the victims of bomb; that the State had never discovered who threw the bomb and that the judge had admitted that he ruled without precedent when he denied a motion for a new trial on the

ground that it sufficed that the defendants had incited large masses of people to violence, even though they had left the commission of the crime to individual whim as to place and time; and finally that the personal bearing of the judge had been extremely unfair throughout the trial.

Judge Joseph E. Gary replied in defence of the verdict, pointing out that the defendants had been sentenced not because they were anarchists, but because they were parties to the murder. He quoted from his charge to the jury at the trial: "The conviction propeeds upon the ground ... that they had generally by speech and print advised large classes

to commit murder, and have left the commission, the time, and place. and when, to the individual will and whim or caprice, or whatever it may be, of each individual man who listened to their advice, and that in consequence of that advice, in pursuance of that advice, and influenced by that advice, somebody, not known, did throw the bomb that caused Degan's death." ("The Chicago Anarchists of 1886: The Crime, the Trial and the Punishment," in

The jury handed in a verdict declaring Spies, Schwab, Fielden, Parsons, Fischer, Engel, and Lingg guilty of the murder of Patrolman M. J. Degan and imposed a death sentence. Oscar W. Neebe was declared guilty of the same crime and sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen years. The case was carried to the Supreme Court, and there was affirmed in the autumn of 1887.5 On November 10, Lingg committed suicide; the sentence of Fielden and Schwab was commuted to imprisonment for life, and Parsons, Fischer, Engel, and Spies were hanged November 11, 1887.

The labour organisations throughout the country, while condemning violence on principle, pleaded for mercy to the sentenced men. The convention of the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution in this sense, and the feeling was the same among the Knights of Labor, particularly on behalf of Parsons who had been a Knight for over ten years. However, Powderly, who always showed fear lest the general public should suspect the Order of abetting violence, threw his personal influence into the scale and prevented a similar resolution from being adopted by the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor. After the Chicago tragedy, the Black International practically collapsed. The workingmen who supported it in the West withdrew and the organisation shrank to a mere handful of intellectuals.

Century Magazine (New York), April, 1898, XXIII, 835.)

Spies et al. v. The People, 122 Ill. 2 (1887).

CHAPTER X

THE AFTERMATH, 1886-1887

The Knights and the Federation. New national trade unions, 396. Efforts of the Knights to annex the skilled unions in order to strengthen the bargaining power of the unskilled, 397. Resistance of the skilled, 397. Situation in the early eighties, 397. Beginning of aggression, 398. District Assembly 49 of New York, 399. Conflict with the Internationa! Cigar Makers' Union, 399. The split in the latter, 399. The support of the secessionists by District Assembly 49, 400. The strike in New York in January, 1886, 400. Settlement with District Assembly 49, 400. Fusion of the seceders from the International Cigar Makers' Union with District Assembly 49, 401. Widening of the struggle, 401. Gompers' leadership, 401. General appeal to the trade unions, 402. Conflicts between the Knights and other trade unions, 402. Trade union conference in Philadelphia, 403. The " 'address," 404. Proposed treaty, 405. Reply of the Knights, 406. Refusal of the skilled trades to be used as a lever by the unskilled, 407. Further negotiations, 407. Declaration of war by the Knights, 409. Impetus for complete unification of the trade unions, 409. Convention of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1886, 409. The American Federation of Labor, 410. Its paramount activity economic, 410. Another effort for a settlement, 411. The outcome, 411. Arbitrary action of District Assembly 49 of New York, 412. Return of the secessionist cigar makers to the International Union, 412. The Orders' new conciliatory attitude, 412. Non-conciliatory attitude of the unions, 413. Subsidence of the Knights. Beginning of the backward tide in the Order, 413. The employers' reaction, 414. Forms of employers' associations, 414. Their aim, 414. Their refusal to arbitrate, 415. The means for the suppression of the Order, 415. The Knights' and the employers' attitude towards trade agreements, 416. Control over strikes in the Order, 416. Control over boycotts, 417. Strikes during the second half of 1886, 417. The Troy laundry workers' lockout, 418. The knit goods industry lockout, 418. Chicago packing industry lockout, 418. Powderly's weakness, 420. Longshoremen's strike in New York in 1887, 420. Its spread, 420. Its consequences, 421. Falling off of the Order's membership, 422. Recession of the wave of the unskilled, 422. Growing predominance of the middle-class element in the Order, 423. Success of the trade unions, 423. Chicago bricklayers' strike, 423. The employers' association and the trade agreement, 424. Situation in the bituminous coal industry, 425. National Federation of Miners and Mine Laborers, 425. Relations with the Order, 425. The "interstate" trade agreement, 426. Drift towards trade union organisation within the Order, 427. History of the national trade assemblies, 1880-1885, 427. Fluctuation of the Order's policy, 427. Its cause, 427. The victory of the national trade assembly idea, 428.