prelude to THE haymarket riot: may 1 - may 4
May 1: 350,000 workers nationwide took on the responsibility of fighting for the eight-hour work day by striking. With 40,000 strikers, Chicago had the greatest number of protestors.
May 3: The peaceful picketing outside McCormick Reaper Works turned into a violent clash when the Chicago police assaulted the strikers and killed four, encroaching upon their rights to peaceably assemble.
"Men... attacked McCormick's factory and were shot down by the law in cold blood, in the city of Chicago, in the protection of property…. A million men hold all the property in this country. The law has no use for the other fifty-four millions." |
"For more than twenty years have the wage workers of this country begged and prayed their masters, the factory lords, to reduce their burdens. It has been in vain. They have pointed out the fact that over a million of willing and strong hands were in a state of enforced idleness and starvation, that to help them to obtain employment it would not only be advisable, nay, it was necessary to reduce the hours of daily toil of those who were fortunate enough in having found a buyer for their muscles, their bones, and their brain. The masters of this earth have treated them with contempt, have condemned them to vagabondage whenever they insisted. The legislatures have been called upon, one petition has succeeded the other, but with no avail.
At last the condition of the disinherited producers has become unbearable. Seeing that neither "boss" nor law would concede anything to them, they have organized for the purpose of helping themselves--a wise and prudent resolution.
All over the land we behold vast armies of producers, no longer begging, but demanding that eight hours shall henceforth constitute a normal working day. And what say the extortionists to this? They demand their pound of flesh, like Shylock. They will not yield one iota. They have grown rich and powerful on yourlabor. They amass stupendous fortunes, while you, who bring them into existence, are suffering from want. In answer to your pleadings they ask for the bodies of your little children, to utilize them in their gold mints, to make dollars out of them! Look at the slaves of McCormick! When they tried to remonstrate with their master he simply called upon "the protectors of these free and glorious institutions"--the police--to silence them."
--- The speech delivered by August Spies at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886.
The attack provoked radicals to organize a meeting for the next evening at Haymarket Square.