REACTION TO THE BOMB
The next day, martial law was declared nationwide. Houses were illegally searched and suspects were arrested by the hundreds. The Mayor of Chicago even denied people of the right to peaceably assemble.
The press instigated mass hysteria and antagonism against anarchism.
"Anarchy's Red Hand. Rioting and Bloodshed in the Streets of Chicago.
The villainous teachings of the Anarchists bore bloody fruit in Chicago..."
--- New York Times, May 6 1886.
"The war is over, unless indications are out of joint. The Anarchist has sought his hole and is burrowing as deeply as fear and the police will allow him. His braggadocio is a thing of the past, and when he comes within sight of a blue coat he no longer looks ferocious and shakes his fist; he has an attack of ague and slinks out of sight like a whipped hound. The police enjoy the situation. They feel that the public is on their side and handle their clubs with a vim they lacked a week ago. Woe to the Anarchist who forms the nucleus of a crowd. He is shown no mercy."
--- "The Anarchists Cowed", New York Times May 8 1886.
"Those arch counselors of riot, pillage, incendiarism, and murder, August and Christian Spies, Michael Schwab, and Samuel Fielden, are now in the hands of the law..."
--- 'Account of the Haymarket Riot' in the Chicago Times, May 6 1886.
"From what the papers said, you might think there was an anarchist or two skulking in every alley in Chicago with a basket of bombs under his arm."
--- Robert Herrick, novelist.
"The city went insane, and the newspapers did everything to keep it like a madhouse. The workers' cry for justice was drowned in the shriek for revenge."
--- Mother Jones.
Dr. John Beck of Michigan State University's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations talks about the belligerent language used by the newspapers in regards to the Haymarket Square Riot.
Popular sentiment turned against labor unions due to their association with anarchism, and people called for a curtailment of their right of free speech.
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"We need a careful definition of what freedom is. If it means the license to proclaim the gospel of disorder, to preach destruction, and scatter the seeds of anarchy and death, the sooner we exchange the Republic for an iron-handed monarchy the better it will be for all of us." |
Eight men were chosen to stand trial.