by James Green
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 88–89.
Roediger and Rosemont, eds. Haymarket Scrapbook, p. 14.
Dyer D. Lum, A Concise History of the Great Trial of the Chicago Anarchists, 1886 (Chicago: Socialistic Publishing Co., 1886), pp. 164–68; Avrich, Tragedy, pp. 191–92.
Lum, A Concise History, p. 69.
Chicago Tribune, May 4, 5, 1886; Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists, pp. 125–26. Chicago Tribune and police say mob was 8,000. Flinn, Chicago Police, pp. 275–76.
Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1886; Flinn, Chicago Police, p. 278.
Bonfield quoted in Flinn, Chicago Police, pp. 278, 280.
Chapter Eleven / A Night of Terror
Flinn, Chicago Police, p. 279.
All references and quotes to events of May 4, 1886, are from the Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886, unless indicated otherwise.
Richard Ely quoted in Miller, City of the Century, p. 238.
Beckert, The Monied Metropolis (see Prologue, n. 12), pp. 273, 276, 290–91.
Ibid., pp. 282–83. First quote, ibid., p. 283; second quote in Plummer, Lincoln’s Rail-Splitter, p. 193; and see Smith, “Cataclysm” (see Prologue, n. 21), p. 134.
Quote in Avrich, Tragedy, pp. 194–95.
Testimony of William Seliger in Lum, A Concise History, pp. 79–80.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, p. 89; Avrich, Tragedy, p. 193.
Lum, A Concise History, p. 27.
Earlier in the day Adolph Fischer passed the Desplaines Street Police Station and saw the “police mounting five or six patrol wagons.” Fischer thought the officers were replacements being sent out to McCormick’s. It apparently did not occur to him that the police might be preparing to break up the rally that night. Lum, A Concise History, p. 70.
Flinn, Chicago Police, pp. 294, 296; and see Richard C. Lindberg, To Serve and Collect: Chicago Politics and Police Corruption (New York: Praeger, 1991), pp. 18–20.
Marohn, “The Arming of the Chicago Police” (see chap. 5, n. 34), pp. 41, 45.
Lucy Parsons, ed., Famous Speeches of the Eight Chicago Anarchists in Court (Chicago: Lucy E. Parsons, 1910; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969), p. 120; A. Parsons, “Autobiography,” p. 48.
Ashbaugh, Lucy Parsons, p. 75.
Adelman, Haymarket Revisited (see chap. 4, n. 20), p. 32.
Quote in Keil and Jentz, eds., German Workers, Documentary, pp. 392–93, in a translated article in Die Fackel, June 19, 1910.
Lum, A Concise History, pp. 37–38; Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886; McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, p. 91.
Parsons’s summary of his speech on May 4 is quoted in Lum, A Concise History, pp. 39–42, 45–47.
Ibid., p. 46.
Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886.
Harrison quoted in Lum, A Concise History, p. 30.
Ibid., pp. 131–32.
Ibid., pp. 29–30, 111.
Seliger testimony quoted ibid., pp. 79–80; and see David, Haymarket Affair (see Prologue, n. 10), p. 234.
Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886.
George Brown, “The Police Riot: An Eye-Witness Account,” in Roediger and Rosemont, eds., Haymarket Scrapbook, p. 75.
Fielden, “Autobiography,” p. 158; Flinn, Chicago Police, p. 310.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Lum, A Concise History, p. 28.
Ibid.
Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886.
Quote in Lum, A Concise History, p. 141.
Holmes quoted in Adelman, Haymarket Revisited, pp. 35–36.
See testimony of Lt. H. P. Stanton, Illinois vs. August Spies et al. Trial Transcript, Vol. 1, p. 220, Chicago Historical Society, Haymarket Digital Collection.
Bonfield and Ward quoted in Chicago Tribune, May 5, 6, 1886. Also see testimonies of other police officers in Lum, A Concise History, pp. 73–74, 76, 97, 133.
S. T. Ingram testimony in Lum, A Concise History, p. 133.
Testimony of Richter, Simonson and Ferguson, ibid., pp. 114–17. On Simonson’s background, see ibid., p. 32.
Chicago Herald quoted in Avrich, Tragedy, p. 209; Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1886.
Lizzie Holmes’s account quoted in Adelman, Haymarket Revisited, pp. 91–92.
Flinn, Chicago Police, p. 320; Chicago Tribune, May 5, 6, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1886; Avrich, Tragedy, pp. 210, 444.
See Avrich, Tragedy, p. 208. An eighth policeman wounded in the square died two years later, reportedly as a result of his wounds. Chicago Tribune, May 7, 8, 1886.
Chapter Twelve / The Strangest Frenzy
Quotes in Avrich, Tragedy, pp. 216–18; and Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Chicago Tribune and Journal of the Knights of Labor, May 8, 1886; Powderly quoted in Avrich, Tragedy, pp. 217, 219, 220.
Quotes in Avrich, Tragedy, p. 218; and Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 7, 8, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 7, 10, 1886; Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists, p. 150.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, p. 95; and see Avrich, Tragedy, p. 225.
Lindberg, Chicago Ragtime, pp. 18–19; Lindberg, To Serve and Collect, pp. 62–63.
Ashbaugh, Lucy Parsons, p. 81.
Ibid., pp. 82–83.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 7, 1886; and see Avrich, Tragedy, p. 226.
See Marohn, “The Arming of the Chicago Police,” p. 46.
Lindberg, To Serve and Collect, p. 63; Flinn, Chicago Police, pp. 560–61.
Quote in Avrich, Tragedy, p. 229.
New York Times, May 5, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 7, 8, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Taylor testimony in Lum, A Concise History, pp. 118–19.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886; New York Times, May 8, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1886; New York Times, May 8, 1886; Ely quoted in Avrich, Tragedy, p. 222.
Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1886.
Brand Whitlock, Forty Years of It (New York: Appleton-Century, 1914), p. 73.
My description of popular sentiment at this moment relies on Smith, Urban Disorder (see Prologue, n. 14), pp. 7, 137, 139.
Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1886.
My interpretation draws upon that of Bryan Palmer, Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the History of Transgression (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), pp. 233, 235, 246.
Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 8, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1886.
McConnell, “The Chicago Bomb Case” (see chap. 7, n. 60), p. 730.
Pierce, Chicago, Vol. 3, p. 356; Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1886.
John Swinton’s Paper, May 8, 1886, quoted in David, Haymarket Affair, p. 185.
Ibid., p. 186.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 8, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 7, 1886.
See account by Abraham Bisno in Roediger and Rosemont, eds., Haymarket Scrapbook, p. 26.
Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 18, 19, 26, 27, 1886.
Avrich, Tragedy, pp. 231–32, 234.
Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1886. On Schnaubelt’s release, see Richard Lindberg, Chicago by Gaslight: A History of Chicago’s Netherworld, 1880–1920 (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1996), pp. 34–35.
Avrich, Tragedy, p. 231.
Chicago Tribune, May 17, 23, 25, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, May 8, 10, 26, 1886.
My interpretation of the drawing is based in part on that of Smith, Urban Disorder, pp. 125–26.
Chicago Tribune, May 21, 27, 28, 1886.
Lindberg, Chicago by Gaslight, pp. 32–33.
Chicago Tribune, May 26, 27, 28, 1886. See Avrich, Tragedy, p. 208.
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bsp; Chicago Times quoted in Avrich, Tragedy, p. 233.
Quote in David, Haymarket Affair, p. 188.
Chapter Thirteen / Every Man on the Jury Was an American
Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1886.
David, Haymarket Affair, p. 198. On the German Jews in Chicago, see Pierce, Chicago, Vol. 3, pp. 40, 42; and Edward Herbert Mazur, Minyans for a Prairie City: The Politics of Chicago Jewry, 1850–1940 (New York: Garland, 1990).
Avrich, Tragedy, p. 251.
Roediger and Rosemont, eds., Haymarket Scrapbook, p. 121; Lawson, ed., American State Trials (see chap. 4, n. 43), p. 18; Sigmund Zeisler, “Reminiscences of the Haymarket Case,” Illinois Law Review 21 (November 1926), pp. 26–27.
Quoted in David, Haymarket Affair, pp. 197–98.
Ibid., p. 201.
Lawson, ed., American State Trials, p. 19.
Accounts of daily events in the trial are drawn from the reports of the Chicago Tribune from June 21 to August 22, 1886.
David, Haymarket Affair, p. 203; and Miller, City of the Century, p. 476.
David, Haymarket Affair, p. 204.
Altgeld, Reasons (see chap. 7, n. 68), pp. 25–26.
Ibid., p. 214.
Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1886.
Altgeld, Reasons, p. 12.
In the Supreme Court of the Illinois Grand Division, March Term, 1887, August Spies et al. vs. the People of the State of Illinois, Brief on the Facts for the Defendants in Error (Chicago: Barnard & Gunthorp Law Partners, 1887), in the Haymarket Collection, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Box 4, Folder 79, pp. 38–140.
Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1886.
Lindberg, To Serve and Collect, p. 71; Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists, pp. 184–85.
Quoted in David, Haymarket Affair, p. 217.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 218–19.
Melville Elijah Stone, Fifty Years a Journalist (New York: Doubleday, 1921), p. 173.
Lum, A Concise History, pp. 68–71; David, Haymarket Affair, pp. 222–23.
Quote in David, Haymarket Affair, p. 222.
Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, August 7, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, July 23, 24, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, July 24, 25, 1886.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 32, 41, 42; Chicago Tribune, July 25, 27, 1886.
David, Haymarket Affair, pp. 229–30.
Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, July 30, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, July 30, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, August 1, 1886.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 65–66; Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1886; David, Haymarket Affair, pp. 241–42.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 67–68.
It is difficult to derive a clear picture of what happened in the Haymarket just after the explosion. The police clearly fabricated the story of Sam Fielden shooting at Captain Ward from the hay wagon. On the other hand, the patrolmen’s testimony about taking fire from the crowd was corroborated by several civilian witnesses. However, other witnesses called by the defense team contradicted this testimony, and still others said it was clear that the police gunfire struck other officers on the densely packed streets.
The doctors who examined the police victims and who testified on June 29, 1886, referred mainly to bomb wounds, without drawing any conclusions from the gunshot wounds about which guns the bullets had come from or from which direction the bullets had been shot. Two physicians said that three policemen had wounds from bullets shot in a downward trajectory, which might have indicated that bullets were fired from windows in nearby buildings or that the officers were kneeling down or ducking when they were hit by their fellow officers in the fusillade. Doctors’ testimony in “Chicago Anarchists on Trial” (a digitized transcript of the trial proceedings available from the Library of Congress at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ichihtml/haybuild.htm); Doctors Baxter, Murphy, Henrotin, Newman, Bluthardt and Flemming, Vol. K, pp. 617–19, 551–73, 640–45, 691–97, and Vol. M, pp. 179–266. Murphy and Bluthardt describe the trajectories in Vol. K, pp. 557–58, 570–71, 695.
Since the prosecution did not introduce ballistics tests into evidence, there is no way of knowing which guns fired the shots that hit officers. Even if reliable ballistics testing had been done, the results would have been dubious, because the police bought their own guns and were not issued standardized weapons by the department.
Even though Mayor Harrison and other objective observers saw no one in the crowd with firearms, it seems likely that some of the rallygoers were armed. Spies left his revolver on the North Side, but some of the others, fearing another assault like the one at the McCormick works the night before, would have been armed, at least for self-defense. It also seems quite possible that some civilians shot at the police after the officers opened fire in all directions when packed together in tight ranks; in such a formation and in a state of panic, it is also likely that the patrolmen would have hit one another with what was described as wild gunfire.
In any case, the state’s case was built on the evidence that the bomb fragments killed Patrolman Degan. The argument that anarchists opened fire immediately after the bomb exploded was, of course, important to the allegation that a conspiracy had been planned to launch the attack, but the state’s evidence relied on eyewitnesses whose testimony was contradicted by reliable reporters who had no connections to the anarchists or to the police.
Chicago Tribune, August 5, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, August 7–8, 10, 1886.
Ibid.
Chicago Tribune, August 12, 1886.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 100, 102.
David, Haymarket Affair, pp. 258–59.
Quote ibid., pp. 103–4.
Quote in Lawson, American State Trials, pp. 175–76.
Ibid. The prosecution submitted expert testimony by chemists that was supposed to prove that the deadly bomb was similar in chemical composition to the bombs Lingg and Seliger made. David, Haymarket Affair, p. 235. Recently, a group of researchers conducted a new scientific analysis of the forensic evidence, including the tiny bomb fragments preserved in the Beinecke Library at Yale University. The conclusion of these scholars tends to confirm the testimony of the prosecution’s expert witnesses at the Haymarket trial: that the fragments probably came from a bomb made by Lingg. The authors indicate, however, that firm conclusions cannot be drawn from this evidence (presumably about Lingg’s involvement in the crime). Timothy Messer-Kruse, James O. Eckert, Jr., Pannee Burckel and Jeffery Dunn, “The Haymarket Bomb: Reassessing the Evidence,” Labor 2 (Summer 2005), pp. 39–52.
Louis Lingg was not convicted for making bombs, however. He was convicted as an accessory to murder because he was allegedly part of a May 3 conspiracy meeting during which anarchists supposedly planned the May 4 bombing and because, as a part of this plot, Lingg “sent” some of his bombs to be used at the Haymarket. But the state never established any connection between Lingg and the alleged conspiracy meeting or the unknown bomb thrower.
And so, it makes no significant difference if more material evidence has been found indicating that Lingg (or Seliger) made the fatal bomb—even if the evidence is conclusive, which it is not, according to the authors of “The Haymarket Bomb.” For a much more developed critique of this circumstantial evidence and how it is interpreted in the Messer-Kruse et al. article, see Bryan Palmer, “CSI Labor History: Haymarket and the Forensics of Forgetting,” Labor 3 (Winter 2006), forthcoming.
Quote in Lawson, ed., American State Trials, pp. 207–8, 215, 221, 222; Chicago Tribune, August 17, 1886; McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, p. 109.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 112–13; Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1886.
This summary of how Black presented the case draws upon the account in Avrich, Tragedy, pp. 270�
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Lawson, ed., American State Trials, p. 259.
Ibid., pp. 239–41, 248–49, 259–60.
Ibid., pp. 259–60.
Chicago Tribune, August 19, 20, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, August 20, 1886; McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 120–21.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, p. 121; Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1886.
McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, pp. 121–22.
David, Haymarket Affair, p. 270; Miller, City of the Century, p. 477.
Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1886.
Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1886.
Quote in David, Haymarket Affair, pp. 271–72.
On the drama of murder trials and the way in which they were substituted for the drama of public hangings, see Stuart Banner, The Death Penalty: An American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 164–65; and quote from state’s attorney in Lawson, American State Trials, p. 24.
David, Haymarket Affair, pp. 272, 274.
Quote ibid., p. 273.
Workmen’s Advocate quoted ibid., p. 275.
Chicago Express quoted in Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics, p. 215.
Chapter Fourteen / You Are Being Weighed in the Balance
Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics, p. 215.
Chicago Express quoted in Ashbaugh, Lucy Parsons, p. 89. Also see McLean, Rise and Fall of Anarchy, p. 142; and Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics, pp. 215, 217.
Chicago Tribune, September 2, 5, 28, 1886.
See Avrich, Tragedy, p. 293.
Lawson, American State Trials, p. 281. Also see Smith, Urban Disorder, pp. 157–75. Spies not only defended his citizenship in this impassioned address, he also asserted his manhood, as he had regularly urged workingmen to do in his speeches and writings, notably in the now-infamous “Workingmen to Arms” circular he wrote so furiously after witnessing the massacre at McCormick’s on May 3. Spies’s call to male pride was echoed by other anarchists in their final speeches, which asserted a passionate sense of working-class manhood against the more controlled expressions of middle-class manhood expressed by the attorney Grinnell, who seemed to reporters to be a strong, honorable man, wise and calm, dignified and refined, one who always stood firm in the midst of the nation’s worst storms. In this sense the Haymarket trial could be seen as a contest over manhood that evoked the wounded pride of immigrant workingmen and the mental toughness of the city’s “best men,” who worried about losing control of the democracy to angry men of the lower classes. See Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 11–13.
