At commemoration of Haymarket
The struggle comes up, again and again
By Milt Neidenberg
On Sept. 14, a monument was erected in Chicago at the site
of the Haymarket Massacre. The area, desolate for years, is set
between two superhighways. A plaque and a statue of life-sized,
faceless figures were erected, supposedly to memorialize four
anarchist/socialist leaders who were framed and hanged for the
May 4, 1886, deaths of seven police officers.
The radical leaders were accused of being responsible,
through their revolutionary agitation, for the bomb someone
threw at the cops in the middle of a big crowd of peaceful
protesters. The four leaders had been speaking from a wagon at
the time and could not have thrown the bomb themselves.
The police violence that followed is the lesson of the
Haymarket Massacre.
Indignation over the frame-up was so great that Illinois
Gov. John Peter Altgeld was finally forced to pardon the
accused--but not until after four had already been executed and
one had died in prison, an apparent suicide.
This year's large sculpture and the celebration that
followed were a total misrepresentation of the heroic class
struggle that led to the Haymarket Massacre. This was a
whitewash, a cover-up of the bosses' brutal response in
collusion with the repressive capitalist state.
It took two years of discussion by a committee composed of
labor officials, police brass, capitalist historians and city
bureaucrats to agree to a theme. According to Tim Samuelson, a
historian and a member of the committee, "The unifying theme is
it's a tragedy--a human tragedy of people under difficult
circumstances--reacting to something beyond their control."
The circumstances were not "beyond their control." It had
been a planned, unprovoked police attack. The Chicago police,
under orders, fired wildly into the crowd from different
directions.
The dead included at least four workers and seven police,
most of the latter probably killed in their own crossfire. Many
workers, women and men, as well as children, were
wounded--clubbed, crushed and trampled in the melee.
In an inflamed atmosphere of anti-union violence, there
followed widespread arrests of class-conscious workers,
anarchists and socialists, who had been rallying to support a
bitter strike caused by a lockout by the McCormick Harvester
Works Corp. The New York Tribune the next day trumpeted this
monstrous lie: "The mob appeared crazed with a frantic desire
for blood and holding its ground, poured volley after volley
into the midst of the officers."
Ruling-class violence was on the agenda even before the
Haymarket police riot. The bosses and the city had mobilized
the National Guard, increased the number of anti-labor
Pinkerton thugs, and deputized special police and provocateurs
to infiltrate the trade unions and the anarchist and socialist
movements.
They were trying to destroy the growing militancy that was
moving toward a general strike in favor of the eight-hour
day.
It grew into a national reign of terror. Any strike or
struggle for shorter hours, better wages and working conditions
was met with widespread arrests, conspiracy charges and
long-term imprisonment of the leaders and class-conscious
militants.
Haymarket, a century of conflict
A few years after the bomb was thrown into the crowd, a
statue of a cop was erected in Chicago. It was damaged three
times and finally removed to the protected courtyard of the
city's police academy. In 1970, a plaque placed by
class-conscious forces honoring the executed martyrs was
stolen.
At this year's Sept. 14 commemoration, a conflict broke out
over the interpretation of the statue and the plaque. The
faceless statues were an effort to include the police among the
victims. The sculptor who won the assignment commented that her
abstract creation intended to send a message that "the violence
didn't seem important, because this event was made up of much
bigger ideas than one particular incident." Engraved on the
plaque were references to free speech, public assembly, the
fight for the eight-hour day, and the right of every human
being to pursue an equitable and prosperous life.
A group of anarchists carrying black flags and banners
correctly protested this as a betrayal of what Haymarket
represents.
One of the anarchists challenged the project: "Those men who
were hanged are being presented as social democrats or liberal
reformers, when in fact they dedicated their whole lives to
anarchy and social revolution. If they were here today, they'd
be denouncing this project and everyone involved in it." (New
York Times, Sept. 14)
That's true. There cannot be any compromise or unifying
theme on the meaning of the Haymarket events. It was the
culmination of a decade of capitalist repression, class
struggle and revolutionary activity.
At the ceremony, the true story of the bosses' violence
against the workers in collusion with the capitalist state was
buried under the symbolism of class collaboration. This is
unacceptable.
Only through revolutionary struggle will the workers and the
oppressed nationalities begin to present the true history of
the war for liberation from capitalist exploitation.
On Oct. 9, 1886, as the sentence of death by hanging was
announced, the martyrs eloquently expressed dedication to the
class struggle, not class collaboration.
August Spies, one of the defendants and a leader well loved
and respected, an inspiration to the laboring masses, spoke to
the packed court. Looking up defiantly at hanging Judge
Eldridge Gary, he said: "If you think by hanging us you can
stamp out the labor movement ... the movement from which the
down-trodden millions, the millions who toil in want and
misery, expect salvation--if this is your opinion then hang us!
Here you will tread upon a spark, but there and there, behind
you and in front of you and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is
a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out."
Material for this article came from "Labor's Untold
Story" by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by
the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
(UE).
Reprinted from the Sept. 30, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page