HAYMARKET RIOT

HAYMARKET RIOT. In April and early May 1886, the idea of a national strike for the eight-hour day gained momentum among the labor activists of Chicago. On 3 May police fired on strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, killing four. August Spies, editor of the semianarchist Arbeiter-Zeitung, issued circulars demanding revenge and announcing a mass meeting the next evening at the Haymarket Square. About 1,300 people attended the meeting, although many dispersed when it began to rain. Amid general anticipation of violence, large police reserves were concentrated nearby. Mayor Carter H. Harrison attended the meeting, but he soon left, judging the speeches innocuous. Contravening Harrison's advice, 180 police advanced on the meeting and ordered the crowd to disperse. At this point, a bomb, thrown by an unknown hand, fell among the police, leaving seven dead and seventy injured.

Popular fears of a general anarchist plot made an impartial investigation impossible; eight alleged anarchists were convicted on a conspiracy charge, and four were hanged. The eight-hour movement collapsed beneath the stigma of radicalism. Governor John P. Altgeld pardoned the three surviving prisoners in 1893, declaring that the trial had been a farce—an opinion severely condemned by the conservative press but highly praised by organized labor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Avrich, Paul. The Haymarket Tragedy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Nelson, Bruce C. Beyond the Martyrs: A Social History of Chicago's Anarchists, 1870–1900. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988.

HarveyWish/a. r.

See alsoAnarchists ; Chicago ; Labor ; Strikes ; Wages and Salaries ; Work ; and picture (overleaf) .