My Review. I figured I might as well share it.
James Green opens Death In The Haymarket with a portraiture of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train rolling into Chicago on May 1st, 1865. He dedicates the rest of his book to telling the story of the struggle for “emancipation” of the laborer in Lincoln’s home state of Illinois. A struggle that would climax a little more than 20 years later with the tragedy of the Haymarket bombing on May 4th,1886 and the execution of four self styled Anarchist labor leaders: Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel in November of 1887. None of the four men were accused of throwing the bomb or were linked to the bomber whose identity is still unknown.
Despite Green’s assertion that “we are today living with the legacy of those long ago events,” the Haymarket affair has all but vanished from the American memory (Green p.320). The Anarchists have become “lost in the past, forgotten and misunderstood” (Green p.299). Green invites us to familiarize ourselves with the Haymarket events as an example of the class injustice that is antithetical to the American dream. He challenges the image of Anarchists as bloodthirsty enemies of civilization despite their views that dynamite was a “great equalizer in class warfare”(Green p.141) . Green argues that although they were far from pacifists, the Anarchists were nonetheless victims of an oppressive social order that used violence and inflammatory speech to preserve that social order. It was that oppression more so than what the condemned said or published that lead to the bombing. He identifies the Haymarket affair as a pivotal moment in American history that stalled the movement for the eight hour workday, threatened free speech, and “ushered in fifty years of recurrent industrial violence”(Green p.319).
Green tells the story of the Haymarket affair primarily through the lens of the labor movement and its leaders who were executed in the aftermath, focusing on Albert Parsons. Parsons, a radical even amongst Socialists, advocated for what came to be known as the “Chicago Idea.” He was determined to liberate society from the control of capitalism and the state. Parsons claimed that “true freedom... could be gained in self governing communities where working people determined their rights and responsibilities democratically” (Green p.129). Labor unions would become the basis for a new cooperative society. Although adoption of the term Anarchist imparted on them a suspicion of violence, they defended themselves insisting that Anarchists only supported the use of violence as self defense.
Green spends a great deal of time highlighting the social injustices and violent actions that lead up to the Haymarket bombing. In 1867 Chicago employers disregarded the states new eight hour labor law. In 1877 Philadelphia militiamen killed twenty labor protesters in Pittsburgh and in Chicago the police killed thirty. The Chicago Tribune described the police shooting as having “a most admirable effect on the mobs”(Green p.80) In 1887, the day before the bombing, the police killed six strikers in Chicago. It was in the shadow of these events that Chief Inspector Bonfield marched one-hundred-seventy-six officers armed with Colt .50s into a crowd of protesters in Haymarket Square. It was in the shadow of these events that an unknown assailant threw a stick of dynamite into a crowd of officers. The implication of Green’s book seems to be that it wasn’t the Anarchists that were the primary cause of the violence but rather it was the state.
There were many who lost in the aftermath including seven policemen that died. Officer Mathias Degan was killed by the bomb while the others are believed to have died from gunshot wounds that may have been friendly fire. The eight hour movement that had been gaining ground and looked to be poised for victory was defeated. Even many of the workers that had already achieved an eight hour workday went back to ten or eleven hour days. American workers would have to wait until 1938 for an eight hour law to be passed by Congress. Eight men stood trial as accessories to murder, four were executed, one committed suicide, and the other three were sentenced to prison terms. Labor leaders now had to face the possibility of being tried as accessories to murder for holding a rally or giving a speech. Union support diminished including the complete demise of the Knights of Labor who in the spring of 1886 had 700,000 members. In 1893 Governor Altgeld pardoned Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, and Oscar Neebe who had already spent 16 years in prison. Governor Altgeld believed the jury was packed, the evidence a fabrication, and the judge was “so determined to win the applause of a certain class in the community, that he could not and did not grant a fair trial”(Green p.291). In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt declared that Anarchists must be “speedily stamped out by death, imprisonment and deportation”(Green p.303). He signed a law barring them entry into the U.S. and allowed for the deportation of immigrants that converted to Anarchism. Green insists however that the “Haymarket affair was not everybody’s tragedy. The defeat of the eight hour movement, the suppression of its radical wing and the extinction of the Knights of Labor were great victories for employers in Chicago and other American industrial cities.”(Green p.319)
The strike for the eight hour day that came to be known as the Great Upheaval and the Haymarket affair that would come out of it inspired people around the world. Most of the world observes May 1st as a workers holiday in commemoration of these events. A day that passes largely without notice in the United States and Canada.
Death In The Haymarket is rich with primary sources. James Green weaves first hand quotes into a narrative that allows the reader to observe history in the spirit of the times. We are given a window to view the lives and experiences of the working poor during the industrial revolution on their own terms. Whether we view the Anarchists as martyrs, terrorists, or something in between their story is important. The greatest strength of his book is in dealing with these people honestly. He does not hide their ugliness but he does not villainize them either.
His treatment of other actors does seem to be less fair, especially the police and the industrialists. If he does not villainize them he comes very close. Their accounts are largely missing outside of vitriolic speech and unnecessary violence. Green shares accounts that paint the sorrow that Lucy Parsons felt in the days following her husband’s execution, but fails to share the accounts of the family members of fallen officers. Instances of inflammatory speech, including the advocacy of dynamite, on the part of the Anarchists is often portrayed as mere rhetoric. An example is Green’s handling of August Spies bragging to a reporter about possessing dynamite, prior to the bombing. He points out that years later the reporter, Floyd Dell, “doubted that Spies actually made any bombs; what he needed most, Dell suggested was the “symbolism of dynamite””(Green p.141) Green does not attempt to explain the violent words of industrialists, the police, or politicians in the same way. Green’s use of quotes by these men rings like an indictment of them that he does not wish to soften.
I think we can forgive what is missing from James Green’s book. This is after all, admittedly, a history of “The First Labor Movement”(Green cover). We should allow ourselves the sophistication to appreciate that a history of industrialists or the police would recall the events in a different light. Perhaps to have an accurate understanding of some historical events we must hold multiple and in some ways contradicting interpretations of it. To treat the subject with total impartiality would have robbed the reader of a perspective worth understanding.
