Haymarket Gets a Memorial

Associated Press via ABCNews: Haymarket Memorial Marks Ill. Labor Rally

For years, visitors at the troubled site of Haymarket Square left disappointed: Only a plaque marked the spot where a bomb thrown during an 1886 labor rally killed seven police officers and led to the executions of anarchists unjustly convicted of the crime.

Police viewed it as a place where their fellow officers died in the line of duty. Social activists went there to honor the memory of those wrongly convicted. Union supporters considered it a crucible in the labor movement's history.

Anti-labor hysteria gripped the country after the bombing, and the site's legacy in Chicago was too contentious to support a memorial. Now, a large sculpture has been dedicated there, and text on the memorial acknowledges that Haymarket's significance "touches on the issues of free speech, the right of public assembly, organized labor, the fight for the eight-hour workday, law enforcement, justice, anarchy and the right of every human being to pursue an equitable and prosperous life."

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Haymarket affair helped ruin the reputation of anarchism and made it far more difficult for the individualist anarchists to get their arguments heard over the calls for violent overthrow and social revolution the collectivist anarchists demanded and sometimes attempted to obtain.

Chicago Sun-Times: After 138 years, Haymarket memorial to be unveiled

The story of the Haymarket Incident is rich in themes that resonate to this day.

It was a time when Americans felt threatened by terrorists. When suspicion fell heavily on certain groups of immigrants. When basic civil rights, such as free speech, were under attack in the name of national security.

On May 3, 1886, two men were killed by police outside a McCormick reaper factory on the Southwest Side, where striking workers were demanding an eight-hour day.

The following night, several thousand protesters, outraged by the killings, turned out for a rally at the Haymarket, west of today's Loop. One flier promoting the rally -- and this really alarmed the police -- called for "revenge" and encouraged workers to fight back with weapons: "To arms, we call you, to arms!"

The rhetoric at the rally was just as fiery, with anarchists calling for not just an eight-hour day, but the complete overthrow of the capitalist system. The rally was otherwise peaceful, however, so much so that Mayor Carter Harrison, who had stopped by to observe, walked home early.

But as the rally was winding down, when only a few hundred protesters were still present, about 180 police officers marched to the makeshift speaker's stand -- the bed of a Crane's Co. wagon. An officer ordered the crowd to disperse and, at that moment, somebody threw a bomb into the cops' ranks.

One officer was killed almost instantly. Gunfire and general panic broke out. At least four workers were killed. Six more officers would die of their injuries in the coming weeks.

Precisely what else happened that night remains a matter of intense disagreement, but what followed is indisputable -- a shameful travesty of justice.

Copyright 2004, Digital Chicago Inc.

The only photo I could find of the event was this from the Chicago Tribune:

(Tribune photo by Chuck Berman)

Not impressive, but then again it doesn't show much.

I do find it ironic that a memorial in part to anarchists (whom allegedly desired the absence of government) was erected in part by state action.

Chicago Tribune: Haymarket riot not forgotten

The monument was built with a $300,000 Build Illinois grant secured by state Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago).

[...]

It sits near Randolph and Desplaines Streets, on the very spot where a Methodist lay minister was making a speech atop a wooden wagon to a dwindling crowd of about 200 labor protesters when someone hurled a bomb, said Bill Adelman, professor emeritus of labor history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Chicago artist Mary Brogger depicted the wagon in 3,200 pounds of rust-colored bronze. The wagon, with a faceless human figure apparently orating atop it, is coming apart. More faceless figures are beneath and beside it, holding, pushing or pulling the wagon.

"These figures are engaged with either building or dismantling the wagon," Brogger said.

"So it gives us the duality showing that the truth in any movement is complicated."

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

Posted by Drizzten at September 16, 2004 01:17 PM