May 1, 1886, became historic. On
that day thousands of workers in the larger industrial
cities poured into the streets, demanding eight hours.
About 340,000 took part in demonstrations in Chicago,
Milwaukee, Detroit, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Baltimore,
Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Boston and other
places. Of these nearly 200,000 actually went out on
strike. About 42,000 won the eight-hour day. Another
150,000 got a shorter day than they had had
before.
Chicago workers supported the
movement most vigorously. To combat labor organization
and activity, Chicago employers organized and acted.
Pinkerton detectives and special deputies were in
evidence. Policemen were swinging billies and breading up
knots of workers on street corners.
At the factory gates of McCormick
Harvester Co., where a strike meeting was being held on
May 3, policemen swung their clubs and then fired into
the running strikers....The speaker at the meeting was
August Spies, a member of the Central Labor Union, which
had supported the May First strike. He was also a member
of a militant labor group that was at the time
influential in the Chicago Labor movement. Six workers
were killed that day and many wounded.
Anger ran high through the Chicago
labor movement. About 3,000 attended a protest meeting
the next day at Haymarket Square....The Chicago press
reported the speeches were less "inflammatory" than
usual. Mayor Carter H. Harrison who was present testified
later that the meeting was "peaceable." But as it was
about to adjourn, policement swooped down and ordered the
audience to disperse. Then some unknown person threw a
bomb. It exploded, killing a police sergeant and knocking
several core to the ground. The police opened fire. At
the end of the day, seven policemen and four workers lay
dead.
At once several Chicago labor
leaders were rounded up and thrown in jail. Eight of
these finally came to trial--Albert Parsons, August
Spies, Louis Lingg, George Engel, Michael Schwab, Samuel
Fieldon, Adolph Fischer and Oscar Neebe. The presiding
judge helped pick the jury which was strongly anti-labor
and hostile to the defendants. The trial lasted 63 days.
All of the men were declared guilty of murder. All were
given death sentences, except Neebe who got a 15-year
prison sentence.
A nationwide defense campaign won
wide popular favor...At the last moment, as a result of
widespread protests, the Governor of Illinois communted
to life imprisonment the sentences of Fieldon and Schwab.
It was reported that Lingg "committed suicide" in his
cell.
On November 11, Albert Parsons,
August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were
hanged. On the gallows Spies cried, "There will be a time
when our silence will be more powerful than the voices
you strangle today." Straightway the defense movement,
now led by Albert Parsons' widow, Lucy Parsons, turned to
efforts to have the remaining three men freed. Fieldon,
Schwab and Neebe were finally pardoned by Governor
Altgeld in 1893. He was fully convinced, he said, of the
innocence of all the eight men.
Out of the eight-hour struggle
which culminated in the strike of May 1, 1886, and its
aftermath, the Haymarket tragedy, came international May
Day. In Paris, France, on July 14, 1889, leaders from
organized proletarian movements in many countries came
together to form once more an international association
of workers....At the first congress of the Second
International, delegates listened to the story related by
the United States representatives, considered a request
from the American Federation of Labor for support of
their eight-hour fight, and voted to make May 1, 1890, a
day for an international eight-hour day
demonstration.
Demand for the eight-hour day
became the main slogan of the international May Day
celebrations. At a later congress, the International
extended the purpose of the day to include wider labor
demands and world peace.
The
History of the Shorter
Workday, pp. 20-22.
