The Anarchists Of Chicago

December 18, 2011 in Uncategorized

On November 11, 1887… 7 Anarchists were executed in Chicago:

Source: To-day, November 1887 —
” The meeting was peaceable and orderly. The speeches were of the ordinary political kind. Upon both these points the testimony is unanimous, and includes that of Mr. Harrison, the mayor of Chicago, a man strongly opposed not only to Anarchism, but to the working-class movement. Just as the meeting was breaking up, the police issued forth, armed, from the station, marched across the Haymarket, straight upon the small crowd in the street on the opposite side, just as the police at Mitchelstown marched upon the crowd there. The evidence is conflicting as to whether the police did or did not fire before the bomb was thrown. The balance of evidence appears to be in favour of their having fired first. A bomb was thrown. The evidence as to whence it was thrown is conflicting. From the alley said some witnesses; from a point some yards nearer the Haymarket said others. The balance of evidence is in favour of the latter statement. No evidence has been adduced as to who threw the bomb. Not one of the accused has been directly or indirectly connected with it by evidence. ”

” One man, challenged by the advocate for the prisoners, confessed that he had made up his mind as to their guilt before the trial began. Judge Gary disallowed the objection and allowed the man to serve on the jury. ”

” The feeling in Chicago is very intense. Among the wage workers the condemned men are regarded as being sacrificed to popular clamour and the yells of the capitalist press. Among the mercantile class it is considered that their safety demands the carrying out of the sentence. By everyone it is felt that it is no longer a question of Anarchism but of the classes against the masses. The sentence is a class-sentence; the execution will be a class-execution. Chicago is in a state of siege. ”

PHOTO: A sympathetic engraving by Walter Crane of the executed “Anarchists of Chicago” after the Haymarket affair. The Haymarket affair is generally considered the most significant event for the origin of international May Day observances.