Post by Dmitri on Nov 1, 2007 19:53:26 GMT -5
Thought I'd post this if anyone is interested in reading it...
Maybe there is another history geek out there who digs late 19th century history.
Sadly, it makes it all one long paragraph and takes out the footnotes. I think a # sign equals a footnote, but there is no citation to go along with it.
And if anyone ever wonders what I mean when I talk about internet sources and citations, this is what I am talking about when I talk about RELIABLE SOURCES.
The Haymarket Affair of 1886-87
Of all the aspects of government in the United States, the judicial system may be one of the most frighteningly ambiguous in its powers and responsibilities. To the court is given the keys of property reallocation, the prisons of America, even the choice of who lives and dies, and for what crime or reason. History is full of cases where the courts have made use of these powers, for good and for ill. The Dred Scott decision, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Scottsboro Boys - all these cases had been decided by the courts and overturned or the accused pardoned after misconduct was found on the part of the prosecution or police, or bias found on the part of the court system. At times the courts have simply been incorrect in their ruling; given the evidence they were provided, the jury and the judge could not have logically done anything else. But in other situations, like those mentioned in passing above, the court appears to have willfully set aside objectivity and served as the organ of cultural, racial, and economic bigotry.
Cast in the mold of the cases above is another historical miscarriage of justice, this time set in Chicago at the pinnacle of the move to industrialization that dominated American life during the late 19th century. The years of this specific event were 1886-87, in a critical era of social unrest, an era of reaction to the growing problems of labor and ethnic tensions. The drama began on May 3rd, 1886, outside the McCormick Reaper factory, but it would become known throughout history by the small square where the sparks of the McCormick incident would ignite into the conflagration that has come to be called the Haymarket Affair.
The essence of the event was an outburst of violence in the Haymarket, a widening between two streets in downtown Chicago, after an ugly altercation between the Chicago police, the Pinkerton “detectives”, striking workers for the McCormick Reaper Factory, and scabs hired by McCormack to take the place of the strikers. Several strikers had been killed on May 3rd, and a rally was being held in the Haymarket as a show solidarity and protest of the perceived brutality of the police in suppressing of the strikers.# During the rally in the Haymarket on the night of May 4th, both the mayor and the police came to make sure that there would not be a repeat of the violence of the previous day. As the meeting was winding down, the police ordered the crowd to disperse, apparently fearful of violence resulting from the gathering. At this point, a homemade bomb was thrown into the police column, allegedly from behind a cart a little to the southwest. It exploded, and eight police officers were killed by a combination of the bomb fragments, the gun fire of the crowd, and the “friendly-fire” of other police officers. Immediately after the explosion, the police began to fire their revolvers into the crowd, and the crowd fired back. After the events settled, the police arrested a large number of suspects, including seven of the eight defendants at the trial. The last defend, Albert Parsons, turned himself in at the beginning of the trial itself. All of the eight defendants were involved in at least some capacity with the rally on the night of the 4th, though as the evidence presented later indicates, several of the defendants were not present at the rally at the time of the explosion, and none of them were directly indicted as the bomb-thrower. Instead, the trial would begin and end as a trial of ideas and beliefs; on one side, law, order, and the prevailing capitalist system. On the other side, liberty, revolution, and the radical Marxism that the entrenched establishment feared. In the end, the jury would not be asked to decide the defendants’ fates based on forensic evidence, or even the testimony of eyewitnesses, but based on the sensationalist rhetoric of the prosecution, and the preconceived notions and prejudices of the 12 jurors, all of the conservative middle-class#.
As it is with jury selection that a trial begins, so began the irregularities in the Haymarket trial. During jury selection, it understandably was difficult to find men who were suitable to sit the bar - those with no connection to the deceased, those without prior prejudice, those who felt they could be objective. Yet a jury was chosen - but not a jury of peers, and certainly not an objective jury. In the selection process there were many examples of prejudice on the part of the jurors, and at times the judge as well. For example, a Mr. Andrew Hamilton was asked,
Q: Have you any feeling or prejudice against the organisation of laboring men for their own protection and advancement and assistance so far as it is confined within the limits of the law?”
A: No sir; I have no objection to them whatever as long as they mind their own affairs (emphasis added by author)#.
A few questions later he was peremptorily excused by the defense. So, while his prejudice did not effect the trial directly, he did require the defense to spend one of its dismissals to be rid of him. But more importantly, this sequence provides us a glimpse into the mind of the Court itself. Judge Gray could have, and indeed should have, dismissed Hamilton immediately on the grounds of prejudicial feeling. But he did not; though it is impossible to assign motives to a situation this remote, it is certainly believable that Judge Gray himself would have been prejudiced against the almost entirely immigrant, wholly anarchist defendants that were vocally threatening the entrenched cultural, social, and economic establishment of which he was a prominent part.
Another example of this terrible process of jury selection was Mr. James Cole. He was asked by the defense the following question:
Q Have you any prejudice against a class of people called communists, or anarchists, or socialists?
A I have a prejudice against all secret societies.#
At this point it seems completely reasonable to excuse Mr. Cole from the stand, but just a few questions later the case for barring him from the proceedings becomes overwhelming.
Q From what you know and what you have read, have you any prejudice against them as such?
A I have a prejudice against all organizations that violate the law.
Q From what you know now of socialists, communists and anarchists have you a prejudice against them as a class?
A Yes.
Q You have a prejudice?
A Yes.
And yet the judge did not excuse him from service. After he expressed his prejudice repeatedly, the defense had to spend another of its dismissals to try to attain a satisfactory jury.
A final example of the hostility of the Court to the defendants is also perhaps one of the most dramatic. Mr. W. P. Upham was examined by the defense, and professed that he had followed the story of Haymarket in the newspapers, formed an opinion that the defendants were guilty, and expressed it as truth to his fellows. However, Judge Gray makes the argument, after he is asked to dismiss the juror because of his stated prejudice, that the juror has not indicated that he cannot have his mind changed#. But from a legal standpoint, this is a non-issue. The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is one of the foundational principles of Western jurisprudence; to see it so casually tossed aside is highly ironic. The very foundations of American society that men like Gray sought to protect was being tossed aside to punish those dissidents that threatened these institutions.
Another key issue in the trial of the Chicago anarchists was the type of evidence that was used to garner a conviction. In the list of evidence, there were 146 separate pieces of evidence introduced by the prosecution#. Of these exhibits, there were twelve photographs of bombs and bomb-making materials. Eight were photographs or drawings of floor plans or locations that were relevant to the case. The remaining 126 pieces of evidence were largely comprised of articles from the newspapers that were run by the defendants, the Alarm, run by Albert Parsons, and the Arbeiter-Zeitung, run by August Spies. It is understandable that the prosecution would wish to demonstrate the layout of the buildings that the defendants frequented and occupied at the time of the bombing. But the photos of the bombs and especially the articles from the anarchists newspapers are less than useful, and prejudicial to the jury against the defendants.
The pictures of the bombs and materials, People’s Exhibits 129A through 136, are of several different types, all of which would have been available around the city. But the only piece of evidence that was actually owned or taken from the defendants was one of the blasting furnaces, which could never be traced specifically to any bomb-making, let alone the bomb that killed the police officers in the Haymarket#. Essentially the function that this evidence served was to show that the defendants were bomb-makers - a charge that none of them denies in their testimony, and something that is indefensible in any case; all one must do is look at the title of some of Parson’s articles, such as "Dynamite: Instructions regarding its use and operations” in the Alarm, June 26, 1885, or "Dynamite: The Protection of the Poor Against the Armies of the Rich" from The Alarm, December 6, 1884#. But without a link from the bomb or bomber, there is no murder case; a better case for sedition or treason could be made from the evidence and testimony in the court record.
The 126 People’s Exhibits relating to the newspapers and other writings by the eight anarchist defendants and others outside the courtroom are another direct indicator of the miscarriage of justice that occurred in Judge Gray’s court. Two of the highlights of this array of “evidence” are People’s Exhibit 15 and 62, Johann Mosts’ Science of Revolutionary War#. This book was not written by any of the defendants, nor found in any of their possessions. All it does is outline the means and theory of waging a successful socialist/anarchist revolution in an urban environment. While the defendants would almost certainly have been familiar with it, it does not in anyway prove or disprove anything about the actual crime committed.
Among the testimony presented by the prosecution, there were many issues of discrepancies and testimony that actually should have benefited the defense. G. P. English, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, was called to the stand by the prosecution on July 27, 1886. He was asked about the speeches he had heard at the Haymarket rally on the evening of May 4th, and he related the substance of these speeches from the notes he had taken, in full view of the gathered laborers. This by itself is enlightening; if the crowd was so eager for retribution, would the bourgeois reporter not be a likely target? Yet he took notes publicly in the midst of this group of “violent” workers. When asked about Parson’s speech by the defense during cross-examination, English’s response was hardly what the prosecution would want to hear#.
Q. Were you accustomed to hear them speak for a year or two or three years back?
A. Yes sir, I had heard them speak.
Q. Well, now was there any difference? In what respect were those speeches
different from what they had been making for five or six years?
A. Well, I thought they were a little milder.
This could hardly be a pleasant moment for the prosecution. Rather than portraying a rabid group of blood-thirsty anarchists, just waiting for the perfect time to destroy America, the witness tells the jury and court that the speeches were actually of a more moderate tone than what he had previously heard by the same speakers.
Perhaps one of the most damning witnesses to the case of the prosecution was the Mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison. He was called by the defense, and even though the Court made some extremely stringent demands on what he could and could not answer, his reply to the following questions should have essentially ended the case, in favor of the defense.
Q State whether or not you recall any suggestion made by either of the speakers
looking toward calling for the immediate use of force or violence towards any
person? If so, what was the remark?
A You mean by immediate, that night?
Q Yes sir.
A There was not. If there had been I should have dispersed them at once#.
In sworn testimony the mayor of the city in which the bombing took place had said that there was no immediate call to violence. And yet the jury still convicted these defendants of murder. But this should not be a surprise, given the contaminated jury pool demonstrated above. From the evidence that is culled from the court documents, it appears doubtful that any verdict other than what was handed down was even possible.
That the defendants were guilty is beyond any realistic doubt; the issue is that they were not guilty of the crime for which they had been indicted. Had the charge been sedition or treason, the outcome would have made legal sense. They called for the forcible overthrow of the contemporary economic and political structures of the United States repeatedly in speeches given prior to the Haymarket tragedy, in newspaper articles and broadsides, and even in speeches made in the courtroom after the verdict was handed down. Lingg stated clearly to the court,
I tell you frankly and openly, I am for force. I have already told Captain Schaack, "If they use cannons against us, we shall use dynamite against them." I repeat that I am the enemy of the "order" of today, and I repeat that, with all my powers, so long as breath remains in me, I shall combat it. I declare again, frankly and openly, that I am in favor of using force. I have told Captain Schaack, and I stand by it, "IF YOU CANNONADE US we shall dynamite you." You laugh! Perhaps you think, "You'll throw no more bombs;" but let me assure you that I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words; and when you shall have hanged us, then, mark my words, they will do the bomb-throwing! In this hope do I say to you: "I despise you. I despise your order; your laws; your force-propped authority." HANG ME FOR IT! (emphasis and italics in original)#
The State was not trying these men, it was trying anarchy. In a position so temporally remote from the original event, it is nearly impossible to assign motives to the principal actors, the Court, the prosecution, the police, the jurors. It can reasonably be assumed that the “otherness” of these mostly German speaking immigrants, their unusual beliefs, their inflammatory rhetoric, and the feelings of anxiety that the threat of class warfare would engender all helped to bias the legal system against the defendants. But making the reasoning more understandable does not excuse the miscarriage of justice that prevailed in this trial. This should remain as a cautionary reminder to the U. S. legal system, a sign to not return to this road that was traveled 125 years ago - a reminder that no matter what the politics or creed the defendants follow, no matter what their race or religion, they are entitled to a fair and just trial, lest we become that thing we are trying to stop. Perhaps Nietzsche said it most eloquently in his famous maxim, “Beware when fighting monsters that you do not become a monster yourself.”
Bibliography
Avarich, Paul, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 186-427.
Smith, Dr. Carl, Northwestern University, “The Dramas of Haymarket”, Chicago Historical Society, www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/overview/over.htm (accessed 10/14/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1, Examination of Andrew Hamilton (first appearance)”, 1886 July 2. Volume D, 251-255, 5 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumed/D251-255.htm (accessed 10/26/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1, Examination of James H. Cole (first appearance)”, 1886 June 22. Volume A, 137-144, 8 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumea/A137-144.htm (accessed 10/26/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 2, Examination of W. P. Upham with subsequent court discussion“, 1886 June 21. Volume A, 54-76, 23 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumea/A054-076.htm (accessed 10/26/07).
“Table of Contents, Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript” www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/trialtoc.htm#OUTLINE (accessed 10/27/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1. Testimony of G. P. English,” 1886 July 27. Volume K, 285-311, 27 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumek/251-300/K285- 311.htm.
”Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1. Testimony of Carter H. Harrison,” 1886 Aug. 2. Volume L, 26-52, 27 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumel/000-050/L026- 052.htm.
“The Accused, the accusers: the famous speeches of the eight Chicago anarchists in court when asked if they had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon them. On October 7th, 8th and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois. Chicago, Ill.: Socialistic Publishing Society, [1886?] 88 p.; 22 cm. (CHS ICHi 31373) Speech of Louis Lingg, pp. 39 - 42” www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/books/b01/B01S005.htm.
Maybe there is another history geek out there who digs late 19th century history.
Sadly, it makes it all one long paragraph and takes out the footnotes. I think a # sign equals a footnote, but there is no citation to go along with it.
And if anyone ever wonders what I mean when I talk about internet sources and citations, this is what I am talking about when I talk about RELIABLE SOURCES.
The Haymarket Affair of 1886-87
Of all the aspects of government in the United States, the judicial system may be one of the most frighteningly ambiguous in its powers and responsibilities. To the court is given the keys of property reallocation, the prisons of America, even the choice of who lives and dies, and for what crime or reason. History is full of cases where the courts have made use of these powers, for good and for ill. The Dred Scott decision, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Scottsboro Boys - all these cases had been decided by the courts and overturned or the accused pardoned after misconduct was found on the part of the prosecution or police, or bias found on the part of the court system. At times the courts have simply been incorrect in their ruling; given the evidence they were provided, the jury and the judge could not have logically done anything else. But in other situations, like those mentioned in passing above, the court appears to have willfully set aside objectivity and served as the organ of cultural, racial, and economic bigotry.
Cast in the mold of the cases above is another historical miscarriage of justice, this time set in Chicago at the pinnacle of the move to industrialization that dominated American life during the late 19th century. The years of this specific event were 1886-87, in a critical era of social unrest, an era of reaction to the growing problems of labor and ethnic tensions. The drama began on May 3rd, 1886, outside the McCormick Reaper factory, but it would become known throughout history by the small square where the sparks of the McCormick incident would ignite into the conflagration that has come to be called the Haymarket Affair.
The essence of the event was an outburst of violence in the Haymarket, a widening between two streets in downtown Chicago, after an ugly altercation between the Chicago police, the Pinkerton “detectives”, striking workers for the McCormick Reaper Factory, and scabs hired by McCormack to take the place of the strikers. Several strikers had been killed on May 3rd, and a rally was being held in the Haymarket as a show solidarity and protest of the perceived brutality of the police in suppressing of the strikers.# During the rally in the Haymarket on the night of May 4th, both the mayor and the police came to make sure that there would not be a repeat of the violence of the previous day. As the meeting was winding down, the police ordered the crowd to disperse, apparently fearful of violence resulting from the gathering. At this point, a homemade bomb was thrown into the police column, allegedly from behind a cart a little to the southwest. It exploded, and eight police officers were killed by a combination of the bomb fragments, the gun fire of the crowd, and the “friendly-fire” of other police officers. Immediately after the explosion, the police began to fire their revolvers into the crowd, and the crowd fired back. After the events settled, the police arrested a large number of suspects, including seven of the eight defendants at the trial. The last defend, Albert Parsons, turned himself in at the beginning of the trial itself. All of the eight defendants were involved in at least some capacity with the rally on the night of the 4th, though as the evidence presented later indicates, several of the defendants were not present at the rally at the time of the explosion, and none of them were directly indicted as the bomb-thrower. Instead, the trial would begin and end as a trial of ideas and beliefs; on one side, law, order, and the prevailing capitalist system. On the other side, liberty, revolution, and the radical Marxism that the entrenched establishment feared. In the end, the jury would not be asked to decide the defendants’ fates based on forensic evidence, or even the testimony of eyewitnesses, but based on the sensationalist rhetoric of the prosecution, and the preconceived notions and prejudices of the 12 jurors, all of the conservative middle-class#.
As it is with jury selection that a trial begins, so began the irregularities in the Haymarket trial. During jury selection, it understandably was difficult to find men who were suitable to sit the bar - those with no connection to the deceased, those without prior prejudice, those who felt they could be objective. Yet a jury was chosen - but not a jury of peers, and certainly not an objective jury. In the selection process there were many examples of prejudice on the part of the jurors, and at times the judge as well. For example, a Mr. Andrew Hamilton was asked,
Q: Have you any feeling or prejudice against the organisation of laboring men for their own protection and advancement and assistance so far as it is confined within the limits of the law?”
A: No sir; I have no objection to them whatever as long as they mind their own affairs (emphasis added by author)#.
A few questions later he was peremptorily excused by the defense. So, while his prejudice did not effect the trial directly, he did require the defense to spend one of its dismissals to be rid of him. But more importantly, this sequence provides us a glimpse into the mind of the Court itself. Judge Gray could have, and indeed should have, dismissed Hamilton immediately on the grounds of prejudicial feeling. But he did not; though it is impossible to assign motives to a situation this remote, it is certainly believable that Judge Gray himself would have been prejudiced against the almost entirely immigrant, wholly anarchist defendants that were vocally threatening the entrenched cultural, social, and economic establishment of which he was a prominent part.
Another example of this terrible process of jury selection was Mr. James Cole. He was asked by the defense the following question:
Q Have you any prejudice against a class of people called communists, or anarchists, or socialists?
A I have a prejudice against all secret societies.#
At this point it seems completely reasonable to excuse Mr. Cole from the stand, but just a few questions later the case for barring him from the proceedings becomes overwhelming.
Q From what you know and what you have read, have you any prejudice against them as such?
A I have a prejudice against all organizations that violate the law.
Q From what you know now of socialists, communists and anarchists have you a prejudice against them as a class?
A Yes.
Q You have a prejudice?
A Yes.
And yet the judge did not excuse him from service. After he expressed his prejudice repeatedly, the defense had to spend another of its dismissals to try to attain a satisfactory jury.
A final example of the hostility of the Court to the defendants is also perhaps one of the most dramatic. Mr. W. P. Upham was examined by the defense, and professed that he had followed the story of Haymarket in the newspapers, formed an opinion that the defendants were guilty, and expressed it as truth to his fellows. However, Judge Gray makes the argument, after he is asked to dismiss the juror because of his stated prejudice, that the juror has not indicated that he cannot have his mind changed#. But from a legal standpoint, this is a non-issue. The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is one of the foundational principles of Western jurisprudence; to see it so casually tossed aside is highly ironic. The very foundations of American society that men like Gray sought to protect was being tossed aside to punish those dissidents that threatened these institutions.
Another key issue in the trial of the Chicago anarchists was the type of evidence that was used to garner a conviction. In the list of evidence, there were 146 separate pieces of evidence introduced by the prosecution#. Of these exhibits, there were twelve photographs of bombs and bomb-making materials. Eight were photographs or drawings of floor plans or locations that were relevant to the case. The remaining 126 pieces of evidence were largely comprised of articles from the newspapers that were run by the defendants, the Alarm, run by Albert Parsons, and the Arbeiter-Zeitung, run by August Spies. It is understandable that the prosecution would wish to demonstrate the layout of the buildings that the defendants frequented and occupied at the time of the bombing. But the photos of the bombs and especially the articles from the anarchists newspapers are less than useful, and prejudicial to the jury against the defendants.
The pictures of the bombs and materials, People’s Exhibits 129A through 136, are of several different types, all of which would have been available around the city. But the only piece of evidence that was actually owned or taken from the defendants was one of the blasting furnaces, which could never be traced specifically to any bomb-making, let alone the bomb that killed the police officers in the Haymarket#. Essentially the function that this evidence served was to show that the defendants were bomb-makers - a charge that none of them denies in their testimony, and something that is indefensible in any case; all one must do is look at the title of some of Parson’s articles, such as "Dynamite: Instructions regarding its use and operations” in the Alarm, June 26, 1885, or "Dynamite: The Protection of the Poor Against the Armies of the Rich" from The Alarm, December 6, 1884#. But without a link from the bomb or bomber, there is no murder case; a better case for sedition or treason could be made from the evidence and testimony in the court record.
The 126 People’s Exhibits relating to the newspapers and other writings by the eight anarchist defendants and others outside the courtroom are another direct indicator of the miscarriage of justice that occurred in Judge Gray’s court. Two of the highlights of this array of “evidence” are People’s Exhibit 15 and 62, Johann Mosts’ Science of Revolutionary War#. This book was not written by any of the defendants, nor found in any of their possessions. All it does is outline the means and theory of waging a successful socialist/anarchist revolution in an urban environment. While the defendants would almost certainly have been familiar with it, it does not in anyway prove or disprove anything about the actual crime committed.
Among the testimony presented by the prosecution, there were many issues of discrepancies and testimony that actually should have benefited the defense. G. P. English, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, was called to the stand by the prosecution on July 27, 1886. He was asked about the speeches he had heard at the Haymarket rally on the evening of May 4th, and he related the substance of these speeches from the notes he had taken, in full view of the gathered laborers. This by itself is enlightening; if the crowd was so eager for retribution, would the bourgeois reporter not be a likely target? Yet he took notes publicly in the midst of this group of “violent” workers. When asked about Parson’s speech by the defense during cross-examination, English’s response was hardly what the prosecution would want to hear#.
Q. Were you accustomed to hear them speak for a year or two or three years back?
A. Yes sir, I had heard them speak.
Q. Well, now was there any difference? In what respect were those speeches
different from what they had been making for five or six years?
A. Well, I thought they were a little milder.
This could hardly be a pleasant moment for the prosecution. Rather than portraying a rabid group of blood-thirsty anarchists, just waiting for the perfect time to destroy America, the witness tells the jury and court that the speeches were actually of a more moderate tone than what he had previously heard by the same speakers.
Perhaps one of the most damning witnesses to the case of the prosecution was the Mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison. He was called by the defense, and even though the Court made some extremely stringent demands on what he could and could not answer, his reply to the following questions should have essentially ended the case, in favor of the defense.
Q State whether or not you recall any suggestion made by either of the speakers
looking toward calling for the immediate use of force or violence towards any
person? If so, what was the remark?
A You mean by immediate, that night?
Q Yes sir.
A There was not. If there had been I should have dispersed them at once#.
In sworn testimony the mayor of the city in which the bombing took place had said that there was no immediate call to violence. And yet the jury still convicted these defendants of murder. But this should not be a surprise, given the contaminated jury pool demonstrated above. From the evidence that is culled from the court documents, it appears doubtful that any verdict other than what was handed down was even possible.
That the defendants were guilty is beyond any realistic doubt; the issue is that they were not guilty of the crime for which they had been indicted. Had the charge been sedition or treason, the outcome would have made legal sense. They called for the forcible overthrow of the contemporary economic and political structures of the United States repeatedly in speeches given prior to the Haymarket tragedy, in newspaper articles and broadsides, and even in speeches made in the courtroom after the verdict was handed down. Lingg stated clearly to the court,
I tell you frankly and openly, I am for force. I have already told Captain Schaack, "If they use cannons against us, we shall use dynamite against them." I repeat that I am the enemy of the "order" of today, and I repeat that, with all my powers, so long as breath remains in me, I shall combat it. I declare again, frankly and openly, that I am in favor of using force. I have told Captain Schaack, and I stand by it, "IF YOU CANNONADE US we shall dynamite you." You laugh! Perhaps you think, "You'll throw no more bombs;" but let me assure you that I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words; and when you shall have hanged us, then, mark my words, they will do the bomb-throwing! In this hope do I say to you: "I despise you. I despise your order; your laws; your force-propped authority." HANG ME FOR IT! (emphasis and italics in original)#
The State was not trying these men, it was trying anarchy. In a position so temporally remote from the original event, it is nearly impossible to assign motives to the principal actors, the Court, the prosecution, the police, the jurors. It can reasonably be assumed that the “otherness” of these mostly German speaking immigrants, their unusual beliefs, their inflammatory rhetoric, and the feelings of anxiety that the threat of class warfare would engender all helped to bias the legal system against the defendants. But making the reasoning more understandable does not excuse the miscarriage of justice that prevailed in this trial. This should remain as a cautionary reminder to the U. S. legal system, a sign to not return to this road that was traveled 125 years ago - a reminder that no matter what the politics or creed the defendants follow, no matter what their race or religion, they are entitled to a fair and just trial, lest we become that thing we are trying to stop. Perhaps Nietzsche said it most eloquently in his famous maxim, “Beware when fighting monsters that you do not become a monster yourself.”
Bibliography
Avarich, Paul, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 186-427.
Smith, Dr. Carl, Northwestern University, “The Dramas of Haymarket”, Chicago Historical Society, www.chicagohistory.org/dramas/overview/over.htm (accessed 10/14/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1, Examination of Andrew Hamilton (first appearance)”, 1886 July 2. Volume D, 251-255, 5 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumed/D251-255.htm (accessed 10/26/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1, Examination of James H. Cole (first appearance)”, 1886 June 22. Volume A, 137-144, 8 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumea/A137-144.htm (accessed 10/26/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 2, Examination of W. P. Upham with subsequent court discussion“, 1886 June 21. Volume A, 54-76, 23 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumea/A054-076.htm (accessed 10/26/07).
“Table of Contents, Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript” www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/trialtoc.htm#OUTLINE (accessed 10/27/07).
“Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1. Testimony of G. P. English,” 1886 July 27. Volume K, 285-311, 27 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumek/251-300/K285- 311.htm.
”Illinois vs. August Spies et al. trial transcript no. 1. Testimony of Carter H. Harrison,” 1886 Aug. 2. Volume L, 26-52, 27 p. www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/volumel/000-050/L026- 052.htm.
“The Accused, the accusers: the famous speeches of the eight Chicago anarchists in court when asked if they had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon them. On October 7th, 8th and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois. Chicago, Ill.: Socialistic Publishing Society, [1886?] 88 p.; 22 cm. (CHS ICHi 31373) Speech of Louis Lingg, pp. 39 - 42” www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/books/b01/B01S005.htm.