In Remembrance of the Haymarket Martyrs: Happy May Day DU!

[bperci108]

The Real Labor Day

By various IWW authors

www.iww.org

May 1st, International Workers' Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in every country except the United States and Canada. This despite the fact that the holiday began in the 1880s in the United States, with the fight for an eight-hour work day.

In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day movement.

The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organized primarily by the anarchist International Working People's Association. Businesses and the state were terrified by the increasingly revolutionary character of the movement and prepared accordingly. The police and militia were increased in size and received new and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago's Commercial Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used against strikers. Nevertheless, by May 1st, the movement had already won gains for many Chicago clothing cutters, shoemakers, and packing-house workers. But on May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality.

The meeting proceeded without incident, and by the time the last speaker was on the platform, the rainy gathering was already breaking up, with only a few hundred people remaining. It was then that 180 cops marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. As the speakers climbed down from the platform, a bomb was thrown at the police, killing one and injuring seventy. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one worker and injuring many others.

Although it was never determined who threw the bomb, the incident was used as an excuse to attack the entire Left and labor movement. Police ransacked the homes and offices of suspected radicals, and hundreds were arrested without charge. Anarchists in particular were harassed, and eight of Chicago's most active were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. A kangaroo court found all eight guilty, despite a lack of evidence connecting any of them to the bomb-thrower (only one was even present at the meeting, and he was on the speakers' platform), and they were sentenced to die. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887. Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison. The remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893.

It is not surprising that the state, business leaders, mainstream union officials, and the media would want to hide the true history of May Day, portraying it as a holiday celebrated only in Moscow's Red Square. In its attempt to erase the history and significance of May Day, the United States government declared May 1st to be "Law Day", and gave us instead "Labor Day­" -a holiday devoid of any historical significance other than its importance as a day to swill beer and sit in traffic jams.

But rather than suppressing labor and radical movements, the events of 1886 and the execution of the Chicago anarchists actually mobilized many generations of radicals. Emma Goldman, a young immigrant at the time, later pointed to the Haymarket affair as her political birth. Lucy Parsons, widow of Albert Parsons, called upon the poor to direct their anger toward those responsible--the rich. Instead of disappearing, the anarchist movement only grew in the wake of Haymarket, spawning other radical movements and organizations, including the Industrial Workers of the World.

By covering up the history of May Day, the state, business, mainstream unions and the media have covered up an entire legacy of dissent in this country. They are terrified of what a similarly militant and organized movement could accomplish today, and they suppress the seeds of such organization whenever and wherever they can. As workers, we must recognize and commemorate May Day not only for its historical significance, but also as a time to organize around issues of vital importance to working-class people today.

As IWW songwriter Joe Hill wrote in one of his most powerful songs:

"Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying
We'll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers' Commonwealth."

[seemslikeadream]

1. The Real Labor Day

Commercial Photograph. "The Five Chicago Anarchists. November 11th, 1887. Retail price, 25 cts.
Special Collections & Preservation Division, Chicago Public Library

The only original photographs, taken May 3rd, 1887, in the County Jail, by J. J. Kanberg, 433 E. Division St., Chicago.

To the Public! Ten per cent from the Retail Price, on all copies sold, will be kept separately as a fund in favor of the Anarchist's children. J. J. Kanberg, Photographer."

The five men are clockwise from 1:00 o'clock:

A. R. Parsons
Adolph Fischer
George Engel
August Spies
Louis Lingg (in the middle with two letter g's at the end of his name).

The first four were hanged on Friday, November 11, 1887. Lingg committed suicide on November 10, 1887 by lighting a stick of dynamite in his mouth.
http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/haymarket ...
...

The rally began about 8:30 p.m. May 4 at the Haymarket, a site on Randolph between Halsted and Des Plaines Street, but due to low attendance it was moved a half block away to Des Plaines Street north of Randolph Street. After 10 p.m., as the rally drew to a close, 176 policemen led by Inspector John Bonfield moved in demanding immediate dispersal of the remaining 200 workers. Suddenly a bomb exploded. In the chaos that followed shots were fired by police and perhaps by workers. One police officer was killed by the bomb, six officers died later and sixty others were injured. No official count was made of civilian deaths or injuries probably because friends and/or relatives carried them off immediately. Medical evidence later showed that most of the injuries suffered by the police were caused by their own bullets.

All well known anarchists and socialists were rounded up and arrested in the days following the riot. Thirty one of them were named in criminal indictments and eight held for trial.

Although the bomb thrower has never been identified the eight indicted men were convicted by a court which held that the "inflammatory speeches and publications" of these eight incited the actions of the mob. The Illinois and U.S. Supreme Courts upheld the verdict.

On November 11, 1887 four of the accused were hanged. One committed suicide in jail, two had their sentences commuted to life in prison and one remained in prison even though there was no case against him.

After John P. Altgeld became Governor in 1893, the petitions for pardon that had been presented to and refused by his predecessor Richard Oglesby, were again introduced. After a careful review of the case Altgeld granted a full pardon on June 26, 1893. In his remarks he claimed the jury was selected to convict and the judge so prejudiced against the defendants that a fair trial was impossible.

Two Chicago area monuments were erected to commemorate the Haymarket Riot. One stands in German Waldheim Cemetery (Forest Park, IL). It depicts Justice preparing to draw a sword while placing a laurel wreath on the brow of a fallen worker. At the base of the monument are the final words August Spies spoke before his execution: "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today." The monument was dedicated on June 25, 1893, before a crowd of 8,000.

"In the name of the people I command peace" reads the inscription below the police officer depicted on the second monument. Since its dedication in 1889 peace has been somewhat elusive.

The monument was originally situated in the middle of Haymarket Square, where street car lines were forced to swerve around it. On May 24, 1890 an attempt was made to blow it up. In 1900 the monument was regarded as a traffic hazard and moved to Union Park at Randolph and Ogden Ave. On May 4, 1903 the city seal and state crest were stolen from its base. A disgruntled streetcar driver ran his vehicle into it, knocking it off its base on May 4, 1927, claiming he was tired of seeing it. On May 4, 1928, after repairs were completed, it was moved further into Union Park. The statue was again moved on May 4, 1958 and placed at Randolph St. at the Kennedy Expressway, 200 feet from its original location. The Chicago City Council granted the monument landmark status on May 4, 1965. In October, 1969 a dynamite bomb exploded at the feet of the figure damaging it from the calves down. In November black printers ink was tossed on it, doing further damage. Another bomb was exploded there in October 1970. After each incident the monument was restored, but after the 1970 incident Mayor Richard J. Daley placed a round-the-clock police guard at the site. When this proved too costly, the statue was moved to Police Headquarters at 11th and State Street in 1972. In October, 1976 the monument was again moved. It was rededicated at the Police Academy and can only be seen by making arrangements in advance. Peace.
http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/haymarket

[countryjake]

13. Thanks for more of the history! n/t

Solidarity Forever!

Viva May Day!

[seemslikeadream]

2. GEORGE BUSH, President of the USA, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2003, as Loyalty Day.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030430-26.html

[seemslikeadream]

3. "The Cooper Bosses shot you, Joe, they killed you, Joe",

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmyRip9OTZk

JOE HILL

I dreamed I saw last night alive as you and me.
Said I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead",
"I never died", said he.
"I never died", said he.

"In Salt Lake, Joe", I said to him standing by my bed,
"they framed you on a murder charge."
Says Joe: "But I ain't dead!" (2x)

"The Cooper Bosses shot you, Joe, they killed you, Joe", says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man", says Joe, "I didn't die!"

And standing there as big as life and smiling with his eyes,
Joe says: "What they could never kill went on to organize."

"Joe Hill ain't dead", he says to me, "Joe Hill ain't never
died,
when workers strike and organize Joe Hill is by their side."

From San Diego up to Maine in every mine and mill,
where workers stand up for their rights,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night alive as you and me.
Said I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead","I never died", said
he.

[ConsAreLiars]

6. Great link. I hoped it was to the Phil Ochs version and was glad to see it was.

There's a pretty good compilation of Joe Hill's songs (lyrics) at http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/hill.html

Now, almost 100 years later, they still tell the truth about what is still wrong in this world.

[mcctatas]

7. One of my personal favorites

DROPKICK MURPHYS LYRICS
"Worker's Song"

Yeh, this one's for the workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead

In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We've often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed


We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And we're always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about

And when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
Though we've never owned one lousy handful of earth?



All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can

Complimentary "Worker's Song" Ringtone

[bean fidhleir]

18. "I'm a four-loom weaver as many a one knows"

I'm a four-loom weaver as many a one knows
But I've nowt to eat, and I've worn out me clothes
Me clogs are outbroken and stockings I've none
And ye'd scarce give me tuppence
For all I've got on.

Auld Billy o'Bent has been telling me long
That we might have better times if I'd no but hold me tongue
But I've holden me tongue til I've near lost me breath
And I feels in me heart
That I'll soon clem {starve} to death

We held on for six weeks, thought each day were our last.
We tarried and shifted and we were quite fast.
We lived upon nettles while nettles were good.
And watered-out porridge
were the best of our food.

Our Margaret declares, if she'd clothes to put on,
She'd go up to London and see the great man
And if things didna alter after there she had been
She swears she would fight
In blood up to her e'en.

I'm a four loom weaver as many a one knows.
I've nowt to eat and I've worn out me clothes
House I have none, nor no looms to weave on,
I've woven myself
to the far end.

(Part of a song from when the new cloth mills with their power looms were forcing traditional weavers into poverty and starvation)

[bean fidhleir]

19. The Working Man's Lament

You gentlemen and tradesmen, that ride about at will,
Look down on these poor people; it's enough to make you crill;
Look down on these poor people, as you ride up and down,
We know there is a God above will bring your pride quite down.

CH: You tyrants of Old England,
your race may soon be run,
We will bring you down unto account
for what you to us have done.

You've dun'd down all our wages, shamefully to tell;
You go into the markets, and say you cannot sell;
And whenever we do ask you when these bad times will mend,
You quickly give us answer, "When the wars are at an end."

When we look on our poor children, it grieves our hearts full sore,
Their clothing it is worn to rags, while we can get no more,
With little in their bellies, they to work must go,
Whilst yours do dress as manky as the monkeys in a show.

You go to church on Sundays, in you it's nought but pride,
There can be no religion where workers are thrown aside;
If there be a place in heaven, as there is in the Exchange,
Our poor souls must not come near there; like lost sheep they must range.

With the choicest of strong dainties your tables overspread,
With good ale and strong brandy, to make your faces red;
You call'd a set of visitors--it is your whole delight--
And you lay your heads together to make our faces white.

You say that Bonyparty he's been the spoil of all,
And that we have got reason to pray for his downfall;
Now Bonyparty's dead and gone, and it is plainly shown
That we have bigger tyrants in the Boneys of our own.

[New Dawn]

4. K&R - and to Hell with "Loyalty Day"!

"Loyalty Day" is the fascist "holiday" that the Bush regime has placed on May 1st. Their reason for selecting May 1st was quite obvious.

[bperci108]

9. Surely a coincidence.......

Yeah, right.


:eyes:

[pink-o]

11. Loyalty to what? Mission Accomplished Day, 5 years ago??

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Djinn]

5. Honour their memory

become an anarchist

[bperci108]

10. Or maybe even a Wobbly....

www.iww.org


At the very least, tell someone at work, in class or at home about the Haymarket and what the Working Class fought and died for, then and since; what so many take for granted now, and how it is in danger of being stolen from us by the great-grandchildren of those very same Bosses.

[Djinn]

14. in the last union I worked for

only ONE person in an office of over 40 knew who the Wobblies were, I was most certainly the only paid up member. Depressing V depressing. Better where I am now but still most people, when hearing the word anarchy would sooner think of middle class university students throwing bricks through Starfucks windows than a movement that gave us the Paris Commune, the Makhnovists, the CNT and the workers takeover movement in Argentina

[bperci108]

17. It's no accident...

...that the Wobblies, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Ludlow Massacre, Joe Hill and the like have been scrubbed from the collective memory.

Just like it's no accident that anarchists are portrayed as vandals, criminals and revolutionaries (well, I agree with that last one, but I see it as a good thing, not a bad one...) by the M$M and the schools.

The Plantation Nation and the Global Plantation both need good, complacent, obedient little worker bees who know their place and won't/can't/don't know how to rock the boat.

But some of us (including you too apparently...)are determined to remind the hive that another world is possible. :evilgrin:

Happy May Day, Djinn.

[ColbertWatcher]

8. Thank you for posting. k+r n/t

[countryjake]

12. Lou Dobbs on the tube right now, giving CNN hell for calling it Immigrant Day

He's spewing his bullshit about this day really being "Law Day" as declared by Congress some twenty-five years ago...they gave that asshole fifteen minutes to decry the right of our immigrants to march for human rights and labor solidarity in this country...to harp on what "legal" means. I'm too busy now to write any complaints to CNN but will definitely do so, before this significant and historic International Workers Day is over!

Viva May Day!

Solidarity with all International Workers!

[Hannah Bell]

15. kick. this is DU but no may day threads...

[Hannah Bell]

16. great song

http://www.tomjuravich.com/altar/borderlines.php

Borderlines
Gail Gingrich and Valerie De Priest

I'm hearing how business is tough in America
And how the union's out of hand
I heard on the news today ‘bout the latest threat to my pay
There's one thing I just don't understand
They say they can't afford our wages
And turn their greedy eyes to distant shores

While patrols guard the borderlines
I'm standing on a picket line
While corporate boardroom plans are formed
To move my job to Salvador
Where for 50 cents a day
A women sweats her life away
Then they tell me she's my enemy

At first I didn't have the time
To bother with the words
It seemed so very far away
But now I'm in a worried mood
Cause hands need work and kids need food
And I just got laid off today
They say it just makes good business
While their profit swells up like some disease

While patrols guard the borderline
I'm standing on an unemployment line
While somewhere in the Philippines
A mind grows numb from stitching seams
Guatemalan hills are cash,
A coffee picker's skull is smashed
And then they tell me he's my enemy

I think I'm finally putting it all together
Borderlines don't hold their loyalty
They don't care who is the drone
White, red, yellow, black or brown
Profit is their only deity
As corporate arms spread all around the world
They'll strangle any weak neck they can find

From the mines in South Africa
To the fields of El Salvador
From the sweatshops down in Mexico
To the wire slots in Tokyo
Sweat is sweat and blood is blood
And one day soon the time will come
We'll stand and face our common enemy
Sweat is sweat and blood is blood
And one day soon the time will come
We'll stand and face our common enemy.