Haymarket Riot

Chicago, Illinois 1886 Haymarket is a marketplace in Chicago. It is a shopping center busy with trade.

Early in 1886 labor unions were beginning a movement for an eight- hour day. Some factories in Chicago granted 8 hour days with pay cuts. This was not acceptable. UnionsMAY DAY Unions called for general strike on May 1, 1886, MAY DAY. Chicago workers struck for one day for shorter hours. Labor conditions at various plants around Chicago were tense. Nowhere were conditions more combustible than at the McCormick Reaper Works.

The McCormick Factory made 1,000 reapers a year by Cyrus McCormick, Sr. knew all 200 of his workers. In 1884, McCormick, Sr. died, his factory covered twelve acres, and 1,300 men worked ten-hour days, six days a week. That year the company made a 71% profit. Cyrus McCormick, Jr. took over. He did not know his workers. He treated workers as if they were commodities. In the 1880s, steel laborers worked twelve hour days, six days a week, for little pay. Textile workers—worked sixty to eighty hours a week. Conditions were dangerous. Miners worked underground with explosives but without safety regulations. In one year 25,000 workers died in the US. In 1884 Cyrus McCormick, Jr., said he was cutting workers' pay in order to decrease corporate expenses. (That was the year his company made a 71% profit.)

Workers struck in McCormick hired strikebreakers, scabs, to take their places. Striking men attacked the scabs. McCormick hired guards, but a crowd captured and burned their rifles. McCormick agreed to go back to the old pay scale. Young Cyrus wasn't finished. In 1885, he installed expensive machinery, designed to eliminate workers. But the machines broke down; they cost more than the workers had. McCormick didn't care; he thought he had broken the union. In 1886, the union demanded higher pay and better conditions. Workers struck in McCormick hired strikebreakers, scabs, to take their places. Striking men attacked the scabs. McCormick hired guards, but a crowd captured and burned their rifles. McCormick agreed to go back to the old pay scale. Young Cyrus wasn't finished. In 1885, he installed expensive machinery, designed to eliminate workers. But the machines broke down; they cost more than the workers had. McCormick didn't care; he thought he had broken the union. In 1886, the union demanded higher pay and better conditions.

McCormick ordered a lockout to shut out the unionists in response to a call for a strike. He hired scabs and was so desperate for workers that he agreed to let them work an eight-hour day, which was what the strike was all about. The strikers were furious. McCormick bribed the mayor and police and hired an army of 400 police officers to guard the strikebreakers. As the plant reopened, striking workers gathered near the factory to listen to speeches by union leaders. During the May 1 strikes, even the nonunion workers were swept up in the enthusiasm, and half left work. Key point: Key point: Management--in an act of desperation--promised replacement workers an eight-hour day, while refusing to extend the same offer to its original union workers.

On May 3, a violent clash at the Reaper Works. A union representative spoke to several thousand workers near the plant gates, the factory bell sounded, signaling the end of a shift. As if on cue, many of the workers hurried off to heckle the scabs leaving the factory. A police patrol wagon and 75 policemen rushed to protect the replacement workers. Some hecklers threw rocks, so police responded with gunfire, killing two strikers.

A bomb explodes!! May 4, a rally turned riot! Haymarket Square was the sight of this protest meeting called to denounce the events of the preceding day at the McCormick Works. Speakers exhorted the crowd from a wagon which was used for a makeshift stage. Mayor Carter Harrison addressed the crowd briefly, then left, believing everything was orderly. Toward the end of this 6 hour meeting police tried to disperse the crowd, and a bomb exploded. Policeman Mathias J. Degan died almost instantly; seven other officers died later.

The following day, under the direction of State's Attorney, police began a fierce roundup of radicals, agitators and labor leaders. They seized records and closed socialist and labor press offices. Eight men were arrested without warrants and brought to trial for conspiracy. Despite the fact that the bomb thrower was never identified, and none of these eight could be connected with the crime,the judge imposed the death sentence on seven and the eighth was given fifteen years in prison. The court held that the "inflammatory speeches and publications" of these eight incited the actions of the mob. The Search for the criminals…

Police killed in riot Anarchists convicted of inciting the riot Judg e Hang ed Suicide