Haymarket (30 page)

Spies burst into laughter. “No—not
all
over! If we recapitulate the entire conversation, we’ll both go mad!” The two men smiled; the tension was broken.

“Nobody else in Chicago is so entirely trusted by both the English- and German-speaking communities as you. So you must speak tonight at the protest meeting.”

“If I possibly could, I would,” Parsons said quietly, “but, alas, I’m already committed elsewhere.”

“Where? What could possibly take precedence?” Spies sounded as if he was about to flare again.

“I’ve promised Lucy. The American Group is meeting tonight to discuss ways of encouraging the sewing girls to join the eight-hour struggle. Lucy and Lizzie have worked hard to organize them but the girls seem to be losing heart.”

Spies tried to conceal his exasperation. “Surely Lucy would understand that the Haymarket meeting is more important.”

“No, I doubt that she would. The plight of the sewing girls has become a passion for her. I’ve given her my solemn promise to attend the meeting.
It’s set for seven o’clock, here in the
Alarm
office.”

“Well then, you can attend both meetings!” Spies said, brightening. “Haymarket is scheduled to start at seven-thirty, but given how long it takes a crowd that size to settle down, I’m sure the proceedings won’t begin till eight, or even eight-thirty. I could speak first, then you could come over straightaway at the close of your own meeting. Say, about nine o’clock.”

“But I can’t be sure when it will end. And I can’t leave before it does. That would send the wrong message—as if I didn’t think the gathering important enough to see it through to its conclusion.”

“Nonsense! You could simply explain that you were urgently needed elsewhere.”

Parsons smiled. “Spies, you’re not a married man.”

“Lucy shares your politics. She would completely understand.”

“She might. She might not. I intend to hold to my commitment.”

“You’re in thrall to her, that’s what,” Spies said, sounding testy again.

“Indeed I am. And she to me. I hope that someday you’ll be as lucky.”

Neither man spoke for a moment. Spies knew he was behaving badly, but distemper, so unfamiliar to him, had him firmly in its grip. Albert broke the silence.

“Spies, let us stop this at once. We have done quite enough quarreling for one night.”

Spies gratefully seized the olive branch. “You’re right. I must accept your decision. I’ve been pressing you too hard. I don’t recognize my own adamancy. But I do recognize how unattractive it is.”

“I have an idea. If the tone of the meeting at Haymarket does go awry in some way and you feel that you need me, send a messenger and I will come at once. Yes,” he said, smiling broadly, “even if our gathering is still in session.”

Spies seized hold of Albert and gave him a fierce hug. “Thank you, my dear friend … that’s a great relief, a great relief … I can’t tell you …”

“Both our meetings will be boring and brief,” Parsons said with a laugh, “and by nine o’clock we’ll be sitting in a booth at Greif’s downing beer.”

Sam Fielden had been so busy hauling a load of stone to Waldheim cemetery that he didn’t get to read the newspaper until after he’d washed down his horses. It was then that he saw the announcement calling for a meeting of the American Group that evening.

Though bone tired, he felt duty-bound to attend; as treasurer, he had to be there in case an outlay of money was decided on. Hurrying home, he had a quick meal with his wife, pregnant again (for which she credited her spiritualist adviser) after the loss of their young son to dysentery. He gave her a huge hug, the only kind he knew, gently rocked the crib of his sleeping baby girl for a few moments, and then reluctantly headed out to catch the streetcar.

He arrived at the offices of the
Alarm
at eight o’clock to find that only fifteen members had gathered in the first-floor business office and that the meeting, awaiting the arrival of the Parsons, hadn’t yet been convened. Milling around and greeting friends, Fielden learned of the simultaneous gathering taking place in Haymarket Square.

Albert, Lucy, and the two children, accompanied by Lizzie, decided to walk from their flat on Grand Street to the
Alarm
office. They were in high spirits, Albert regaling them with tales of his most recent trip. When he pushed out his stomach in imitation of a self-important trade union official he’d met, the children were so delighted that they strutted around in imitation of their father, bellies stuck out, noses high in the air.

In the midst of the hijinks, they ran smack into two reporters, one from the
Times
and one from the
Tribune
, at the corner of Halsted and Randolphs Streets. Since Albert knew the two men and considered them
among the more honest press representatives, he paused to answer their questions. Mr. Owen of the
Times
asked for an update on the Haymarket gathering. He wasn’t headed for Haymarket, Albert said, and knew nothing of what might be taking place there. He was on his way, he explained, to another meeting entirely, one that had been called to discuss the plight of the city’s sewing girls.

“But we’ve heard you were scheduled to speak at Haymarket,” Mr. Owen said.

“Well, you heard wrong,” Parsons said jovially.
“I’ve
heard that you reporters have taken to carrying revolvers.”

“We’re not that frightened!” Owen said good-naturedly.

“You see—it shows how silly most rumors are,” Parsons said.

“Does that include the rumor that you’re in possession of dynamite?” the
Tribune
reporter asked, unsmilingly.

Parsons laughed and shook his head from side to side in disbelief.

“He’s a very dangerous-looking fellow, isn’t he?” Lucy chimed in merrily.

“Now we really must be off to our meeting,” Parsons said. “It’s on the South Side, and I’m afraid we’re already late for it.” Lizzie suggested they board a streetcar to make up for the lost time, and they bid the reporters a friendly good-bye.

It was nearly eight-thirty when they finally arrived at the meeting, and it was immediately called to order. The needed decisions were quickly taken. No one had to be persuaded that the sewing girls were desperate for help. It was agreed to print circulars, appoint organizers, and hire halls for meetings. Parsons made a motion, passed unanimously, that the American Group contribute five dollars—four dollars for handbills and one to pay carfare and incidental expenses. Fielden, in his official capacity as treasurer, handed Lizzie the money and she promptly handed him a receipt—along with a big kiss on the cheek, which made Fielden blush wildly.

“You must admit,” Lizzie whispered to Lucy, “that a strong body and a sweet good-nature are a rare combination in a man.”

“Personally, I like ’em frail,” Lucy parried. “Easier to keep in line. I don’t want nobody lookin’ like Moses handin’ me down his commandments!”

By now it was approaching nine o’clock, and there being no further business, the group was about to adjourn when Balthazar Rau, business
manager of the
Arbeiter-Zeitung
, came hurriedly into the room. He’d been sent, he explained, by Spies. The Haymarket meeting, Rau reported, had turned out a tame affair, drawing only a few thousand people and no speakers other than Spies himself. He needed relief. Having promised he would go if summoned, Parsons felt he had to comply. The American Group voted to adjourn, and almost everyone headed over with Parsons and Fielden to Desplaines Street, half a block north of Haymarket, near the mouth of Crane’s Alley.

In his four consecutive terms in office, Mayor Carter Harrison had won the good opinion of Chicago’s working-class. Even before he mandated the eight-hour day for city employees, Harrison had shown his sympathy for labor in numerous ways. He’d supported ordinances calling for stricter factory and tenement inspection; had fended off the anti-saloon reformers, whose campaign threatened to destroy a beloved German American cultural institution; had resisted attempts to interfere with union organizing and the rights of free speech and assembly; and had publicly stated that he would never call in state or federal troops to put down a strike. Unlike so many officials of the day, moreover, Harrison had never had his hand in the till. If the city’s business elite was bemused by such unorthodoxy, it was downright incensed when Harrison dared to appoint a few socialists to local office in the city’s department of health.

Bombarded with predictions from the police hierarchy in general, and from Inspector Bonfield in particular, of impending “revolutionary violence” at the Haymarket Square meeting, Harrison had decided on the evening of May 4th to have a look for himself. He’d come deeply to regret appointing Bonfield as an inspector, now that his brutal ways had escalated—Bonfield had of late become fond of repeating to reporters his now favorite slogan: “The club today saves the bullet tomorrow.” Harrison believed his presence might restrain Bonfield’s eager pursuit of conflict. He’d been told that Bonfield had, with the approval of Chief Ebersold, already concentrated a disproportionately large police force of some two hundred men at the Desplaines Street station and that he’d put additional reserves on alert at other precincts around the city.

The outdoor meeting still had not started when Mayor Harrison arrived. A large, striking man of sixty-one, he was immediately noticed. But the mayor was leaving nothing to chance: he periodically placed himself under
the one streetlight in the area to illuminate his presence, and when he moved genially through the crowd he occasionally paused and struck a match under his face, although somehow his cigar never materialized. A friend accompanying Harrison expressed fear that the mayor was making himself a target for potential trouble-makers, but Harrison insisted that he wanted “the people to know that their Mayor is here.”

His presence had been well established by the time Spies, shortly before eight-thirty, mounted one of the two Crane Plumbing Company wagons abutting the alley and finally began his speech. He’d originally been scheduled to talk in German, but because of the absence of other speakers, had decided at the last minute to switch to English. With his very first sentence, he aimed to set a calm, deliberate tone. “There seems to prevail in certain quarters,” he began, “the opinion that this meeting has been called for the purposes of inaugurating a riot, hence the warlike preparations on the part of so-called law and order. But let me tell you at once, that this meeting has
not
been called for any such purpose. Our object in gathering is to explain the eight-hour movement and to throw light on various incidents in connection with it, chief among them, yesterday’s events at the McCormick plant.”

Pleased at the tone and tenor of Spies’s words, Mayor Harrison had just begun to let himself relax a bit when several angry voices called out from the crowd, “Hang McCormick!” “Let’s get the bastard!” Could Bonfield have been right after all? The mayor pulled his black slouch hat down over his forehead in a reflexive gesture of self-protection.

“No!” Spies instantly shouted back. “Make no idle threats! There will be a time, and we’re fast approaching it, when monsters who destroy the lives and happiness of the citizens will be dealt with like … like wild beasts”—Spies seemed stunned by his own words. Trying to soften their impact, he quickly added, “But that time has
not
come!” Then, as if again mysteriously overpowered (perhaps, he later thought, by a collective rage not exclusively his own) he burst out, “When the time has come, you will no longer make threats, but you will go and act.” Spies silently cursed himself. He was defeating his own conciliatory purpose. Alarmed, he steeled himself to stay in control, and out poured a string of pacifying words. They came just in time; Mayor Harrison was nervously fingering his watch chain and scanning the crowd to catch sight of Bonfield should he, after all, be needed.

But for the next half hour Spies spoke in such soothing, even platitudinous, terms that Harrison felt confirmed in his original estimate that the rally was likely to be merely tedious, no threat to civic peace.

At nine o’clock Parsons and his party arrived at Desplaines, and Spies, with relief, immediately waved his friend over to the wagon. As Parsons jumped up, the crowd cheered. Spies briefly introduced him then went over to sit with Lizzie, Lucy, and the children on top of another wagon. Parsons spoke for nearly a full hour, and throughout sustained the temperate tone that had kept mysteriously giving way during Spies’s talk. Parsons mostly revisited familiar ground: the just grievances of the workers, their right to control the fruits of their own labor, the greed and intransigence of the ruling class.

The name Jay Gould stirred a few people in the crowd to jeer and shout imprecations. But Parsons held firm. “This is not a conflict between individuals,” he emphatically responded, “but the time for a change of system. Socialism aims to remove the causes that produce the pauper and the millionaire, but does not aim at the life of the individual. Kill Jay Gould, and like a jack-in-a-box another or a hundred others will, under the existing social conditions, spring up in his place.”

With that, the crowd, or what was left of it, subsided. Popular though Parsons was, his speech had for the most part been shopworn, and people had steadily drifted away. The event in all respects was turning out to be a rather dispirited, even soporific affair. By ten o’clock, when Parsons yielded the platform to Fielden, the last speaker of the evening, no more than three hundred people were still milling indifferently about. Fielden whispered to Parsons that he intended to talk for only a few minutes.

Mayor Harrison felt he could safely leave for home. He decided that on the way he’d do well to stop off at the Desplaines police station, only a block from the Haymarket gathering, and give Bonfield the benefit of his first-hand impressions. He chuckled at the thought of informing the zealous inspector that not a single bloody pike had thus far been thrust into the air.

When Harrison entered the station, he was taken aback. Despite the lateness of the hour and the lack of incident at Haymarket, the large contingent of officers remained on full alert. Bonfield himself had on his blue overcoat and boxy official hat—as if prepared to dash out the door at a moment’s notice. His thick black eyebrows and his roguish smile made
him look more like a French legionnaire than a Chicago policeman. At the sight of the mayor, Bonfield’s smile gave way to a frown.