US History - Standards of Learning - USII.5
1. Haymarket Riot, July 26 1887
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm
While some attacks by police, militia, and soldiers were provoked, others were not. The most noted example of misconduct by the police took place on July 26, the same day as the cavalry charge by the Halsted Street viaduct, when officers raided a business meeting of furniture workers at the Turner Hall on West 12th Street (now Roosevelt Road). The police claimed that the violence began when someone threw a stone at them. One eyewitness described the police as "a uniformed mob." The raid led to a successful lawsuit by the furniture workers' union that resulted in the condemnation of the police and the affirmation of workers' right to peaceful assembly. The bad feelings generated by this incident became another cause of the mutual distrust that was part of the backdrop of Haymarket
-William Monty
SourceIDTag:USII.5.001
2. Thomas Nash’s “Workingman’s Dilemma” .
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm
This drawing is of a workingman and his family as he contemplate contributing a part of his needed earnings to a union. His decision is whether or not to take resources from his family and contribute to a questionable organization. This drawing is used as part of discussion on the merits and risks of joining labor unions. Who benefits most by unions? What motivations would business owners have in persuading workers not to join? Were the fears of goals of unions justified? What was the role of government in the prevention and formation of unions? Did the government act correctly? This drawing, one of several in this website by Thomas Nast, expresses the antiunion sentiments of many middle-class Americans in the decades following the Civil War. A skilled workingman gives over a precious portion of his hard-earned wages (likely the "mite" indicated in the title) to the Workingmen's Association and its questionable agenda. The worker's action, which goes against the best interests of his wife and children, contrasts with that of the more prosperous family in the background, who wisely invest their resources directly in their own future. The message is clear: if the worker trusted his employer instead of union leaders, he would do far better than if he joined a labor organization and engaged in strikes. Nast (1840-1902), one of the most influential and talented political cartoonists in American history, came to the United States from Germany when he was six years old. He first made his reputation with his work on the Civil War and Reconstruction. "The Worker's Mite" appeared the same year as some of his memorable drawings attacking the corrupt machine politics of New York's Tammany Hall and its notorious "Boss," William Marcy Tweed. Nast's major outlet was Harper's Weekly, the country's leading popular illustrated magazine of news and cultural affairs.
Source IDTag: USII.5.002
3. Picture of the First Regiment Armory
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm
This picture is of an armory building erected in downtown Chicago. Its purpose was to provide a facility out of which military/police personnel could operate . Labor unrest in Chicago had initiated a response that brought about a view that military/police should be ready and available to respond to riots and unrest. The concept of using military personnel to control the public is an interesting conversation to discuss. What is the proper uses of governmental control over citizens? Is military use acceptable in a riot situation? What limits should there be on governments right to use these tactics?
One measure of increasing concern during the 1870s about the threat of labor and mob violence was the growth of state militias. These were locally organized companies of part-time citizen-soldiers, one of whose major purposes was to protect against so-called internal insurrection. State militias were not comprised exclusively of the native born, but also included some volunteer companies organized by nationality, whose members were eager to display their patriotism to America. A state guard existed as early as 1874, but a more significant development was the Illinois legislature's 1876 adoption in the winter of a code for the arming and enrolling of a state militia, and its appropriation of $75,000 for armory rentals and related training expenses. The state militia saw active duty alongside Chicago police and federal troops in the railroad strike of 1877. The First Regiment of the Illinois National Guard met, drilled, and stored its weapons in the Gothic structure on Jackson Street, in downtown Chicago. Pictured here is the cover of a march dedicated to these defenders of public order. In addition to expecting police and soldiers to protect their businesses, corporate executives frequently hired private operatives employed by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, founded by the famous detective Allan Pinkerton. Pinkerton was born in Scotland in 1819 and was a resident of Chicago from the 1840s until his death in 1884. The Pinkertons came to stand in the minds of labor leaders and political radicals as the embodiment of the brutality and arrogance of capital, and the anarchists singled them out for vilification. Allan Pinkerton was ready to return the compliment. In his 1878 book, Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives, Pinkerton joined Police Superintendent Michael Hickey in blaming Albert Parsons for the troubles in Chicago in the summer of 1877. Pinkerton described Parsons as "a young man . . . of flippant tongue," who was "capable of making a speech that will tingle the blood of that class of characterless rascals that are always standing ready to grasp society by the throat; and while he can excite his auditors, of this class, to the very verge of riot, has that devilish ingenuity in the use of words which has permitted himself to escape deserving punishment."
-William Monty
Source IDTag: USII.5.003
4. The Haymarket Bomb
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/act2/tragedyEnacted/theBomb_f.htm
This picture is of a bomb that the Chicago police claimed was of the same type used in the Haymarket bombing and was produced by one of the defendants in the case. Although there was no real proof that the defendant in question produced this bomb it was fairly well established that he did manufacture bombs of this type. The role of police in producing evidence is an important concept in judicating cases of this type that effect public safety. The "Infernal Machines" entry in the "Bomb-Talking" section of Act I includes photographs taken at the time of several of the bomb exhibits introduced at the trial itself. It is possible that one of those bombs is also the one pictured here. The Chicago Historical Society's records indicate that this bomb was given to jury member J. H. Brayton by Captain Michael Schaack after the trial. This record appears to be substantiated by the fact that CHS also owns a letter on Chicago Police stationery from Captain Michael Schaack to Brayton, dated December 10, 1887, that reads, "Enclosed I send you one of the Lingg Round Lead Bombs." Click on the second of the smaller images to see this letter. The execution of four of the Haymarket accused—George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, and August Spies—took place on November 11, 1887; Louis Lingg committed suicide in his cell the day before. Putting aside the question of whether Lingg, who certainly did manufacture bombs like this, fashioned this particular bomb, and by what authority a senior police officer gave such evidence to a former juror, this is the type of molded lead amalgam bomb thrown in the Haymarket. The two hemispheres would be filled with dynamite (which resembled oily sawdust) and then bolted together. The large hole on the top of the bomb is for this bolt, and the smaller hole on the side is for the insertion of the fuse and the blasting cap. With a diameter of three inches, the bomb is slightly bigger than a baseball. The two hemispheres are about three-quarters-of-an-inch thick, and, loaded with dynamite. It probably weighed between four and five pounds. Two fragments of what is supposedly the bomb actually used in the Haymarket are in the collections of the Beinecke Library at Yale University. They are part of a large group of artifacts, books, and other documents that once belonged to Julius Grinnell, the State's Attorney who prosecuted the Haymarket case.
-William Monty
Source IDTag: USII.5.004
5. William Salter, The Cure for Anarchy, Chicago: October 23, 1887.
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/act4/otherVenues/theCureForAnarchy_f.htm
These documents detail views of anarchists and are designed to defend their rights to speak out. Much of these events are framed by issues of law and order and protection of business and industry cloaked in the rationalization of public safety. Where does legitimate protest end and anarchy begin? Is someone an anarchist if they confront any decree of law enforcement? What are the rights and responsibilities of citizens engaged in dissent? On view here are two of the several publications issued on both sides of the Atlantic in behalf of the anarchists. A few of these were from voices outside the radical community. While he labored endlessly for clemency, William Salter of the Ethical Culture Society nevertheless angered many of the convicted men's political sympathizers in his lecture "What Shall Be Done with the Anarchists." Although he maintained that their crime was sedition, not murder, Salter conceded that all the defendants went beyond the limits of free speech and should be imprisoned, but he maintained that their crime was sedition, not murder. In addition, he contended that there were different degrees of guilt among them, and that they should be punished accordingly. Lingg, Engel, and Fischer were the most culpable, and thus should receive a harsher treatment than the others, but none of the men deserved the death sentence. In Salter's opinion, expressed here and in another pamphlet, the cure for anarchy was social justice, not repression, and certainly not an unjust trial. Salter first presented "What Shall Be Done with the Anarchists" as a talk at the Grand Opera House on October 23, 1887, a little more than two weeks before the executions. Matthew M. Trumbull, a Chicago attorney who had no regard for the anarchists' ideas but was appalled at the conduct of the trial, agreed with Salter's opinion that the state had turned sedition into murder. Trumbull called the verdict "a revengeful judgment" rendered by a "class jury." In his opinion, the handling of the case turned justice topsy-turvy: "Never before, except in burlesque, was the meaning of words reversed as in the Anarchist trial. Logic stood on its head, and reasoned with its heels." Trumbull said that there was no need for him to ridicule the contrived way in which the Illinois Supreme Court traced the crime back to a conspiracy. "It is the language of the opinion itself that throws sarcasm upon the decision." Trumbull's view was understandably more warmly received by friends of the condemned men than was Salter's. In the week before the execution, Lucy Parsons sold copies of "Was It a Fair Trial" for five cents apiece in downtown Chicago. A newspaper story reported that she attracted "a dense crowd that filled up Clark Street and stopped traffic as completely as a Presidential parade could have done." According to the respectful article, Parsons found several customers. If she did endure some harassment from the police, she met with far less hostility than on many other occasions: "In vain the cab-drivers rang their bells, and the expostulations of a hundred teamsters were equally in vain. Finally a couple of officers came up and took Mrs. Parsons before Chief Ebersold. That official thought the matter over, and decided that Mrs. Parsons had the same right to sell her books that other venders of literature had, and said she might continue in the book business as long as she pleased, provided she did not blockade the sidewalks and streets. Her demeanor during the interview with the Chief was modest and lady-like in the extreme, and in a subsequent talk with a reporter she said that she fully realized the necessity of the order to keep the streets clear, and would do all in her power to assist the officers in the work. Accordingly on returning to the office and getting a fresh supply of books she, instead of standing in front of the building, walked briskly down the street to the Post-Office handing out books faster than she could make change. On gaining the steps of the Government building she once more was surrounded by a large crowd, and was told by a Deputy Marshal to move on. She obeyed and continued to walk through the streets until completely exhausted, when she went up into Devine's office [where she had picked up the pamphlets]. In the few hours she was out she sold nearly 5,000 copies of the book at 5 cents each."
-William Monty
Source IDTag: USII.5.005
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm
While some attacks by police, militia, and soldiers were provoked, others were not. The most noted example of misconduct by the police took place on July 26, the same day as the cavalry charge by the Halsted Street viaduct, when officers raided a business meeting of furniture workers at the Turner Hall on West 12th Street (now Roosevelt Road). The police claimed that the violence began when someone threw a stone at them. One eyewitness described the police as "a uniformed mob." The raid led to a successful lawsuit by the furniture workers' union that resulted in the condemnation of the police and the affirmation of workers' right to peaceful assembly. The bad feelings generated by this incident became another cause of the mutual distrust that was part of the backdrop of Haymarket
-William Monty
SourceIDTag:USII.5.001
2. Thomas Nash’s “Workingman’s Dilemma” .
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm
This drawing is of a workingman and his family as he contemplate contributing a part of his needed earnings to a union. His decision is whether or not to take resources from his family and contribute to a questionable organization. This drawing is used as part of discussion on the merits and risks of joining labor unions. Who benefits most by unions? What motivations would business owners have in persuading workers not to join? Were the fears of goals of unions justified? What was the role of government in the prevention and formation of unions? Did the government act correctly? This drawing, one of several in this website by Thomas Nast, expresses the antiunion sentiments of many middle-class Americans in the decades following the Civil War. A skilled workingman gives over a precious portion of his hard-earned wages (likely the "mite" indicated in the title) to the Workingmen's Association and its questionable agenda. The worker's action, which goes against the best interests of his wife and children, contrasts with that of the more prosperous family in the background, who wisely invest their resources directly in their own future. The message is clear: if the worker trusted his employer instead of union leaders, he would do far better than if he joined a labor organization and engaged in strikes. Nast (1840-1902), one of the most influential and talented political cartoonists in American history, came to the United States from Germany when he was six years old. He first made his reputation with his work on the Civil War and Reconstruction. "The Worker's Mite" appeared the same year as some of his memorable drawings attacking the corrupt machine politics of New York's Tammany Hall and its notorious "Boss," William Marcy Tweed. Nast's major outlet was Harper's Weekly, the country's leading popular illustrated magazine of news and cultural affairs.
Source IDTag: USII.5.002
3. Picture of the First Regiment Armory
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm
This picture is of an armory building erected in downtown Chicago. Its purpose was to provide a facility out of which military/police personnel could operate . Labor unrest in Chicago had initiated a response that brought about a view that military/police should be ready and available to respond to riots and unrest. The concept of using military personnel to control the public is an interesting conversation to discuss. What is the proper uses of governmental control over citizens? Is military use acceptable in a riot situation? What limits should there be on governments right to use these tactics?
One measure of increasing concern during the 1870s about the threat of labor and mob violence was the growth of state militias. These were locally organized companies of part-time citizen-soldiers, one of whose major purposes was to protect against so-called internal insurrection. State militias were not comprised exclusively of the native born, but also included some volunteer companies organized by nationality, whose members were eager to display their patriotism to America. A state guard existed as early as 1874, but a more significant development was the Illinois legislature's 1876 adoption in the winter of a code for the arming and enrolling of a state militia, and its appropriation of $75,000 for armory rentals and related training expenses. The state militia saw active duty alongside Chicago police and federal troops in the railroad strike of 1877. The First Regiment of the Illinois National Guard met, drilled, and stored its weapons in the Gothic structure on Jackson Street, in downtown Chicago. Pictured here is the cover of a march dedicated to these defenders of public order. In addition to expecting police and soldiers to protect their businesses, corporate executives frequently hired private operatives employed by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, founded by the famous detective Allan Pinkerton. Pinkerton was born in Scotland in 1819 and was a resident of Chicago from the 1840s until his death in 1884. The Pinkertons came to stand in the minds of labor leaders and political radicals as the embodiment of the brutality and arrogance of capital, and the anarchists singled them out for vilification. Allan Pinkerton was ready to return the compliment. In his 1878 book, Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives, Pinkerton joined Police Superintendent Michael Hickey in blaming Albert Parsons for the troubles in Chicago in the summer of 1877. Pinkerton described Parsons as "a young man . . . of flippant tongue," who was "capable of making a speech that will tingle the blood of that class of characterless rascals that are always standing ready to grasp society by the throat; and while he can excite his auditors, of this class, to the very verge of riot, has that devilish ingenuity in the use of words which has permitted himself to escape deserving punishment."
-William Monty
Source IDTag: USII.5.003
4. The Haymarket Bomb
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/act2/tragedyEnacted/theBomb_f.htm
This picture is of a bomb that the Chicago police claimed was of the same type used in the Haymarket bombing and was produced by one of the defendants in the case. Although there was no real proof that the defendant in question produced this bomb it was fairly well established that he did manufacture bombs of this type. The role of police in producing evidence is an important concept in judicating cases of this type that effect public safety. The "Infernal Machines" entry in the "Bomb-Talking" section of Act I includes photographs taken at the time of several of the bomb exhibits introduced at the trial itself. It is possible that one of those bombs is also the one pictured here. The Chicago Historical Society's records indicate that this bomb was given to jury member J. H. Brayton by Captain Michael Schaack after the trial. This record appears to be substantiated by the fact that CHS also owns a letter on Chicago Police stationery from Captain Michael Schaack to Brayton, dated December 10, 1887, that reads, "Enclosed I send you one of the Lingg Round Lead Bombs." Click on the second of the smaller images to see this letter. The execution of four of the Haymarket accused—George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, and August Spies—took place on November 11, 1887; Louis Lingg committed suicide in his cell the day before. Putting aside the question of whether Lingg, who certainly did manufacture bombs like this, fashioned this particular bomb, and by what authority a senior police officer gave such evidence to a former juror, this is the type of molded lead amalgam bomb thrown in the Haymarket. The two hemispheres would be filled with dynamite (which resembled oily sawdust) and then bolted together. The large hole on the top of the bomb is for this bolt, and the smaller hole on the side is for the insertion of the fuse and the blasting cap. With a diameter of three inches, the bomb is slightly bigger than a baseball. The two hemispheres are about three-quarters-of-an-inch thick, and, loaded with dynamite. It probably weighed between four and five pounds. Two fragments of what is supposedly the bomb actually used in the Haymarket are in the collections of the Beinecke Library at Yale University. They are part of a large group of artifacts, books, and other documents that once belonged to Julius Grinnell, the State's Attorney who prosecuted the Haymarket case.
-William Monty
Source IDTag: USII.5.004
5. William Salter, The Cure for Anarchy, Chicago: October 23, 1887.
http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/act4/otherVenues/theCureForAnarchy_f.htm
These documents detail views of anarchists and are designed to defend their rights to speak out. Much of these events are framed by issues of law and order and protection of business and industry cloaked in the rationalization of public safety. Where does legitimate protest end and anarchy begin? Is someone an anarchist if they confront any decree of law enforcement? What are the rights and responsibilities of citizens engaged in dissent? On view here are two of the several publications issued on both sides of the Atlantic in behalf of the anarchists. A few of these were from voices outside the radical community. While he labored endlessly for clemency, William Salter of the Ethical Culture Society nevertheless angered many of the convicted men's political sympathizers in his lecture "What Shall Be Done with the Anarchists." Although he maintained that their crime was sedition, not murder, Salter conceded that all the defendants went beyond the limits of free speech and should be imprisoned, but he maintained that their crime was sedition, not murder. In addition, he contended that there were different degrees of guilt among them, and that they should be punished accordingly. Lingg, Engel, and Fischer were the most culpable, and thus should receive a harsher treatment than the others, but none of the men deserved the death sentence. In Salter's opinion, expressed here and in another pamphlet, the cure for anarchy was social justice, not repression, and certainly not an unjust trial. Salter first presented "What Shall Be Done with the Anarchists" as a talk at the Grand Opera House on October 23, 1887, a little more than two weeks before the executions. Matthew M. Trumbull, a Chicago attorney who had no regard for the anarchists' ideas but was appalled at the conduct of the trial, agreed with Salter's opinion that the state had turned sedition into murder. Trumbull called the verdict "a revengeful judgment" rendered by a "class jury." In his opinion, the handling of the case turned justice topsy-turvy: "Never before, except in burlesque, was the meaning of words reversed as in the Anarchist trial. Logic stood on its head, and reasoned with its heels." Trumbull said that there was no need for him to ridicule the contrived way in which the Illinois Supreme Court traced the crime back to a conspiracy. "It is the language of the opinion itself that throws sarcasm upon the decision." Trumbull's view was understandably more warmly received by friends of the condemned men than was Salter's. In the week before the execution, Lucy Parsons sold copies of "Was It a Fair Trial" for five cents apiece in downtown Chicago. A newspaper story reported that she attracted "a dense crowd that filled up Clark Street and stopped traffic as completely as a Presidential parade could have done." According to the respectful article, Parsons found several customers. If she did endure some harassment from the police, she met with far less hostility than on many other occasions: "In vain the cab-drivers rang their bells, and the expostulations of a hundred teamsters were equally in vain. Finally a couple of officers came up and took Mrs. Parsons before Chief Ebersold. That official thought the matter over, and decided that Mrs. Parsons had the same right to sell her books that other venders of literature had, and said she might continue in the book business as long as she pleased, provided she did not blockade the sidewalks and streets. Her demeanor during the interview with the Chief was modest and lady-like in the extreme, and in a subsequent talk with a reporter she said that she fully realized the necessity of the order to keep the streets clear, and would do all in her power to assist the officers in the work. Accordingly on returning to the office and getting a fresh supply of books she, instead of standing in front of the building, walked briskly down the street to the Post-Office handing out books faster than she could make change. On gaining the steps of the Government building she once more was surrounded by a large crowd, and was told by a Deputy Marshal to move on. She obeyed and continued to walk through the streets until completely exhausted, when she went up into Devine's office [where she had picked up the pamphlets]. In the few hours she was out she sold nearly 5,000 copies of the book at 5 cents each."
-William Monty
Source IDTag: USII.5.005
