George
Engel was
born in Cassel, Germany on 15th April,
1836. Engel emigrated to the United States in January, 1873, and settled
in Chicago. While in America became involved
in trade union and socialist
activities.
On 1st May, 1886 a strike was began throughout the United States in
support a eight-hour day. Over the next few days over 340,000 men
and women withdrew their labor. Over a quarter of these strikers were
from Chicago and the employers were so
shocked by this show of unity that 45,000 workers in the city were
immediately granted a shorter workday.
The campaign for the eight-hour day was organised by the International
Working Peoples Association (IWPA). On 3rd May, the IWPA in Chicago
held a rally outside the McCormick Harvester Works, where 1,400 workers
were on strike. They were joined by 6,000 lumber-shovers, who had
also withdrawn their labour. While August Spies,
one of the leaders of the IWPA was making a speech, the police arrived
and opened-fire on the crowd, killing four of the workers.
The following day August Spies, who was
editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung,
published a leaflet in English and German entitled: Revenge!
Workingmen to Arms!. It included
the passage: "They killed the poor wretches because they, like
you, had the courage to disobey the supreme will of your bosses. They
killed them to show you 'Free American Citizens' that you must be
satisfied with whatever your bosses condescend to allow you, or you
will get killed. If you are men, if you are the sons of your grand
sires, who have shed their blood to free you, then you will rise in
your might, Hercules, and destroy the hideous monster that seeks to
destroy you. To arms we call you, to arms." Spies also published
a second leaflet calling for a mass protest at Haymarket Square that
evening.
On 4th May, over 3,000 people turned up at the Haymarket
meeting. Speeches were made by August Spies,
Albert Parsons and Samuel
Fielden. At 10 a.m. Captain John
Bonfield and 180 policemen arrived on the scene. Bonfield
was telling the crowd to "disperse immediately and peaceably"
when someone threw a bomb into the police ranks from one of the alleys
that led into the square. It exploded killing eight men and wounding
sixty-seven others. The police then immediately attacked the crowd.
A number of people were killed (the exact number was never disclosed)
and over 200 were badly injured.
Several people identified Rudolph Schnaubelt
as the man who threw the bomb. He was arrested but was later released
without charge. It was later claimed that Schnaubelt was an agent
provocateur in the pay of the authorities. After the release of
Schnaubelt, the police arrested Samuel Fielden,
an Englishman, and six German immigrants, Engel, August
Spies, Adolph Fisher, Louis
Lingg, Oscar Neebe, and Michael
Schwab. The police also sought Albert
Parsons, the leader of the International Working Peoples Association
in Chicago, but he went into hiding and
was able to avoid capture. However, on the morning of the trial, Parsons
arrived in court to standby his comrades.
There were plenty of witnesses who were able to prove that none of
the eight men threw the bomb. The authorities therefore decided to
charge them with conspiracy to commit murder. The prosecution case
was that these men had made speeches and written articles that had
encouraged the unnamed man at the Haymarket
to throw the bomb at the police.
The jury was chosen by a special bailiff instead of being selected
at random. One of those picked was a relative of one of the police
victims. Julius Grinnell, the State's Attorney, told the jury: "Convict
these men make examples of them, hang them, and you save our institutions."
At the trial it emerged that Andrew Johnson, a detective from the
Pinkerton Agency, had infiltrated
the group and had been collecting evidence about the men. Johnson
claimed that at anarchist meetings
these men had talked about using violence. Reporters who had also
attended International Working Peoples Association meetings also testified
that the defendants had talked about using force to "overthrow
the system".
During the trial the judge allowed the jury to read speeches and articles
by the defendants where they had argued in favour of using violence
to obtain political change. The judge then told the jury that if they
believed, from the evidence, that these speeches and articles contributed
toward the throwing of the bomb, they were justified in finding the
defendants guilty.
All the men were found guilty: Engel and Albert
Parsons, August Spies, Adolph
Fisher, Louis Lingg were given the
death penalty. Whereas Oscar
Neebe, Samuel
Fielden and Michael
Schwab were sentenced to life imprisonment. On 10th November,
1887, Lingg committed suicide by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth.
The following day Parsons, Spies, Fisher and Engel mounted the gallows.
As the noose was placed around his neck, Spies shouted out: "There
will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices
you strangle today."
(1)
George Engel, Autobiography
of George Engel (1887)
In 1868 I married and started a business of my own. The development
of the factory system in Germany swept most of the small manufacturers,
without great means, out of existence. The struggle for life increased
and it became hard to make a decent living. My intention to emigrate
to America, which I had when a boy, came back. To make it short, the
8th day of January, of the year 1873, found me in Philadelphia. I
took work in a sugar refinery.
(2)
George Engel, speech at
his trial (September, 1887)
When I left Germany in the year 1873 it was by reason of my recognition
of the fact that I could not support myself in the future as it was
the duty of a man to do. I recognized that I could not make my living
in Germany because the machinery of the guilds of old no longer furnished
me a guarantee to live. I resolved to emigrate from Germany to the
United States, praised by many so highly.
When I landed in Philadelphia, on the 8th January, 1873, my heart
and my bosom expanded with the expectation of living hereafter in
that free country which had been so often praised to me by so many
emigrants, and I resolved to be a good citizen of this country; and
I congratulated myself on having broken with Germany.
For the first time I stand before an American court, and at that to
be at once condemned to death. And what are the causes that have preceded
it, and have brought me into court? They are the same things that
preceded my leaving Germany, and the same causes that made me leave.
I have seen with my own eyes that in this free country, in this richest
country in the world, so to say, there are existing proletarians who
are pushed out of the order of society.
(3)
George
Engel,
speech at his trial (September, 1887)
Anarchism and Socialism are, according to my opinion,
as like as one egg is to another. Only the tactics are different.
Therefore, I say to the working classes, do not believe any longer
in the ballot-box and in those ways and means that are open to you;
but rather think about ways and means when the time comes, when the
burden of the people becomes intolerable. And that is our crime. Because
we have named to the people the ways and means by which they could
free themselves in the fight against Capitalism, by reason of that,
Anarchism is hated and persecuted in every state.
(4)
The Chicago Daily News, report on the execution of George Engel,
Albert
Parsons, August
Spies and Adolph Fischer
(12th November,
1887)
Seldom, if ever, have four men died more gamely
and defiantly than the four who were strangled today. Engel smiled
down at the crowd, and then turning to Deputy Peters, who guarded
him, he smiled gratefully toward him and whispered something to the
officer that seemed to affect him. "Hurrah for anarchy! Hurrah!"
were the last words and the last cheer of George Engel.
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