August
Spies was
born in Landeck, Germany in 1855. Spies
emigrated to the United States in 1872 and settled in Chicago
where he became a upholsterer. He became involved in trade
union activities and joined the Socialist
Labor Party in 1877. Three years later he began contributing to
the anarchist journal, Arbeiter
Zeitung,
and became editor in 1880.
Spies developed a reputation for his violent
speeches. In October 1885 he told a meeting of the Central
Labor Union that: "We urgently call upon the wage-class to arm
itself in order to be able to put forth against the exploiters such
an argument which alone can be effective - violence."
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also withdrawn their labour.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 Spies was making a speech, the
police arrived and opened-fire on the crowd, killing four of the workers.
The following day Spies 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 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 Spies, Samuel Fielden
and five German immigrants, George 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: Spies, Albert
Parsons, Adolph Fisher, Louis
Lingg and George Engel 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)
August Spies, speech at Central Labor Union (October, 1885)
We urgently
call upon the wage-class to arm itself in order to be able to put
forth against the exploiters such an argument which alone can be effective
- violence.
(2)
August Spies, Die Arbeiter Zeitung (18th March 1886)
If we do not soon bestir ourselves for a bloody revolution, we cannot
leave anything to our children but poverty and slavery. Therefore,
prepare yourselves! In all quietness, prepare yourselves for the Revolution!
(3)
August
Spies, speech at his trial (September,
1887)
The contemplated murder of eight men, whose only crime is that they
have dared to speak the truth, may open the eyes of these suffering
millions; may wake them up. Indeed, I have noticed that our conviction
has worked miracles in this direction already. The class that clamors
for our lives, the good, devout Christians, have attempted in every
way, through their newspapers and otherwise, to conceal the true and
only issue in this case. By simply designating the defendants as anarchists
and picturing them as a newly discovered tribe or species of cannibals,
and by inventing shocking and horrifying stories of dark conspiracies
said to be planned by them, these good Christians zealously sought
to keep the naked fact from the working people and other righteous
parties, namely: that on the evening on May 4, 200 armed men, under
the command of a notorious ruffian, attacked a meeting of peaceable
citizens! With what intention? With the intention of murdering them,
or as many of them as they could.
(4)
August
Spies, speech at his trial (September,
1887)
Seven policeman have died, said Grinnell, suggestively winking at
the jury. You want a life, and have convicted an equal number of men.
If we are to be hanged on this principle, then let us know it, and
let the world know what a civilized and Christian county it is in
which the Goulds, the Vanderbilts, the Standfords, the Fields, Armours,
and other local money hamsters have come to rescue of liberty and
justice! Now, these are my ideas. They constitute a part of myself.
I cannot divest myself of them, nor would I, if I could. And if you
think that you can crush out these ideas that are gaining ground more
and more every day; if you can crush them out sending us to gallows;
if you would once more have people suffer the penalty of death because
they have dared to tell the truth and I defy you to show us where
we have told a lie I say, if death is the penalty for proclaiming
the truth, then I will proudly and defiantly pay the costly price!
Call your hangman! Truth crucified in Socrates, in Christ, in Giordano
Bruno, in Huss, in Galileo, still lives - they and others whose number
is legion have preceded us on this path. We are ready to follow!
(5)
August
Spies, letter
to Richard Oglesby, the Governor of Illinois (6th November, 1887)
During our trial the desire of the prosecutor to slaughter me, and
to let my co-defendants off with milder punishment was quite apparent
and manifest. It seemed to me then, and a great many of others, that
the persecutors would be satisfied with one life - namely mine. Take
this, then! Take my life! I offer it to you so that you may satisfy
the fury of a semi-barbaric mob, and save that of my comrades. I know
that every one of my comrades is as willing to die, and perhaps more
so than I am. It is not for their sake that I make this offer, but
in the name of humanity and progress, in the interest of a peaceable
- if possible - development of the social forces that are destined
to lift our race upon a higher and better plane of civilization. In
the name of the traditions of our country I beg you to prevent a seven-fold
murder upon men whose only crime is that they are idealists, that
they long for a better future for all. If legal murder there must
be, let one, let mine, suffice.
(5)
The Chicago Daily News, report on the execution of August Spies,
Adolph Fischer, George
Engel, and Albert
Parsons
(12th November, 1887)
Seldom, if ever, have
four men died more gamely and defiantly than the four who were strangled
today. Every eye was bent upon the metallic angle around
which the four wretched victims were expected to make their appearance.
A moment later their curiosity was rewarded. With steady, unfaltering
step a white-robed figure stepped out from behind the protecting metallic
screen and stood upon the drop. It was August Spies. It was evident
that his hands were firmly bound behind him underneath his snowy shroud.
He walked with a firm, almost stately tread across the platform and
took his stand under the left-hand noose at the corner of the scaffold
farthest from the side at which he had entered. Very pale was the
expressive face, and a solemn, far-away light shone in his blue eyes.
Nothing could be imagined more melancholy, and at the same time dignified,
than the expression which sat upon the face of August Spies at that
moment.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
