A chapter on restaurants would be incomplete without a reference to the innumerable boarding-houses of Chicago. For a person who contemplates a more or less extended stay a boarding-house is perhaps the best place to go. It is certainly much more economical than living at a first-class hotel. Excellent accommodations in boarding-houses in the best parts of the residence districts may be secured at rates varying from $4 to $10 per week, room and board. No need to describe the location of boarding-houses. A glance at the advertising columns of the daily newspapers will show you a quick route to hundreds of such. If it is not desired to go to the trouble of selecting a boarding place for yourself call at any of the many agencies—all of which print cards in the “Board Wanted” columns of the Sunday papers—and tell the people there exactly what you want. In nine cases out of ten they will send you to a place which will be found suitable. There is no charge for this service. The usual way is to charge the applicant a dollar, which sum is deducted from the bill at the establishment he may select from the list furnished by the agency.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE HAYMARKET MONUMENT.
The statue which stands in the Haymarket, the broad square on Randolph Street extending from Desplaines to Halsted, commemorates an event only second in importance in Chicago’s history to the great fire of 1871. It stands as a mark of that awful night, May 4, 1886, when the mouthings of the anarchists culminated in the hurling of a bomb—the only bomb ever thrown in America—into a squad of police, of whom seven were killed and sixty-six laid low with awful wounds.
While looking at this monument, the figure of a policeman in heroic size, the visitor may if he chooses, try to imagine that scene, when Desplaines Street bore the appearance of a battlefield, and the station house near by, whither the dead and wounded were carried, that of a hospital. Think over it all, as you gaze at the monument, and try to realize the importance of the bloody epoch which it typifies.
May day of that year had been fixed upon as the proper time to inaugurate the eight hour movement. Prior to that date the anarchists had become thoroughly organized. They held meetings every Sunday afternoon on the Lake Front, when their leaders made fiery speeches, advocating the murder of capitalists and the destruction of property. On the first of May, strike after strike occurred in quick succession. Within two days there were thousands of unemployed workmen in the streets; the anarchist leaders did all they could to foster a spirit of mischief and incite the strikers to deeds of violence. The Haymarket riot itself originated in the great strike at the McCormick Reaper works, which transpired February 11, the strikers’ places being filled by non-union men. Police were put on guard at the works, and such anarchist leaders as August Spies, Albert Parsons, Henry Fielden, and Michael Schwab improved the opportunity to further excite disturbance and disorder and to increase the hatred of the mob for the police. On the evening of April 28, 1885, the new Board of Trade building was opened and a swarm of anarchists, both men and women, marched to the building, waving red flags and breathing death and destruction to the “aristocrats” as they called them. It was a strange scene. Inside the glittering building there were fair women, in dazzling toilets and decked with gems, who shuddered as they gazed through the windows at the menacing populace without—the same class of misguided beings who turned Paris into a Hell during the revolution. The police drove the mob away. The raving hordes dispersed, uttering curses and threats as they went. This incident is related merely to show the spirit which prevailed among the anarchists prior to the deadly deed of the following year.
It was Monday, May 3, when the riot at McCormick’s occurred. As the workmen left the building they were attacked by a great army of men and women. The police were called and a battle, or rather a series of battles, resulted, in which knives, sticks, stones and pistols were used. The police were fired upon repeatedly by the mob and promptly returned the fusillade. In all, six rioters were killed or injured, and several police officers were wounded. One officer narrowly escaped being lynched, and succeeded in breaking away from his captors as they were about to string him up to a lamp-post, to which a rope had already been attached. Immediately after this bloody affair the famous “Revenge” circular was distributed—an incendiary document written by August Spies, and supposed to have been the principal cause of the bomb-throwing. As a historical document it is worth quoting:
“Revenge! Workingmen, to arms! Your masters sent out their bloodhounds, the police. They killed six of your brothers at McCormick’s this afternoon; they killed the poor wretches because they had the courage to disobey the supreme will of your bosses; they killed them because they dared to ask for the shortening of the hours of toil; they killed them to show you, free American citizens, that you must be satisfied and contented with whatever your bosses condescend to allow you or you will get killed. You have for years suffered unmeasurable iniquities; you have worked yourselves to death; you have endured the pangs of want and hunger; your children have been sacrificed to the factory lords—in short, you have been miserable and obedient slaves all these years. Why? To satisfy the insatiable greed, to fill the coffers of your lazy, thieving masters. When you ask them now to lessen the burden they send their bloodhounds out to shoot you—kill you. If you are men, if you are the sons of your grandsires, who have shed their blood to free you, then you will rise in your might, Herculean, and destroy the hideous monster that seeks to destroy you! To arms! We call you to arms!
Your Brothers.”
Events followed fast upon the issue of this circular. A number of minor conflicts occurred, and then the Arbeiter Zeitung, of which Spies was editor, called the Haymarket meeting in the following notice: