Anarchy and Anarchists / A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators

by Michael J. Schaack

There always has been and always will be a fascination about any scheme that promises ease without labor. So long as men can be found with impressionable minds that can be swayed by demagogues into a belief that Anarchy has in it the elements of comfort, splendor and luxury with very little toil, so long, no doubt, will dupes be found ready to sacrifice energy, thrift and independence for the life-degrading scarlet banner. But such ease can never be attained through blood in the United States. That fact has been established in Chicago, and the precedent ought to serve as a terrible warning to all malcontents. If the abject want of those who constitute the bulk of the revolutionists, whose very squalor has been the result of their zeal for Anarchy, is not sufficient to deter men from becoming Anarchists, the fate of the eight conspirators who were brought to trial in Chicago ought at least to prevent men from plotting murder, incendiarism and pillage.

With the tremendous odds against them, it is surprising that men could be found willing to take up arms for the destruction of life and property, and the action of the reds in Chicago can be explained only on the theory that they felt they had only to strike one severe blow to bring thousands of secret sympathizers into line, and cause capitalists to humble themselves in the dust before the Social Revolution. This theory is borne out by the statements of the many repentant Anarchists who came under the displeasure of the police. In their excited gatherings they had each propped up the hopes and spirits of the others, and all reason was sunk in the one frenzied, consuming desire to wreak vengeance upon those who had accumulated more wealth than themselves. They were bent on wresting away the wealth of others, and no mercy was to be shown to those who stood between them and that end.

The police, as protectors of wealth in property and property in wealth, were the immediate objects of their enmity and wrath, and throughout the Anarchistic conspiracy, as has been shown by the disclosures made, we were to receive their first and special attention before the grand onslaught upon capitalists. Crazed by their speakers and dazed with the glittering prospect held out to them, the human fiends proposed to exterminate us with dynamite and then vanquish the rich and abolish all forms of property.

Could anything be more absurd? And yet that is what they sought to accomplish on the eventful night of May 4th.

It would seem that the scheme to blow up the police stations could only originate in a lunatic asylum, but the confessions of those arrested show that men with apparently sound minds—minds at least sane enough to keep them out of such institutions—actually contemplated it and had made all the necessary arrangements to execute the plot. Strange must have been their conceptions of public sentiment when they believed that the execution of their bloody plan would result in the establishment of wider and freer social conditions, and strange, indeed, must have been their hallucinations when they thought that the devastation they proposed would be seconded and aided by the laboring men whom they counted upon as secret sympathizers ready to reveal their true feelings the moment the revolution was generally inaugurated.

The danger of the scheme to themselves did not strike them until the last moment, when their courage was to be put to a practical test, but, fortunately for themselves, they went no further than the Haymarket riot.

That they seriously contemplated more than they perpetrated is beyond dispute. They saw the intense excitement consequent on the eight-hour strike and the troubles at McCormick’s factory, and knew that the police stations would be filled with officers in readiness for emergencies. They had called the Haymarket meeting for the express purpose of provoking hostilities, and they regarded it as an opportune time to strike a terrible blow against the police all over the city. Their calculations in that respect were eminently correct.

The moment the reds began to incite a vicious mob to deeds of bloodshed, hostilities were provoked, and they got a dose of their own medicine. Had it not been for their precipitate flight they would have fared far worse. All the police stations were full of men, all the reserves having been called out for duty on the first sign of violent demonstrations, and these stood ready to make short work of all who might stand up against them in a conflict. It was fortunate for the conspirators that they considered “discretion the better part of valor” at the Haymarket, and doubly fortunate that they received no signal to commence their bloody operations at the stations.

The loss of life no doubt would have been appalling on both sides, but the outcome, as far as the triumph of law and order is concerned, would have been the same. The bomb would have done deadly work at the start, but the Gatling gun would have come to the rescue had the police been seriously crippled.

Missiles of dynamite hurled into the stations on that eventful night of May 4 would indeed have created terrible havoc. In fact, the reds could not have chosen a time more favorable for their bloody plans. The East Chicago Avenue Station that night contained a very large force. I had in reserve and waiting orders one hundred and twenty-five officers. They were all over the building, up and down stairs, in the court-room, in the reception-room and in every other available place. Many were in the office, which is used as a roll-call room, and in which all details of officers are made. This office is in the center of the building and overlooks an alley on the east. The officers were organized into five companies, and all duly numbered. Any company could be called at any time, and in less than five minutes it would be in marching order.