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

The controversy thus begun was carried back to Chicago, and the radicals set themselves strenuously to work to bring their disaffected associates to the advocacy of dynamite. The members of the Lehr und Wehr Verein were particularly opposed to the use of the bomb. They had equipped themselves and drilled in the use of guns so as to be able to meet the police and militia after failure at the polls, and they contended that men carrying bombs would be apt, through lack of experience, to hurt themselves as much as their opponents. Men thoroughly drilled in the handling of a gun, they argued, could accomplish something, and to that end every one should be instructed in military tactics. The radicals of the various “groups” did not believe in guns, however, and held that, inasmuch as they had experimented with dynamite with some success, they should adopt it as a means of warfare. They finally brought all to their ideas, and from that time to the present they have given the subject of dynamite and explosives a great deal of study.

As indicating the sense of the Pittsburg Congress their plan of organization and resolutions are here given:

The name of the organization shall be “International Workingmen’s Association.”

1. The organization shall consist of federal groups which recognize the principles laid down in the manifesto and consider themselves bound by them.

2. Five persons shall have the right to form a group.

3. Each group shall have complete independence (autonomy) and shall further have the right to conduct the propaganda in accordance with its own judgment, but the same must not collide with the fundamental principles of the organization.

4. Each group may call itself by the name of its location. When there is more than one group, they shall be numbered.

5. In places where there is more than one group it is recommended that a general committee be formed to secure united action. Such committees shall, however, have no executive power.

6. A Bureau of Information shall be created at Chicago and shall consist of a secretary of each of the groups of different languages. It is the duty of such bureau to keep an exact list of all the groups belonging to the organization and to keep up correspondence with and between the domestic and foreign groups.