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ANARCHY IN THE USA

Gilded Age struggles over the soul of a nation: The Haymarket Square bombing, the Homestead Strike, and the assassination of a President.

THEMES AND THESIS

As the US underwent an uneasy transition from a simple agrarian society to an industrial power, millions of workers and those at the bottom of society deeply resented the growing wealth divide and corruption of the Gilded Age. Desperate souls turned to terrorism and anarchy in a vain attempt to thwart the juggernaut of change.

WEALTH INEQUALITY

For every tycoon swimming in cash, there were tens of thousands of workers whose life was simply a battle for existence. The working poor labored all week, for long hours, while counting their salaries in quarters and dimes. For factory managers, workers were nothing more than interchangeable parts in the production process. Dangerous working conditions, child labor, and wretched tenement dwellings reigned. 70% of NYC were tenements by 1900. The attitude of the rich was either ignorance or disdain for the poor. Sugar magnate Henry Osborne Havemeyer once said the country could be divided into two classes, “the industrious and those who whish to live on the industry of others. It is they who are without capital who are hostile to it”. Sound like a modern

political argument?

ROOTS OF ANARCHISM The modern anarchist movement can be traced back to late 1700’s London. William Godwin, a struggling writer, developed a political theory on the premise that all obstacles to the pursuit of personal liberty should be eliminated. Institutions such as the family and marriage restricted individualism. The worst of all in Godwin’s view was the government. He believed all authority should be eliminated. Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson adopted elements of Goodwin’s theory. Later, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau echoed many of Godwin’s statements. Thoreau wrote: “That government is best which governs not at all”. Utopian communities often modeled their lives on these ideas.

ALBERT PARSONS AND THE RISE OF AMERICAN ANARCHY

Albert Parsons became one of the leading anarchists in the US. His radical views on race in the South left him politically exiled from TX. He arrived in Chicago during the Panic of 1873. The plight of desperate exploited workers increased Parsons’ socialism. As the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 neared, his popularity and notoriety increased. Thousands clamored for him to hear his speeches savaging railroad tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt for paying workers 90 cents/day. “If the capitalist engages in warfare against our rights, then we shall resist him with all the means that God has given us”.

PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED

After the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 led to the deaths of up to 50 civilians at the hands of police and armed forces, the rhetoric of anarchists became more extreme. Anarchists developed a new tactic to deal with social injustice that they called “propaganda of the deed”, aka terrorism. A bomb or an assassin’s bullet could destabilize society in a flash and lead to revolution. Besides, governments had used violence first and anarchists felt entitled to respond in kind. The whole establishment—the church, the state, and the educational system—had to be destroyed by ALL means. Political reform alone was pointless. Parson’s begins to publish articles advocating violence and murder.

THE HAYMARKET SQUARE

BOMBING Chicago workers in the 1880’s hated few industrialists as intensely as they did Cyrus McCormick Jr. (son of the inventor of the mechanical reaper). He repeatedly cut workers wages that led to frequent strikes. His response was to hire thugs to smash the heads of the strikers. In May of 1886, strikers were met with police pistols and two were killed. Anarchists sprang to life calling for revenge. A demonstration was planned for May 4, 1886 near Haymarket Square near the McCormick factory. By 8pm that night, 3000 people had arrived to hear Albert Parsons speak in a tense atmosphere. Parsons, however, took a moderate tone championing worker’s rights and denouncing the violence against workers.

THE HAYMARKET

SQUARE BOMBING (CONT.)Despite the peaceful tone of Parson’s

address, two police officers reported to their superior that an inflammatory speech was underway. 176 policemen descended on Haymarket Square. Their captain announced “In the name of the people of the State of IL, I command this meeting immediately and peaceably to disperse”. Then, someone, history will never know who, struck a match and lit the wick on a round, lead object a bit larger than a baseball. As the flame sparked to life, the man cocked his arm and threw it toward the second row of police officers. The policemen still standing responded with blind and indiscriminate rage. “Fire and kill all you can!” ordered an officer. Within a few minutes, around 100 people were shot. About 8 were killed. 6 officers died and 60 were injured (many the result of their own guns). The next day, pools of dried blood caked the streets for an entire block.

THE AFTERMATHChicago awoke the next morning gripped in hysteria and a paranoid fear of anarchists. To the average citizen, this was not just a crime, but an attack on the nation itself. The city’s leading industrialists committed $100,000 to battle revolutionaries. A young Teddy Roosevelt claimed that he and his cowboys knew how to deal with anarchists: “I believe nothing would give them greater pleasure than a chance with rifles at one of the mobs”. Newspapers screamed for revenge. The atmosphere led to a clamping down on civil liberties: unlawful searches, interceptions of mail, shutting down of radical presses, and arrests of radical writers. Parsons’ instincts told him that he would be blamed, and he was right. Along with 6 other anarchists, Parsons was put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death. Parsons’ last words before being hung were: “Let the voice of the people be heard!”.

EMMA GOLDMAN

Emma Goldman, an 18 yr. old Russian Jew living in Rochester NY, had followed the Haymarket trial of 1886 with fascination. When Parsons and the others were executed, she determined to dedicate herself to their cause. Influenced by Godwin and her own experience as a wage slave in Rochester factories she headed to NYC in 1889 to seek out fellow radicals. Goldman’s vision of anarchy and personal liberty led her to espouse greater women’s rights. “The woman, instead of being the household queen, told about in storybooks, is the servant, the mistress and the slave of both husband and children”. Anarchy promised to liberate women from the chains of family. After unrest in 1892 between management and workers at Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead Steel Plant, Goldman saw her opportunity and headed to PA along with her radical lover Alexander Berkman.

BLOODY HOMESTEAD

At the Homestead Plant, bloodshed and terror unfolded. The strikers shot and killed hired thugs, prompting the PA Gov. to call in the militia to drive out the strikers. Though they successfully ended the bloody strike, it wasn’t over for Goldman and Berkman. For them, bloodshed changed the rules of the game. Berkman decided to kill the plant manager Henry Frick. Bursting into Frick’s office, Berkman fired his revolver hitting Frick twice in the neck. Frick was wounded but strong enough to tackle Berkman. Berkman then grabbed a knife and stabbed Frick’s back and legs. Others intervened and held Berkman down. Frick noticed that Berkman was teething something and ordered the men to see what was in his mouth. They found a capsule of fulminate of mercury, an explosive strong enough to blow up everybody in the room. Frick miraculously survived the attack and Berkman was arrested.

THE ANARCHIST ASSASSINS

Berkman’s attack launched Goldman into the big leagues of radical agitators. She would soon tour the country, speaking at halls packed with supporters and captivated press. Nicknamed “Red Emma”, Goldman attacked America’s 1890’s foreign conquests. “The Cubans have been freed from the atrocious government of Spain but only to fall into the hands of another almost as unscrupulous”. Meanwhile, a wave of anarchist attacks gripped Europe. Bombings in Paris and the assassination of President Carnot rocked France. Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci killed Italian King Umberto for brutally quashing riots over the rising price of bread by placing Italy under military control. Goldman read of the assassinations and publically approved. The bombings and attacks fit a familiar pattern. They were perpetrated by young men who often possessed only a hazy understanding of anarchist theory, who usually felt they had nothing to lose, who were motivated by revenge, and who were willing to die for their cause. Americans would soon recognize the pattern in one of their own.

LEON CZOLGOSZIn May of 1901, Emma Goldman prepared to give a routine speech in Cleveland. Listening in the audience was a young Polish immigrant, Leon Czolgosz. Goldman’s remarks that evening overwhelmed him. Her words had, he later said, burned in his head with such intensity that it made his skull hurt. Czolgosz from this night on resolved to pursue the life of a radical social revolutionary. He began to read anarchist newspapers that denounced President McKinley’s absolutism in his foreign conquests. Czolgosz especially burned with rage over the occupation of the Philippines. But these newspapers opposed killing McKinley; they preferred him as a lesson to the evils of the system. In 1901, President McKinley planned to end an extensive tour around the US in Buffalo at the Pan-American Exposition. He turned down security requests to cancel a meet and greet session with the public. Czolgosz found himself in Buffalo that summer coincidentally. Since hearing Goldman speak, he had been looking for a way to demonstrate his commitment to anarchism. “Her doctrine that all rulers should be exterminated” had greatly influenced him. “All those people seemed bowing to the great ruler. I made up my mind to kill that ruler”.

CZOLGOSZ ASSASSINATES

PRESIDENT MCKINLEYAt President McKinley’s meet and greet,

Leon Czolgosz stepped towards the president. McKinley smiled warmly and extended his hand. Czolgosz, standing only a foot away, withdrew a bulging handkerchief from his pocket and shoved it towards the president’s ribs. After the shot, the president clutched at his chest and leaned forward. Fists flew at Czolgosz from all sides. Secret Service agents shouted “Get the gun! Get the gun!” One of the people who dragged the assassin to the ground claimed that Czolgosz said “I done my duty”. Guards continued to beat him with rifle butts and clubs. McKinley, not realizing the severity of his injuries, demanded the beating stopped. Shortly after his detainment, Czolgosz proclaimed: “I am an Anarchist. I am a disciple of Emma Goldman. Her words set me on fire. I don’t regret my act, because I was doing what I could for the great cause”. 10 days later, McKinley died. Czolgosz was sentenced to die by the electric chair after a one day trial. His last words are the right…

AFTER THE

ASSASSINATION

Czolgosz’ attack set the cause of anarchism back for years. The Anarchist Exclusion Act was passed, banning anarchists from entering the country. Goldman was arrested after Czolgosz’ claims of solidarity, but was released. She claimed he was a hero. With the coming of World War I, Goldman’s popularity soared. But after speaking against the new selective service law, Goldman was sentenced to 20 months in prison. When she was released she was deported. She returned to Russia where she was shocked to witness the elimination of civil liberties by the new communist government. She lived in Germany, London, and Canada. She died in 1940.

THE SOUL OF A NATION

McKinley and Czolgosz lived in parallel yet vastly different worlds. Each could see that the Industrial Revolution was forever changing the nation. For McKinley, this was progress and he would do what he could to encourage America’s economic might by sending troops to foreign shores to “defend American interests”. Czolgosz saw a nation that had lost its soul. The US had become, he felt, a nation owned by the rich and governed only with their interests in mind. The expansion depended on an army of exploited workers. This created a fertile breeding ground for social radicals who came to see violence as the only way to break the cycle of servitude. The anarchists, like Czolgosz, were willing to use terror as a resort to redress society’s evils. In diametrically opposed ways, McKinley and Czolgosz heard in the tumultuous times a calling each believed could change history.