Haymarket Riot

A detailed Summary of Haymarket Riot

As result of the Industrial Revolution, people in America earned more money, most of which they used to open new businesses and factories. There were now many different types of machines to do the work that people had to do themselves in the past. Thus, machines rapidly replaced people. Now with less people working and getting paid, there were people that could afford what these factories were making. Most of the people working in the United States at this time were immigrants, so they were forced to work for very low wages. A working adult would be considered lucky to bring home a daily income of only $2.00. Kids on the other hand, only made about 70 cents a day for spending their entire childhood sorting through coal or performing other strenuous jobs.

Most people worked between ten and fourteen hours each day with peanuts for income. As result, Chicago Illinois, as well as many other cities in the United States, fell into poverty. However, not all employees at this time were cruel and blackhearted. Most at the time though just wanted to get the most out of their employees for the least amount of pay.

Soon the Labor Union movement started. People in this union wanted to ban child labor, increase pay, and to create shorter wo

Some newspapers reported that these men were on trial only because of their political views. However, most people did not care to agree with these statements and controversy continues to brew. When the verdict was announced that dreadful morning, people outside the courtroom lit up with excitement and joy. Some were so happy that they were willing to award the jury with a cash bonus just for convicting the defendants. The only people that were sad over the verdict were the families of the defense, the lawyers, and of course the defendants themselves. The press then went on to say that the only bad thing about the whole trial was that the defendants were not able to appeal seeing as how they were sentenced to death.

On May1, 1886, the strike stared. More than 300,000 workers went on strike in nine different cities across the vast nation. One of these cities was Boston. However, only a few employers nation wide granted their employees the shorter workday. As result, the next two months were filled with the police, the strikers, and the scabs. Scabs were people who refused to go on strike with the rest of their coworkers. They acquired this name from the angry strikers.

That same day, the four remaining men walked to their deathsite. As they were being prepared to be hanged, Spies bellowed out his last words which were, " There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!" Immediately after Parsons let out his final words, " Will I be allowed to speak for men of America? Let the voice of the people be heard!" But before they could all finish they were hanged. Their funeral was held at Waldheim Cemetery, and was attended by more than fifteen thousand people.

The following day the newspapers were loaded with headlines which accused Spies, Parsons, and Fielden of releasing this deadly bomb into the crowd. Some newspapers even said that the Haymarket riot, anarchists, and socialists were the reason for other disturbances around the country. They said that punishments should be dealt to Spies, Parsons and Fielden, because people of the United States were accusing them of murder. However, one newspaper reported that if the police hadn't raided the protest, there wouldn't have been a bomb thrown, because there wouldn't have been anything to spark the argument. Another newspaper, the Labor Enquirer, wrote in one of it's articles, "twice as many honest men were murdered in coal mines as have been killed in Chicago, and there isn't any noise at all about it..." (americanhistory.com). Still other papers wrote that is working and living conditions were better, then none of this probably would have happened.

The main attack by the defense during the trial was that the jury was prejudice. However, the judge simply overruled all these attempts made by the defen

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Approximate Word count = 1903
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History