Propaganda By The Deed & The Death of a Useless Eater with a Huge Appetite.

[K-Dog]

THE AGITATOR

A BI-MONTHLY ADVOCATE OF THE MODERN SCHOOL, INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM AND INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM

VOL. 1,                                                      HOME, [LAKEBAY P. O.] WASH., NOVEMBER 15, 1910.                                                      NO. 1.

           IN THE HOUR OF EXECUTION.

                              1887.

Is this what we must bear, O Freedom, Mother,
  To see thy face and but to touch thy hand?
    Is there no easier way?
Must death another take, and yet another,
  While tears and lamentations thru the land
    Show the great price we pay?
Yet, if it must be, Freedom, none say nay.
     
See, Thou, these waiting for the hangman's halter;
  These friends of man, must these be given to death?
    Freedom, we ask again!
If in the sacrifice we do not falter,
  Wilt thou repay us for their strangled breath?
    Wilt thou come nearer men?
Thou wilt, we hope. With groans we give these, then.
     
The debt is paid!-Thy martyrs lie before us,
  Their mute lips speak thy words into our ears,
    And bid us seek thee far.
Freedom, we know thy sun shall yet shine o'er us;
  And looking up, exalted, thru our tears,
     We cry, beneath thy star,
"Take these! Take us, if need be: thine we are!''
                           WILLIAM FRANCIS BARNARD.

THE CHICAGO MARTYRS.
  On the 1st of May, 1886, the United Workers of America laid down their tools and said: "Ten hours is too long for a workingman to toil each day, we therefore resolve not to again take up their tools until the em-ployers agree to an eight-hour day.' This was the first attempt at a general strike, and as a walkout it was a fair success. Every man who had promised to strike, did so and many thousands of non-union men and women marched out with their union comrades, and stayed with them until starvation drove them back to the factories and mills again at the old rate and hours. In many instances they won the eight-hour day, but since it did not become general, the employers that agreed to the demands of the workers were forced to re-turn to the ten-hour day thru the inevitable workings of the law of competition.

  The eight-hour day did, not become an actuality but a victory of far more importance was achieved by that strike. The workers learned the rudiments of social action upon which future success must be founded  --- unity, solidarity. The workers learned another thing of equal importance in the struggle against capital; they discovered that labor united and acting together, is a mighty giant, against whose strength it would be useless for even the combined forces of capital to contend. They saw clearly that the cause for their failure did not lie in the great strength of united, capital, but rather in the lack of sufficient unity among themselves. This was the most dangerous knowledge of all. So long as the toilers were kept in darkness relative to their own strength when united in a common cause the way of the exploiters was easy, but once let them see the possibility of asserting their independence, of achieving their liberties, and of improving their social and economic conditions, and they would never again rest upon their oars and adjust themselves to the miserable conditions that surround them. To be sure, they had gotten glimpses of this knowledge in previous struggles, especially in the strike of 1871, when they routed the soldiers at Pittsburgh and drove them from the city out into the tall grass; but it required a movement like that of 1886 to fix the matter definitely, and for all time, in the mind and in the traditions of the working class of America.

  As was expected, the police were extremely active during the strike, excessively cruel and harsh in many instances. They clubbed everybody, right and left, along Blue Island avenue and Madison street, where the street car men were striking. And at the so-called McCormick riot they killed and wounded many without provocation, by shooting into the crowd volley after volley. As an 'innocent onlooker," I was badly scared when a bullet plowed thru my coat, carrying a portion of my finger with it on its journey to the breast of a striker who stood directly behind me. The poor fellow swooned and fell, but was quickly carried away to his squalid "home" by his comrades. I afterwards learned he died as a result of the wound, leaving behind a penniless wife and five small children, to weep and curse the fate that brought them to "free" America. That was but one of very many similar cases that occurred all around me on that fateful day.

  The Haymarket meeting was a public protest against those atrocities. Surely, it had good and sufficient justification. But, momentous as was the occasion for it it would not now be one of the leading historic events in the world's labor movement had not the police attacked it. There was not the slightest excuse for dispersing the meeting, not even from the "law and order" point of view. The strike was in full swing, and the masters had undoubtedly become greatly alarmed at the show of unity and resistance displayed by the workers. The police certainly had special orders to use every means at their command to suppress the strike, law or no law. Law is observed by the authorities only when it can be used to suppress the workingman; when it protects him it is ignored.

  An unknown hand cast a bomb into the midst of the platoon of police that was descending upon a peaceful and orderly meeting of citizens, gathered together to discuss their just grievances. Eight policemen died as a result of the explosion. Then eight men were coldly and deliberately picked from among the leading, and, consequently, the most "dangerous," Anarchists, and put on trial for murder and conspiracy. No responsibility for the throwing of the bomb was traced to anyone of the eight men. The bomb thrower has never been discovered. The law says a case must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt before conviction can be had. This was a case where the law interfered with the execution of the wishes of the authorities, so it was quietly set aside. Here was a chance to rid the community of eight dangerous men; men whom the glare of gold could not silence; men of proven ability as organizers of the discontented; men whose teachings were farreaching and deep-rooted, the practical application of which would destroy every privilege enjoyed by the rich and powerful; here was the golden opportunity to rid themselves, once for all, of those desperate enemies of society. But the good work had to be given the semblance of legality. It would never do in this enlightened, progressive, free country to kill our enemies in the crude fashion of barbarous Russia. Besides, the Russian method might produce a reaction more terrible than the pestilence they sought to destroy.

  At last justice prevailed, and law and order were vindicated. The farce was ended. The prisoners must hang. Despicable and disgusting as was the whole proceeding up to the last, the end of it was sublime. Can imagination picture a grander climax in contrast to the whole unmanly and dishonorable proceedings of that trial, than the sight of the condemned men rising in their seats and, in words charged with dignity, honesty and a defiant indignation, denouncing the whole infamous court, with its gally of mental prostitutes, perjurers, scoundrels and hypocrites, and the entire system of wage-slavery and wealth-knavery that support and maintain it, bidding defiance to it all, and declaring themselves ready to die for the principles they loved, and which, they were sure, one day, would liberate mankind and make life a pleasure and a joy worth living?

  Parsons worried the court for six hours; the speeches of the other comrades were not so long, but they are masterpieces of their kind, and have traveled around the world and given hope and courage to hundreds of thousands of toilers, in a dozen languages.

  Spies, Fielding and Schwab signed a petition for clemency. The others refused, absolutely, to make any appeal for mercy. They insisted upon either liberty or death. Spies had signed the petition on the advice of his counsel and friends, tho under protest, and soon regretted his action, and penned the powerful letter, printed in this issue, asking that he be allowed to pay the penalty for all. This and the other letters show the true spirit of the men. No compromise; liberty o death. Schwab and Fielding were willing to accept imprisonment rather than death. Their sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. They were afterward released by Governor Altgeld, together with Oscar Neebe, who had been given fifteen years by the packed court that condemned his comrades to death.

  The funeral was long, solemn, impressive. Thousands of workers marched behind the five hearses that slowly carried the remains of their crucified friends and comrades to the depot, whence they were conveyed by train to Waltheim cemetery. On Sunday, December 18, 1887 the five caskets were placed side by side in an underground vault, over which a monument stands, a cut of which appears on this page. The monument is inscribed with the last words of Spies. Thus I have related in brief a chapter in the great social drama of the nineteenth century.
 
JAY FOX.

[K-Dog]

Well Done