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THE CHICAGO RIOTS
THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES,
(A Reprint from “
BY
H. M. HYNDMAN.
LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LOWREY & CO-,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1886.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
��THE CHICAGO BIOTS AND THE CLASS WAR
IN THE UNITED STATES.
The recent fatal conflictjbetween the Anarchists and the police at
Chicago has served to direct public attention, for the moment, to
the growing social difficulties in the United States. It is unfor
tunate that American affairs are not more closely watched by
Englishmen of all classes. There is a great deal to be learnt in
many ways from the struggle which has begun in earnest between
labour and capital on the other side of the Atlantic; and it
is at least possible that careful consideration of the manifest
antagonism between different classes of men of our own race may
help us to a peaceful solution of our own still more complicated
and dangerous social problems here at home. Both countries
have reached the same stage of economical and social develop
ment ; in both the traditions of free speech and a free press have
been accepted as the most valuable legacy we have received from
our forefathers; alike there and here the system of government
by party has lasted for several generations, though now being
undermined; and, in the United States as in the United
Kingdom, conscription is unknown, and the military caste is held
in no special esteem. Nor are the contrasts less instructive than
the similarities. America is a Republic. England is a Monarchy.
Americans have no aristocracy, House of Lords, or Established
Church. Englishmen have the misfortune to possess, or be
possessed by, all three. Americans have universal suffrage, pay
ment of members, free education in many States, and a wide
Home Rule Federation. We are still behindhand in these
respects. The United States cover a vast and sparsely-peopled
territory; the United Kingdom is a small but densely-populated
group of islands. Lastly, the United States support protection;
the United Kingdom has for forty years accepted free trade.
But beneath the political forms and fiscal arrangements of the
two countries, notwithstanding the widely divergent conditions
of existence for the two peoples, all are now driven to admit that
the same class struggle is going on under the guise of nominal
peace and freedom. The bloody encounter in Haymarket Square,
like the far less serious rioting in Pall Mall, Piccadilly, and South
Audley Street, is a symptom of uneasiness and discontent below
�2
i
THE CHICAGO RIOTS AND
which the governing classes on both sides of the Atlantic must
take account of.
For this reason, if for no other, it is much to be regretted that
nearly the whole of the information which has been suffered to
reach the general public in England, with regard to the great
labour movement in America, has come from capitalist sources.
The cables themselves are in the hands of the very men against
whom the workers are combining and striking; the New York
newspapers, which are chiefly quoted here, belong, most of them,
to the same people, and are supported by the advertisements of
the class whose interests are attacked; the correspondents and
the telegraph agencies are also connected with, and dependent
upon, the dominant class. Thus, whatever the various labour
organisations may do against the capitalists, be their action legal
or illegal, peaceful or violent, their conduct, as well as the
opinions of their leaders, are liable to constant misrepresentation.
Men of the educated classes have been brought up to look at the
problems of society from a totally different point of view from
that at which the workers necessarily take their stand. Knights
of Labour, Trade Unionists, Social Democrats, and Anarchists,
however deep may be their differences among themselves, are
alike in this, that they have no hope of a good word from the
cable agencies. The movements in America have, therefore, been
presented to the people of England with about as much fairness as
if a shopkeeper in Piccadilly had cabled to New York his view of
the Social-Democratic Federation and its leaders last February.
Well-to-do Americans, until lately, have tried to shut their
eyes to the danger arising from the bitter class antagonism
growing up around them, and to persuade themselves that it
would all die down if let alone. This has been displayed even
with reference to the recent riots, in the anxiety to show that no
native-born Americans had anything to do with them. Person
ally, I am perhaps as strongly opposed to Anarchist tactics as
many of the capitalist class themselves, regarding as I do such
individual outrages and unorganised outbreaks as aids to reaction,
rather than helps to the great organised Social Revolution which
Social Democrats strive for. But no one can deny that Parsons
and Fielden, the two principal orators on the occasion, are not
possessed of German or Bohemian surnames. When, too, I
ventured to predict more than five years ago in the Fortnightly
Review that a conflict between labour and capital would certainly
occur in America which might attain to the dimensions of a civil
war, the New York Tribune, Mr. Jay Gould’s own paper,
extracted some passages and headed them with the remark,
“ England sends many fool travellers to the United States, but
never before such a fool as this one.” Yet it was even then quite
clear to an impartial observer that a very bitter feeling existed
between the two sections of the community, while drilling and
i
If
�THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.
3
arming were going on vigorously on both sides in all the great
cities.
In the year 1880 Mr. Powderly, now the chief of the Knights
of Labour, thus expressed himself about strikes: “ I am anxious
that each of our lodges should be provided with powder and
shot, bullets and Winchester rifles, when we intend to strike. If
you strike the troops are called out to put you down. You
cannot fight with bare hands. You must consider the matter
very seriously, and if we anticipate strikes we must prepare to
fight and to use arms against the forces brought against us.”
This was, at any rate, very plain speaking, by a native-born
American citizen, just six years ago; and it is scarcely to be
wondered at that men of a hotter temper, such as these fanatics
of the Arbeiter Zeitung of Chicago and their American allies,
took Mr. Powderly at his word, and made ready for the coming
conflict, which he so clearly foreshadowed as one to be determined
by appeals to force.
The riot in Chicago itself was but the climax to a long series
of troubles which have been going on in that city. That the
Anarchists went beyond what is reasonable or even sane in their
proposals there is no doubt whatever. The journal named above,
of which the weekly edition, the Vorbote, has a wide circulation
outside Chicago, is an important, and in many respects welledited German newspaper; but it has recommended direct attacks
upon individual capitalists, and given directions in its columns
how to make dynamite bombs for personal use. It was, indeed,
not excluding Johann Most’s Freiheit, by far the largest and most
vigorous Anarchist paper in the world, advocating the propaganda
of deed as opposed to the Social-Democratic propaganda of theory
and education; and individual resort to force, or attack by groups
as against the collective political, or, failing political, forcible action.
There is, however, good reason why Chicago, even more than
New York or the other cities of the Atlantic coast, should be the
headquarters of a propaganda of this kind. Capitalists in America
are by no means the most considerate people in the world, as a
rule. When the late W. H. Vanderbilt said, “ The public be
d—d,” he but expressed the general sentiment of his “ order,” in
the same way that his father, the old Commodore, when remon
strated with for treating the passengers on his railways as if they
were hogs, answered, “ By G—, sir, I wish they was hogs;” No
where, I say, is this feeling of contempt for the general interest, as
well as for the mean white who has failed to make money, stronger
than in Chicago; in no American city is the division between the
working class and the capitalist class more marked, nor, it may
be added, does the press anywhere more furiously uphold, to the
extremest point, the rights of property. The Chicago Times and
the Chicago Tribune, differ as they may in other respects, agree
in maintaining the claims of the employers to the fullest extent.
�4
r
THE CHICAGO RIOTS AND
Nay, last winter, when the tramps throughout the States were more
numerous than usual, the former paper, I think it was, suggested,
in all seriousness,—it would have been a ghastly joke in any case,
—that the farmers who were pestered with those unfortunate and
sometimes desperate wayfarers, should poison them with strych
nine in the food provided them. Where this sort of talk is
indulged in by those who have the wealth and power, the oppo
site party soon begins to use strong language in turn.
Moreover, Chicago is, to put it mildly, not a moral city. That
even the most ardent admirers of its go-aheadedness would admit.
So notorious is the character of the rich there for good and evil
living, for gluttony and debauchery, that is, that when the city
was burnt down a few years ago the more sanctimonious, if
not more continent, persons dwelling in godly Boston and pious
Philadelphia declared, with one voice, that this plague of fire
was another judgment from on high upon a modern city of
the plain. However that may be, the conflagration did not in
this case influence for the better the morals of the inhabitants,
who took up their abode in their rapidly-rebuilt dwellings, and
continued their enjoyments as before. The wealthy did so, at
any rate ; and the great number of German workers who believed
more or less in Socialism, as well as the ordinary artisans and
labourers who can contrive to be bitterly discontented when
out of work and starving without, strange as it may seem, the
help of any guiding theory, had the satisfaction of seeing men
who, but yesterday, were even as they themselves, with no
superiority of education, refinement, or intelligence, revelling, as
they said, at their expense, in the most wanton debauchery and
excess—debauchery veiled by no decency, excess unvarnished
with any pretence to taste. Naturally enough, in such a winter
of hard times as that which Chicago has felt, like other industrial
centres in America and elsewhere, the workers who were thrown
out of employment, and had not even the workhouse to fly to, as
with us, listened only too readily to the furious incitements to an
immediate attack upon the well-to-do which were poured forth
by the Spies’ Parsons, and their friends.
The poverty-stricken .people paraded with their black flags
through the city, on many occasions, to no purpose; encounters
with the police became more frequent, temper rose on both sides.
While, also, the city authorities, headed by the mayor, though not
ready to organise relief works for the unemployed, were dis
inclined, for political reasons, to interfere with the extremists, the
police were by no means so considerate as the politicians. It is
safe to say that just as the wealthy classes of Chicago are the most
self-indulgent in America, so the police is the most brutal. I
have myself seen them behave, without provocation, in a manner
which in England would provoke a riot. No doubt they have
a rough and dangerous population to deal with, but they are
�THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.
5
rough and dangerous too. Of the general reasons which tend to
make the class conflict in America so readily take the shape of
violence I shall speak later; but injustice to the misguided men
who are now awaiting their trial, for resisting the demand of the
police to disperse with dynamite and revolvers, it should be
remembered that in the strikes which had preceded the meeting
in Haymarket Square, the police had acted with great cruelty;
that in the deputation to M’Cormick’s factory and in the attack
which followed, they are accused of having clubbed, not only
grown men but young girls to death; and that the speech of
Fielden, which was the occasion of the arrival of the police and
the demand for dispersal, was not more violent in tone towards the
upper classes than many speeches which have been delivered in
this country of late to large audiences by politicians of recognised
standing and undeniable sobriety of conduct.
The mistake which the Anarchists of Chicago made is the same
which the Anarchists of every country have so far made. They
talk big about their power to do this, that, and the other by main
force, when they are really a mere handful of men, and then they
allow themselves to be taunted into open fighting by accusations
of cowardice. It was absurd to suppose that the insignificant
meeting of 1,500 men (the cable despatches said 15,000) could
stand against the forces of the State and Federal Government;
and still more absurd to imagine that the explosion of dynamite
bombs in the face of the advancing police would solve the
economical questions at issue. There can be little doubt, indeed,
that the tendency of this encounter has been to throw back, for
the time being, the general Socialist and Labour Movement in
America, by driving into the opposing camp the waverers who
would be glad enough to support the workers in an organised
and reasoned effort such as that for the Eight Hours Bill Just,
however, as the Anarchists in Germany brought on the anti
Socialist Law, so, in America, by their mad talk and madder
rashness, they have checked the advance of Social-Democracy
among many thinking men. So manifest is this, that it is
impossible not to see that by risking an encounter at that junc
ture, even supposing it were risked to protect the right of public
meeting and free speech, the Anarchist leaders endangered the
cause of the people.
But, whatever view may be taken of the Chicago proceedings,
and however difficult it may be for non-students of labour ques
tions to distinguish between Anarchists and Social Democrats,—
Most is kind enough to denounce the present writer whenever he
gets a chance,—it is beyond question that the organisation of
the labouring classes in the United States is advancing by leaps
and bounds. This is shown even by the latest intelligence which
has come across the Atlantic. In city after city the capitalists in
different trades have surrendered on the eight hour question.
�6
THE CHICAGO RIOTS AND
True, it has not been a complete victory for the workers; but as
the actual returns in the labour papers show, the proportion of
successes to failures has been most encouraging to them. More
over, the simultaneous movement in all parts of the country has
taught the workers the force of union, and has given them confi
dence in themselves which nothing but such experience could have
given. When the record of the first fortnight of the great Eight
Hours Labour movement comes to be written it will, I think, be
quite clear that, in spite of the deplorable occurrence at Chicago,
a great step was then taken in the organisation of the workers
for the peaceful attainment of an economical victory. The posters
issued by the Knights of Labour prior to the struggle, calling upon
the troops and the militia not to fire upon the people, showed that
this organisation, which has been growing at the rate of a thousand
a week during the present year, and which, with all its fanciful
trickeries and secrecy, is probably the most powerful working
class organisation in the world, is obliged to recognise that,
however peaceful its objects, force will be used by the dominant
class against the people, and this force they must either meet or
undermine.
But the most formidable weapon yet used by the workers has
been boycotting; and the mere fact that arrests should have been
made for adopting a method of class warfare which, under the
existing law of the United States, is perfectly legal, confirms the
reports of the success with which it has been used. That boy
cotting is liable to abuse is quite obvious, but, once admit the
right of combination for any purpose, and it is difficult to see how
boycotting itself can be stopped. The process, of course, could
not have been effectively carried out without a complete organi
sation, thorough discipline, and a certain amount of secrecy.
Strange to say, Mr. Powderly, the chief of the Knights of Labour,
has openly declared against boycotting, as he did against the
strike on Jay Gould’s railways, and against the Eight Hour move
ment. But the boycotting has been done by the Knights of
Labour all the same. As also it will probably be introduced here
as well as on the Continent of Europe, it may not be out of place
to describe the course taken, which differs a good deal from the
simpler variety of the same process in Ireland.
A capitalist, say an ironmaster, a tobacco manufacturer, a type
founder, or a cotton-spinner, has a dispute with his hands, and
refuses to come to terms with them. At once a " boycott ” is
ordained against him and his goods. First, all the Knights of
Labour and working-class organisations in his neighbourhood are
instructed to refuse to buy his goods, if they are of a kind which
the workers have need of, and to persuade the store-keepers with
whom they deal to give up taking them. Next, the newspapers
which advertise the goods are called upon, and their managers
are informed that if the advertisement is continued, the workers
�THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.
7
will be enjoined no longer to buy, or in any way to support, that
newspaper. Then those who supply the manufacturer with raw
material are interviewed, and efforts are made to induce them to
stop dealing with him. In this way, by degrees, a complete
cordon is formed round the obnoxious individual or company, for
few can afford, especially in cities of the second rank, to offend
what is, on the whole, the largest spending class; and gradually
he or they are forced to surrender or be ruined.
So powerful has this boycott become, and so well understood
is it by the workers, even those who belong to no actual organi
sation, that the mere threat of its operation has, in numberless
instances, gained them the day. The case of the baking
establishment belonging to the so-called “Widow Gray,” who
has, however, another husband, a “ boss ” plumber, was quite
exceptional; and any one who knows, as I do, how the bakeries
in New York are managed, or how, for that matter, they are
managed here, will have very little sympathy left to spare for the
employer, after reflecting upon the fearful overwork of the men,
for a pitiful wage. At any rate, the boycott has, as a rule, been
successful, and it is very improbable that the Federal or State
Government will be able to check it by arrests, unless they go
much farther and attempt to suppress labour organisations
altogether,—a step which would simply force all champions of
the labouring classes into desperate secret conspiracies, and tend
eventually to as bloody a struggle as ever devastated a great
country.
Whichever way we look, in fact, we can see that the outbreak in
Chicago was but a sputter of the hot volcanic lava below. The
long, dangerous, bitter strike of the railway men in Missouri
against Jay Gould, leading to violence on both sides; the strikes
of the tram-car men in New York, and the open encounters with
the authorities there; the serious troubles in the Schuylkill and
Hocking Valley coal districts; the threatening attitude of the
workers in Cincinnati and Milwaukee; the great gatherings of
the unemployed in San Francisco and other cities; the armed
encounters with reference to the employment of Chinese labour
in Seattle and Portland, Oregon; the almost infinite number of
smaller strikes and boycotts in all parts of the country, recorded
only by the local prints and labour papers, but frequently leading
to violence; the open advertisement of Pinkerton’s Agency, that
its directors are ready to provide capitalists with armed men, in
organised bands, to put down strikes, at the rate of seven or eight
dollars a day, as well as detectives to get in among the hands—
all these and many more facts which I could point to prove
beyond dispute that the two sides to the struggle are ranging
themselves in battle order from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean;
and from the Canadian frontier to the Gulf of Mexico. Even in
a new state like Texas some of the bitterest feuds have been
�8
THE CHICAGO RIOTS AND
stirred up. To talk of this widespread trouble as due simply to
a few foreigners, who do not understand American institutions,
or to be stopped by checking immigration, is absurd. At Chicago,
St. Louis, Cincinnati, and New York the Germans have a good
deal of influence no doubt; but even in those cities it will be
found that Americans are now taking the lead in the agitation,
as turns out to be the case in Chicago. It is true also that few
native-born Americans are as yet avowed Socialists; but the
ideas of Socialism are in among the trade unions and Knights
of Labour to a much greater extent than here, and many of their
branches have already been captured by the more advanced party.
Passing, therefore, from the exciting incidents of the moment,
and disregarding whether the workers will or will not come
victorious in the main out of the present conflict, we may fairly
consider the permanent elements involved, and why it is that
in the great republic of the United States, where the Radical
ideal, as understood in this country, is almost completely realised,
the prospect of class warfare should be almost more threatening
chan in older countries where the danger has long been recognised.
I. The workers are, on the whole, much better educated in
America than in Europe, and more readily spend what money
they have upon “ reading matter.” Hence they are more easily
informed as to what is going on among their class, and, where
they have leisure, they take a more active interest in politics and
social matters. The habit of going to lectures and public meetings
is also in favour of the spread of an organised agitation. Nothing
has been more remarkable than the sudden appearance of labour
papers in all parts of the country of late years, where formerly
they were almost unknown, and in towns of a size in which in
this country they certainly could not be maintained.
*
All these
* Saginaw Valley Daily Star (K. of L.),
advanced.
Cleveland Chronicle (Labour; com
mercial speculation).
Labour Record, Louisville (organ Trades
Assembly).
Paterson Labour Standard (organ Trades
Assembly; commercial speculation).
Cincinnati Unionist (English and Ger
man ; K. of L.), advanced.
Baltimore Free Press (K. of L.), mode
rate.
Southern Industry, New Orleans (organ
Trades Assembly), moderate.
Labour Advocate, Lewistown (organ
Trades Assembly), moderate.
Houston Labour Echo. Advanced.
Craftsman, Washington (organ Typo
graphical Union), Advanced.
Palladium of Labour, Hamilton, Ontario
(K. of L.), Socialistic.
Alarm Chicago. English organ. I.W.P.A.
Socialistic and Anarchistic.
Labour Inquirer, Denver (Socialist).
John Swinton’s Paper, New York.
Workman’s Advocate (organ New
Haven Trades Assembly), Socialist.
Detroit Labour Leaf (Typographical
organ), Socialist.
Tocsin, Philadelphia (Typographical
organ), advanced.
Labour Union, New York (commercial
speculation), moderate.
Dayton Workman (K. of L), advanced.
Voice of Labour (K. of L.), moderate,
commercial speculation.
St. Joseph Leader (K. of L.), moderate.
Jersey Knight, Somerville,-------- .
Working Man’s Advocate, Creston (K.
of L.).
Pittsburg Labour Tribune,-------- .
Labour Union, Sedalia (Socialistic).
New Jersey Unionist (K. of L. and
organ Trades Assembly), advanced.
Workman, Durham, N.C.
Providence, People (K. of L.),advanced.
�THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.
9
sheets, however they may begin, tend steadily towards Socialism
as they go on; and the English organs quote Justice with a per
sistence which has quite astonished those who, like myself,
thought it would take some time for our ideas to make way
among the individualist American workers.
II. The facts and figures relating to the trades and industries
of the United States are tabulated with very much greater
accuracy, and are much more easily accessible to the workers,
than they are here or in any European country. Hence the
artisans and labourers in any special branch can see clearly what
proportion of the total product goes to the labourers in that de
partment, and how much is taken as a return to capital. No
dispute as to whether wages are or are not rising, relatively to
the cost of living, could be carried on in America in the same
blind fashion as is too often the case here. The champions of
the working classes can see for themselves how they fare with
their employers, and neither side can delude the other as to the
main facts.
III. The evidence taken before the Committee of the Senate on
the condition of the wage-earning class in the United States
proved clearly that when the high rents and other points are
taken into the account the workers in America do not get wages
which command a standard of life in excess of what can be
Labour Lance. Tewk House (K. of L.),
moderate.
Co-operator, Seattle.
Memphis Weekly Record (organ Trades
Assembly and Typographical).
Ohio Valley Boycotter (Boycotting
specially).
Independent Citizen, Albany.
Petersburg Vice Exponent (K. of L.)
Journal of Industry, Quincey.
Truth, Rochester.
Buffalo Sunday Truth. Advanced com
mercial speculation.
Labourer, Haverhill.
Minersville Free Press.
Richmond (Va.) Herald.
Pittsburg Herald.
St. Paul’s (Miss.) Herald.
Louisville Labour Post.
St. Louis Champion.
Grand Rapid’s Workman. Moderate.
Labour Siftings, Fort Worth. Advanced.
Atlanta Working World.
Portland, Oregon, Ala. Revolutionary.
Topeka (Kan.) Citizen.
The following form the “ Associated
Labour Press” :—
Cleveland Chronicle.
Paterson Labour Standard.
Cincinnati Unionist.
Baltimore Free Press.
Southern Industry.
Leicester Labour Advocate.
Houston Labour Echo.
Washington Craftsman.
Palladium of Labour, Hamilton, Ont.
Denver Labour Inquirer.
John Swinton’s Paper.
Philadelphia Tocsin.
Ohio Valley Boycotter.
Independent Citizen, Albany.
Rochester Truth.
Buffalo Truth.
Haverhill Labourer.
Minersville Free Press.
Richmond (Va.) Herald.
Pittsburg Herald.
St. Paul’s (Mis.) Herald.
Louisville Labour Post.
St. Louis Champion.
German.
Baacker Zeitung, New York. (Organ of
Bakers’ Union.)
Arbeiter Zeitung.
New York Volkszeitung.
Der Sozialist. (Organ Socialist Labour
Party.)
Die Parole. (Organ I. W. P. A., St. Louis
Groups.)
L’Union Ouvri&re, Montreal.
Labour Paper..
French
�10
THE CHICAGO RIOTS AND
obtained in England. This was not what had been anticipated,
and the revelation produced a very great effect; for Americans
have always been led to believe, and did believe, that the labour
ing classes were far better paid, worked shorter hours, and
altogether had a " good time ” as compared with similar workers,
male and female, in the old country. The exposure of the bad
housing and “ sweating ” that were too common in all the great
cities gave the agitators many texts on which they could preach
with great effect, having official testimony behind them.
IV. The increasing difficulty for a man to rise out of the wage
earning class, which I have myself noticed in a casual way at
every visit since I landed in San Francisco at the end of 1870, is
felt as a distinct grievance by the workers. Men in America,
whether native-born or immigrants, all expect to " rise in the
world,” if they are industrious, thrifty, and sober. They are now
finding that this is a less and less easy matter, while the uncer
tainty of getting any employment at all, even by skilled artisans,
has become a great hardship. According to the North American
Review and trustworthy local statistics no fewer than 2,000,000
of people were out of work a few months ago.
V. There is no personal relation between employer and
employed, and the cold pecuniary bargaining appears even in a
more unpleasant shape than it does in Europe. Tramps also are
treated with great cruelty, and the laws against them in some
States are of a character which tends to foster outrages and drive
them to desperation.
VI. The capitalist class consists for the most part of men who
are merely rich, and who have risen above the level of the workers
by operations which are scarcely likely to win respect. They are
not absorbed into an old class whose wealth is hereditary, nor is
there a large professional or easy class, with their dependents, to
shade off the antagonism. Jay Gould, for instance, against whom
some of the more desperate of the recent strikes have been
aimed, is a man who has qualified for his present position as a
“ Napoleon of Finance ” by a series of transactions which even the
laxest moralists denounce as closely akin to fraud. Five-andtwenty years ago he was a needy punter in gold options ; to
day he controls railways, telegraphs, news-agencies, legislatures,
and the whole existence of the thousands of men who work on
his various lines. And he is only a sample of plenty of others
who act with the completest disregard to the welfare of the
workers, the - interests of the public, or the commonest rules of
human decency. The feeling against the great corporations and
their “bosses,” with regard to the wholesale manner in which
they have plundered the State of its lands, the trading com
munity of cheap transit in many cases, and the mass of the
people of honest representation, is shared by thousands who are
not actually wage-earners, and helps on the general movement.
�THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.
11
No attempt is made by the capitalists, as already noted, to dis
guise their contempt for the human counters with which they
play their game.
VII. The contrast between the nominal social and political
equality and the real disparity which exists between the rich and
the poor man—the utter helplessness of the latter, though he is
told that he is all-powerful, when he sees himself juggled out of
any real influence—increases the bitterness in times of pressure.
There is a growing appreciation of the irony of the situation at
the very time when, owing to economical causes, the gap between
the extremely wealthy and the wretchedly poor is widening every
day. What is the use, men say, of being a citizen of the United
States, when I can barely keep body and soul together, while these
employers and capitalists control the whole machine ? The tone of
the political literature, from the Declaration of Independence down
wards, is one continuous satire upon the economical and social
conditions of to-day. Formerly, when all felt they had a chance,
this was not so much noticed; now it is felt and commented upon
daily.
VIII. The political issues themselves are really played out for
the most part. These used to serve in the United States, as they
still serve in older countries, to obscure the actual conflict of class
interest which underlies them all. That is now at an end. So
far as political matters go there is little to choose between the
Democratic and Republican parties; and the people begin to lose
their interest in the mere grabbing for place, which is thinly
veneered over, if veneered it is, by a pretence of patriotism. This,
among a nation so intensely political hitherto as the Americans,
is in itself a serious matter. The social question rises in an in
teresting if a threatening shape just as people at large have
become wearied of the “ bloody shirt,” and have wakened to the
hollowness of nine-tenths of the political discussions. That the
labouring classes are almost entirely unrepresented in the political
arena by no means lessens the significance of this point.
IX. Americans are far more ready to resort to arms than we
are. Just as it is said that a coward who goes west of the Rocky
Mountains comes back a brave man, so any one who goes to the
United States learns to look upon the probability of street fight
ing as by no means small, though perhaps he would find it
difficult to give reasons for this feeling. At any rate, now and for
some years past the possibility of such a collision has been felt
among the workers, and when once bloodshed has begun, as it has
in Chicago and St. Louis, it is very difficult to secure a peaceful
issue, where those who hold the power fail to recognise that the
class which is striving for better conditions of existence, has
powers of organisation and secret action which might be used
with fearful effect. There is no better preparation for a peaceful
settlement than the establishment of mutual respect. This does
�12
THE CHICAGO RIOTS AND
not exist between the two classes in America, and both are more
or less accustomed to the use of arms.
X. The corruption of the State Legislatures and the Munici
palities, the hopelessness of getting any matters attended to
which affect the welfare of great masses of men, but which
conflict with the interests of the great monopolists, are steadily
driving the intelligent workers to the conviction that, if the
present attitude is maintained, an appeal to downright force is
the only possible solution of the question. Time after time
reformers have seen their nominee or nominees bought, as it were,
over their heads, after having given the most thorough pledges at
the polls. Confidence is thus shaken among the people, not only
in this or that party, but in the whole machinery of government;
nor can I deny that this has had a tendency to strengthen the
Anarchists who declaim against the childishness of all political
action.
XI. The constitution of the United States is built up upon the
principles of the most complete individual liberty for all free men.
This, of course, has not been fully maintained in practice, but
these are the principles to which appeal is always made in cases
of difficulty. No provisions, however, were made or contemplated
against the tremendous power over others which this unlimited
freedom might give to individuals in the field of industry and
trade. Thus, though protection is kept up against foreign goods,
protection by the State, or organised community, of the native
workers seems unconstitutional as well as grandmotherly.
Twenty, thirty, fifty years ago the danger had scarcely arisen.
Now that it has Americans, who are essentially lawyers and
constitutionalists, find no precedents which will hold water for
direct interference. This at least has been urged as a reason for
non-intervention, and there seems a sound basis for the contention.
Nevertheless, as I observed five years ago:—“Full individual
freedom leads'in present economical conditions to monopoly; that
monopoly speedily develops into oppression and tryanny; and
then the common sense of society, as a whole, has to step in to
correct the:mischief which has been allowed to spring up.” It is
upon the capacity of American statesmen, politicians, and pub
licists to grasp this truth and to modify their political constitution
so that it may deal vigorously and firmly with social abuses, that
the probability of a peaceful solution of the class struggle rests in
the United States.
Happily signs are not wanting that, notwithstanding the raving
of the capitalist press against the workers and their organisations,
a change is taking place in the mind of influential men which may
have a great effect in the direction which all must hope for.
That the main question in the recent conflict should be the
reduction of the working day to eight hours—a concession which
the workers in our Australian Colonies have already secured—
�THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.
13
gives a reasonable look to the demands of the labourers, seeing
that nobody can work a horse eight hours a day without killing
him very soon. The tone of President Cleveland’s message, in
which he attributes the difficulties of the situation to the grasping
rapacity of capitalists, rather than to the undue demands of the
labourers, is the more significant when we remember that as
Governor of the State of New York, Mr. Cleveland actually vetoed
a Bill, which had passed both Houses of the Legislature, in favour
of a great reduction of the hours of labour on tramways. Clearly
the facts brought before him since his election as President have
considerably modified his opinions, or pressure has been brought
to bear upon him—which is perhaps more likely, for he is not a
man of great ability or foresight—by stronger men than himself.
The position of the Democratic Party, whose man President
Cleveland is, with reference to the Labour question, is indeed
worthy of brief consideration.
The Republican Party is
essentially, and of its nature, the party of the bourgeoisie. The
Democratic Party has always claimed to be, though it must be
confessed with very little reason, the party of the people. Now
it has a chance of justifying its name and its claim, and the wiser
heads are anxious that an attempt should at once be made in
this direction. Hence the President’s favourable message just
before the Chicago outbreak. On the other hand, there are worse
influences! at work in the direction of the monopolists. Mr.
Whitney, the Secretary of the Navy, has, it is said, great weight
with. Mr. Cleveland, and he has married the only daughter of
Senator Payne, of Ohio, who is the head of the notorious Standard
Oil Company. It is to be noted, therefore, that Senator Payne
was the only Democratic Senator who voted in favour of the
increase of the United States army and its employment in the
suppression of strikes.
Personal considerations are, as a rule, hardly to be taken into
account in a matter of such wide importance as this, which will
long outlive Presidents and Cabinets, politicians and wire-pullers.
But Mr. Cleveland and the Democratic Party—of which, by the
way, Mr. Henry George is an active member—stand in a very
peculiar position with reference to the transition period which
America has entered upon. Having attained office after an
exclusion of a quarter of a century the Democrats are at once
brought face to face with an internal contest, in comparison with
which, unless great care is taken, the Civil War between North
and South may yet seem mere child’s play. It is scarcely too
much to say that, accordingly as the present executive shows
judgment and capacity, inasmuch as it sees that the interests of a
people should be considered before those of a class, just in so far
will the immediate future of the United States be a history of
beneficial development or anarchical disturbance. Hence the
influences which bend Mr. Cleveland in a capitalist direction are
�14
THE CHICAGO RIOTS AND
wholly harmful to the interests of the Great Republic at the
present juncture ; and the worst service of all the bad services
the Standard Oil Company has done the American community,
would be that its chief should indirectly twist the principal
officers of the Federal Government against the legitimate
demands of the working people.
The better class of Republicans also, men who but yesterday
were protesting against the corruption of their own party, and
were largely instrumental in bringing abeut Cleveland’s election,
are beginning to see that buying cheap and selling dear is not
the ideal of human existence. Mr. Henry Ward Beecher,
essentially a man of the times, has found it advisable to abandon
his old denunciations of the labouring classes, and to advocate
something better for the people than to remain at the absolute
disposal of owners of property. Mr. Newton, Professor Ely, the
Chaplain of the House of Assembly, and many more, have been
trying hard to reconcile Socialism and Christianity, rivalling
even the Social Democrats in their denunciations of the un
scrupulous money-getting, which has hitherto been the main
consideration of the well-to-do classes in the United States.
The agitation for Land Nationalisation, which Mr. Henry George
has carried on with so much vigour and self-sacrificing persist
ence, has necessarily spread ideas of collective management far
and wide; the growing determination to limit the power of the
railway kings and great corporations, has a direct tendency to
help on still wider proposals; while even the Free Trade discus
sion, like the Fair Trade agitation here, has drawn attention to
economical and social as distinguished from mere political
issues.
Till within the last two or three years, however, the reply of
sober Americans to all who called attention to the dangers arising
from the growing disaffection of the working class in the great
cities was to point to their great agricultural population, and the
increasing number of independent farmers as the backbone of the
nation certain to oppose all subversionary attempts. The figures
of the last census are indeed astonishing, showing, as they do, that
whereas in 1870 there were 5,922,471 persons engaged in agricul
ture in the United States, of whom 2,889,605 were dependents of
some sort; in 1880 there were 7,670,493 thus engaged—an in
crease of 1,700,000 in the ten years—and of these but 3,326,982
were dependents. Thus the independent farmers had increased
from 3,033,866 in 1870 to 4,343,511 in 1880, and the number
has grown since then considerably. Here then is what, in all
ordinary circumstances, would be a strongly conservative element,
opposing a dead resistance to the agitation of the great cities,
similar to, but even more formidable than, that offered by the
French small proprietors to the Radicals and Socialists of Paris,
Lyons, etc. But economical causes have stirred the agriculturists
�THE CLASS WAR IN THE UNITED STATES.
15
too, farmers and labourers together. The great fall in the price
of all agricultural produce, the impossibility, it may be said, of
disposing of their grain at a profit, has literally crushed many of
the farmers, while the foreclosure on mortgages, or the increase
of debt, has brought home the pressure of capitalism even to the
most industrious and thrifty. The outcry against the railways
by the employes finds, therefore, an echo among the farmers who
cry out for lower than the already low rates ; such combinations
as the “ Grangers ” denounce railway monopoly and landgrabbing
with almost the same vehemence as the more extreme men in the
cities. At the same time those dependent upon the farmers, find
more difficulty in getting work, and have to accept in many in
stances lower wages. Thus, though the agriculturists may take
a somewhat different line from the city workers, they also are at
the present time by no means as a whole in a contented frame
of mind, or likely to play the reactionary part which was but
now assigned to them.
Speaking generally, the tendency in the United States, as it is
here, is for the workers who are better educated, more apt to com
bine, more ready to see the antagonism between their interests
and that of the capitalists, to be asked to accept a lower standard
of life, just when they have made up their minds that they are
entitled to demand a higher. Can this be enforced ? I say most
distinctly, No. To see this it is not necessary to be a Social Demo
crat. Mr. Jefferson Davis, an old and presumably cool observer,
practically says “ No,” too. He notes, as all unprejudiced men must
note, that not only do’ the workers not share proportionately in
the relative improvement of society, due to the improved methods
of production of wealth, but that they are being educated to ask
why this should be. Yet, even as I write, an official report reaches
this country from the United States, which shows that the con
dition of the “ sweaters’ hacks,” and of others of the lower grades
of labour, is perhaps worse than it is in England with regard to
food, clothing, and lodging accommodation. I do not deny that
there is more general well-being in the United States than in
England, but I am also convinced that the relative superiority
now scarcely affects the working classes, and that the tendency
is ever downwards in their lot. This, while the big fortunes are
growing constantly bigger, and luxury is carried to a higher
pitch than ever before.
Thus then the Chicago Riots, the unprovoked shooting at St.
Louis, the other smaller outbreaks of which we hear little of, are
symptoms of a deep discontent throughout the United States,
which it will need the highest ability and coolness of her states
men to deal with. We are now apparently at the beginning of
a rising cycle of trade in that great country. Now, therefore, is
the time to act. To wait until “ bad times ” come again before
steps are taken to deal with the great social problem, means,
�16
r
' Sk
THE CHICAGO RIOTS.
sooner or later, civil war. The respect for law, which De
Tocqueville and other writers have remarked upon as so obvious
a trait in the American character, will not long survive a state of
society in which the law is used to protect a vast system of social
oppression. Moderate as are the demands of the Knights of
Labour, the Federated Trades, and similar organisations, the idea
of collective action is, as I have shown, already growing among
them; and Socialism has taken root to such an extent that it can
never again be neglected in any calculations as to the future
action of the workers in the United States. A great opportunity
lies before the men now in power. They can either bitterly
exacerbate, and therefore render dangerous to peace the natural
desire of the producing class for a rapid improvement of their
lot; or they can give it a gradual and beneficial outlet by an
organised endeavour to meet their demands in a calm and equit
able spirit. All men, even Anarchists, would prefer a peaceful
solution; sober observers know that violence is apt to breed
reaction. But in America, as in England and on the continent
of Europe, the question of the immediate future is, How are the
workers to obtain control over production without a cataclysm
which will sweep all before it ?
The seventh industrial crisis of the century is slowly passing
away on the other side of the Atlantic. Will the eighth find the
governing classes as incapable of grasping the causes or dealing
with the effects of these periods of social anarchy as they are
to-day ? Upon the answer to that question it is not too much to
say depends the future of the American Republic.
Note.—Since the above paper was in type, direct evidence has been
received that the great meeting and procession of Socialists and Anarchists
on May 1st, attended by fully 20,000 men, was perfectly quiet and orderly ;
that the numbers present on the occasion when the actual conflict took
place did not exceed 1,500 instead of 15,000 ; and that the police had no
legal right whatever, under the State Law, to call upon the people to
disperse. This, of course, does not justify the throwing of the dynamite
bomb; but, taken in connection with the clubbing of girls to death and
the shooting of men when the crowd went to M’Cormick’s factory, it puts
a very different complexion on the matter to that given it by the capitalist
press.
H. M. h.
May 24th,
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Chicago riots and the class war in the United States
Creator
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Hyndman, H. M. (Henry Mayers) [1842-1921.]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: A reprint from 'Time'.
Publisher
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Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co.
Date
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1886
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G4972
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Anarchism
Socialism
USA
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Text
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English
Anarchism
Chicago
Riots
Socialism
United States of America