A closer look

The Haymarket Trial

What determines whether political speech is protected by the First Amendment?

by Naomi Fischer, PhD Candidate, The Graduate Center, CUNY

A Peaceful Rally or a Call to Arms?

In the United States, we are accustomed to the idea that our right to speak our minds is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. However, this First Amendment right is not universal, and court cases have frequently challenged the ideas advocated by specific individuals, particularly when speech is considered to have directly or indirectly resulted in violence. One of the earliest and most famous cases dealing with the accusation that political speech incited violence became known as the Haymarket Affair and Trial.

On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the United States went on strike to demand an eight-hour workday. In Chicago, the center of the national movement, strikers included thousands of industrial workers representing the Knights of Labor and unions, as well as more radical communists, socialists, and anarchists. As the strike stretched into several days of protests, police attacked workers at some sites, and the violence caused agitation on the part of elected officials and provoked fear among the general public. The media heightened this panic through incendiary language: newspapers labeled the demonstrators as rioters and denounced the organizers as anarchists inspired by a foreign radicalism aimed at fomenting violence and rebellion. An editorial in the Chicago Times urged: “Let us whip these slavic wolves back to the European dens from which they issue, or in some way exterminate them.” Finally on May 4, an unknown assailant threw a bomb into a group of police officers who had gathered to break up a labor rally. The explosion killed one police officer, while dozens of rally attendees and police officers were injured after the crowd panicked and police began to shoot indiscriminately. Despite the fact that police were unable to locate a suspect in the bombing itself, officials demanded that an arrest be made.

The Trial: Free Speech or Incitement?

The Haymarket Trial began on June 21, 1886. The prosecution argued that the eight defendants’ speeches and publications had incited violence. The defense argued that the men knew nothing of the bomb and condemned the act of violence that occurred at the rally. In addition, the defense objected to the process of jury selection, in which men were seated on the jury who declared under oath that they already believed in the defendants’ guilt and could not render an unbiased verdict in the case. In 1886, there were no forensic technologies to investigate the crime scene, and the police made only rudimentary efforts to trace the source of the bomb. However, the prosecution considered the bomb thrower’s testimony unnecessary. To convict the men of conspiracy, the state did not need to prove that the accused had directly tasked anyone with throwing the bomb; the state merely had to establish that the defendants had created an environment in which such an act was likely to occur. This meant that all the previous writing and public speaking by the accused men was admissible as evidence.

The defense argued that their clients were simply exercising their right to free speech and peaceful assembly and that the police had unjustly targeted them because of their political beliefs. The men did not deny calling for workingmen to arm themselves to defend against continued police violence, however, they insisted that they had not encouraged their fellow labor organizers to act offensively. The eight men all gave long speeches in the courtroom, decrying the trial as unjust and predicated on bias against socialism and immigrants.

A Fair Hearing or a Miscarriage of Justice?

On August 20, 1886, the criminal court found the defendants guilty of murder as accessories before the fact in the death of Mathias J. Degan, the one police officer who clearly died from the Haymarket bomb. August Spies, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, and Louis Lingg all received the death penalty, and Oscar Neebe was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The defendants appealed the case to the Illinois Supreme Court, arguing their first trial was unjust and biased, with a jury that had been hand selected to convict the men. Illinois Supreme Court justice Benjamin B. Magruder upheld the earlier conviction. In his decision, Magruder cited the English case Regina v. Sharpe, arguing that the ruling established that “[h]e, who inflames people’s minds and induces them by violent means, to accomplish an illegal object, is himself a rioter, though he takes no part in the riot.” Magruder determined that, based on the defendants’ prior speech, it was reasonable for the jury to assume that the leaders did not intend for the gathering at Haymarket Square to be peaceful. Although observers today might question the fairness of the proceedings, some historians have agreed with Magruder that the accused men received a fair trial. By upholding the conviction, Magruder concluded that speech could be considered incitement for criminal action. The judge confirmed that the executions would proceed, however he commuted the sentences of two defendants, Fielden and Schwab, to life in prison. The night before the executions, Alfred Lingg died by suicide in his cell.

On the morning of November 11, 1887, prison guards marched the condemned men to newly constructed gallows behind the courthouse. Before they were executed, each man took one last opportunity to speak to the crowd. August Spies reportedly cried out: “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” Hundreds of thousands of mourners turned out for the funeral procession and to show their ongoing support for the executed men. The Chicago press, however, generally celebrated the executions and continued to warn the public about the dangers posed by foreign radicals.

Five and a half years later, in June 1893, Governor John P. Altgeld issued a pardon for the surviving men. In his public announcement about the pardon, the governor highlighted the biased jury selection process and the personal prejudice of the judge. Many workers and progressives celebrated Altgeld’s judgment, rejecting the media’s portrayal of radicalism as an imminent threat to the country. But generally the public considered the governor’s pardon a sign that he condoned anarchist violence. This impression among voters effectively ended Governor Altgeld’s career. In 1896 he failed to win reelection and never again held office.

Reflection Questions

Judge Magazine Comments on the Governor’s Pardon of the Haymarket Protesters

“The Friend of Mad Dogs.” In this 1893 cartoon published in the weekly satirical magazine Judge, Illinois governor John P. Altgeld is depicted releasing the “mad dogs” of “socialism,” “anarchy,” and “murder” to attack a frightened “Columbia” and cowering children (symbolizing the nation and its citizenry). In the background the original Haymarket Monument is visible, which was dedicated to the memory of the Chicago policeman killed in the bombing at the May 4, 1886, labor demonstration. Eight protesters were accused of inciting the violence and found guilty of accessory to murder after the fact. Four were executed, one committed suicide, and three received life sentences. The cartoon appeared shortly after the governor issued pardons for the three still imprisoned Haymarket activists. Many viewed Altgeld’s actions as dangerous and misguided, and his pardoning of the condemned men ultimately ended Altgeld’s career.

Source: Victor Gillam, “The Friend of Mad Dogs: Governor Altgeld of Illinois in Freeing the Anarchists Bitterly Denounced Judge Gary and the Jury That Convicted Them,” Judge, July 15, 1893, Chicago Historical Society. http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/hadc/visuals/49V1340.htm

Utilizing media coverage and documents describing the Haymarket riot, explain the basis of the prosecutors' case against the eight labor leaders.

How do Alfred Spies' statements and other documents support the defense's point that the trial was unjust?

The convictions in the Haymarket trial hinged on interpretations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Magruder argued that those on trial for the Haymarket violence were rightly convicted of inciting violence. Governor Altgeld disagreed. Based on the evidence here and your reading of the First Amendment, who do you think was right? Why?

Based on the evidence provided, do you agree with Governor Altgeld’s reasoning (explained in his statement) for pardoning the surviving men?

Should all political speech be protected under the First Amendment? Why or why not?

Additional Reading

Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).

James Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006).

Hartmut Keil and John B. Jentz, eds., German Workers in Chicago: A Documentary History of Working-Class Culture from 1850 to World War I (University of Illinois Press, 1988).

Timothy Messer-Kruse, The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and Justice in the Gilded Age (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

Bruce C. Nelson, Beyond the Martyrs: A Social History of Chicago's Anarchists, 1870-1900 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988.

Franklin Rosemont and David Roediger, eds., Haymarket Scrapbook (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1986).

Related Chapters

Community and Conflict: Working People Respond to Industrial Capitalism, 1877-1893