May Day kinships. A small, but extraordinary, piece of history connecting struggles, generations, and epochs. John Brown’s eldest son, himself an abolitionist and combatant in Bleeding Kansas, writes to Albert Parsons’ paper shortly after the execution of the Haymarket martyrs on November 11, 1887. ‘The Alarm’ had been ‘resuscitated’ by Parson’s comrade Dyer Lum who himself grew up in an abolitionist family and volunteered in the Civil War to destroy slavery. Lum had sent Brown Jr. Parsons writings, to which Brown responded with these thoughtful words, also sending a $1.50 for a subscription to the most radical paper in the country.

‘Letter from John Brown Jr.’ from The Alarm (Chicago). New Vol. 1 No. 4. December 17, 1887.

The Son of “Old Ossawatomie” Does Homage to the Martyrs of the Present.

PUT-IN-BAY, O., Dec. 2, 1887. Dyer D. Lum, Editor Alarm:

MY DEAR SIR: Sincerely do I thank you for your favor of the 27th ult., received on the 29th. Also, for a copy (No: 2) of A.R. Parsons’ paper, which you have resuscitated. It is the first paper, or document from those termed anarchists that I have ever seen.

Permit me to decline your generous offer to place my name on your free list. I want the paper to live, and in token of the earnestness of my desire you will please find inclosed postoffice money order for $1.50 in payment of my subscription for a year.

Job said: “The cause which I knew not I searched out.” In doing that, let me ask: Does the term anarchy, in accordance with its usual and commonly understood meaning, express the real object and purpose of those who are called anarchists? In other words: Is the destruction of law–of all conservative and restraining regulations–either a prime object or a means to the accomplishment of a chief purpose? By law I mean “the rule, obligation, or requirement of natural justice.” Surely, the anarchist cannot mean this. If so, then I cannot bid him godspeed. What, then, does he aim at accomplishing? “The cause which I knew not I searched out.” Let us have “light, more light.” To this end I shall carefully read the resuscitated paper of A.R. Parsons, now edited by yourself, one of the descendants of the noted abolitionist Arthur Tappan, with whom I formerly had the honor of a personal acquaintance. Forty years ago an abolitionist was regarded by the majority of the people of this country as an embodiment of real anarchy, a disturber of the public peace, a destroyer of vested rights–rights guaranteed by the constitution of our common government. Today (except among “bourbons”) the name of the noted abolitionist Arthur Tappan is cherished and honored among the intelligent and liberty-loving everywhere.

Agitate and educate, but let us “mind the light.” In our zeal for the cause of the oppressed laborer let us not stumble over and put out the light we have. While we realize the truth that “the destruction of the poor is their poverty,” let us not forget what is equally and sadly true, that the destruction of the rich is their wealth.

Twenty-eight years ago today my father was judicially murdered at Charlestown, Va, for his devotion to the cause of the oppressed laborers of African descent in America. Now we perceive that emancipation means more than simply freedom of the blacks from the bonds of chattel slavery. May heaven grant to all the people of our beloved country wisdom also to perceive this and to “govern themselves accordingly.”

JOHN BROWN, JR.

The Alarm was an extremely important paper at a momentous moment in the history of the US and international workers’ movement. The Alarm was the paper of the International Working People’s Association produced weekly in Chicago and edited by Albert Parsons. The IWPA was formed by anarchists and social revolutionists who left the Socialist Labor Party in 1883 led by Johann Most who had recently arrived in the States. The SLP was then dominated by German-speaking Lassalleans focused on electoral work, and a smaller group of Marxists largely focused on craft unions. In the immigrant slums of proletarian Chicago, neither were as appealing as the city’s Lehr-und-Wehr Vereine (Education and Defense Societies) which armed and trained themselves for the class war. With 5000 members by the mid-1880s, the IWPA quickly far outgrew the SLP, and signified the larger dominance of anarchism on radical thought in that decade. The Alarm first appeared on October 4, 1884, one of eight IWPA papers that formed, but the only one in English. Parsons was formerly the assistant-editor of the SLP’s ‘People’ newspaper and a pioneer member of the American Typographical Union. By early 1886 Alarm claimed a run of 3000, while the other Chicago IWPA papers, the daily German Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers’ Newspaper) edited by August Spies and weeklies Der Vorbote (The Harbinger) had between 7-8000 each, while the weekly Der Fackel (The Torch) ran 12000 copies an issue. A Czech-language weekly Budoucnost (The Future) was also produced. Parsons, assisted by Lizzie Holmes and his wife Lucy Parsons, issued a militant working-class paper. The Alarm was incendiary in its language, literally. Along with openly advocating the use of force, The Alarm published bomb-making instructions. Suppressed immediately after May 4, 1886, the last issue edited by Parson was April 24. On November 5, 1887, one week before Parson’s execution, The Alarm was relaunched by Dyer Lum but only lasted half a year. Restarted again in 1888, The Alarm finally ended in February 1889. The Alarm is a crucial resource to understanding the rise of anarchism in the US and the world of Haymarket and one of the most radical eras in US working class history.

PDF of full issue: https://dds.crl.edu/item/54019