One of the bloodiest big city strikes in U.S. history, the Chicago Socialist writes on the giant stakes of that city’s 1905 Teamsters strike in sympathy with local garment workers that led to a total lockout by city employers.

‘Strike War in Chicago’ from the Chicago Socialist. Vol. 6 No. 322. May 6, 1905.

The class war is raging in Chicago. The two mighty giants–the forces of capitalism and organized labor–are locked in a deadly struggle for supremacy. The forces of capital, with all the ingenious devices for perpetuating its absolute domination are marshaled in battle array. Capitalism has called out all the reserve forces and holds them in readiness to strike telling blows in every direction.

The first to go into action was the city administration, the police force and the Chicago portion of the army of the unemployed. The State and United States courts were next brought into action and belched forth sweeping injunctions, thus placing the workers at the absolute mercy of the deputy sheriffs and United States marshals, to be dragged into courts and sentenced to terms in prison without their constitutional right to a trial by jury.

Then come armed thugs known as private detectives and professional strike breakers; while in full view stand the United States troops and State militia, the special bodyguard of the capitalist system. Add to all the above the trained sharpshooter–the capitalist press–which has from the very beginning kept up a constant fusillade of misrepresentation, calumny, and deadly gases of prejudice intended to poison the public mind and divert it from the real issues between the exploiters and the exploited. If the reader will let his mind’s eye rest for a moment on this army of capitalist fighting power he will have a quite accurate picture of the powers now arrayed against the young labor giant who as yet knows not the nature of the strength which he feels instinctively coursing through his veins and in every fibre of his muscles and brain cells.

What the outcome of this important skirmish will be we do not presume to predict. At the present writing the capitalists appear to have every advantage. From their language and actions in demanding the unconditional surrender of organized labor, it is evident they feel that they are masters of the situation.

The tactics pursued by the different sides to this struggle stand out in great contrast.

From the very beginning the employers have been a unit. They lost no time in setting their forces in motion. With Napoleonic rapidity and skill all their forces were brought into action, or made ready for action at the word of command.

On the other side, the forces of organized labor, which with all its imperfection after all represents the only real fighting power of the working class on the economic field, were drawn into this fight for its existence badly organized and at an inopportune time, under weak generalship.

Had the labor leaders brought the fight on a month earlier then they did, the city administration, the powerful weapon now in the hands of their antagonist, might now be in control of the working class. Had they done this, the whole power of the city administration, police force and all, might at the present moment be giving the employers’ association a real demonstration of what the enforcing “law and order” means.

If the administrative and police powers of the city of Chicago were set in operation enforcing the city ordinances that the manufacturers and merchants are contemptuously ignoring with perfect impunity every day, we would soon see the employers association running up the white flag of truce instead of strutting around out of reach of the law, throwing defiance in the face of “law and order.”

While this paper stands for law and order and deprecates all resorts to physical force and violence, we recognize the fact that the employers use it at all times when it best suits their purpose to do so.

The following, taken from an interview with the general superintendent of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, and printed in the Daily News of Monday, May 1, undoubtedly demonstrates the type of law and order the capitalist class stands for when it suits them.

Said Mr. Wygant: “There must be a certain number of people killed before this thing ends and the sooner they are killed the better. It’s a shame, though, that the right ones will be careful to keep under cover. If this thing occurred in a frontier town it would not have lasted twenty-four hours. A vigilance committee would have taken the leaders out and hung them on the nearest tree or telegraph post.”

In the same article which contained the above was printed the following news item:

“Chicago is to witness the spectacle tomorrow of 1,000 nonunion teamsters armed with Winchester rifles. It was admitted this afternoon by Superintendent Reed of the Employers Teaming Company that arrangements were being made to procure the first installment of these rifles.”

Now, Mr. Working Man, just take another look at the above. Read it over carefully. Let its full meaning soak into your mind. Consider who gave expression to it. Then turn it other side up, and consider how it would look and sound if it had come from the President of the Teamsters’ Union, or the President of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Just set your imagination to work and consider what a howl the capitalist press would have raised for the life of the working man who gave utterance to such expressions. Yet these are the men who are shouting on the other hand for “law and order.”

Much has been said in the capitalist press editorially, and also by statements given out by both sides as to the original points at issue between the union and employers. Those points are dealt with in another place in this issue. Whatever the original issues were, both sides now understand that it now is, whether or not unionism shall be crushed out in Chicago.

Organized labor in Chicago is fighting for its life against the organized powers of capitalism. We make no apologies for calling it war. It is nothing less, and “war is hell.” But there can be no peace nor any lasting cessation of hostilities until the final triumph of the producing class over the class which now live by exploitation.

Organized labor may lose this fight, but it still has one chance, and only one, to win. If the workers are not to go down to humiliating defeat, they must stand together and throw their whole force immediately into the battle that is raging all around us. Already the enemy has gained untold advantage by our vacillating and dilatory tactics and timidity.

Whatever the final result of the present contest, the Socialist, both in and out of the union, knows and understands thoroughly that it will settle nothing. He knows that so long as the capitalists own and control the opportunities to work, that strikes, lockouts, boycotts, black lists, injunctions, bull pens, police clubs, militia bayonets and general contempt from the capitalist class and their retainers will be the common portion of the real wealth producers. Still he is hopeful, for he knows in the end the workers will learn how to fight, and see the necessity of possessing themselves of the essential implements of war–the powers of government.

Until this time comes, whether it be short or long, every Socialist who understands the nature of the class struggle, will be found fighting with every weapon within his reach on the side of the working class.

Let organized labor now show itself equal to marshaling its forces for a decisive battle on the economic field. Then prepare to storm the citadel of capitalism at all future elections at the ballot box. No existing power can withstand the lusty young labor giant that is now learning to use his strength when he comes to recognize the possibilities of his controlling the political powers and using them to abolish the present constant state of class warfare.

The Chicago Socialist, sometimes daily sometimes weekly, was published from 1902 until 1912 as the paper of the Chicago Socialist Party. The roots of the paper lie with Workers Call, published from 1899 as a Socialist Labor Party publication, becoming a voice of the Springfield Social Democratic Party after splitting with De Leon in July, 1901. It became the Chicago Socialist Party paper with the SDP’s adherence and changed its name to the Chicago Socialist in March, 1902. In 1906 it became a daily and published until 1912 by Local Cook County of the Socialist Party and was edited by A.M. Simons if the International Socialist Review. A cornucopia of historical information on the Chicago workers movements lies within its pages.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/workers-call-chicago-socialist/050506-chicagosocialist-v06w322.pdf