Heading to Haymarket. Report of the regular lakefront meeting of the American group of Chicago’s International Working People’s Association where the massacre of striking workers in Lemont, Illinois was denounced, a workers’ defense militia formed, reports given, and elections held.

‘Mass Meeting of the American Group’ from The Alarm (Chicago). Vol. 1 No. 22. May 16, 1885.

Mass Meeting at 54 W. Lake Street–The Murderer’s of the Lemont Working People Denounced.

Official Report of the Secretary and Election of Officers For the Ensuing Term.

The American group of the International Working People’s Association, held its regular meeting at 54 West Lake street, last Wednesday. The subject of the slaughtered laborers by the military at the stone quarries of Lemont was taken into consideration. The action of the “authorities” was denounced by the several speakers as high-handed murder, and it was decided as the sense of those present, that the time had come for the wage-slaves everywhere to arm and prepare to make a defense for their liberties. It was argued that government had no other mission, that to compel by force the submission of the poor to the dictation of the rich and that all laws were enacted and enforced for the sole purpose of holding the laborer in subjection to the capitalistic class. The following resolution was unanimously adopted as expressing the sense of the meeting on the Lemont butchery:

Resolved, By this mass meeting of working people that the action of the so-called “authorities” in shooting, bayoneting, killing and wounding the defenceless working people at the stone quarries of Lemont, who are on strike against starvation wages, is by us denounced as a brutal and shameful massacre of the people, and is a forcible illustration of the fact that the preservation and enforcement of so called law and order” is nothing more than submission to the wages of slavery or else death by the bayonet, and demonstrates that human laws and human government have no other mission than the oppression of man by his fellow man.

Resolved, That in view of these facts the time has arrived when the despoiled workers are from necessity compelled to arm themselves and take a decisive and active part in the social revolution for labor’s economic emancipation.

The American group resolved further to arm and organize into a company and become a part of the military organization now forming throughout the city. It was also decided to establish a school on chemistry, where the manufacture and use of explosives would be taught.

The expiration of the terms of secretary, treasurer, and delegates to the general committee being announced, the present secretary, Wm. Holmes, submitted the following interesting report:

Comrades–In presenting a report of the growth, strength and work of the American (Anarchistic) Group I.W.P.A. during the half year ending April 30, I do so with renewed confidence in the greatness and justice of our noble cause; and basing the future growth of the movement upon the developments of the past six months, I feel safe in saying that the close of the current term will show a correspondingly large increase in the membership, and results in every way most satisfactory.

The American group was organized in November, 1883, with five members. On October 30, 1884, there were enrolled 45 names, and on April 30, 1885, the membership numbered 95–an increase of over one hundred per cent during the past six months. During this time the Group has held forty-five agitation meetings, most of which have been well attended. Large quantities of propaganda literature have been distributed gratis, and numbers of pamphlets, tracts, etc., have been sold. During the month Comrades Gorsuch, Parsons, Fielden, Griffen and Spies made agitation trips in many of the states, during the course of which a large number of groups of the International were organized, most of which are still in a flourishing condition, and large and enthusiastic mass-meetings were held in the different places visited.

A significant feature of the term just closed is the addition to the American group of several intelligent, active and devoted agitators, most of whom were formerly active State Socialists, while others were strangers and joined the movement as a result of the local agitation. Two of our workers and speakers, Comrades Gorsuch and Griffen, have (we hope only temporarily) left us. The former has been on an extended agitation trip throughout the east, from whence he occasionally makes gratifying reports, while the latter is at home in New England, where he has succeeded in stirring up considerable feeling, and in converting his near relatives to Anarchism.

During the current term the local agitation will be carried on in a still more thorough manner. New literature for free distribution will be prepared. Open air meetings will be held every Sunday, when the weather will permit, and efforts will be made to put into the field a few more energetic and devoted speakers and agitators: Fraternally yours, WM. HOLMES, Sec’y Am. Group, I.W.P.A. Chicago, May 10, 1885.

Comrade Samuel Fielden, the treasurer of the group, made a report, showing the receipts and expenditures for the past six month, with a balance in the treasury.

Comrade Aug. Spies made a report as delegate to the general committee, after which the present officers were re-elected for the term of six months, as follows: Wm. Holmes, secretary; Samuel Fielden, treasurer, John Walter, Aug. Spies, and Wm. Crowley, delegates to the general committee.

The meeting then adjourned to meet at the same place Wednesday evening following.

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/54012