To belittle, to distort, and to incite. The boss’s media has always been the first weapon reached for by the bosses in the class war.

‘How the Capitalist Press Reported the Nation-Wide May First Strikes and Demonstrations in 1886’ by Sender Garlin from The Daily Worker. Vol. 11 No. 102. April 28, 1934.

Gigantic Struggle for 8-Hour Day Laid the Basis for May Day

WHEN the New York taxicab strikers ejected a capitalist press reporter from their strike hall several weeks ago, they were probably not aware that this reporter represented an institution which for decades has acted as a strike-breaker for the employers.

How, for example, did the capitalist press of the United States react to the gigantic 8-hour day strikes on May 1, 1886?

The demand for the eight-hour working day was the central keynote of the May 1 strikes, which later gave birth to International May Day. Hundreds of thousands of workers were stirred by this movement. As far back as 1866 the National Labor Union passed a resolution declaring that:

“The first and great necessity of the present, to free labor of this country from capitalist slavery, is the passing of a law by which eight hours shall be the normal working day in ail states in the American union. We are resolved to put forth all our strength until this glorious result is attained.”

As a result of the agitation of the National Labor Union, Eight-Hour Leagues had been formed in various parts of the country. The Eight-Hour Day League of Boston at its convention in 1872 had declared of the factory system that:

“It employs tens of thousands of women and children 11 and 12 hours a day; owns or controls in its own selfish interest the pulpit and the press; prevents the operative classes from making themselves felt in behalf of less hours, through remorseless exercise of the power of discharge; and is rearing a population of children and youth of sickly appearance and scanty or utterly neglected schooling.”

According to a survey made by Bradstreet’s, fully 340,060 workers participated in the fight for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1886. Of this number 200,000 workers won their demand.

***

THE capitalist press of the day had not as yet mastered the insidious “technique” of the newspapers of the present day, but their handling of the May 1 strikes of 1886 provides an interesting picture of their anti-labor activities.

Founded by Horace Greeley, who for years was associated with the elder Brisbane (father of Arthur Brisbane) and the other Socialist Utopians who derived their inspiration from Fourier, the New York Tribune had always boasted of its “fairness” to labor. In fact, during 1852-62 the Tribune had published a series of letters from Karl Marx which were later incorporated in Marx’s classic, “Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany,” and in other volumes.

It is therefore revealing to see how the New York Tribune treated the momentous events of 1886.

In its issue of May 1, 1886, the Tribune carried the following headlines:

“ANXIETY IN CHICAGO; STRIKES FOLLOW EACH OTHER RAPIDLY; MANY FACTORIES CLOSED; POLICE READY”

Then followed the following dispatch:

“CHICAGO, April 30 (Special). The railroad companies have decided not to grant the demand for a working day of eight hours, and this after the freight houses of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and Alton were deserted. The next largest industry affected is that of the packing houses of the Union Stock Yards, where from 20,000 to 30,000 men are employed.

“The concession of the largest packing establishment, headed by Sidney Kent (president of the Chicago Packing and Provisions Co.—S.G.). granting a day of eight-hours for nine hours pay. made the situation a difficult one for the remaining packers, and the word, tonight, is that they will close their houses before they will concede the demand.

“The other manufacturers of the city ale divided in opinion, but already the number who have closed their shops is sufficient to show that many thousands of men will be out of work.

“One of the current rumors was that the McCormick Harvester Works had been closed on account of the demand of its men for the eight-hour day. This was denied at the office. There is said to be no dissatisfaction among the men with the company’s treatment of them.”

Notice that the Tribune correspondent takes pains to point out that, in spite of the fact that one of the largest packing houses” had caved in to the workers, “the word tonight is that they [the bosses] will close their houses before they will concede the demand.”

“The number who have closed their shops,” says the correspondent, “is sufficient to show that many thousands of men will be out of work.”

A vivid parallel to the tactics of the capitalist press in 1886 was seen during the recent strike of auto products workers, which closed down the Hudson Motor Plant in Detroit. The emphasis was not on the fact that workers were striking for a real union and better conditions (and breaking through the barriers of the N.R.A.) but that by their action the auto products workers had thrown other workers out of jobs!

The Tribune denies the “rumor” that the men in the McCormick Harvester Works would quit, and moreover announces cheerfully that “there is said to be no dissatisfaction among the men with the company’s treatment of them.”

As a matter of fact, while the Tribune scribe was composing his dispatch, the men in the McCormick Harvester Works had gone out on strike—even before the May 1 demonstration. (The bourgeois historian, John R. Commons, described it as a “lock-out.”) The bosses immediately hired scabs and sluggers, and when, on May 3, the strikers held a large mass meeting, police shot into the crowd and murdered six workers in cold blood.

In fact it was as a protest against this wanton slaying of the strikers that the Chicago workers called the Haymarket meeting on May 4.

***

THE strike for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1886 aroused great enthusiasm among the great masses of the workers. Anthony Bimba in his “History of the American Working Class,” reports that on the second day of the general strike about 80,000 were involved, and that the struggle was peaceful and the workers’ solidarity was remarkable.”

The New York Tribune, however, in its issue of May 2, 1886, emblazoned the following headlines on its front page:

“DISORDERS IN CHICAGO; STRIKERS INVADING FREIGHT HOUSES; ANARCHISTS DISPLAY RED FLAG”

Under this scare headline appeared the following story:

“CHICAGO, May 1. Whatever may be the ultimate outcome of the Chicago labor trouble, this will probably pass into local history as the great strike day. There is no exaggeration in the statement that scarcely a plant in the city has escaped being affected, if not crippled, by the demands of the employes for a working day of eight hours.

“…The incidents of the day emphasized the fact that the railway companies are face to face with a great strike, and that their discontent employes are bent upon forcing a blockade on all the roads.”

Throughout this dispatch is an ill-concealed attitude of irritation at the militancy of the workers, and the announcement that the strike has “crippled” many plants is obviously designed to prejudice the readers against the strikers. A picture of violent, “unreasonable” men with no real grievances is drawn by the Tribune correspondent when he says that “their [the railroads’] discontented employes are bent upon forcing a blockade on all the roads.”

In the same issue—in an attempt to stir up prejudice against the workers struggling for the eight-hour day, the Tribune carried a dispatch from St. Louis, declaring that:

“A story comes from Pacific, Mo., the headquarters of the bridge builders of the Gould system, that the railroad detectives have discovered a conspiracy among the striking bridge builders to destroy bridges by the use of dynamite.

HOLLOWING the formula since” made famous by contemporary provocateurs in the hire of the bosses, it seems that detectives “discovered 50 masks and a lot of tools and dynamite cartridges,” but, significantly enough, “no arrests have been made.”

Because the movement in New York was less militant than in Chicago, the Tribune adopted a slightly different tone in handling the New York May Day demonstration of 1886. The reformist spirit was entrenched in the New York unions, and, as one writer put it, “the leaders succeeded in keeping the demonstration on the paths of order and good citizenship.”

Fresh from militant strike struggles, which included the sugar refineries and on the Third Avenue Elevated, 20,000 workers crowded Union Square in a tremendous May 1 demonstration. They had come at the call of fourteen unions, and the square was packed with thousands of workers bearing red banners and placards.

Nevertheless, on the morning of May 1st, the New York Tribune had announced agreeably that “the general feeling among the leading members of the various organizations is that at the present state of public opinion in regard to strikes, it would be futile to attempt to accomplish anything through this medium, and in most cases when an amicable arrangement cannot be made between the employers and the men, the matter will be held in abeyance.”

Reporting the meeting the next day, the Tribune said that “the speakers were all in the interests of law and order, and as a rule deprecated strikes. It was understood by the chairmen at the different platforms that if any incendiary speeches were attempted the speakers would immediately be stopped by the police.”

The Tribune reported that “there was no excitement in the square until about after six o’clock, when Sergeant Schnittberger of the 29^th Precinct, with 57 stalwart policemen of Captain Williams’ command, marched into the square and took positions near the plaza…Policemen from other precincts arrived in squads until there were nearly 300 in and about the square.”

***

INTERVIEWED by the enterprising reporter for the Tribune, Capt. Killitea, in charge, said: “They are all good, orderly fellows, and we are having a good sociable time together.” “This,” commented the Tribune journalist, “was the spirit which seemed to animate everybody.”

No, not everybody; for, although some of the conservative chieftains of the Central Labor Union made speeches “in the interests of law and order.” In the words of the Tribune, there were other speakers—not so fully reported by the Tribune—who were not “animated by the spirit” that they “were having a good sociable time together.”

Speakers from two platforms denounced the conspiracy laws used by the courts to break strikes; they attacked monopolies, corruption in politics and demanded the right to boycott “unfair” employers.

Particularly militant were the speakers on the German stand, who had had experiences in revolutionary struggle in Europe. Thus, one speaker, rather spoiled the pretty pastoral picture which the New York Tribune would have liked to paint of the May 1 demonstration of 1886.

He was Sergius Shevitch, editor of the German “Volkszeitung,” who declared:

“If these parasites—the press, grand juries, and the police, throw law aside in the continuance of this persecution, they will find out that we can throw law aside. This struggle is a class struggle, and if capital continues to arraign itself against labor, it will find out that the people have a million fists and know how to use them.”

This flaming statement, made in 1886, opens with an attack upon the chief parasite, the capitalist press.

This biting characterization of the capitalist press applies with equal force today when Gen. Hugh L. Johnson praises the press for helping to “put over the N.R.A.,” with, its strikebreaking-wage-cutting, war program.

Moreover, it would undoubtedly seem apt to the New York taxi-drivers who several weeks ago threw a lying reporter out of their strike hall.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n101-sect-two-apr-28-1934-DW-LOC.pdf