0:01

Welcome to Cool People Who did cool stuff. I'm

0:03

your host, Margaret Kiljoyan. Each week I take you way

0:05

back into history and find people who were cool,

0:08

who did stuff that was cool

0:10

because they were cool, So the difficol stuff. This

0:12

is part two of a two part series about Haymarket,

0:14

the bomb that brings us the modern labor movement. So if you

0:16

haven't already, you might want to do yourself a favor and go

0:18

back and listen to part one. But I'm not the boss

0:21

of you. Do whatever you want. And

0:23

my guest this week is none other than Robert

0:25

Evans. Robert, Hey,

0:27

what's the best way to describe

0:29

you here? I am the boss of you. And

0:31

if you listen to this one before

0:34

listening to the first one, I will

0:36

wreak a terrible vengeance upon your soul.

0:39

Hell, And that's who I am. That's

0:41

all I am is a force, a force

0:43

for revenge of content.

0:46

It's unclear what I am, Margaret, but I'm

0:48

here to talk with you about this story

0:51

and other people who were forces for revenge

0:53

in their own right. That's right, that's right,

0:56

And the fact that revenge can sometimes

0:59

lead to people being harmed

1:01

that you didn't intend to harm because once

1:04

the consequences of actions can be unpredictable

1:07

exactly. And we also

1:10

have our producer Sophie here, So if do you want to say hi,

1:12

Yeah, Robert, Sophie,

1:16

Sophie, Margaret Hi,

1:19

Hi. Okay. So

1:22

we're gonna get back to it where we last left

1:24

our heroes two d folks were at an anarchist

1:26

rally in Chicago. Cops had shown up, someone

1:29

had thrown a bomb, and I was

1:31

pretty proud of that. Cliffhanger, Yeah,

1:34

great first week Cliffhanger, also

1:38

solid Sylvester Stallone

1:40

film Cliffhanger, good

1:43

movie. Not enough mountain

1:46

climbing thrillers these

1:48

days. Were their bombs in it? I

1:51

think there might have been. Actually, there's definitely like terrorists

1:53

and stuff. My memories of it are

1:55

fuzzy. I haven't seen it since I was like twelve

1:58

or so, but probably I think

2:00

probably so much like the bomb

2:02

in the movie Cliffhanger, which I've definitely seen

2:05

this, probably, Yes, Yes, his

2:08

bomb shattered windows for blocks around

2:10

and one cop was killed immediately

2:12

on the spot. The explosion was so loud

2:15

that the mayor heard it from his bed. He had like ritten

2:17

home on his horse and then he got undressed

2:19

and went to bed, and then he heard

2:21

the explosion. And then they went to the window and

2:23

he heard gunshots. So we ran

2:25

back out. The cops drew revolvers

2:28

and they started firing wildly.

2:30

Six more cops were killed. All

2:33

of them were killed by other cops.

2:35

Awesome critical support.

2:40

And so because some of

2:42

the anarchists were armed, right, Uh, the anarchists

2:44

at the time were often armed, but and

2:47

some of them might have even shot back. But like all

2:49

the forensic evidence of all of

2:51

the bodies and all of the scene is like really

2:53

strongly on the side that probably

2:56

all of the cops were killed by all the other cops who

2:58

were overreacting. And one

3:00

light post was entirely full of bullet holes that were

3:02

all coming from the direction of the cops, so they

3:04

like removed it and tried to destroy the evidence

3:07

immediately. Um,

3:09

that's just all such cops shit. I

3:12

know. This is like the it's not the origin of

3:14

cops at the origin of cops shit. Well, actually you covered

3:16

very well, um, but it

3:18

ties into origins of the origin.

3:20

This is pretty early on in the concept of

3:22

copshit being a thing. Yeah,

3:25

these guys were really breaking new ground in

3:27

terms of shooting each other to death. There's

3:31

a mutual friend of ours. I think Molly

3:33

Conjure goes through like the

3:35

websites that are like end of Watch for cops,

3:38

and like, boy howdy, a lot of cops die

3:40

because other cops shoot them when they're doing like

3:43

training in rooms and they're not like practicing

3:45

proper gun safe. It's

3:49

like not an uncommon way for a cop to

3:51

go aft. Yeah,

3:53

oh god. And that's how six of them went out or

3:56

eventually I think seven. One of them died like

3:58

two years later from the wounds, well

4:01

one of them, so he gets called a riot, but it wasn't

4:03

a riot. It was either a short and bloody

4:06

massacre or at best it was a short

4:08

and bloody pretty much one sided battle. There

4:11

was no rioting at any point really yeah

4:14

yeah, um yeah. It was all

4:16

over within like five minutes, and there

4:18

was no records of civilian casualties because basically

4:21

everyone who was shot there was like I'm not

4:23

saying ship and they like dragged

4:25

their friends bodies away and like some of them went

4:27

to the hospital, but most of them just went off to go find

4:29

somewhere else because they all knew what

4:31

would happen if they showed up and

4:33

said I was at this thing. Okay, So Samuel

4:36

Fielden, the speaker who was already having a rough

4:38

night, you know, he's like going last, he's following

4:41

a blowhard. Yeah, boy, this

4:43

is it as a as a public speaker.

4:45

This is definitely a rough, rough, rough

4:48

gig crowd. I

4:50

know. Although, okay, I'll go ahead and

4:53

spoil that he actually has the best result

4:55

of any of these people, of any of the people

4:57

who get arrested. Um

4:59

by he gets shot in the knee right

5:02

away, and then as

5:04

far as I can tell, a detective

5:06

like snuck up and tried to assassinate

5:09

the earlier speaker, August Species, and

5:11

then August Species was saved by his brother

5:13

Henry, who like got in the way

5:15

or whatever and got shot in the groin for

5:17

for his trouble of saving his brother's life.

5:21

And yeah.

5:23

So one of the things that's kind of wild about it

5:25

is that if the cops, if they had waited a few more

5:27

minutes, the medium was basically

5:30

over. It was raining. Fielding was basically

5:32

done. They were speaker up

5:34

there like people are done. Yeah.

5:37

Yeah, And it's kind of weird

5:39

to try and think about it doesn't do you any good but to try and

5:42

think about how differently the history of Chicago in the U

5:44

s would have been if the cops had waited like a

5:46

few minutes um. But the

5:49

thing is that they probably weren't going to um

5:51

some folks back then. And now I

5:53

think that the cops were going to attack the crowd.

5:56

Whether or not they were going to like rolling with truncheons,

5:58

or whether or not they were going to just like open fire is

6:00

kind of anyone's guests.

6:03

But the guy who was in charge, Captain Bonfield,

6:05

he had been itching to stamp out the anarchists

6:07

like once and for all since earlier that day when

6:09

he had like a council of war, and he

6:11

basically he waited until the mayor was gone and the crowd

6:13

was at its weakest and then attacked his

6:15

His nickname was Blackjack because he liked

6:18

beating people so much with his

6:20

his black Jack his billy club, that

6:22

it became his name for him.

6:24

Yeah, he had such a reputation of beating

6:26

people that at one point, some like owners

6:28

of a gas works were like, Hey,

6:31

could you stop beating up our employees even when they're

6:33

on strike. We actually need them. We need

6:35

them to be able to many of their boats.

6:38

Yeah. So it might have

6:40

wound up a massacre either way, whether or not the bomb

6:42

was thrown, but it's it's hard to say. Um

6:45

oh. And then one witness who was pro

6:47

cop said that Bondfield during

6:49

the wild every cop shooting every which

6:51

direction, grabbed a second gun off

6:53

of a fallen cop and just started duel wielding

6:55

into the crowd. That's

6:59

so this guy is believests

7:03

that he dropped a couple of them guns.

7:06

Guns don't work great when you use them that way.

7:09

Yeah, um

7:12

okay. And so none of the anarchists who

7:14

stood trial had thrown the bomb, but

7:17

it's not like they were shy in the advocacy of

7:19

dynamite. Yeah.

7:22

In the years building up to Haymarket, one anarchist

7:24

professor from New York wrote into one of the Chicago

7:26

Anarchist papers saying that he carried

7:28

a bomb around in his pocket all of the time to

7:30

dissuade cops from approaching. Um.

7:36

Just always be a potential suicide

7:39

bomber. That's how you avoid arrest. Yeah,

7:42

which seems like it would work, but eventually backfire.

7:45

You know, it seems like it would work. Briefly.

7:48

Yeah. His quote was, you

7:50

can learn to make tri nitro glycerine, and

7:52

if you carry two or three pounds of it with you, people

7:54

will respect you much more than if you carry

7:56

a pistol. Oh my god. Um.

8:01

In another letter, another one, another person

8:03

advocating for the use of dynamite, wrote, dynamite,

8:06

of all the good stuff, this is the

8:08

stuff. A pound of this good stuff

8:10

beats a bushel of ballots, all hollow.

8:13

Wow. Yeah.

8:16

And so I bring this up because

8:19

it's like, there's a lot of things that I love about the Chicago

8:21

anarchists, but I think they were kind of just wrong

8:23

about dynamite. That's probably

8:25

a little bit. Look, yeah,

8:29

will dynamite stop you from getting

8:31

mugged? Perhaps? Will

8:34

it stop people from fucking with you? Perhaps?

8:38

Yes? Is the best way to stop people

8:40

from getting funk with with you carrying a tool

8:42

that indiscriminately would destroy large chunks

8:44

of the neighborhood have detonated. Perhaps

8:46

not right exactly.

8:48

You just need to work on threat modeling a little better.

8:50

I feel like that's what they wanted to go at. I would

8:52

say like it would be a little bit like I

8:55

mean, I I do intend to one day

8:57

chop at twenty millimeter anti tank gun down

8:59

to something that's legally a pistol and concealed carry

9:01

it in case I get robbed by badly

9:04

fighting vehicle on my way home from the grocery store.

9:06

But I don't pretend that's good, like

9:09

a good idea, right, And

9:12

I think at some level some of these people knew that they

9:14

were like participating in

9:17

radical rhetoric because they liked radical

9:19

rhetoric because it's fun, because

9:21

it's it sounds cool as shit. Like

9:24

that's definitely a character you want to put

9:26

in a novel or like a movie's like

9:28

the guy who's just like, yeah, I

9:30

mean you you introduced him. He's like walking home

9:32

in the early morning, and it's like cops sees him

9:34

and like notices that he's some sort of like weirdo radical

9:37

or or even ideally someone else

9:39

is getting like fucked with by the police or by like some

9:41

militia chuds or something, and he like walks

9:43

in and they're like, well, what are you gonna do about it? Then

9:45

he opens his jacket and he's just strapped with

9:47

dynamite. Absolutely,

9:50

you can totally like definitely

9:52

an intriguing character. But exactively

9:55

maybe not the best idea,

9:57

and so anam.

10:00

I had actually been used in labor struggle before

10:02

this, but no previous time had it targeted

10:04

people at all. A couple of times I was used

10:07

to destroy property, including once in

10:09

the Washington Territory where

10:11

someone dynamited the empty house of a

10:13

guy who was foreclosing people out of mortgaged

10:15

homes and evicting tenants from their

10:17

rental homes. Oh. You know,

10:20

I was just talking with um for it

10:22

could happen here with Jake Hanrahan about the riots

10:24

and Cyprus he was at. And they're doing

10:27

a version of this where they're destroying, like

10:29

using incendiaries to destroy people's

10:32

vacation homes because it's like making the

10:34

cost of living untenable, like

10:36

bombing vacation homes. You

10:38

know, all right, Yeah, I have

10:40

no issue with that. You don't notice that I'm not condemning

10:42

that that tactic. Yeah,

10:45

but this is the first time that a bomb

10:48

is thrown in a labor struggle that I'm aware

10:50

of, at least in the United States, and

10:52

and it uh so this causes America's

10:54

very first red scare, which we have a long and

10:56

proud tradition of and all

10:59

across the country. Everyone freaks out and it's

11:01

like these damn anarchists and their dynamite and something must

11:04

be done, don't you know, And conspiracies

11:06

go wild. The anarchists are going to level the city.

11:08

It's it's kind of hard to overstate

11:11

how unhinged this whole

11:13

frenzy was. And um,

11:15

and this is actually where the reputation of anarchists in the US

11:18

comes from. Basically, the not picnics,

11:20

not mutual aid, society is not supporting one

11:22

another, and labor struggle just bombs bombs.

11:25

That's all an anarchist is is a walking bomb, which

11:28

I guess is kind of like today and like smashing

11:30

windows. In total fairness,

11:32

some of the anarchists were not We're

11:35

not doing anything to dissuade that

11:37

attitude. It's true. Well I am

11:39

literally a walking bomb. I always have to

11:42

in case I need to. It's

11:45

true and

11:49

okay. So, to quote Paul Average,

11:51

the historian about

11:53

how the The New York Times and other

11:56

newspapers handled all of this, the

11:58

New York Times offered the following prescription.

12:01

In the early stages of an acute outbreak of

12:03

anarchy, a gatling gun, or if the case

12:05

be severe, too is the sovereign remedy

12:08

Later on, hemp and judicious doses has

12:10

an admirable effect in preventing the spread of the

12:12

disease. The Philadelphia Inquirer

12:15

recommended a mailed hand to

12:17

each of the anarchists that America was not shelter

12:19

for cutthroats and thieves, while the Louisville

12:22

Courier Journal insisted that the

12:24

blatant cattle should be strung up.

12:26

The sooner the better. Judge

12:29

Lynch is a tremendous expounder

12:31

of the law. It is no time for half

12:33

measures, agreed the Springfield Republican, urging

12:36

the authorities to make an example of the ringleaders.

12:38

There are no good anarchists except dead anarchists.

12:41

The St. Louis Globe Democrat chimed

12:43

in Globe is another one

12:45

of those things that every newspaper had to

12:47

be called Globe. It was like one of the five. They're talking

12:49

about hemp, they're talking about

12:52

like hanging people, right. They're not saying yes, giam

12:54

stoned right, Okay, yes, yeah, no, yeah,

12:57

I mean that would probably work if I was nervous

13:00

about a bunch of anarchists who were threatening

13:02

me, I might just buy them all weed. Yeah,

13:05

I feel like they would anywhere. Not a bad

13:07

way to get anarchists on your side. Yeah.

13:11

In Chicago, the cops rated everywhere.

13:13

They rated like fifty gathering places.

13:15

They rated people's homes. They never

13:18

had any kind of warrants. They didn't bother. The

13:20

prosecutor who later tried the case gave

13:23

the cops permission by saying, make the raids

13:26

first and look up the wall laws later. In

13:28

one house, they confiscated a kid's pillow

13:30

cases because they were read Okay.

13:35

Yeah. Hundreds

13:37

of people were arrested and tortured. Many

13:39

of them were offered bribes for information, but almost

13:41

everyone refused to cooperate. Some people

13:44

living in their heads rent free until you talked about

13:46

all the folks that they tortured. Yeah.

13:50

For two months, all constitutional rights for everyone

13:52

in Chicago were dropped based illegally

13:55

like now was opened. Papers

13:57

were shut down, union gatherings were dispersed,

13:59

public other rings were banned. It just there

14:02

was no rule of law in Chicago. It

14:05

does kind of seem like historically an

14:07

awful lot of people are willing to end

14:09

the concept of civil rights as soon

14:11

as someone says there's anarchists about,

14:14

right, which has some deep irony.

14:17

Right. The anarchists are like, law is bad,

14:19

and they're like, no, we think laws

14:21

really bad, and that's why we're going to suspend it to co

14:24

around and beat you all up and arrest you. And

14:26

they arrested basically all the editors

14:29

of all the anarchist papers except Albert Parsons,

14:31

who fucked off to Wisconsin. And

14:34

then Lucy Parsons managed to get arrested

14:36

four times in the ensuing weeks. And

14:38

you'll be shocked to know that they said racist and sexist

14:41

sip to her when they arrested her. Cops,

14:45

I know at one point, this

14:47

one's kind of bad. Take my thin blue line flag

14:49

down. Well,

14:52

they broke into her house, tied up her six

14:54

year old kid on the floor, and then started spinning

14:56

him around while screaming basically,

14:59

where's your dad? Were going to hang him?

15:01

Oh my god, Jesus fucking

15:03

Christ. Wow

15:06

wow. Yeah. In

15:09

the end, a grand jury indicted

15:11

ten of them to stand trial. Ten of the anarchists,

15:14

one of them went state's evidence. Uh. Most

15:16

of the rest were editors and printers at three of the newspapers,

15:19

which was the English language, the alarm,

15:21

the German language Arb

15:24

tongue, which means worker paper

15:26

because again really really

15:29

literal naming schemes. Yeah

15:32

again in your pronunciation was perfect as

15:34

a as an expert of the German language, I feel

15:38

and uh. And then the third paper dar

15:41

anarchist, which means

15:44

the anarchists. You can probably figured that part out.

15:46

The remaining people who got indicted, one of them was a

15:48

young firebrand, and one of them was a guy who

15:51

just took off. He just was like, I'm

15:53

gone. They arrested him for like, his

15:55

name was Rudolph Schnab and a

15:58

lot of people say he's the one who threw the bomb. I actually

16:00

don't believe this, and I'll get it more into

16:02

that later. Um, he was arrested

16:04

in the aftermath of all of this, and then like but

16:07

he spent like ten hours in the sweat

16:09

box. They ended up calling it the police where they put

16:11

everyone in the sweat box, and that's where they tortured them.

16:14

He refused to talk. He was released.

16:16

He completely just fucked off. He he politely

16:18

went and told his boss that he wasn't going to come into work

16:21

for a bit, and then he just disappeared.

16:24

Um a gentleman, I know. He

16:26

he left Chicago, he made his way across the border

16:29

into Canada, and then like some indigenous folks

16:31

and then later international anarchists smuggled him

16:33

to Europe and then South America, where

16:35

he lived out the rest of his days in peace. And

16:38

yeah, and he basically everyone

16:41

was like, oh, this is the guy who threw the bomb. And I think actually,

16:43

in some ways it kind of worked out for people to have

16:46

everyone think it was this guy. But yeah,

16:49

yeah, but it wasn't him, and he just didn't

16:51

want to stand trial and he got to live a long and happy

16:53

life for having made that decision. So

16:56

they went to trial and it was a complete

16:58

eight of them did and it was a complete sham. None

17:01

of the eight defendants were accused of actually throwing the bomb.

17:03

It was a murder trial and none of them were actually,

17:06

I mean, they were accused of doing it, but they weren't.

17:08

They didn't say you threw the bomb, but they said you're guilty

17:10

of murder because you're you, because you're an anarchist.

17:13

And the judge who oversaw it was completely

17:15

committed to conviction rather than obeying the law

17:18

witnesses for the prosecution were usually paid

17:20

by the prosecution. The jury was selected

17:22

specifically in order to convict them. And we

17:24

know all of this because later the governor

17:27

of Illinois wrote a pardon for

17:29

everyone who was left and

17:31

he just it's a seventeen thousand word

17:33

pardon that he wrote, being like Jesus

17:35

Christ, everything that happened in this in

17:38

this trial was wrong and basically

17:40

a crime. That's like three and a half

17:42

episodes of Behind the Bastards for a part.

17:45

Yeah, so it's basically one of the

17:47

most rigged trials in American history, which

17:49

is saying something. I feel like they really went

17:52

the extra mile here, and they had to

17:54

find a lawyer to defend them,

17:56

and everyone was like, I'm not going to defend

17:59

these people. I will never work again. But

18:02

they found this guy who's I think really cool.

18:04

He's one of my cool people. He was not an anarchist,

18:06

he was a moderate, and his name was Captain William

18:09

Black. He had been born a Southerner and then

18:11

he betrayed his family as a teenager to volunteer

18:13

for the Union Army. So already he's kind of I

18:17

know, it's pretty based

18:19

from the start, Yeah, and he was just

18:21

this like he was like a rising star corporate

18:24

lawyer, but he believed in the

18:26

law. And they came to him and they were like, look,

18:28

no one, also take our case and you're a really good lawyer,

18:31

and we're not guilty and it's so

18:33

obvious, and he

18:36

like did some soul searching. He's like, all right, I'm gonna

18:38

tank my entire career to defend you for

18:40

barely any money. Um. And he

18:42

spent like two years of his life working on their case

18:45

and tanked his career. It didn't recover

18:47

for decades afterwards. What

18:50

a fucking hero. Good for him, I know, I

18:52

like this guy. And then Albert Parsons

18:54

turned himself in. I think it was like the first day of trial

18:57

or something that was very early on. He just is like,

18:59

okay, I need to show up and stand in solidarity with

19:01

these people. But also he

19:03

he thought he was gonna win because it

19:06

was so obviously a bullshit case against

19:08

him, and so I think for some at

19:10

the core of his heart, he still actually believed

19:12

in the American legal system, which

19:15

was entirely naive.

19:18

Um. After a few months of trial, and

19:21

they proved the defense proved

19:23

beyond the shadow of a doubt that none of the defendants

19:25

had made or thrown the bomb in question. The

19:28

jury took three hours to return with a guilty

19:30

verdict. Seven of them were sentenced

19:32

to hang. One man, Oscar Need, was sentenced

19:34

to fifteen years in prison. I

19:37

think, I think only a tiny handful of people,

19:40

maybe a few lawyers in the rare politician

19:42

like, actually believe in law. The judge

19:44

and the prosecutor and the jury clearly didn't.

19:46

It was just a tool to be used to achieve their

19:49

goal. The prosecutor and his

19:51

final address to the jury said, they

19:53

are no more guilty than the thousands who follow

19:55

them. Gentlemen of the jury, convict these men,

19:57

make examples of them, hang them. And you

19:59

say, our institutions, our society,

20:03

our institutions are valid

20:05

because we are

20:08

happy to violate every tenant of them

20:10

in order to blame these people to protect our institutions

20:14

which are valid. Yeah, exactly.

20:17

Uh. It really makes you feel for black

20:20

as like a guy who believes in institutions.

20:22

Like, really, I

20:25

am curious to learn more about what was going

20:27

on in this dude's soul as this

20:29

this all shook out. It could not have been

20:31

an emotionally easy thing to handle. It

20:33

was, it was really hard for him. The Paul

20:35

Average book talks about him a lot, actually, and talks

20:38

about how like hard on it was on him,

20:40

on him and his wife, and like just

20:43

how society treated him and all of these things,

20:45

but how he ended up basically like friends with these people. Even

20:47

he was like, I don't I don't agree with them

20:49

what they want, but I believe that

20:51

they're like honest and upstanding people who are

20:53

doing what they believe is right. And

20:56

there's a lesson there too

20:58

for anarchists in the

21:02

the value of speaking to moderates,

21:05

um and and sometimes

21:07

they wind up torpedoing their entire

21:09

life to defend you. You know. Yep, that's also a

21:11

nice message to take up. Totally.

21:15

Um Okay. So before the sentencing, they

21:17

were each the judge allowed each one

21:19

to make a speech, and the speech has

21:21

lasted for days, mostly because Albert

21:24

Parsons was there. Um, right,

21:27

but this guy, Yeah,

21:31

I feel bad making fun of this dude. He's like

21:33

he's gonna die. He's gonna die.

21:37

Yeah. No, I mean, look, no speech

21:39

at a protest should last more than five

21:42

minutes, but I think days is the right amount of time

21:44

for this sort of speech to last. Yes, you

21:47

can sit with it, you know. And

21:49

if you want to read these these speeches, then

21:52

they are the The Haymarket Martyrs

21:54

are the advertisers who support

21:57

this show because they're still alive

21:59

and with us. And here are the

22:01

ads that that they are providing

22:03

to us for you to hear. Are

22:06

you walking down the street with three to four pounds

22:08

of dynamite on your body? Why not? Oh,

22:11

No, one, eight hundred dynamite today to

22:13

buy enough dynamite to protect yourself from

22:15

anything except for dynamite which

22:18

you'll be much more vulnerable to. Exactly.

22:24

Here's the rest of the ads. Okay,

22:31

we're back, and if you want to hear the rest

22:34

of the speeches besides the ones that advertise on

22:36

this show, I recommend that you

22:38

go. If there's one thing that you follow up and

22:40

read about Haymarket. The speeches are

22:43

really beautiful pieces. And

22:46

now I get to introduce you all the defendants and

22:48

it's kind of fun. They're kind of interesting people.

22:51

They're mostly German. Fortunately

22:53

I can pronounce most of their names. So

22:56

August went first. We met him

22:58

some already and he was the editor of the our there's

23:00

a tongue um. He was the oldest

23:02

of five kids. He was born in central Germany. He

23:04

was a Sagittarius. He was a happy

23:06

childhood. He was raised to be a forester for the government

23:09

like his dad, until his dad died. And

23:11

then he left school and emigrated to the US, and

23:13

then he became a upholsterer. He opened his own shop.

23:16

He saw someone give a lecture on socialism

23:18

and he was like, oh, that actually makes some sense. And then the eighteen

23:21

seventy seven strike happened and he was like, oh,

23:23

that really makes some sense. And soon

23:25

enough he found himself an anarchist and he joined the Larunda

23:28

Verin and kind

23:30

of ironically for the fight

23:33

for the eight hour work day. He works like twelve to sixteen

23:35

hour days at his German paper, and

23:39

that mean that, I mean, that's the thing with anarchists.

23:41

It's like, no, we don't want to work an eight hour

23:43

work day, but if I'm the thing I want to do,

23:45

then I will work for like nineteen hours a day

23:48

of course, yeah, exactly exactly.

23:51

And he's this guy and he actually keeps a circle

23:54

bomb on his desk in his office, and

23:57

we don't know whether or not the circle bomb was actually

23:59

like one of those old timey bombs

24:01

circle and as little fused coming out of it, that was probably

24:04

the type of bomb that was thrown at the cops. Um we

24:06

don't know whether or not the bomb in his office had

24:08

any had any dynamite in it or not, And

24:11

the historical record would really like you

24:13

to know that Augustes

24:15

was fucking hot. That's

24:17

good, you know, I was. I was going

24:19

to ask because I'm incapable of actually

24:22

caring about people. If they were not hot, right,

24:24

well, you're in luck. Actually, that's why

24:26

I have created a new hot or not that

24:28

is specifically for the victims of war

24:31

crimes, so you can tell if you need to feel

24:33

bad about a specific war crime by

24:35

knowing if they were hot or not. That's

24:37

excellent. I look forward to using this service.

24:40

It's sponsored by Microsoft. Um

24:44

So, Augustes was was known

24:46

as a ladies man. He's one of the only people who wasn't already

24:48

married at the start of all this thing, and he

24:51

was, but he was also

24:53

he was he was sardonic and haughty, but he also refused

24:55

to lie, and he basically just like walked around

24:57

and he threw around his charisma and charmed women and men,

25:00

and

25:02

and he once spoke in front of Congress about socialism

25:05

and he just like went and he was like, yeah, we're gonna have a revolution.

25:08

And he was like, you get this guy's number. He

25:13

was like, we're we're not going to make the

25:15

revolution. We're anticipating the revolution. We

25:17

are His quote was birds of the coming storm,

25:20

and it was oh,

25:23

you know, and that's

25:25

good. Someone in Congress is like,

25:27

well, why do you hate the individual with your socialism

25:30

or whatever? And he's like, are you kidding me? It's the capitalists

25:32

who treat workers like they're just cogs

25:34

in the machine. Um

25:37

And to quote from his final address

25:39

to the court, not to Congress, but when he's sentenced

25:41

to death. If you think

25:43

that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor

25:46

movement, the movement from which the downtrodden

25:48

millions, the millions who toil and live and want

25:50

in misery, the wage slaves expect

25:52

salvation. If that is your opinion,

25:54

then hang us here you will tread

25:56

upon a spark. But here and there,

25:59

and behind us and in front of you and everywhere,

26:01

the flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean

26:04

fire. You cannot put it out. Holy

26:07

ship, that's I know, that's

26:10

that's hot girl ship. Yeah, that's some hot

26:12

girl ship. Oh my god, did

26:15

he write? Did he do his own like writing? Is this all

26:17

him or does he have like you know, yeah,

26:20

he's that's kind of his thing is he's he's one

26:22

of the the editors of these papers.

26:24

They're also like publishing their own ship a ton.

26:27

These people have been giving speeches and like

26:29

writing propaganda. That's like there

26:32

their thing, you know, Which is why I think that they're both

26:34

leaders of the movement and not is because they were

26:36

actually more the propagandists

26:38

who got put on trial in this trial rather than like

26:41

necessarily to people who are organizing and

26:43

like planning actions and stuff. Okay,

26:46

so Michael Schwab goes and gives his speech

26:48

next. And this guy is not as much of a talker. He's

26:50

just a quiet, thoughtful man behind a big

26:52

dark beard. He's married, he's a father of two.

26:55

He's like just a hard worker for the revolution. He's

26:57

a reporter and editor for the Arbiters

26:59

a Tongue, and he ran the w

27:01

p As Library. He was

27:03

just basically seen as a very gentle. He

27:06

was thirty two at the time of the bombing. He was born in

27:08

Germany with a peasant mother and

27:10

a tradesman father, and

27:13

he had a happy childhood until and this feels

27:15

like a pattern. Maybe it's just the nineteenth century.

27:18

His mom died when he was eight and his dad died when he was

27:20

twelve. Well, yeah,

27:23

they made you know what, they made it a decent

27:25

chunk at time. Yeah, it's true,

27:27

kid, you're gonna have to carry yourself across that finish

27:29

line. Yeah. And so

27:32

when he's like, I don't know, thirteen or something,

27:34

any apprentices to a book binder and he started to working

27:37

thirteen to seventeen hour days. Yeah.

27:40

And then he joins a book binding union and

27:42

then the Social Democrat Party and

27:45

then uh, and

27:47

he decides that political liberty without economic

27:50

freedom is a mocking lie. Is like

27:52

his big thing. Um,

27:54

he moves to Chicago. He quickly learns that American

27:56

capitalism is no better than European which actually happens

27:59

to a lot of people. A lot of imigrants are like, oh, land of opportunity,

28:01

and they're like what, but no, this is just as

28:03

bad. I feel betrayed and

28:06

shortly enough he becomes an anarchist. In

28:09

his speech is sentencing, he said violence

28:12

is one thing and anarchy another. In

28:14

the present state of society, violence is used

28:16

on all sides, and therefore we advocate

28:18

the use of violence against violence, but

28:20

against violence only as a matter as

28:23

a necessary means of defense. Then

28:26

you get oscar neb He was

28:28

another worker at the arbiter's a tongue. Really wasn't

28:30

a good time to be in the newspaper business, and

28:33

he was the only one who wasn't sentenced to death. He'd

28:36

been born in the US to German immigrants, and he

28:38

worked basically every kind of job from cook to

28:40

tin smith. So then he was unemployed

28:42

for a while, and at the time of his arrest he was a

28:45

yeast peddler. He I don't even know

28:47

what kind of yeast, but he would go around with the cart in

28:49

the street, just like get your yeasts

28:51

for sale, used for sale, Yeah,

28:54

like I said, with your dynamite,

28:57

Robert. The

29:00

main thing that he wanted people to know it is very short

29:02

speech, was that he wanted to be hanged too.

29:06

His quote is for I think

29:08

it is more honorable to die suddenly than to

29:10

be killed by inches, I have a family

29:12

and children. If they know their father is

29:14

dead, they will bury him. They can go to

29:16

the grave and kneel down by the side of it, but

29:19

they can't go to the penitentiary and see their

29:21

father who was convicted for a crime that he

29:23

has had nothing to do with. Well

29:26

yeah, you know, you

29:29

know, hard to argue with

29:31

the logic though too. And then his

29:33

wife died while he was in prison, and he wasn't allowed

29:35

to go to our funeral. Jeez. And

29:38

then we get at alf Fisher.

29:40

Adolf Fisher not

29:43

a common name anymoos to being a bad name.

29:45

Yeah. Um. He

29:47

edited their Anarchist, which was the more radical

29:49

paper than Arbiters of Tongue, and

29:52

he advocated less for a mass movement and

29:54

more for autonomous actions by individuals and collectives.

29:57

He was born in Germany. He was a second generation

29:59

so List. He moved to

30:01

America worked as a typographer, and

30:04

then as soon as he moved to Chicago, he joined the la Verre

30:07

in the militia, and

30:09

when he was arrested he was armed. He

30:11

had a presumably legally both a

30:13

revolver and a dagger, and then one cop took his revolver

30:16

out, pointed at his head. Another cop

30:18

put the dagger to his chest, and they only didn't

30:20

kill him when the lieutenant intervened

30:23

because they wanted him to stand trial instead. And

30:27

in prison two of his co defendants who didn't

30:29

speak English and trusted him to translate their autobiographies.

30:32

And basically he was this like he

30:34

just worked constantly and to give money

30:37

to the cause, and he was really looking forward to the revolution.

30:40

And he gave the shortest speech of them all, which included,

30:44

I was tried here in this room for murder, and

30:46

I was convicted of anarchy. I protest

30:48

against being sentenced to death because I

30:50

have not been found guilty of murder. However,

30:52

if I am to die on account of being an anarchist,

30:55

on account of my love for liberty, fraternity,

30:57

and equality, I will not remonstrate

30:59

it. Death is the penalty for our love of

31:01

freedom of the human race. Then I say openly

31:04

I have forfeited my life, but a murderer

31:06

I am not. I

31:08

just really like all these speeches, really

31:12

really good lines. All right, Then we get to Louis

31:14

Ling. Louis Ling is a crowd pleaser. He

31:18

he was the youngest, he was twenty one when the bomb

31:20

was thrown and he had a watertight alibi, There's

31:22

no way he could have thrown the bomb. Do you know why he couldn't have thrown

31:24

the bomb? Was he making he

31:27

was? He was he was

31:30

too busy at home making

31:32

bombs.

31:34

Incredible, you know. And

31:38

when the cops came to arrest him, he tried to go

31:40

down fighting, and he almost killed one officer

31:42

with his bare hands before the other one like knocked

31:45

him down. Unbelievable,

31:47

what what a what a what a chat? And

31:50

then The New York Times, which was completely untrustworthy

31:52

of a source at the time, especially back then, says

31:55

that while he was on the carriage on the way to jail, he

31:58

basically said, it all would have been worth

32:00

it if only I've been able to kill that police officer,

32:05

which frankly he might have said, Yeah,

32:09

I I look looked based on the man you've

32:11

described, I don't think the police maybe

32:13

lied about that one. Yeah exactly. That

32:16

sounds in line with our boy. Yeah,

32:20

okay, So he had he had just shown up in the

32:22

US ten months earlier before all this ship happens.

32:24

He had been born in Germany and then he

32:26

had a happy childhood until you'll

32:29

be shocked to know. Well, first, his dad

32:31

was thrown out of work for a workplace accident, and then

32:33

he died shortly thereafter, and

32:36

he and his sibling and his mother fought

32:38

starvation every single day. He

32:41

fled Europe to avoid the draft, and

32:43

then he joined the Carpenter's Union soon

32:45

found work as an organizer. People liked him.

32:47

He was really scrupulously honest

32:49

and upfront, which was basically universal

32:52

among all the Chicago anarchists, which I think

32:54

fucking rules, because if

32:57

you're going to be all about something, just be honest.

32:59

I mean, sometimes you go lie to

33:01

avoid certain situations, but it's it's like,

33:04

it's like what it was Bob Dylan that said

33:06

that to live outside the law, a man must

33:08

be honest. I forget where that came from, but

33:10

yeah, yeah, that's

33:13

that's what these people are doing. Okay,

33:16

And I know you're you're wondering where Louis

33:18

Ling lays in the relative hotness of the various

33:21

defendants, literally

33:23

not incapable of caring about this

33:25

story emotionally until I learned, Okay,

33:28

well, uh, if he wants, you should

33:30

google Louis Ling. It's two gs

33:32

and Ling and don't use the photo

33:34

from Wikipedia as the example. Find

33:36

one where his hair is shorter and he doesn't really have a

33:38

beard. He kind of looks like Elijah

33:41

Wood. Yeah, that's true. He's

33:43

got a little bit a little bit of a like, kind of a broader chin,

33:46

but like a little bit of that Elijah Wood vibe

33:48

his teeth zone. You

33:50

could like cast Elijah Wood to play this guy

33:52

and it would work pretty well. I would I would love

33:54

to watch that. Okay. And in case

33:57

you're wondering whether I wonder whether any of the Haymarket

33:59

folks were queer, I want to read you this description

34:01

of Louis Ling, written by William Holmes, another

34:03

anarchist in their circle. Ling

34:06

was one of the handsomest men this writer has

34:08

ever met. His well shaped head crowned

34:10

with a wealth of curly chestnut hair, his fine

34:13

blue eyes, his peach and white complexion,

34:15

and straight regular features made him

34:17

a fit model for a Greek god, while his athletic

34:19

form and general activity showed him to be possessed

34:21

of an abundance of physical vigor and

34:24

health. Well,

34:26

that just sounds straight as hell to me, Margaret,

34:28

Yeah, totally. Yeah, And unfortunately

34:30

was kind of super straight. Yeah,

34:33

describing the straightest situation in the world.

34:36

Um. And to be fair,

34:38

like heterosexuality and homosexuality like

34:40

didn't exist as concepts at this point,

34:43

um, and so homosexuality

34:45

the word was invented by a German dude

34:47

in like the eighteen nineties. Yeah,

34:49

that sounds about right. Um,

34:51

But I've got my head canon and that's that's what matters

34:54

here. But he was also he

34:56

was a sex symbol in the anarchist scene. Like

34:58

younger men adopted his haircut and his quote

35:01

live way of walking around the ballroom

35:03

at all the anarchist balls. Uh.

35:05

To get called his name was like the highest

35:07

compliment you could give someone. And

35:10

his speech was the fieriest of the bunch.

35:12

He delivered it in German, and he ended

35:15

it with I'm not gonna do the whole thing in German.

35:17

I'm not gonna do any of it. In German. He ended it

35:19

with I repeat

35:21

that I am the enemy of the order of today,

35:24

and I repeat that with all my powers, as

35:26

long as breath remains in me, I shall combat

35:28

it. I declare again, frankly and

35:30

openly, that I'm in favor of using force.

35:33

I have told Captain shack, and I stand

35:35

by it. If you can innate us, we will

35:37

dynamite you. You laugh,

35:39

you think you'll throw no more bombs.

35:42

But let me assure you that I die happy on the

35:44

gallows. So confident am I in the hut

35:46

that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken

35:48

will remember my words, and when you should

35:51

have hanged us, then mark my words, they

35:53

will do the bomb throwing in this

35:55

hope. I say to you, I despise

35:57

you. I despise your order, your

36:00

laws, your force propped authority. Hang

36:02

me for it. He wasn't actually

36:04

right about the everyone else doing the bomb throwing part is

36:07

kind of for better or worse. I'm

36:09

not actually sure one way or the other. But now

36:13

we get George Engel, who

36:15

have a tattoo of on my arm.

36:17

I'm gonna show you the tattoo even though no one else can see

36:19

it. So you're saying you really

36:22

really don't like this person. Yeah,

36:24

this is definitely my least favorite person, this

36:26

stick figure drawn on my arm. But the tattoo

36:29

I have of Roger Stone, Yeah,

36:32

exactly, Jesus,

36:35

that's cute. Okay, So George Engle is

36:37

the oldest of them all much like Robert's

36:40

Roger Stone and he's

36:42

about fifty years old and he owns a toy shop

36:45

with his wife, and he works

36:47

for the anarchist And he was he was born in Germany.

36:49

Will be shocked to notice he was orphaned

36:52

young, oh whoa, And

36:55

he was taken in by a painter apprenticed him.

36:57

He came to the US, he found the US justice.

36:59

Back at his Germany, he first

37:02

joined the Socialists, but he grew disillusioned

37:04

by all their politicking, the maneuvering, the opportunism,

37:06

the rigged election, the compromise of principle,

37:09

So he joined the anarchists. And he wasn't

37:11

a speaker or a writer. He was just this guy who

37:13

supported the movement with absolute sincerity.

37:15

But he was also one of the most radical in his beliefs of

37:17

the whole bunch. Like he'd probably the night

37:20

before the Haymarket rally, he'd probably been meeting

37:22

in a bar with some other of the more radical

37:24

people like not Parsons and Species

37:26

and all those to figure out how with the like

37:28

two thousand armed men they had that if they needed

37:31

to, they could take the city, like which places

37:33

they would raid to get more guns? And ship Um

37:36

and which you know you've just watched everyone get

37:39

shot in the middle of the Big Uprising. He

37:42

also hated Schwab and Species because

37:44

they weren't radical enough, and he hadn't been on speaking

37:46

terms with Species, and I just I

37:48

I kind of love hate the idea that you have to like go

37:51

face the death penalty with people you have like really

37:53

serious scene drama with. I

37:55

mean I would I would hope he would be like

37:57

at that point, like, well, okay, maybe we

37:59

had to agreements before, but clearly we're

38:02

all committed to the same degree now that we're about

38:04

to get executed, Like, I can't really

38:07

hit them for not being committed enough as

38:09

we're all about to die together, right,

38:12

I think I think so. I think he like didn't

38:14

like he doesn't like super trust

38:16

them, but he's like, yeah, okay, like, yeah,

38:19

we're all about to die together, so I

38:21

probably shouldn't fetch too much

38:24

um. When they arrested him, they just literally

38:26

showed up at his house and disappeared him and

38:29

his family didn't know what happened to him for days until

38:31

his daughter went to the jail and then heard him like

38:33

singing distantly down the cell block. And

38:37

in his final address to court, he said, we

38:40

see from the history of this country that the first

38:43

colonists won their liberty only through force, that

38:45

through forced slavery was abolished. And

38:47

just as the man who agitated against slavery

38:49

in this country had to ascend the gallows, so

38:52

also must we. He who speaks

38:54

for the working men today must hang. And

38:57

then Samuel Fielden, this

39:00

is the guy who couldn't get a break, got

39:02

shot in the knee, spoke last the rally.

39:05

He wasn't German, which is a big break

39:08

from everyone else. He was born

39:10

a parents survived to see him hit the right old

39:12

age of eleven. I think so. Actually,

39:15

Um, he's kind of the kind

39:17

of comes out this whole thing the winner, as

39:19

much as you can win. This particularly is like a wass,

39:22

It's like a squid games thing, and

39:24

he wins. Um.

39:27

He's born a poor weaver in England,

39:29

Like he starts working at the age of eight, So I feel like

39:31

you can say you were born a weaver at that point, and

39:34

he works in the cotton mills that Karl

39:36

Marx and George Angle based their whole analysis

39:38

of how the how shitty the English working class

39:40

have it like on the cotton mills in his

39:42

town. Um.

39:44

And he cuts his political teeth in England, speaking

39:46

on behalf of the Union in the States and against slavery.

39:49

Then he moves to the US and he takes whatever work

39:51

he can, and he's like a Methodist traveling preacher,

39:54

and he travels the South until and becomes

39:56

dismayed by the conditions of black folks.

39:59

Uh there, Um, he's white.

40:01

He settled in Chicago and then he started working twelve

40:04

to fourteen hour days as a stone cutter. And

40:06

then he found himself as a speaker for the anarchists

40:08

again, kind of like the c list

40:10

one. And he's the treasurer for the i w

40:12

p A. And when he speaks

40:14

in the courtroom apparently it actually

40:17

he kind of pulls it off. Actually, uh

40:20

a list speaker today. Um.

40:22

It brings the entire courtroom to tears, and

40:25

the prosecutor laughs and says,

40:27

it's a good thing the jury hadn't been here to hear

40:29

this speech before they made their verdict. Jesus,

40:34

what a goblin. Yeah,

40:36

he really is in

40:38

his speech field and says, we

40:41

feel satisfied that we have not lived in this world

40:43

for nothing, that we have done some good

40:45

for our fellow man, and done what we believe

40:47

to be in the interest of humanity and for the furtherance

40:50

of justice. If my life is to be taken

40:52

for advocating the principles of socialism

40:54

and anarchy, as I have understood them and

40:56

honestly believe them in the interest of humanity,

40:59

I say to you that I gladly give it up,

41:01

and the price is very small for the result

41:03

that has gained. I

41:06

will now read the entire speech of Albert

41:08

Parsons. No, I'm

41:10

just kidding. Albert Parsons

41:13

goes up. He's last. He speaks for eight

41:15

hours over two days. Uh

41:19

yeah, it kind of just loses

41:21

his way and rambles a lot like like vamping

41:24

a bit. Yeah, and

41:27

I get the impression that this whole ordeal actually

41:29

breaks him harder than it breaks the

41:31

other folks, or he breaks in a different

41:33

way maybe. And he

41:36

has very few like Baller lines

41:38

that are worth repeating. But near the end

41:40

he said, I have nothing, not even

41:43

now to regret. Well,

41:45

speaking of regrets, here the ads

41:47

that support this show. Okay,

41:53

So the appeals go on for over a year, they reach all

41:55

the way to the Supreme Court, who decides

41:58

against the anarchists, and

42:00

Lucy Parsons and a bunch of the other people from the id

42:03

w p A spend the whole time traveling the country

42:05

giving talks about the trial and the defendants.

42:07

And this is happening in the middle of all this hysteria, right,

42:10

Lucy's arrested like multiple times over the course

42:12

of this, and her events are shut

42:14

down everywhere she goes, but it's still largely

42:16

successful. The moment of panic

42:19

recedes, and then popular opinions starts to shift

42:21

back towards the defendants and the rest of the labor

42:23

movement. It manages to find its spying

42:25

again. At the beginning, the labor movements like whoa,

42:27

we don't know these guys, even though like they

42:29

were all involved in all levels of the labor

42:32

movement, And then eventually

42:34

the labor movements like okay, okay, maybe we know these

42:36

guys. And it led to this peak in

42:39

and people paying attention to what's going on, and people becoming

42:41

anarchists. The the Arbiters a tongue. That newspaper

42:44

goes from four thousand subscribers to ten thousand

42:46

as more and more people see the hypocrisy

42:48

of the government and adopt socialist

42:51

and anarchist views, and there's rallies

42:53

across the country in the world,

42:56

and and then kind of again ironically

42:58

are fittingly some of the most art and supporters

43:00

at this time end up being people who hate

43:02

their politics, but hate even more so to

43:04

see the US legal system be like just made

43:07

a mockery of by this trial. And

43:10

now the prisoners are all celebrities. They're

43:12

they're doomed celebrities. But I will tell you

43:14

about what August Species gets up to while he's a celebrity,

43:17

because he couldn't be fun to get

43:19

married before. But he finally marries once he's

43:21

in jail. Yeah,

43:24

and he marries a woman he had never met who

43:26

just started coming to the trial. And

43:30

she's an heiress, Nina

43:37

Nina van Zandt is an heiress

43:39

to a fortune and as a member of high society.

43:41

And this is like crazy scandalous

43:44

through all the papers and apparently some of the other defendants

43:46

are like, don't do this, this might affect the

43:48

case or whatever, and he's like, no, I'm marrying this lady.

43:51

Yeah, but he wasn't allowed

43:53

to attend his own wedding, so his brother, the one

43:55

who got shot in the groin defending him is

43:58

a stand in as a proxy for the

44:00

wedding. Uh. And

44:03

they they basically got married so

44:05

that she could keep visiting him in jail. And I actually think

44:07

these were not conjugal visits. I think that they

44:09

never got to do more than once kissed through

44:11

the bars in a very dramatic and romantic way.

44:15

I know. She's she's kind of interesting. She gives up like a

44:18

four hundred thousand dollar inheritance, which

44:21

because her family is piste off about this, which

44:24

is twelve million dollars today, Um

44:26

Jesus, and she wow. So it's

44:29

definitely not like poverty

44:31

tourism. She actually like makes it

44:34

sacrifice. She moves to poverty. That's she's

44:36

like, I like this town. And

44:38

she she keeps her name The Common

44:41

People's song, Yeah

44:43

exactly. I love that song. It's

44:45

a really good bitter song. To listen to the song. Um,

44:48

yeah, so so

44:50

because Nina Species keep Now. Now, Nina

44:52

Species keeps her name even after her husband

44:55

dies, and she even like gets

44:57

remarried and then divorced, and then she goes

44:59

back to the name Species because she's now

45:02

committed. I presume anarchist

45:05

and she lives in poverty. She ends up an old

45:07

lady who collects stray cats and dogs, and

45:09

she marches in labor demonstrations and

45:11

she's still alive today. No, but that would rule,

45:14

like if you got to like, that would be amazing. So

45:19

the Supreme Court says, no, funk these guys. So

45:21

then they moved to a strategy of trying to get the governor to give

45:23

them clemency and commute their sentences to life

45:25

in prison. And they get thousands of letters

45:28

from support from all walks of life, radicals

45:30

and moderates, and there's still

45:32

probably more Americans who hate them, but it's

45:34

like, well, this is something that's totally unfamiliar

45:36

to modern society. Society was

45:39

very polarized by this, and a

45:41

lot of the moderates instead to end up taking radical

45:43

positions on one side or another. The

45:46

son of John Brown writes

45:49

them a letter and sends them a fruit basket,

45:52

and he he says, basically, I support

45:54

you, and my my father would have supported you,

45:57

and that had he had the chance, John Brown

45:59

would have been a socialist too, since what he

46:01

believed in was the quote community

46:03

Plan of cooperative industry. The

46:07

fruit basket is a nice touch. The

46:09

first basket is a nice touch. I hope that

46:11

they were. Like there's always that debate about like what

46:13

John Brown have been like problematic

46:16

today because he was, you know, he was also a religious

46:18

extremist totally, which is the thing

46:21

that can go a couple of ways. But no, I think his kids

46:23

probably right. I think he I think

46:25

being on the right side of slavery to that

46:27

extent at that time means he probably would have been on

46:29

the right side of a lot of things. Yeah,

46:32

and you know who who would know

46:34

better than the kid whose name John Brown Jr.

46:37

You know, m um.

46:39

And in the end, only three of the but

46:41

okay, so they do all of this work to get clemency and

46:43

only three of them end up actually writing the government

46:46

for clemency. Because there's a big problem. To

46:48

write the governor for clemency. You have to say you're sorry.

46:51

Oh they are not

46:53

sorry, um

46:57

so, so Fielding and Schwab are like

47:00

or whatever, We're sorry, Hey

47:02

man, could you not kill us? And

47:05

then Spees says I'm sorry too,

47:07

But then Spies freaks out, has this moment

47:09

of like everyone gets

47:11

calls him a sell out and he's like, no, no, I take

47:13

it back, and he writes the governor's second letter and

47:15

he's like, now I'm just kidding. Not

47:17

only am I not sorry, but you should kill

47:20

only me and leave, like leave

47:22

everyone else. Go. Um,

47:25

that's a man who values values The Cloud

47:29

original Cloud Chaser August Species

47:32

Yeah, okay,

47:35

and then I mean it's not fun, but honestly,

47:37

anything you do in that situation is fine.

47:40

Um. I agree. Would never judge anybody

47:42

for being like, well, I will say I'm

47:44

sorry to not get murdered. Um.

47:47

Fine. At the same time, I also respect

47:49

heavily anyone who would be like, funk that ship. I ain't

47:51

sorry. Yeah, like you can hang my ass.

47:54

Parsons ended up actually the most torn because

47:56

he's the one who's like really, like,

47:59

you know, he's kind of broken at this point, but he's a

48:01

true believer, right, and

48:03

and he's basically like asking all his friends for advice.

48:06

He's like, what do I do? What do I do? And

48:08

then one of his friends, this guy named dire Lum's

48:11

like, honey, Albert, what

48:13

you should do is die. And

48:16

Albert's like, thank you.

48:19

You're the only one willing to tell me that. Thank

48:21

you. I

48:25

know, So he

48:28

decides to die. Um,

48:31

and so he writes an open letter

48:33

to the governor, and his open letter says,

48:36

look, if I'm innocent, let me go, and if I'm

48:38

guilty, kill me. So

48:40

the governor grants clemency at like the final

48:42

hour to field In and Schwab and the five who

48:44

refused to say they're sorry, Uh,

48:46

We're to die. And

48:48

now I'm going to tell you who

48:50

threw the fucking bomb. Yeah,

48:53

okay, because the anonymous bomber comes back into

48:56

play at this point. Uh,

48:58

we don't know for sure, but historian

49:00

Paul Average has done more work than anyone who

49:02

I actually trust about this. And

49:06

and Albert Parsons was convinced a cop did

49:08

it, was like a Pinkerton did it. He's like, oh, it's a false

49:10

flag attack. But

49:13

basically, probably while

49:16

all this is happening, the bomber was probably

49:18

this guy named George Schwab who was completely unrelated

49:20

to Michael Schwab, and he fox

49:22

off to New York after the bomb is thrown. And

49:24

then when they're sentenced to die and everything, like

49:27

the Supreme Court thing fails and all this ship,

49:30

he's like, a, hey, should I

49:32

come forward? Will that save these people's lives?

49:34

If I say I'm the one who did it, will they

49:36

be let go? And they

49:39

all kind of think about it. And when I say

49:41

they all not, everyone, like the defendants don't know

49:43

this except the two autonomous ones who are more

49:45

not actually lewis Ling, but the two autonomous ones who ran

49:47

Dair anarchist. They end up

49:49

knowing about it. And they finally they sit down and they're like,

49:51

no, if you come forward, you're just going to

49:54

die too. It's just one more victim of capitalism

49:56

if you come forward. So the

49:58

bombers like a right, and

50:00

he does not come forward. That's

50:03

a lot to live with. And then

50:05

louis Ling not only did he not write for clemency,

50:08

he actually had his name taken off the

50:10

Supreme Court case because he

50:13

was he was, I'm done with capitalist justice.

50:15

I have nothing to do with any of this. Wow.

50:19

So a week before the execution, guards find

50:21

bombs in his cell, his four bombs, and

50:26

I always thought that they were there to like affect

50:29

a prison prison break, but apparently

50:31

the fuses were like a set a second or two

50:33

long, so they were almost certainly there

50:35

so he could kill himself. But they find the bombs, so

50:38

he doesn't get to kill himself in a nice, clean, exploding

50:40

way. And instead, the

50:42

day before the execution, Louis Ling

50:45

has somehow got ahold of a blasting cap. There's

50:47

a lot of different claims about how he got it there. He

50:50

puts it in his mouth and he blows

50:53

himself up, takes his own life. But

50:56

because it's only a blasting cap, it takes six

50:58

hours for him to bleed to death. Jesus.

51:01

And and since this is his exit

51:03

from from history, I'll say that a

51:06

few days before he died, his mother and aunt

51:08

had had written him letters, and his mother wrote,

51:11

I will be as proud of you after your death

51:13

as I have been during your life, and his aunt

51:15

wrote, whatever happens, even the

51:17

worst, show no weakness before those

51:19

wretches. Um. So

51:22

that supportive family, that's

51:24

good. The one person whose family

51:26

wasn't dead, I know exactly, m

51:29

hmm. And then the

51:32

night before the execution, all

51:34

the condemned men they're sitting around, they're smoking

51:36

cigars, and they're talking with jailer's apparently

51:39

somehow very friendly. Parsons keeps like

51:41

singing and reciting poetry every chance he

51:43

gets I'm pretty sure Parsons has

51:45

lost his mind, which I do not blame him at all. I

51:47

am searching entirely lose my mind

51:49

in this in this environment. I've

51:51

lost my mind on like five hour long flights

51:53

before. Yeah. Yeah,

51:57

George Engle my my favorite. He

51:59

talks with the priest who comes to offer him his last

52:01

rites. And I'm going to say quote what he

52:03

said to the priest in the shadow

52:05

of the gallows. As I stand, I have done nothing

52:08

wrong. I have not done everything right

52:10

during my life, but I have endeavored to live so that

52:12

I need not fear to die. Monopoly

52:14

has crushed competition, and the poor man

52:16

has no show. But the revolution will

52:18

surely come and the working men will get

52:21

his rights. Socialism and Christianity

52:23

can walk hand in hand together as brothers, for

52:25

both are laboring in the interests of the amelioration

52:28

of mankind. I have no religion

52:30

but to wrong no man and to do good

52:32

to everybody. And

52:35

I just it's a cool guy.

52:38

He's being nice to the priest that he didn't even

52:40

call for. He like, as the priest is leaving,

52:42

He's like, look, hey, I know that that was weird, but I didn't

52:44

even call for you, okay, the

52:47

execution. On the morning of the execution,

52:49

there's three cops in reguarding the

52:52

prison like it's a fortress, and there's once again

52:54

gatling guns laying in wait. And

52:57

and for once, the media is right. The media is on about

53:00

an army of anarchists is going to descend on the place

53:02

and free them all. But actually

53:04

the anarchists had come up with a plan like that, and actually

53:06

it was the condemned men who are like guys,

53:10

is over. It's fine, let

53:13

us just get this over with, um. And

53:15

so that's why there's no massive last minute

53:17

jailbreak. Lucy Parson

53:19

shows up to see her husband. She has her

53:21

two kids in tow, and an officer tries

53:24

to stop her. She says, you're

53:26

gonna have to fucking kill me, and

53:28

then she just like pushes her way through the police

53:30

line. Um. However, they then arrest

53:32

her, strip her naked, leave her in a cell

53:35

with her kids until after her her

53:37

husband was hanged Jesus

53:40

with a noose around their neck. Each man shouts

53:42

their last words. Spies

53:44

says, there will come a time when

53:46

our silence will be more powerful than the voices you

53:48

strangle today. Angle

53:51

shouts in German hawk the

53:54

anarchy or her raw for anarchy.

53:57

Fisher shouts also in German her

53:59

rafer anarchy, this is the happiest day of my life.

54:02

And then Parsons he says,

54:06

I feel bad making fun of him right now, but I'm just

54:08

gonna do it. I'll just quote him and who

54:10

make fun of himself. I'm sorry, Parsons, you were

54:12

a great guy. Parsons says, will

54:14

I be allowed to speak? O, men of America, let me

54:16

speak, Sheriff Matson. Let the voice of the people be

54:19

heard. Oh and then the trap

54:21

opens and the hanging

54:23

was done wrong, and they took long, like

54:26

they took minutes to strangle. I think it took seven

54:28

minutes for the last one to die. Sure

54:31

that was an accident, Yeah, I'm sure.

54:33

You know, classic whoops have been doing this

54:35

my whole life, and I just somehow slipped up and didn't

54:38

break their necks. Um.

54:40

Their funeral march had twenty participants

54:43

and two hundred thousand onlookers. And again

54:46

I actually should have looked up the population in Chicago

54:48

at the time, but two people,

54:52

it's a lot of people. Yeah,

54:55

it's the largest funeral that had ever been seen in Chicago

54:58

and and basically

55:00

unions and radicals across the world commemorate their

55:03

deaths and still do on May one,

55:06

and which is the workers holiday, like I said at the top,

55:09

in every country of the world except the US, where they

55:11

can't handle the radical stuff. Um.

55:15

Yeah. But but to close

55:17

out the rest of our characters, you

55:19

want to know what happened to Captain Blackjack Bonfield,

55:22

right, the cop who charged

55:24

the crowd. Well, yes, he

55:27

was caught taking bribes and among

55:29

the stolen goods he was storing was

55:31

the personal effects of Louis Ling. Everyone

55:33

had been like, hey, where's Louis link stuff, and the cops

55:36

like, I don't know. And it's because this dude had stolen

55:38

it. He gets fired, which

55:40

is actually that might be a sign of the times

55:42

having changed in a bad way. He actually gets fired for

55:44

this, and

55:47

um, and that's actually the impetus to get started

55:49

getting the part and pushed forward. Is there, Like, look,

55:51

the main guy for the prosecution

55:54

was a piece of ship, corrupt cop and

55:57

and they get pardoned a progress

56:00

It is elected governor of Illinois in and

56:04

he once again he's in. He tanks his entire

56:06

career. He it costs him the re election,

56:08

but he pardons the

56:11

remaining He frees the remaining

56:13

three who are still in prison, and he posthumously

56:16

pardons the five who died.

56:19

Um And he never managed

56:22

to get back into office after doing that, but

56:25

he actually cared about justice.

56:27

Good for him. Yeah, another another moderate

56:30

who made a sacrifice for

56:32

these people. That is nice to see a

56:34

couple of times, in addition to

56:36

all of the ones who stood by and did nothing. But yeah,

56:39

yeah, Okay. Then there's the fun of the

56:41

cops statue. In eight

56:43

nine, the police put up a statue in Haymarket

56:45

Square in honor of the fallen officer, the

56:47

only one who would actually that they

56:50

oh, the one who didn't get killed by other

56:52

copy Yeah, exactly. For some reason,

56:54

they didn't do one of all the people have been murdered by officers,

56:57

and that it wasn't

56:59

a picture of dual wielding and blackjack

57:01

shooting down other cops. A

57:05

monument to the cops killed by other cops.

57:09

It's called critical support the monument. Yeah,

57:15

all right, So the model for this cop, they

57:17

don't use the actual dead cop as the model. They take

57:19

a living cop, a guy named Birmingham

57:22

and he's crooked, as ship was

57:25

the Dead Cop ugly where they're just like that

57:27

guy's not sexy enough for a statue. Yeah,

57:29

I gotta assume um.

57:32

So they pick a crooked cop who then gets

57:34

fired for fencing stolen goods.

57:37

Incredible, an amazing monument.

57:39

And then in three someone steals the crest

57:42

of the city off the statue in a

57:45

street car driver, probably

57:47

on purpose, jumps the tracks with the street

57:50

car and plows down the statue.

57:55

It gets moved to a place called Union Park. On

57:57

May four, it

58:00

is defaced with black paint. The next year, the

58:02

Weatherman, who are the radical fact part

58:04

of a radical faction, the anti war movement, they just

58:06

fucking blow up the statue. Ah,

58:09

nice to hear they got one of those bombs, right, Well,

58:12

they get two of them, right because then yeah, they got

58:14

a couple, right, Well, they get at least to them, right Because that they

58:16

rebuilt the statue. And then a year later the

58:18

weather men blow it up again. Excellent,

58:21

And then it was rebuilt once more,

58:24

and now it's in the lobby of the Chicago Police headquarters

58:26

where every day every cop can see a statue

58:28

of a crooked cop m

58:32

and and it this

58:34

didn't win another cop statue, but Haymarket,

58:36

it didn't win them the work eight hour work day.

58:38

But as far as I can tell, it didn't actually delay

58:41

it as much as sometimes people say. The

58:43

labor movement in the US and especially worldwide

58:45

actually grew and eventually

58:49

with this and basically, one

58:51

by one, various trades and unions one

58:53

better hours by seven, the Fair Labor

58:55

Standards Act finally won it for more

58:58

or less everyone Nationwide's

59:01

anarchism in Chicago kind of faded after the

59:03

trial, but anarchism worldwide grew,

59:05

and basically everywhere you would go

59:07

across the world, in any kind of labor hall,

59:09

you would see the Haymarket martyrs,

59:12

you see pictures of them. It leaves

59:14

me with this really complicated takeaway, right, because

59:16

their rhetoric of violence is kind of what

59:19

got them into this mess on some level.

59:22

Yes, and certainly all of the dynamite

59:24

had an impact on all of the dynamite,

59:27

but it's really hard to say whether the

59:29

end result was positive or negative for

59:31

the labor movement, for anarchism, for any of these

59:33

things. It's like it's it's almost impossible

59:35

to parse out. And then and

59:39

one of the things that I'm left thinking about with this

59:41

is that like a lot of the stories of Haymarket

59:43

that you'll read in sort of more mainstream papers will be

59:45

like, oh, there was this good protest movement and some anarchists

59:47

came and sucked it all up by throwing a bomb, and

59:50

and that leaves out the fact that it was the anarchist

59:53

who organized not the

59:55

whole thing, but a huge chunk of it in the first

59:57

place, and certainly the thing that got sucked

59:59

up by I'm on throwing a bomb. And

1:00:02

and I feel like that happens a lot, is that people like

1:00:04

radical people end up organizing this, and then

1:00:07

that that work has forgotten about. And

1:00:09

then my final note is

1:00:11

that Lucy Parsons, who I opened the story up with,

1:00:13

she she stayed involved her entire life,

1:00:16

and she ended up helping form the union

1:00:18

the Industrial Workers of the World, who

1:00:20

probably wanted to get thrown episode, and she

1:00:22

used the lessons of Haymarket to teach young radicals

1:00:26

in the twenties. The Chicago Police Department

1:00:28

declared that she was quote more dangerous than

1:00:30

a thousand rioters. And that feels

1:00:32

like something to aspire to. Yeah,

1:00:36

yep, So

1:00:39

Robert how are you feeling about

1:00:41

Haymarket. I

1:00:43

mean bad, it doesn't I mean on

1:00:45

on the whole bad time. I feel good that

1:00:48

a lot of people came around to the fact

1:00:50

that it was bullshit went

1:00:52

in terms of talking about the long term value of

1:00:54

something like this, It's not

1:00:57

bad that the kind of inherent tradictions

1:01:00

and and and fast illness of the system

1:01:03

and how um it exists

1:01:05

primarily not to achieved

1:01:09

justice but to do violence against people who

1:01:12

threatened power like that. That that's not

1:01:15

bad. Like it's useful that that was

1:01:17

done. UM. I don't know how much

1:01:19

comfort that was for the families of the deceased,

1:01:21

but it seems like it was some comfort for most of the

1:01:23

deceased. UM.

1:01:25

And May Day is a good holiday. It

1:01:29

is a good holiday. Dare

1:01:32

say, cool people who did cool

1:01:34

stuff? I

1:01:37

hope. So, yeah,

1:01:39

it's pretty pretty cool, you know. I went to

1:01:41

my favorite May Day that I've I've been to

1:01:44

was UM in Berlin. And

1:01:46

in Berlin, one of the things they do on

1:01:48

May Days is all of the bars kind of like

1:01:50

move out into the streets. UM,

1:01:52

Like they'll just set up like kiosks and stuff

1:01:55

with their beer and for one night

1:01:57

it's allowed to just like throw your bottles

1:02:00

everywhere. So there's just like snow drifts

1:02:02

of shattered glass all over the streets and

1:02:04

it's fine. Apparently this one night

1:02:06

you can break glass all all you want, all

1:02:09

over the damn place. And I had

1:02:11

this very fun moment of just like shattering god

1:02:13

knows how many brea bottles over the street. And then

1:02:15

at one of the s Bahn stations, my friend like

1:02:17

stopped to piss in like a corner. And

1:02:19

when you get immediately ticketed by the jermy,

1:02:24

that's just taking it too far. There's

1:02:26

kids hooking bottles at the street side

1:02:29

just like all right, but this isn't okay.

1:02:31

Yeah, we have laws

1:02:34

here, we have rules

1:02:36

here. We have one less rule tonight,

1:02:38

but we have rules here. Um.

1:02:42

Anyway, thank you, Margaret. This has been a

1:02:45

hoot. Yeah, thanks for coming on. And

1:02:47

dare I say a holler? No, that's

1:02:49

too much. Do

1:02:51

you have anything you want to plug? Robert Evans? Never

1:02:54

never heard of you, Robert Evans, you have anything? I've

1:02:57

certainly never heard of me. Do you

1:02:59

host any podcasts? I

1:03:01

do the Dynamite Cast, where

1:03:03

we talk about the health benefits of

1:03:06

a dynamite enriched diet, which

1:03:09

are none there are well, actually it would

1:03:11

probably help with certain heart conditions,

1:03:13

right, because nitroglycerin is literally used

1:03:15

in one form as a heart medication. So

1:03:18

I guess there are some ways that ingesting dynamite

1:03:20

might potentially help you. But

1:03:23

I doubt it would. I doubt

1:03:25

it would work if you just were to take the form

1:03:27

used as an explosive as a heart medication.

1:03:29

But I don't actually know you're using it wrong. I don't

1:03:32

know, Like, Okay, have you read a headache?

1:03:35

Okay, now if you don't want

1:03:37

to have a headache, you could explode

1:03:39

your entire body. Well,

1:03:42

now that's that's you see, This is

1:03:44

this is you're you're really getting onto the subject

1:03:46

of my new self help book, The Explosion

1:03:48

Driven Life. So so

1:03:50

so from what I got from what Robert just

1:03:52

said, he was saying, listen to it could happen

1:03:55

here. Uh and and

1:03:57

by his book After the Revolution, and

1:03:59

and check out my new book The four Dynamite

1:04:02

Work Week and the four Dynamite Body

1:04:04

both go great together, and we'll teach you how to change

1:04:06

your life with just four sticks of dynamite. Amazing,

1:04:10

Margaret, Where can people follow you? People

1:04:12

can follow me on the internet on Twitter at Magpie

1:04:15

kill Joy and on Instagram at Margaret

1:04:17

Killjoy who

1:04:20

utally do Well. We'll

1:04:22

be back next week on Monday with

1:04:24

an allegedly allegedly with another

1:04:26

cool person who may have done in fact

1:04:28

something cool, with

1:04:31

lots of caveats. As always, cool

1:04:33

people are coming up. Cool

1:04:38

People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production

1:04:40

of cool Zone Media, but more podcasts

1:04:42

and cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool

1:04:44

zone media dot com, or check us out on

1:04:47

the I Heard Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1:04:49

or wherever you get your podcasts.