Introduction

Abstract

On May 4, 1886, a rally was called to protest the shooting of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works by Chicago police the previous day. The meeting was organized by self-proclaimed anarchists, members of a small but growing movement that included both recent immigrants (primarily German) and a few native-born radicals who viewed the law as hopelessly biased in favor of employers, the republic as a sham, and capitalism as an evil so great that its immediate and violent overthrow was a moral imperative. This protest meeting, which took place near a widening of Randolph street on Chicago’s west side known as Haymarket Square, was poorly attended by even the anarchists’ standards. At about half past ten at night, as the sky darkened, chill winds picked up, and the crowd dwindled, nearly 200 policemen marched shoulder to shoulder, sidewalk to sidewalk, down Desplaines avenue up to the parked wagon that served as an improvised speaker’s platform. As Police Captain Ward commanded the gathering to disperse, someone on the east sidewalk threw a bomb that landed in the center of the tightly packed ranks of police. The bomb exploded at the feet of patrolman Mathias Degan. The force of the explosion threw dozens of policemen to the ground and sent thousands of shards of metal whizzing faster than bullets in all directions. One of these jagged missiles, about the size of a thumbnail, ripped through Degan’s thigh and severed his femoral artery, leaving him helpless to staunch the blood that poured out over the wooden paving blocks of Desplaines street. Thirty-five-year-old Degan was the first to die, orphaning his young son, as his wife had died from illness two years earlier.