ABSTRACT
The Haymarket affair was a series of events that occurred in conjunction with a labor rally in Chicago's Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. The day before, violence had erupted during an assembly of striking workers at the Mark McCormick Reaper Works plant, and several workers were killed. The rally at the Haymarket was planned as a response to the police violence during the McCormick incident. In the immediate aftermath of the Haymarket riot, Chicago police and prosecutors indicted and arrested at least thirty well-known anarchists and socialists in the community. The words of August Spies as he prepared to die have been widely quoted. His words also appear at the base of a monument erected to commemorate the event located in the German Waldheim Cemetery of Forest Park, Illinois. The Haymarket affair is remembered as one of the more unjust and wrongful attempts by management and government forces to subvert the organization of labor.
