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Haymarket: Whose Name the Few Still Say with Tears

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Haymarket: Whose Name the Few Still Say with Tears HAYMARKET: WHOSE NAME THE FEW STILL SAY WITH TEARS A DRAMATIZATION IN ELEVEN SCENES MICHAEL E. TIGARt BACKGROUND lawyer who defends the movement for social change. His attitudes toward his own work The dialogue in this play is taken from are made up of his hopes, a fighting faith the trial record of the Haymarket trial,' that keeps him going, and a more tempered writings of Darrow' and Altgeld,3 poems view based on his experiences. Lucy of Vachel Lindsay,4 speeches of the Parsons' writings show her to have formed defendants,' and an article by Judge Gary.6 the views that she expresses in the play quite I created other dialogue based upon the early. Indeed, there is evidence that she biographies and autobiographies of the greatly contributed to forming her husband's participants.' In some instances, I political and social outlook. combined several characters into one and Albert Parsons was a complex rearranged the order of events. However, character. He saw Civil War service for the the key speeches of each participant are Confederacy. After the war, he met and their actual words. married Lucy, a woman of color. They The bombing, trial, executions, and were driven out of Waco, Texas and settled pardon of the survivors were such a in Chicago in late 1873, where both became complex series of events that a simple leaders in the movement that led to the chronological retelling would lack dramatic Haymarket events. intensity. Therefore, I chose to tell this May 1, 1886 was an important day in story through a series of flashbacks, American labor history. Five hundred centering on a meeting of Clarence Darrow thousand workers went on strike for the and Lucy Parsons. This meeting takes place eight-hour workday. Eighty thousand struck November 29, 1922, the day then-Governor in Chicago alone. As the strike continued, Small pardoned a group of Darrow's clients tension mounted. On May 3, 1886, armed from the celebrated 1920 Communist labor police at the McCormick Harvesting trial. Lucy was the wife of Haymarket Company on Chicago's South Side charged defendant Albert Parsons. She was a a group of strikers. Four workers were formidable figure in the anarchist movement killed. both before and after her husband's death. The trade union groups, which included Darrow both depicts and symbolizes the every political tendency from moderate to I The author holds the Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law. Published by Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository, 1994 (12) HYBRID: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE anarchist, called for a protest meeting the motion. I also believe that the relationship next night at Haymarket Square. The events between law and the relations of production depicted in this play begin at that meeting. is not mechanical, rigid, or automatic. That Trade union leaflets called for militant is, in every historical period, popular action. Leaflets distributed by right-wing struggles can have a significant impact on forces called for armed assaults on union the quantum of justice enjoyed by the members. people. I explored these themes at length in The reader will note that most of the a 1977 book, Law and the Rise of Haymarket defendants had German names. Capitalism. Most of them were indeed German-speaking The operation of capitalist relations of immigrants, part of the wave of immigration production can occur in any of several to the United States in the wake of Europe's different ways-with more or less ample political turmoil. However, I have chosen democratic rights, and with more or less to focus upon Albert Parsons, an American- counterweight to the accumulative tendencies born labor organizer. I made this choice in of that system. part to have the benefit of Lucy's insights These are not new insights. People and to be able to present a strong woman of "make their own history, but they do not color whose work has not received the make it just as they please; they do not attention that it deserves. make it under circumstances chosen by I have envisioned that the performance themselves, but under circumstances directly will take place on a stage that suggests encountered, given and transmitted from the rather than precisely recreates the various past. "' There are limits in every legal locales. In retelling such a complex event, system to the claims for justice that will be it is inevitable that the characters are not recognized and honored. fully developed. They are, in a sense, Because I believe these things, I think Brechtian images of themselves, or "signs." that a deep understanding of law, which In the play's first performance, we might better be termed "legal ideology," is accentuated this imagery by using rear helpful to lawyers who want to participate in projection screens as backdrops. In that social change. I also believe that lawyers initial production, slides of pictorial material engaged in the struggle-as lawyers-must from the period were provided by the recognize that they are neither the inventors Chicago Historical Society.8 nor the owners of the claims they are advancing for their clients. In rejecting a rigid determinism about law as "superstructure," I also reject the WHY I WROTE THIS PLAY idea that legal rules are so indeterminate that they "don't matter." It is true that many I believe that only through the study of legal rules, such as "impartial juror" or history can we understand society's laws of "free speech," are remarkably content-free https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/jlasc/vol2/iss1/4 HAYAURKET (13) in the abstract. But abstractions are the with cruelty or indifference, hurts our work of philosophers, not of lawyers clients and ridicules their claims for justice. representing clients. The lawyer knows that I continued to believe that the examples the legal rules are not indeterminate, at least from history illuminate the choices we face. at the moment they are used to justify a And so I tried to capture some of the particular judgment that the State will back conflicting messages of the Haymarket case. up with force.' ° And while the State's agents pretend that the rules are neutral and neutrally- CAST OF CHARACTERS enforced, the falsity of that claim does not entrain the conclusion that the rules Samuel Fielden, an anarchist leader and a themselves are indeterminate - or that they defendant can bear any content whatever. Rather, the Julius Grinnell, Cook County state's content is changeable within certain attorney and lead prosecutor historically determined limits. Thus, the James "Black Jack' Bonfield, a captain in lawyer must be a student of society as well the Chicago police as of law. Clarence Darrov, a lawyer I have spent my entire legal career Lucy Parsons, widow of Albert Parsons and working out and advancing theories of an anarchist leader justice on behalf of people who were - in Albert Parsons, an anarchist leader and a my view - being oppressed by the State. I defendant have done this work as a courtroom lawyer William "Captain" Black, attorney for the and writer. I have done it with friends in defendants South Africa, Chile, and other places. Joseph E. Gary, trial judge I first read the Haymarket story when I William Neil, a prospective juror was a young man. My father was a labor H.T Sandford, a prospective juror union official, and had only eight grades of H.E. Graves, a prospective juror school. When I was about eleven or twelve, M.M. Thompson, a prosecution witness I told my father that I wanted to be a Henry L. Gilmer, a prosecution witness lawyer. He gave me a copy of Irving John P. Altgeld, governor of Illinois, Stone's biography of Darrow, Clarence 1893-97 Darrow for the Defense. He thought Workers and spectators Darrow was the kind of lawyer one should be. In later years, I often debated with SCENES friends the proper role of a lawyer who was privileged to participate in the movement for Scene I: The Haymarket, May 4, 1886. social change. I confronted the doubts that Scene of the protest rally. we all must have when the legal system, Scene II: Office of State's Attorney Published by Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository, 1994 HYBRID: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE Grinnell, May 8, 1886. Grinnell is on the platform. A number of people are talking with Chicago police captain standing and looking up at the speaker. James "Black Jack" Bonfield. Two of them carry placards, one saying Scene III: A Chicago street, November 29, "Avenge McCormick Murders" and the 1922, near the train station. Clarence other "Einheit." Other signs may be added Darrow and Lucy Parsons keep an at director's option, such as "May Day" and appointment. "Strike. ") Scene IV: June 1886, a courtroom in Chicago. The trial opens as Parsons Fielden: The law is only framed for those surrenders in the company of his who are your enslavers. lawyer, Captain Black. Voice: That's true. Scene V: A Chicago street, November 29, Fielden: We are not the ones who have 1922. Clarence Darrow and Lucy brought this storm of violence upon the city Parsons continue their discussion. of Chicago. All we wanted was the right to Scene VI: July 1886, a courtroom in strike, the eight-hour day, and the first of Chicago. The trial continues. May as a workers' holiday. When the Scene VII: A Chicago street, November railroad workers demanded higher wages, to 29, 1922. Clarence Darrow and Lucy buy a little more bread for their families, Parsons continue their discussion.
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