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Life of Albert R. Parsons, with Brief History of the Labor Movement In CT&RAR.Y OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS B LIFE OF.ALBERTR. PARSONS WITHj OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA, Of what avail is plow or sail, Or land or life, iffreedom fail I ALBERT B. PARSONS. CHICAGO. MKS. LUCY E. PARSONS, PUBLISHER AND PBOPBIETOB. 1889. COPYRIGHT 1889 BY MRS. LUCY E. PARSONS. THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO THE SACRED MEMORY OF ONE WHOSE ONLY CRIME WAS THAT HE LIVED IN ADVANCE OF HIS TIME, b*lot)cb Ijnsbcmfc, Companion, cmb Contract, * ALBERT R. PARSONS. CONTENTS. THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN CHICAGO AUTHOR'S NOTE PART I. CHAPTER I. ALBERT E. PARSONS' ANCESTORS ... 1 LETTER FROM A NATIVE OF NEWBERRYPORT, MASS. 3 " II. THE STORY OF His LIFE .... 6 PAET II. CHAPTER I. MR. PARSONS' WESTERN TRIP CORRESPONDENCE 25 II. LETTER FROM TOPEKA, KAN, .... 30 " III. LETTER FROM SALINEVILLE, OHIO ... 35 " IV. LETTER FROM THE SMOKY CITY .... 42 V. IN THE OHIO COAL REGION .... 50 VI. SPEECH IN SPRINGFIELD, OHIO .... 56 " VII. A POSTHUMOUS LETTER . 60 PART III. CHAPTER I. MEETING AT SOUTH BEND, IND. 65 II. UNDER THE BED FLAG 70 " III. OBSERVING THANKSGIVING DAY, 1885 77 " IV. THE LEMONT MASSACRE 78 V. SELECTED EDITORIALS 87 " VI. AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW 92 PART IV. CHAPTER I. THE HAYMARKET MEETING . 97 II. THE IMMOLATION TO AUTHORITY 100 " III. PARSONS' HAYMARKET SPEECH 117 " IV. LETTER FROM ATTORNEY W. A. FOSTER 128 V. WHAT is AN ACCESSORY ? 132 ' VI. THE TRIAL OF THE JUDGMENT . 138 VII. ALBERT R. PARSONS' SPEECH IN COURT 165 PART V. CHAPTER I. REMINISCENCES OF ALBERT R. PARSONS 189 " II. MR. PARSONS AT GENEVA 201 " III. A CHAPTER OF HISTORY . 206 " IV. ECHOES FROM His PRISON CELL . 210 APPENDIX. THE STORY TOLD BY HELEN WILMANS 230 MRS. PARSONS' ARREST IN COLUMBUS, OHIO 235 THE AFFIDAVIT OF OTIS FAVOR 242 THE LORD LIEUTENANT AND THE MAYOR 243 CAPT. BLACK'S EULOGY AT THE TOMB 245 BENJAMIN F. BUTLER'S LETTER TO CAPT. BLACK 251 TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ALBERT E. PARSONS, SR. LUCY E. PARSONS .... ALBERT E. PARSONS, JR. LULU EDA PARSONS .... ANARCHIST MEETINGS ON LAKE FRONT HAYMARKET MEETING MR. PARSONS AS CARPENTER IN WAUKESHA THE BOAT .... MR. PARSONS IN His PRISON CELL AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO His CHILDREN HAYMARKET DIAGRAM .... HISTORY OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. I I I HE standard of life is the regulator of the wages of the toiling I is a mixture of -^ IQ masses. Our population many nationalities, *- who differ in their habits of living. In 1640 the British colonies contained an aggregate population of 25,000 whites. In 1660 the total had increased to 80,000. In 1689 the number was about 200,000; in 1721 it reached about 500,000; in 1743, 1,000,000; in 1767, 2,000,000. The whole population at the outbreak of the war of independence was not much more than 2,500,000. The whole number of aliens who came to the United States from 1789 to 1820 1820 to about was about 250,000 ; from date, 14,250,000, making about 14,500,000, nearly one-half of whom arrived since 1870. According to the census of 1880 there were in the United States 6,679,943 persons of foreign birth, constituting 13 per cent, of the colored and whole population ; 6,580,793 persons, 36,723,207 native whites, and there were 14,922,744 persons who had one or both parents foreign born. At the present time we have 60,000,000 peo- ple, and the proportionate increase of persons of foreign parentage has been very large, especially in cities and mining regions. The agitation of shorter hours of daily work begins with the present century. The labor men were then self-employed mechanics, and the factory system, with its labor- aiding machinery, was hardly yet known. The building trades were then, as now, in the advance of this short-hour movement. The New York Society of Journey- men Shipwrights was incorporated April 30, 1803, and the house car- penters of the city of New York in 1806. At that time the journey- men mechanics and the master mechanics were the employes of the II HISTORY OF THE merchants, who resolved that "We view with deep regret the course that some of our fellow-citizens, journeymen ship carpenters, calkers, nnd others, are pursuing in the adoption and maintenance of a system of measures designed to coerce individuals of their craft and to prescribe the time and manner of the labor for which they are liberally paid. In our opinion this combination has a direct tend- ency to put their business into other hands, or seriously to injure it, by reducing ship-owners to repair their vessels elsewhere rather than submit to the inconvenience, delays, and vexations to which they would be exposed when they can obtain labor only at such times and on such conditions as the folly and caprice of a few journeymen mechanics may dictate, who are now idle two or three of the most valuable hours of each day. The merchants then declared their intention to black-list all persons belonging to the association which demanded the reduction of the hours of daily work from fourteen to ten. The journeymen carpenters and calkers of Boston lost their first strike for ten hours in May, 1832, but they gained their demand for ten hours in New York and Philadelphia in 1832 and 1833. The short-hour movement attained such magnitude that the President of the United States, Martin Van Buren, established by procla- mation of April 10, 1840, the ten-hour system for all employes of the United States Government in the navy-yards. Gov. Fort, of New Jersey, in 1841 recommended legislation in favor of shorter daily working hours. In 1841 he said : Constant and unremitting toil prevents intellectual improvement and leads to physical and moral debasement. In 1841 a firm of boat-builders in Bath, Maine, adopted the ten-hour system. All but two of the ship-yards in Bath finally yielded, and ten hours became the rule of that city. On the 16th of June, 1845, a mass meeting of the people of Pittsburgh and Alleghany City was held at Pittsburgh in favor of a ten-hour work day. At least 5,000 persons were in attendance, a large number of whom were females. A strike followed, in which 4,000 persons were engaged. After remaining out five weeks the opera- tives returned under the old conditions. The first industrial convention in the United States convened in New York October 12, 1845, and proposed a plan for the formation of a secret industrial brotherhood. In the latter part of 1845 and in 1846 immense mass-meetings were held in the New England States, LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. Ill .New York, and Pennsylvania, and many strikes for ten hours were commenced. The British Parliament passed a ten-hour law in the early summer of 1847, and thereupon mass-meetings were held in the principal cities of the United States congratulating the English people on their triumph. On the 3d day of July, 1847, a law was passed in New Hampshire making ten hours a legal day's work. The uprising in 1848 renewed the agitation of American labor reform. A mass-meeting of workingmen in Faneuil hall, May 9, formulated the following measures : 1. Eeduction of the hours of 2. efficient lien 3. of the labor ; An law ; The freedom public lands ; 4. The inalienability of the homestead ; 5. The abolition of the poll- of the elective 6. tax as a condition franchise ; An industrial depart- ment in the Government; 7. Destruction of all white and black 8. of all officers those slavery ; Eeduction and salaries, especially of $8 a day and upward, to the standard of all useful and necessary labor. In 1818 petitions were sent to Washington demanding a ten- hour law and a law restraining persons from employing children in factories over eight hours a day, and obliging those employing them to give them an opportunity to obtain a common-school education. An industrial congress was held in Chicago on the second Wednesday of June, 1850, and local trades asssemblies were formed in many large cities to carry the ten-hour system by means of strikes. In 1853 eleven hours were adopted in many parts of the country as the regular work day. In some places the factories continued to run on the old (fourteen or more) hours until about 1865, when the eleven-hour system was adopted as the result of strikes. Ten-hour laws have been adopted in Massachusetts, Ehode Island, and other States, but in some Eastern States the hours of labor range from eleven to thirteen, while in the Western States ten hours is the rule. That this movement is a necessity is made manifest by the fol- lowing statement of Caroll D. Wright, Commissioner of the Depart- ment of Labor, who has submitted a report which relates intirely to the subject of working-men in great cities. Three hundred and forty-two distinct industries in twenty-two cities have been in- vestigated. The report shows that the working-women in the great cities are practically girls. The average age in all cities com- IV HISTORY OF THE prehended is 22 years and 7 months. The highest average age is- found in Charleston, South Carolina, 25 years and 1 month ; the lowest in St. Paul 21 years und 5 months. It is found, however, that the concentration is greatest at the age of 18, there being of the whole number interviewed 1,570 of that age.
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