Union activists and militants had called for the nation’s workers to demand an eight-hour day by walking off the job. At the time, 10- and even 12-hour workdays were common.
On Memorial Day in 1937, striking workers clashed with police at the Republic Steel plant on the South Side. Ten demonstrators were killed and 60 were injured, as were 60 police officers.
Even the best-paid workers were slow to organize because American courts frowned on unions. But Chicago was a city of immigrants who gave it a foretaste of European politics. Accordingly, its labor history is replete with dramatic moments and tragic scenes. “The men lying here had a dream of brotherhood,” the Rev. William Waltmire said. “They sought to bring a new world, a world in which men could live and be happy.”
Fiery speeches were made by Spies, an upholsterer who edited a socialist newspaper, and Albert Parsons, a leader of the anarchists’ International Working People’s Association. In 1893, Gov. John Peter Altgeld found that the jurors were selected by a special bailiff who boasted the defendants “would hang as sure as death.” Four had already been hanged when Altgeld freed the others from prison.
The delegates voted to boycott the sleeping cars built in the model town George Pullman named for himself. He was both his workers’ employer and their landlord.