August Spies

August Spies as he appeared at the time of his conviction of conspiracy to commit murder in 1886.

August Vincent Theodore Spies (Pronounced "SPEES") (1855-1887) was a German-born American newspaper editor and radical labor activist. Spies is remembered as one of the anarchist leaders in Chicago who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder following a bomb attack on police in an event remembered as the Haymarket affair. Spies was one of four who were executed in the aftermath of this event.

Biography

Background

August Spies was born on December 10, 1855 in a ruined castle converted into a government building on the mountain Landeckerberg in the Central German state of Hesse. His father was a government forestry official.

Spies later recalled that he had a pleasant and privileged childhood, one filled with recreation and study. He was educated by private tutors and trained for a career following in his father's footsteps as a government forester. His father died suddenly in 1871, however, ending the comfortable financial situation for his mother, and August determined to set out for a new life in America, a country in which he already had a number of financially successful relatives.

Spies settled in Chicago, where he became an upholsterer. Involving himself in trade union activities due to the injustices he witnessed, Spies joined the Socialist Labour Party in 1877, where he began his deep involvement with labor causes and ultimately became editor of the anarchist daily newspaper, the Arbeiter-Zeitung, in 1880.

Haymarket Square

Known for his aggressive rhetoric, an enraged Spies published a leaflet on May 4, 1886 entitled Revenge! Workingmen to Arms! It included the passage: "They killed the poor wretches because they, like you, had the courage to disobey the supreme will of your bosses. They killed them to show you 'Free American Citizens' that you must be satisfied with whatever your bosses condescend to allow you, or you will get killed. If you are men, if you are the sons of your grand sires, who have shed their blood to free you, then you will rise in your might, Hercules, and destroy the hideous monster that seeks to destroy you. To arms we call you, to arms."

On May 4, 1886, Spies spoke during a rally at Haymarket Square. Contrary to the mayor's explicit instructions, police intervened, sending units into the crowd in an attempt to disperse it.^{[citation needed]} Violence erupted and a pipe bomb was thrown. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of eight police officers, mostly from friendly fire, and an unknown number of civilians. Seven men were arrested, including Spies. Later, Albert Parsons turned himself in.

Witnesses testified that none of the eight men charged threw the bomb. According to The Press on Trial, Spies had finished his speech but was still on stage when the bomb went off. However, all eight were found guilty, and seven were sentenced to death. One, Oscar Neebe, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Trial

Frontis illustration from Spies' autobiography, published by his wife in January 1887.

The trial of Spies and his associates was highly controversial. The jury was selected specifically by a special bailiff; one of the jury members was a relative of one of the slain policemen. Julius Grinnell, the State's Attorney, told the jury, "Convict these men, make examples of them, hang them, and you save our institutions." During the trial, the jury was allowed by the judge to read articles in support of political violence written previously by the defendants as evidence. While in prison, Spies wrote an autobiography.

In 1887, Spies and his co-defendants appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court (122 Ill. 1), then to the Supreme Court of the United States. At the Supreme Court they were represented by John Randolph Tucker, Roger Atkinson Pryor, General Benjamin F. Butler and William P. Black. Their petition for certiorari was denied (123 U.S. 131).

In January 1887, while still in prison, Spies married Nina van Zandt (1862–1936). She was a graduate of Vassar College and the only child of a wealthy Chicago chemist. She published an article on the trial for the Chicago Knights of Labor. After Spies's death she married Stephen A. Malato, an attorney, in 1895. They divorced in 1902, and she reverted to the surname Spies.

Death and legacy

Two of the defendants, Michael Schwab and Samuel Fielden, asked for clemency and their sentences were commuted to life in prison on November 10, 1887, by Governor Richard James Oglesby. They were pardoned and released on June 26, 1893, by John Peter Altgeld, the governor of Illinois.

Of the remaining five, Louis Lingg killed himself in his cell with a blasting cap concealed in a cigar on November 10, 1887. Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel were hanged the next day, November 11, 1887.

As he faced his demise on the gallows, Spies shouted, "the day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today."

See also

• May Day

Works

• August Spies' Auto-Biography; His Speech in Court and General Notes. Chicago: Niña van Zandt, 1887.
• "Pages from an Editor's Sketchbook," Corvallis, OR: 1000 Flowers Publishing, 2012. —Excerpt from 1887 autobiography.
• The Accused the Accusers: The Famous Speeches of the Chicago Anarchists in Court: On October 7th, 8th, and 9th, 1886, Chicago, Illinois. Chicago: Socialistic Publishing Society, n.d. [1886].

Further reading

• August Spies, et al., Plaintiff vs. The People of the State of Illinois, Defendant: Error to the Criminal Court of Cook County: Abstract of Record. Volume 1 and Volume 2. Chicago: Barnard and Gunthorp, Law Printers, 1887.
• Bruce C. Nelson, Beyond the Martyrs: A Social History of Chicago's Anarchists, 1870-1900. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988.

External links

• "August Spies," Spartacus Educational, www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/