The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America: From its Incipient Stage to the First Bomb Thrown in ChicagoMcLean, George N.
History
The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America: From its Incipient Stage to the First Bomb Thrown in Chicago
McLean, George N.
Anarchists -- United States; Haymarket Square Riot, Chicago, Ill., 1886
He spoke English very imperfectly, and with great difficulty, he
manifested no desire to make progress in anything except in anarchy.
The sinister expression of his countenance indicated a dogged stubborn
and cruel nature, full of malice and hatred which led him to use this
latest breath in a "hurrah for anarchy" upon the gallows. Such men
behold nothing beautiful in nature, nor anything to admire in well
organized society, under the mad misrule of anarchy controlled by such
an element, society would soon lapse back to the days of primitive
barbarism and superstition.
MICHAEL SCHWAB.
Michael Schwab was born near Mannheim, Germany, in 1853, and was
educated in a convent. For several years he worked at the book-binding
trade in various cities. He came to America in 1879.
He was a co-adjutor with August Spies in connection with the _Arbeiter
Zeitung_. He was a pronounced socialist, though of a milder type than
Spies, Parsons or Fischer. He was vacillating in his nature, and not
calculated for a leader, but capable of being led. Had he chosen for
his companions loyal and patriotic associates, he doubtless would have
become a trusted citizen and a champion of American institutions
instead of a propagator of anarchy which cost him the price of his
liberty.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
Oscar W. Neebe was born in New York city on the 12th day of July in the
year 1850. His parents were German, and in order to give their children
an education in German they removed from New York to Germany when
Oscar was but a child. His boyhood and school days were spent in Hesse
Cassel. But at the age of fourteen years he returned to New York and as
he expresses himself, was glad to set foot once more upon the land of
the free, where all men were equal regardless of color or nationality,
for the war had just closed which had stricken the chains and festering
fetters from the limbs of the African slave, which meant the unbarring
of the dungeon of the mind, giving them the right to acquire an
education which before was denied them, and making them heir to the
inalienable rights of citizenship. He says "I saw the sun-browned
soldiers of the federal army returning from the South where they had
fought for liberty and freedom, and learned to love them as brothers
when I heard them say: 'There is now no more slavery.'"
Catching the inspiration of these words of Horace Greely: "Go West
young man," he accordingly came to Chicago at the age of sixteen years,
but returned to New York again where he learned the trade of tinsmith
and cornice-maker. But New York, with all its fascinations, failed to
constitute him contented and happy, and in February, 1877, we find him
again in Chicago where he commenced work for the Adams and Westlake
Manufacturing Company. He states that he was discharged July 1, for
daring to champion the working man, and at times was reduced to poverty
and almost starvation because of his avowed proclivities as an agitator.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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