On
this date, November 11, 1887, August
Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph
Fischer and George Engel are executed
as a result of the Haymarket affair.
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Execution of
defendants—Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies
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The next day (November 11, 1887) four
defendants—Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies—were taken to the gallows in
white robes and hoods. They sang the Marseillaise,
then the anthem of the international revolutionary movement. Family members
including Lucy Parsons, who attempted to see them for the last
time, were arrested and searched for bombs (none was found). According to
witnesses, in the moments before the men were hanged, Spies shouted,
"The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices
you strangle today." In their last words, Engel and Fischer called out,
"Hurrah for anarchism!" Parsons then requested to speak, but he was
cut off when the signal was given to open the trap door. Witnesses reported
that the condemned men did not die immediately when they dropped, but strangled
to death slowly, a sight which left the spectators visibly shaken.
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Portraits
of the seven Chicago policemen killed in Haymarket Square, from Harper’s Weekly,
May 15, 1886.
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OTHER
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