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THE HAYMARKET RIOT
On 1 May 1886 (May Day), labor unions organized a strike for an eight-hour work
day in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. On 3 May, a small riot occurred at the
McCormick Harvester Plant in which there was a shooting and one death when police
clashed with the rioters.
Violence intensified on 4 May when a protest meeting began in Haymarket Square.
During this meeting to denounce the events of the previous days, the police had just
begun to clear out the crowd when someone threw a bomb, killing twelve people and
wounding more than sixty. Policeman Mathias J. Degan was killed almost instantly and
seven other policemen later died as a result of their injuries. Four of the protestors were
also killed when the bomb went off and, in the panic that followed, the police fired into
the crowd, killing one more person. Some of the speakers earlier in the day had been
anarchists, and so the crime was supposed to have been committed by an anarchist,
despite the fact that no evidence for such a link could be demonstrated.
Although the bomb-thrower was never identified, eight men - mostly of German
descent - who had been involved in organizing the rallies were accused of the crime and
found guilty. Seven of the men were sentenced to death and the eighth was sentenced to
fifteen years in prison by Judge Joseph Gary, in spite of a startling lack of evidence that
any of them had had any role in the bombing at all. The sentencing sparked outrage in
international labor circles, resulting in protests all around the world and, eventually, the
beginning of the worldwide celebrations of 1 May as an international workers' day.
E X E R C I S E 1: Find words or phrases in the passage which mean the same as:
COLUMN A COLUMN B
a) a stopping of work by the workers, usually in
protest against their working conditions
b) a noisy, violent public disorder, often begun in
protest against something
c) come into conflict; be in opposition
d) become stronger or more extreme
e) publicly express strong disapproval of someone
or something
f) injure; hurt
g) coming from a certain national, ethnic, cultural,
or linguistic heritage
h) a mass meeting of people with a common aim
i) charge with a fault, offense, or crime, often
formally as in a court of law
j) be formally given a certain punishment for
criminal actions
k) extremely and negatively surprising; shocking
I) the condition of not having something that is
required or desired
m) cause to feel a certain way or to take a certain
action
n) a strong feeling of anger caused by a sense
that justice has not been done
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