Social Movements and Labor Day Haymarket Then and Now
	Labor Day - celebrated almost worldwide – is May 1st each year. Why this is not the case in the US and Canada might be considered a peculiar twist of history, but is in fact closely connected to a series of tragicevents in Chicago which took place morethan a century ago not far from the loop in Haymarket. The only official landmark, dedicated in1887, to commemorate the Haymarket Tragedy of May 4th, 1886, is almost hidden and embedded in the pavement (near DesPlaines Street), containing only the slightest hint at the legal scandal connected with it. It reads:
								A decade of strife between labor and industry culminated here in a confrontation that resulted in the tragic death of both workers and policemen. On May 4, 1886 spectators of a labor rally had gathered around the mouth of nearby Crane's Alley. A contingent of police approaching on Des Plaines Street were met by a bomb thrown from just south of the alley. The resultant trial of eight activists gained worldwide attention for the labor movement and initiated the tradition of “May Day” rallies in many cities.
		What the plaque does not tell is the fact that most of these activists were anarchists of German extraction who were tried, condemned to death, and some of them hung for a crime that they had not committed. They had not even been near the place of action at the time in question. One of them, August Spies, uttered these words before he died: “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today”. John Altgeld, Governor of Illinois, a native of Frankfurt am Main, could convert at least some of the sentences and save some innocent lives. Today these heroes are honored by a National Historic Landmark, located in the German part of the Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park. Website: http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/ John Peter Altgeld