WI The Haymarket Massacre: A Completly Different Affair

TheCrow__

Banned
I was just looking up a few things about the Haymarket Affair. As you may know a protest was going on at a factory in Chicago amongst the many 8-Hour day events in May 1886. This protest was being held due to police brutality at a protest a few days earlier. Most of the protesters were beginning to leave around 10:30 when the final speaker was finished. The police began ordering the people to disperse at this moment a pipe bomb was thrown at the police. The police opened fire on the protesters. Eight people were arrested and connected to the event. But the actual bomber was never identified. There is alot of speculations upon who the real bomber is. But the point of this thread is I'd like to know what if the bomber was apprehended and it turned out to be some hitman or some poor shmuck who got payed by some big company to toss the bomb. Let's say this is publicized in the Alarm by Albert Parsons who was at the rally. What would be the effects if this?
 
But the point of this thread is I'd like to know what if the bomber was apprehended and it turned out to be some hitman or some poor shmuck who got payed by some big company to toss the bomb.

Depends -- define "some big company" ;)
 

TheCrow__

Banned
I don't know a big Eastern corporation who would want to start unrest and end the protests due to losses caused by the strikes.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
If the guy who threw the bomb was a provocateur the public wouldn't give two mouse farts, the idea that big companies use secret agents to break up strikes is common to many, one of the dystopian things they grew to live with. Sure, it might radicalize a few more people, but only those who were on the brink anyways.
 

TheCrow__

Banned
At this point of time radical fervor was quite high there was a large ammount of people involved in these protests. And if this secret agent of a very large company was arrested and the event investigated and then widely publicized. Plus that Parsons and the other anarchists are not arrested and hung the strikes would go on until the 8-Hour day was established or some other event ended it. I'd see the public taking a great interest in this mmmeee0.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
However it's not enough of a change from the norm. People died, big corporations are manipulating the law, anarchists want a revolution. Same thing that happened the year before, just a different detail or a dozen.
 

TheCrow__

Banned
I'm sorry but I don't see the public just being like look these peaceful protesters were going to be framed by this corporation for throwing a bomb at police. Well obviously these companies are scared of these protesters for some reason ahh oh well it's sad.? I can't see that happening it would be more like wow obviously these protesters are right lets join in, power to the people we want an 8-Hour work day.:D
 
Would such an event spur on Congress to push through legislation restricting corporations?
Probably the opposite would happen-- Congress would be more likely to pass anto-'socialist' legislation against Anarchist organizations. There wouldn't have been any trouble if those rabblerousers hadn't been rousing the rabble in the first place, after all.
I'm sorry but I don't see the public just being like look these peaceful protesters were going to be framed by this corporation for throwing a bomb at police. Well obviously these companies are scared of these protesters for some reason ahh oh well it's sad.? I can't see that happening it would be more like wow obviously these protesters are right lets join in, power to the people we want an 8-Hour work day.:D
No self-respecting "native" American would join in. Those socialists are all foreign types, you know. Their newspapers have to be published in German and Czech and all sorts of nonsense like that, their ideas are taken straight from communists in Germany or whatever godforsaken country they're in now, and I'm a clerk/shopkeeper/middle class employee anyways and I don't want to associate myself with that mob.
 

TheCrow__

Banned
Just because some of the leaders and the advocates for anarchism and socialism were foreign means nothing. A large ammount of the protesters were your average American worker who is being exploited by a corporate fascist police state. I see if the events at Haymarket go as I described then the radical fervor would flourish not just among your foreign and American workers but to a large ammount of the general public as well. Newspapers all over would be publishing stories about the corrupt corporate baurecrats paying off some guy to throw a bomb at the cops cause they were scared of the protesters and what they were preaching, why because they were right. And besides Albert Parsons the so called leader of the Haymarket event was born and raised in America.:cool::D.
 
I don't know. The public reaction to the Haymarket bombing had a lot to do with ethnicity as well as class. A lot would depend on how the corporate conspirators were exposed. If the conspirators had some way they could deny their connection, I think they had a chance of getting out of it. I do not see thousands of 'decent folk' suddenly saying, "The German anarchists are right! Down the robber barons!"

The hypothetical conspirators also had a very friendly city and state government that would have been reluctant to prosecute them. Illinois would get 2 governors a bit later on, Altgeld and Tanner, who were more pro-labor; maybe Altgeld, if still elected in TTL, would resurrect a dead case and press charges against whoever conspired to bomb the rally. (In OTL, Altgeld pardoned 3 of the convicted Haymarket bombers.)

Depending on how the conspiracy was revealed to the public, there might be some public pressure to prosecute the wrongdoers. But Illinois government, then as now, could be very opaque and unresponsive.
 

TheCrow__

Banned
I was thinking to spice it up a bit then. Let's say the rain does'nt come and the Mayor stays longer or possibly to the end of the speeches. Once this comes around the police as OTL tell the protesters to disperse or this could come earlier. The bomb throwing maniac throws the bomb in the direction of the police but it explodes nearer to the Mayor and he could be killed or injured. Even if he's not the bomber is going to be arrested for trying to kill him. Parsons hears the police interrogating the man and posts the story in his paper. Following this the story is made public through out the country.
 
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