Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary

290 Pages·1976·8.982 MB·English

by  Carolyn Ashbaugh

LUCY
PARSONS
American Revolutionary
by Carolyn Ashbaugh
1976 Chicago
CHARLES H. KERR PUBLISHING COMPANY
Published for the Illinois Labor History Society
~478
©
Copyright 1976
Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company
Printed in the United States of America
LC 75-23909
ISBN 0-88286-005-4 paper
ISBN 0-88286-014-3 cloth
Graphic Design: Pamela Rice and Leo Tanenbaum
Acknowledgments
The Harold A. Fletcher Award from Grinnell College, the
Ralph Korngold Fellowship from the Newberry Library, and a
Youthgrant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
have supported my research. I owe special thanks to Lawrence
W. Towner, Director of The Newberry Library and to Richard
Brown and James Wells, the Associate Directors of the Library,
and to Mrs. Piri Korngold who furnished the Ralph Korngold
Fellowship. My good friend Jane Marcus has encouraged and
assisted my work on Lucy Parsons since its beginning, when I
was a student and she a teacher at the Associated Colleges of
the Midwest and Newberry Library Seminar in the Humanities
the fall of 1972.
Special thanks to my friends Leslie Orear, President of the
Illinois Labor History Society, who first suggested I write a
book about Lucy Parsons, and to Professor William Adelman
of the University of Illinois Institute of Labor and Industrial
Relations and author of Touring Pullman and Haymarket
Revisited, who has shared his extensive research and the excite
ment of each new discovery about Lucy Parsons with me.
Joseph Giganti, Fred Thompson, and Irving Abrams, board
members of the Charles H. Kerr Pub. Co. have shared their
recollections of Lucy Parsons with me. Joe and Fred have offered
valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript. Irwin St.
John Tucker recounted the 1915 Hunger Demonstration for me.
Stella Nowicki, Eugene Jasinski, Mario Manzardo, Francis
Heisler, Henry Rosemont, Clarence Stoecker, Vera Buch
W eisbord, Albert W eisbord, Sid Harris, George Winthers, Abe
Feinglass, Sam Dolgoff, Lucy Haessler, Arthur Weinberg, and
the late James P. Cannon have all shared their knowledge of
Lucy Parsons with me and enriched my knowledge of the history
of the labor and radical movements. The late Boris Yelensky
shared his impressions through lengthy correspondence.
A special thanks to Mrs. Lucie C. Price of Austin, Texas,
who researched the Texas careers of William and .Albert Parsons
4
at the Archives of the University of Texas and the State
Historical Library of Texas.
I owe a debt of appreciation to William D. Parsons and to
Katharine Parsons Russell for discussing with me the effect of
the Haymarket Affair on the Parsons family and to William
Parsons for the picture of his great-grandfather, General William
Henry Parsons.
My friends Sandra Bartky, Laura X, Sara Heslep, Anne
Walter, Mrs. Mae Coy Ball, Tom DuBois, Marcus Cohen and
many others have inspired and encouraged me. Thanks to the
members of the history department at Grinnell College-Don
Smith, Alan Jones, Joseph Wall, David Jordan, Philip Kintner
and Greg Guroff-who have offered suggestions and stimulated
my work and to Florence Chanock Cohen for her critical
comments and editorial suggestions on my manuscript.
Thanks to Hartmut Keil and Theodore Waldinger for
translations from the German. Thanks to Barbara Morgan and
Martin Ptacek for photography. Thanks to Jamie Fogle for art
work and to Sara Heslep for proofreading.
Dione Miles of the Wayne State Labor Archives; Dorothy
Swanson of the Tamiment Institute, New York University;
Edward Weber of the Labadie Collection at the University of
Michigan Library; Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Mary Ann
Bamberger of the Manuscript Collection, University of Illinois
at Chicago Circle; Charles P. LeWarne; Judge William J.
Wimbiscus of the State of Illinois Thirteenth Judicial Circuit;
Irene Moran and Diane Clardy of the Bancroft Library; Dr.
Josephine L. Harper and Miss Katherine S. Thompson of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Archie Motley, Linda
Evans, Neal Ney, Larry Viskochil, John Tris, Julia Westerberg
and Miriam Blazowski of the Chicago Historical Society; the
staff of Newberry Library; and staff members of other libraries
too numerous to mention have assisted my research.
My thanks to the following for permission to use unpublished
material: the Illinois Labor History Society for permission to
quote from Lucy Parsons; Kathleen S. Spaulding for permission
to quote from George Schilling; University of Illinois at Urbana
for permission to quote from the Thomas J. Morgan Papers;
Houghton Library, Harvard for permission to quote from letters
by Dyer D. Lum, Carl Nold and Robert Steiner in the Joseph
Isbill Collection; the Bancroft Library for permission to quote
from the Thomas Mooney Papers; the Manuscript Collection,
University of Illinois at Chicago Circle for permission to quote
from the Ben L. Reitman Papers; the Washington State His
torical Society, Tacoma, Washington for permission to quote
from Thomas Bogard; Labadie Collection at the University of
Michigan Library for permission to quote from Agnes Inglis;
and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for permission to
quote from the Albert R. Parsons Papers and the Knights of
Labor Collection.
The cover picture and the picture on page 12 are from the
1903 edition of The Life of Albert R. Parsons, courtesy of the
Chicago Historical Society.
July, 1976 Carolyn Ashbaugh
Preface
Lucy Parsons was black, a woman, and working class--three
reasons people are often excluded from history. Lucy herself
pointed out the class bias of history in 1905 when she criti
cized historians who had written about "the course of wars, the
outcome of battles, political changes, the rise and fall of
dynasties and other similar movements, leaving the lives of
those whose labor has built the world. . . in contemptuous
silence." The problem of piecing together Lucy Parsons' life
(1853-1942) from fragmentary evidence was more difficult
than the usual problem of writing about a working class rebel,
because the forces of "law and order" seized her personal papers
at the time of her death.
Even among histories by and about socialists, the work of
women has been largely ignored. On the left, the view of Lucy
Parsons as the "devoted assistant" of her martyred husband
Albert Richard Parsons is prevalent. Feminists who have for
gotten the radical working class roots of the feminist move
ment have also overlooked Lucy Parsons. Editors of the Rad
cliffe Notable American Women three volume work consigned
Lucy Parsons to their discard file on the grounds that she was
"largely propelled by husband's fate" and was "a pathetic
figure, living in the past and crying injustice" after the Hay
market Police Riot.
However, Lucy Parsons, a black woman, was a recognized
leader of the predominately white male working class move
ment in Chicago long before the 1886 police riot. Even Labor's
Untold Story, which offers a sympathetic although sentimental
account of Lucy, states that she became involved in the radical
movement only after her husband was sentenced to death and
then primarily to save his life. Lucy Parsons was not interested
in saving Albert Parsons' life. She was interested in emancipat
ing the working class from wage slavery. Lucy and Albert were
prepared-even eager-to sacrifice his life, believing his death
as a martyr would advance the cause. Lucy was eager to offer her
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own life as well in the struggle for economic emancipation.
Only Howard Fast in The American, his fictionalized bio
graphy of John Peter Altgeld, has thus far captured the
strength, character and determination of Lucy Parsons.
The impression that Lucy Parsons devoted her life to clearing
her husband's name of the charge of murder is erroneous,
generated by the fact that when reporters heard her lecture they
stressed her connection to Albert Parsons and emphasized the
comparisons she made between the contemporary situation in
the labor movement and the events of 1886-1887. H Lucy spoke
for an hour and a half on the Sacco and Vanzetti case or the
Tom Mooney case, then alluded to the Haymarket case for 15
minutes, the newspapers reported that she had denounced the
police for murdering her husband in 1887. However, Lucy
Parsons was one of many labor radicals, liberals, and reformers
who connected each frame-up case with the legal precedent for
political conspiracy trials, the trial of the Haymarket "anarch
ists" in 1886.
On May 1, 1886, the city of Chicago had been shut down
in a general strike for the eight hour working day-the first
May Day. On May 4, the police broke up a meeting in Hay
market Square that had been called to protest police brutality.
Someone threw a bomb, and the police began shooting wildly,
fatally wounding at least seven demonstrators. Most of the
police casualties resulted from their own guns. Eight radical
leaders, including Albert Parsons, were brought to trial for the
bombing. All the prosecution had to prove was that the men on
trial were the same men who had been making speeches on the
lakefront and publishing the radical workers' papers the Alarm
and Arbeiter-Zeitung. The court ruled that although the defend
ants neither threw the bomb nor knew who threw the bomb,
their speeches and writings prior to the bombing might have
inspired some unknown person to throw it and held them "ac
cessories before the fact" in the murder of policeman Mathias
Degan. All eight were convicted, and on November 11, 1887,
Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George
Engel were hanged.
Lucy Parsons remained active in the radical labor movement
for another 5 5 years. She published newspapers, pamphlets, and
books, traveled and lectured extensively, and led many demon-
8
strations. She concentrated her work with the poorest, most
downtrodden people, the unemployed and the foreign born.
She was a member of the Social Democracy in 1897, a founding
member of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, and
was elected to the National Committee of the International
Labor Defense in 1927.
Lucy Parsons was a colorful figure whose style was to capture
headlines. She had a commanding appearance-tall, dark, and
beautiful, a beauty which turned to a mellow, peaceful expres
sion as she aged-and a tremendous speaking voice which
captivated audiences with its low musical resonance. Lucy was a
firebrand who spoke with terrifying intensity when the occasion
demanded it.
Lucy's struggle with the Chicago police for free speech lasted
for decades. Police broke up meetings only because the speaker
was Lucy Parsons; they dealt with her in an aggressive and
unlawful manner, systematically violating her right to free
speech and assembly. Although Lucy was hated by the police,
Chicago liberals often came to her assistance. In about 1898
Graham Taylor of the Chicago Commons Settlement House
arranged for her to speak at the settlement's Free Floor Forum
without police harrassment. When Lucy was arrested while
leading a Hunger Demonstration in 1915 Jane Addams of Hull
House arranged her bail. Deputy Police Chief Schuettler de
nounced Addams and linked the two women: "If Miss Addams
thinks it is all right for an avowed and dangerous anarchist
like Lucy Parsons to parade with a black flag and a band of
bad characters, I suggest that she go ahead and preach the
doctrine outright.''
By portraying Lucy Parsons as a criminal, the police and
newspapers tried to direct public attention away from the real
issues which Lucy was trying to raise: unemployment and
hunger. Irwin St. John Tucker, the young Episcopalian minister
and socialist who was arrested with Lucy in 1915, recently re
called, "Lucy Parsons wasn't a hell-raiser; she was only trying
to raise the obvious issues about human life. She was not a
riot-inciter, though she was accused of it. She was of a religious
nature." "Friar Tuck" found Lucy a likeable and compelling
person.
Lucy Parsons' life energy was directed toward freeing the
9
working class from capitalism. She attributed the inferior posi
tion of women and minority racial groups in American society
to class inequalities and argued, as Eugene Debs later did, that
blacks were oppressed because they were poor, not because they
were black. Lucy favored the availability of birth control in
formation and contraceptive devices. She believed that under
socialism women would have the right to divorce and remarry
without economic, political and religious constraints; that women
would have the right to limit the number of children they would
have; and that women would have the right to prevent "legal
ized" rape in marriage.
Lucy Parsons' life expressed the anger of the unemployed,
workers, women and minorities against oppression and is ex
emplary of radicals' efforts to organize the working class for
social change.