Anarchist; born in Landeck,
Germany, Dec. 10, 1855; came to the
United States in 1871, and found work as an upholsterer in
Chicago, Ill. He joined the socialists in 1876; became publisher of the
Arbeiter-Zeitung in 1880, and its editor in 1884.
In his speeches as well as his paper he advocated anarchy and denounced the government.
On May 3, 1886, strikes and mobs succeeded in closing a majority of the factories in
Chicago.
A crowd numbering about 12,000 men, carrying the
American flag, attacked the men who had remained at work.
The police, after shooting five strikers and arresting eleven, succeeded in dispersing the rest.
Spies immediately issued a
Revenge circular, calling on workingmen to arm themselves to resist the police.
At the same time another leaflet was circulated urging workingmen to assemble fully armed in Haymarket Square on the following day (May 4). On the evening of that day a large crowd gathered and 180 policemen advanced to disperse them, when a bomb was thrown into the midst of the officers, killing one and wounding sixty-two, several of whom afterwards died.
Many arrests were made of those who were supposed to have been implicated in the outrage.
All of these were discharged excepting Spies,
George Engel,
Oscar Neebe,
Adolph Fischer,
Louis Lingg,
Michael Schwab, and
Samuel Fielden.
Later
Albert R. Parsons, who had been indicted with the others for murder but escaped, gave himself up. On Sept. 9, 1887,
Louis Lingg committed suicide by exploding dynamite in his mouth.
Spies,
Engel,
Fischer, and
Parsons were hanged on Nov. 11, 1887.
Neebe,
Schwab, and
Fielden, who were sentenced to prison for life, were pardoned by
Governor Altgeld, June 26, 1893.
