A Laborious Unrest

May 4th, 1886, Chicago: "The Haymarket Massacre"
After months of campaigning on the part of the Federated Trades and Union Organization for an eight hour work day, a crowd gathered in Haymarket Square in protest. Ostensibly organized by radical left journalist, August Spies, the activist was later found to be absent from the event itself. While tensions between the Labor Unions and Chicago Police Department had been rising steadily for years, no one could have predicted the level of violence that erupted that fateful day in May.

Opinion is divided on who was ultimately responsible for the incident, but what is known is that shortly after 9am a blast leveled six city blocks, turning Haymarket Square into a smoking crater and killing hundreds. The subsequent police crackdown saw arrests, beatings and harassment that continued through the day and by 5pm a mob made up of the working poor, labor activists, and, supposedly, avowed anarchists was rioting in most neighborhoods from Highland Park to Oak Lawn.

In the days that followed the size of the explosion led authorities to accuse the Dwarven Machinist's Union, which resulted in widespread destruction of Dwarven homes, the burning of Dwarven-owned factories and warehouses, and the eventual arrest, trial and execution of Rudolph Shalebelt, an activist from Chicago's most powerful clan.

Most agree today that the truth of the massacre was far more sinister. The recently released secret correspondence of Allan Pinkerton suggests that an agent provocateur sent by his infamous detective agency was responsible. Accounts from the Homestead Strike some 6 years later make it clear that bellamancers were often employed to cause as much collateral damage as possible. The sheer destructive power of the blast, previously thought to be only possible with some kind of Dwarven technology, could have instead be the work of a powerful Pinkerton Mage, or, more likely, a cabal of them.

Though the incident and subsequent police and labor riots saw the deaths of thousands, the Haymarket massacre ultimately united labor movements and inspired activists well into the 20th century. New York labor leader, Spot Conlon, who led the Newspaper Boy strike in 1899, cited the Haymarket Massacre as a primary reason for taking on the print conglomerates.