Junior and Lulu likely did not return to Lucy’s care until after she returned from her tour for good at the end of March. Predictably, the family suffered from Albert’s imprisonment. On December 23, 1886, when Lucy was somewhere between Omaha and Saint Joseph, Missouri, Albert heard from Lizzie Swank Holmes that Lulu was ill. Of the five-year-old Lulu, Swank Holmes wrote, “She is with the kindest of people, indeed she could not be taken better care of any where as they have the means and ability and willingness to do anything in the world for her.” Lizzie had visited Lulu and reported that they had a warm meeting, but that the girl barely spoke to her. Concerned, Albert telegraphed his friend Dyer Lum to check on Lulu. Lum, a frequent contributor to The Alarm (he would become Albert’s successor as editor of a resurrected version of the paper in 1888), had been living in Lucy’s apartment while she was away. He went to see Lulu and assured Albert that she was recovering as well as could be expected from scarlet fever.7
Albert entertained a stream of guests, some of them bearing fruit and other gifts—Lucy brought him cigars and grapes—and for the most part he welcomed the attention of the reporters always milling around outside the cage. When he was in town, General William Parsons accompanied Lucy to see his brother. Other visitors included a young lawyer named Clarence Darrow, who had just moved to Chicago looking for work. He found Parsons to be a “bright, talkative fellow,” the author of “brainless” speeches that were nonetheless deserving of First Amendment protection. Joseph Buchanan, editor of Denver’s Labor Enquirer, had moved both himself and his paper to Chicago in February 1887, and he frequently went to the jail to talk with Parsons. One unexpected visitor was the newspaper editor James P. Newcomb, Parsons’s Republican mentor from his Texas Reconstruction days. Newcomb, the brother-in-law of State’s Attorney Julius Grinnell, who had prosecuted the case, remembered Parsons as “a very impulsive man.” He told the prisoner to his face that he considered the verdict a just one. For the benefit of reporters standing nearby, pencil and notebook in hand, Newcomb also ridiculed Lucy’s story of her Native American origins, saying that Waco had many black people, but “no Indians with whom she could claim relation.”8
Of all the prisoners, Parsons seemed to adjust to life in prison best, bearing up under intense public scrutiny with calm courage, according to observers. His amiable demeanor, clear eyes, firm handshake, and love of animated conversation betrayed no trace of depression or existential angst, in contrast to some of the other men, and he did not seem to be losing weight. Buchanan later wrote that Parsons exhibited a “cheery manner that never once left him.” Allowed to greet his family outside his cell on occasion, he gave the children piggyback rides up and down the corridor. He took advantage of the twice-a-day exercise periods and kept up a disciplined writing schedule, firing off angry letters to the major Chicago papers and to the Knights’ Grand Master Workman Powderly. Parsons reminded Powderly that he had spoken before an estimated half-million laboring men over his career, and disputed the idea that anarchism “is destructive of civil liberty.” He also wrote a brief autobiography, which would be published in the October 16, 1886, issue of Chicago’s Knights of Labor; he assured his readers that “anarchists do not advocate—or advise—the use of force,” making no note of the glaring contradiction between this assertion and his past statements. With only a penknife he whittled two small wooden vessels, a tugboat and a steamer, extraordinary for their detail; at least one of them was later raffled off at 10 cents a ticket and brought in $147.47 for the defense fund. He read the morning papers regularly and kept up a scrapbook of clippings from Lucy’s speaking tour and other articles about Haymarket. He tidied his cell, and he tried to curry favor with his keepers and with the deputy sheriff, Canute R. Matson.9
The guards developed a grudging respect for Parsons and granted him small privileges, such as allowing him to keep an easy chair in his cell, and allowing Lucy and the children to visit him outside the cage. Grateful for access to him, reporters wrote favorably of his self-discipline and love for his wife. The Chicago News provided a breathless account of one of the couple’s meetings: “His anarchist arms were thrown open, and into them glided the sylph-like form…, her head rested on his bosom for an instant, then their lips met in conjugal salute,” adding, “a more affectionate couple the turnkeys hadn’t seen for a long time.” In an interview with a reporter for the same paper, Parsons went out of his way to say that he and the other prisoners had received courteous treatment, “and have every comfort and attention that one can reasonably expect when under sentence of death, etc. We realize the fact that we are in jail, and not stopping at a hotel, and therefore do not expect to have things quite our way.” For the time being, at least, he would make peace with these agents of a corrupt capitalist state—and perhaps pass along to them a cash token of his appreciation for their seemingly solicitous behavior.10
Parsons relished his new role as the resident oracle of Chicago labor politics. Soon after the first convention of the United Labor Party in September 1886, the Chicago Times ran a story under the headline “What Parsons Thinks,” quoting him at length. From his cell, though, he could only watch as striking workers suffered a series of setbacks. In the fall of 1886, the meatpackers were forced to return to a ten-hour day, though they had won shorter hours the spring before, and the following May the building trades suffered a crushing lockout. Still, he felt vindicated when several of his former socialist comrades took the Knights in a direction that contrasted mightily with the policies of the parent body as shaped by the conservative Powderly. For Tommy Morgan and other socialists, the Haymarket trial amounted to an attack on free speech: the police might deprive workers of guns, “but they can’t keep us from shooting off our mouths,” Morgan said. In the early fall of 1886, the Illinois legislature had passed anti-conspiracy and anti-boycott legislation in reaction to the bombing. These extreme measures gave the ULP a boost as embattled workers rallied behind the party in opposition to mainstream politics. During the November county and state elections, the party won 25,000 out of 92,000 votes cast, sending seven men to the lower house of the legislature and one to the state senate. Of the six judges the ULP endorsed, five were elected. A substantial amount of support for these candidates came from Chicago’s northwest, the immigrant community that incubated the Parsonses’ radicalism. Even some anarchists there were voting for the ULP.11
Despite the strenuous exertions of Morgan, Schilling, and others, the ULP soon foundered. In the city, as in the rest of the country, the ULP appealed by and large to currency reformers and German and English socialists, failing to dislodge most native-born workers from their traditional loyalties to either the Republicans or the Democrats. Irish American Democrats, for instance, felt sympathy for the police killed in the Haymarket blast, most of whom were their compatriots.12
For Albert and Lucy Parsons, the moribund labor party served to illustrate the futility of political action, though the Knights of Labor retained a strong presence in Chicago through 1887, and its leaders cast a favorable light on the Haymarket prisoners and their families. Bert Stewart, the editor of the organization’s vibrant weekly, Knights of Labor, promoted socialist ideas and provided favorable and extensive coverage of the cellmates. The paper also gave over considerable space to Lucy, with enthusiastic feature stories highlighting her supposed life-story (“Mrs. Lucy Parsons: The Spanish Wife of A. R. Parsons”), her speeches, and her triumphant speaking tour. The paper included a drawing of her, and reprinted her letters to Albert. In them, she gleefully quoted a New York newspaper urging that “Parsons be let out as a compromise to get Mrs. Parsons to stop talking.”13
LUCY PARSONS ENDED HER SPEAKING TOUR IN MARCH 1887 WITH trips to Cincinnati and Columbus. She was, by her own admission, suffering from physical and emotional exhaustion from all the travel. Her decision to return home for good after visits to Michigan, New York State, Wisconsin, and Ohio from January to March of that year might have been her plan from the beginning. Or perhaps she mis
sed her husband and children, and felt she could do more good in Chicago in any case. It is also possible that her experience in Columbus, where she was briefly jailed for disorderly conduct, convinced her that each day on the road she risked incarceration at the whim of a mayor or local police chief.
Arriving in Columbus on March 8, she learned that her hosts had rented the armory for her for the next day. When the hall’s agent realized that it was she who was to speak, he rescinded the agreement. Outraged, Parsons quickly made her way to the office of Mayor Charles C. Walcutt, where she found him “much the worse for drink,” and surrounded by twenty-five police officers. When she tried to argue with the mayor, he stopped her in mid-sentence and said, “I don’t want to hear anything from you. There will be no meeting in that hall tonight.” He then ordered his “sleuth-hounds” to “take her down.” An officer ripped off her shawl, the better to grasp her arm, and dragged her downstairs to the “ranch,” a narrow corridor leading to “small, dark, filthy, ill-smelling dungeonlike cells.” Shoved into the passageway, she found sympathy among the prostitutes; they tried to cheer her up, saying that as a first-time offender charged with disorderly conduct, she was bound to get off easily, with bail at $10, a fine of $5 (or, in lieu of cash, a watch). She spent the night in an “insufferably hot hole” with leering guards posted outside her cell.14
The next day, in anticipation of a courthouse hearing, reporters, police, and her supporters packed the building’s lobby. Accompanied by two lawyers, Parsons paid her $100 bail with money that had been telegraphed to her by friends in Cincinnati and Chicago, on the understanding that she would return on April 13 to stand trial for “obscene language,” among other charges (she would fail to keep the court date). At some point she exclaimed to the crowd gathered outside, “Your liberty is ended, American citizens. The right of free speech is refused.” In print she berated the “petty tyrant of a Mayor” who abrogated a hall rental contract and trumped up charges to throw her in jail. She professed shock that the police had treated her so disrespectfully, and disgust that she had been made to sleep on a stone floor and suffer other indignities that offended her womanly sensibilities. “As for the vile libel about my using ‘obscene language,’” she wrote primly, “the thousands of my friends who know me in this and other cities, can bear witness that no language is ever used by me unbecoming to a lady.” The indictment claimed she had used “hot and angry words” against the officer who arrested her.15
The arrest made the front page of the New York Times and major Chicago dailies (the Tribune reported that she “acted more like a wild beast at bay than a human being”). A guard at the Cook County jail in Chicago took it upon himself to give a reporter a telegram she had sent to Albert. It read, “Arrested to prevent my speaking. Am all right. Notify press. Lucy,” an indication that she considered her troubles in Columbus something of a publicity coup. And indeed, Lucy made good use of her short stint in jail; afterward, she wrote a lengthy account in the form of a letter to the city’s Sunday Capital, a piece that was reprinted in labor periodicals and other papers. The editors of the Capital signaled their sympathy toward her when they condemned her “unnecessary arrest” as judicial overreach; although they abhorred communism and anarchism (and “Mormonism and Mahomedanism,” for that matter), they believed she had a right to speak. Still, despite some positive publicity, in the end the incident offered a cautionary tale: if hall rental contracts could be broken with impunity, and if the authorities could arrest her for disorderly conduct, by continuing the tour she was gambling that the mayor in the next city would show more forbearance. And for the rest of her life, she showed a determination to avoid overnight stints in jail at all costs; presumably, the physical discomforts that came with incarceration were too great for her to bear willingly.16
The fallout from Lucy’s Columbus appearance and jail time angered the Knights’ leader, Powderly, who represented the many workers and union leaders reluctant to express their misgivings about the peripatetic Mrs. Parsons in public. Powderly was queried by Albert’s Denver supporters: “Have you not sworn to protect his life, reputation, and family?” More specifically, “Why did you not step to the front to defend his helpless wife when she was in jail for the cause of labor and she was denied the right of free speech and jailed for opening her mouth by the drunken mayor of Columbus, Ohio?” Powderly replied (in comments published in a “secret circular”), “My answer is because she is not his wife; because they only live together, and are not married, and because it is not my business to look after any woman of bad reputation, white or negro who tramps around the country as she does.” Powderly also claimed that Albert’s brother William had provided him with proof-positive evidence that “the Chicago men are assassins.”17
Back home, Lucy encountered a “press of admirers” who wanted to shake her hand and congratulate her for raising so much money for the defense of the prisoners and enduring jail time in Columbus. An unannounced appearance at a socialist lecture, or a Knights district assembly meeting, concert, or benefit (such as “Dance for the Doomed”), could elicit cheers and calls for her to speak; few of her supporters ever tired of hearing her proclaim, “I will bow down to the Stars and Stripes when there is no unemployment,” or “I am an anarchist! Let them strangle me if they dare!” Indeed, she showed no interest in tempering her language, instead exhorting listeners to throw bombs and dynamite to right the wrongs they suffered at the hands of the ruling class—this even in the presence of pistol-packing detectives. Meanwhile, Chicago authorities looked on warily, worried that what they considered her “bloodthirsty harangue” could trigger more deadly assaults. She was, in the words of one policeman, “a dangerous woman,” especially now that adoring crowds in the East “had the effect of convincing her that she is the biggest Anarchist out of jail, and she will not hesitate to do everything in her power to convince others of this fact.”18
For labor leaders determined to stake a claim to respectability, associating with Lucy Parsons proved problematic. In July, at the annual picnic of the conservative International Brewers and Maltsters Union in Ogden’s Grove, Parsons caused a stir when she appropriated the refreshment stand for her own purposes to sell books, pamphlets, and other materials. Turning to a policeman who was menacing her, she taunted, “Mind what you’re doing. There’s dynamite between the leaves and you’ll get blown up.” She continued, “It’s a pity that Bonfield and a couple hundred more of them had not been killed by the bomb.” The president of the union asked her to leave, which she refused to do, saying, “I am here exercising my rights as an American citizen in free speech. If you Russians and Bohemians haven’t courage to do likewise you had best go back where you came from.” A row broke out between those who wanted her to stay and those who wanted her to go, with the dispute finally settled by a downpour that scattered the picnickers.19
On August 28, an intensely hot day, she and Tommy Morgan shared the stage at a socialists’ picnic in Sheffield, Indiana, an affair that netted an estimated $2,000 for the prisoners’ defense fund. When the crowd called for her, Parsons mounted the platform, and began by admitting that the strain of constant speaking had affected her health. The chivalrous Morgan held an umbrella to shield her from the sun as she launched into a stock address, “I stand before you as an anarchist.” One reporter wrote that Morgan seemed “very ill at ease during her speech,” and relieved when she finished.20
During the late summer and early fall of 1887, Lucy showed signs of increasing desperation as she came to realize that time was running out for her husband. Albert was in a reflective mood: “Am I tired of my life? Ah, no. I am still a young man (thirty-eight years).” His upcoming death would be, he thought, “both a pleasure and an honor,” though he admitted that “I worship my family and they idolize papa.” Ever since the jury had rendered its decision in August the year before, the couple had held out hope that the verdict would be reversed. Judge Gary had declared on October 9 of that year that he was unwilling to ove
rrule the jury, but the following month the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and issued a temporary stay of execution. In March 1887, in an appeal to that court, defense lawyers argued that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict the men. On September 14 the court announced that it had rejected the prisoners’ appeal and set the execution date for November 11. Now the only available avenues for the prisoners were the US Supreme Court and Governor Oglesby, who had the power to issue pardons and grant amnesty. Lucy knew full well that her husband’s life and the well-being of her family hinged on the governor and on the judicial system that she had so openly and often derided. Meanwhile, she ramped up her public appearances in a way that left observers confused about her motives and state of mind.21
At 2 p.m. on September 23, Chicago police took Lucy into custody for standing on a street corner handing out copies of a two-page letter written by Albert—the first time in her career as an agitator that the police in her home city had arrested her. She was charged with violating an ordinance that prohibited people from distributing handbills advertising their businesses or commercial services, a law clearly irrelevant in this instance. As the police prepared to lead her away, she managed to thrust the copies she had left into the hands of startled bystanders and passers-by. Albert’s letter “To the American People” refuted the state’s case point by point. Disingenuously, he denied that he had ever written or spoken in an inflammatory way, and once more recounted his actions on the night of May 4. He disputed the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court and scorned the idea of a pardon or clemency: “I appeal not for mercy, but for justice!” Finally, he declared, “No, I am not guilty. I have not been proved guilty.” He ended with “I know not what course others may pursue, but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”22
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