Goddess of Anarchy

by Jacqueline Jones

  Lucy Parsons had lived and worked through several devastating economic downturns. (In 1931, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reminded its readers that periodic high rates of unemployment among the laboring classes were to be expected, quoting from a speech that Parsons had delivered in Chicago in August 1893.) She was accustomed, too, to the relentless self-promotion of elites even in the midst of widespread suffering. Sixty years after her husband toured the Inter-State Industrial Exposition during the recession of 1873, and forty years after the World’s Columbian Exposition was staged amid the depression of 1893, Chicago sponsored the Century of Progress Exposition, with the motto “Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms.” For Parsons, the six-month spectacle meant only the possibility of a reunion with a few “Old Timers,” as fellow radicals traveled to Chicago to take in the event.35

  During the depression, Parsons was deeply disappointed that so many Chicago workers enthusiastically supported the Democratic Party and the federal initiatives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Beginning soon after his inauguration in January 1933 and continuing through 1938, Roosevelt ushered through Congress a series of legislative initiatives designed to smooth the rough edges of industrial capitalism—unemployment compensation, minimum wages and maximum hours, and Social Security, as well as public jobs programs and temporary cash aid. Prohibition was repealed, and the courts gradually reversed the restrictions on free speech that had been the hallmark of the World War I era. Yet neither radicalism nor repression ended. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which included unions in mining, car manufacturing, steel, and meatpacking, was birthed in bloody strikes in Chicago, Detroit, and elsewhere. On Memorial Day Sunday in 1937, striking Chicago steelworkers picnicking with their families were attacked by the police; in what became known as the Memorial Day massacre, ten people were killed (most of them shot in the back) and at least one hundred wounded. Louis Terkel—later better known by his nickname, Studs—observed sardonically, “Baskets of fried chicken, pierogi, potato salad and cole slaw were the picknickers’ weapons in a full-fire zone.” The next day, the Tribune’s front-page headline read, “Police Repulse Mob Attack.”36

  Many years before, Parsons might have seen in such an outrage the dawning of a revolution in the form of a new burst of organizing on behalf of the aggressive, militant CIO. Now, however, she expressed profound disillusionment with craft unions, such as the carpenters and milk-wagon drivers, trade groups run by hierarchical, rule-laden bureaucracies. Moreover, despite attacks from both the Left and the Right over the years, the two-party system remained intact; seeking to capture the center, the Democrats had never truly delivered for the laboring classes. And so she lauded the communists for what they were doing to move the country forward: “They are very good propagandists; they stir things up,” she said, referring to the neighborhood Unemployed Councils, citywide mass protests, and militant union-organizing drives. During the first five years of the Great Depression, the party would lead or take part in more than 2,000 demonstrations. Intrepid CIO organizers, and especially the women, acknowledged their debt to Parsons’s long history of labor agitation. Vera Buch Weisbord (a socialist-turned-communist, and organizer of textile and maritime workers) and others found themselves star-struck in her presence, honored to grasp her hand. To them, Parsons always seemed taller than she really was because they were accustomed to seeing her on a raised platform looking down upon their upturned, eager faces.37

  Parsons continued to support the ILD and to represent it in public. In March 1932, she appeared at a mass protest meeting with two other women whose male kin had endured persecution at the hands of the so-called justice system—Mary Mooney, eighty-four, the mother of jailed labor leader Tom Mooney, and Viola Montgomery, mother of Olen Montgomery, one of the young Scottsboro men who were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train the year before. Viola Montgomery had undertaken a nationwide speaking tour to publicize the plight of not only her son and the other eight young men but also black women of the rural South. Appealing to mothers everywhere, she wrote, “I tell the world that I am a working woman and an unhappy one because I all ways [sic] worked and I could not have nothing that I wanted nice to eat or wear.” A remarkable photograph published by the Tribune on March 19, 1932, shows Parsons standing between Montgomery and Mooney at the Waldheim memorial, perhaps the only time in her life that she joined forces—even for an evening—with another African American woman speaker-activist.38

  Throughout the 1930s, Parsons stuck to her anarchistic principles; she believed that the New Deal and its agent the Democratic Party would prove not only inadequate to the task of crushing the capitalistic system but absolutely destructive of radical possibilities. The Roosevelt administration’s policies amounted to a “wind that has blown the radical movement to Hell!” she declared. The initial flurry of legislation meant that “despotism is on horseback riding at high speed.” Anarchists in general were appalled that support for a strong federal government had gained radical cachet, and, even more distressing, that their own opposition to an emerging welfare state now put them in the same political camp as the abhorrent business-minded Republicans. Many workers maintained a faith in capitalism—or perhaps, more accurately, the idea of capitalism—and looked to the Democrats and large industrial unions to tinker with the system in ways that mitigated the uncertainty of old age and periodic unemployment. The new CIO would seem to resemble the IWW, but, according to anarchists, it merely bolstered industrial capitalism; and its duplicitous leader, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, was all too eager to toady to the Democrats. Most of the much-heralded social-welfare legislation applied only to employees in large plants; deprived of basic worker protections were all seasonal, agricultural, domestic-service, and part-time laborers.39

  By 1934, both the Communist Party and the ILD were allying with liberal reform groups, noncommunist unions, and even the Democrats in a reformist turn called the Popular Front. The party also took to embracing the Founding Fathers; presumably Benjamin Franklin, like Lenin, was an idealist and “tactically flexible.” CP leaders expressed general support for many New Deal initiatives. In Chicago, party members engaged in grassroots organizing on the South Side, where fully 90 percent of the black population was impoverished. Here was a modern dystopian cooperative commonwealth with an informal, wageless economy. In researching their book Black Metropolis, sociologists St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton found that “a girl might ‘do the hair’ of a neighbor in return for permission to use her pots and pans. Another woman might trade some bread for a glass of milk. There was seldom any money to lend or borrow, but the bartering of services and utensils was general.” Local black groups sponsored “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns, and neighbors threw rent parties—where party guests paid admission to raise funds for someone’s rent—to forestall foreclosure.40

  Subsisting on a functionary’s wage of $5 a week, Steve Nelson and other white communists working on the South Side soon learned that ordinary people had no interest in the fine points of communist dogma, but did need help in applying for government aid and paying for groceries. He noted, “We couldn’t just give speeches about the downfall of capitalism, and we couldn’t lead from a distance. We had to be with the people.” Likewise, Vera Buch Weisbord applauded incremental gains, but termed her own activism on behalf of the party “the long wait.” The New York politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. acknowledged the tentative, contingent appeal of the communists for ordinary black men and women: “The Negro neither fears the communist nor leans over backwards in admiration. The communist is the same to him as a Holy Roller, Republican, or Elk. He is just another human being to be judged individually on one basis—is he fighting for full and complete opportunity for black people?”41

  Interviewed by the Daily Worker in April 1934, Parsons (described as “this grey-haired woman”) drew parallels between the communists’ Popular Front and the “united front” that had brought together
unions of all kinds on the first of May in 1886. Now, forty-eight years later, she was the honorary chair of the Chicago May Day parade. A living symbol of the class struggle, she was happy to recall the events leading up to Haymarket: “This woman, sitting in her rocking chair, her chin cupped in her hand, is an inspiration to every worker,” wrote the Daily Worker. “She is herself part of the revolutionary tradition of the Chicago working class, a tradition that survives and is carried on by the Communist Party, a tradition that will smash through every effort of the Social-fascists to divide and confuse the workers.”42

  Interviews like this one prompted Parsons to look back to the heady days of her past and contemplate her own mortality. She recalled old comrades and wondered who among them had “checked out for the undiscovered country.” She donated Albert’s notes of his trial, together with the scrapbooks with clippings from her first national speaking tour, to the University of Wisconsin. She wrote to George Schilling, addressing him as “Dear Old Friend,” asking if he thought human nature tended toward love or hate. She assured friends that she was not a member of the CP but continued to work with its members, “as they are the only bunch who are making a vigorous protest against the present horrible conditions!” Her failing eyesight left her despondent, barely able to read or write.43

  Meanwhile, Parsons and her small circle of friends continued to “get together in our little groups, talk to each other and go home.” In a reflective mood, she mourned the fact that “anarchism has not produced any organizing ability in the present generation, only a few little, loose struggling groups scattered over this vast country” that met intermittently and then dissolved until the next gathering. Such sporadic activity hardly constituted a “movement,” she admitted. At the same time, she blamed herself and her comrades, who, for the past half-century, had been skilled “at showing the shortcomings of others,” but totally unable to achieve tangible gains. Ultimately, “this busy, practical world cares nothing for fine-spun theories; they want facts and[,] too, they want a few examples shown.” In short, she concluded, “anarchism is a dead issue in American life today.”44

  Nevertheless, as always, Parsons was able to muster enough energy for some score-settling. She had read Emma Goldman’s 993-page autobiography, Living My Life, soon after it came out in 1931, and considered it worthless for revolutionists eager to discover a way forward. In a letter to Carl Nold, she wrote, “This great big busy world cares but little about Emma Goldman’s scraps with the cops 25 years ago, at least not enough to pay $7.50 good dollars to learn it, at least this is my Judgement, I may be mistaken.” However, she saved her harshest words for what she called the “sex stuff,” an affront to the “thoughtful element.” “Just why she [Goldman] should have thought it interesting or instructive, or educating to list 15 of her ‘lovers’ is beyond me to understand,” she wrote Nold. “Certainly it is a poor specimen of a woman who can’t get a number of you men to accommodate her Sexually.” Parsons considered Goldman’s graphic account of her love affair with Reitman to be “Simply disgusting!” to any readers but those of a “debasted [sic] and depraved mind.”45

  For her part, the exiled Goldman cited Parsons as an example of a radical undone by her own moral weakness. She recalled the Martin Lacher scandal three decades before, when Parsons “dragged a man she had been living with into court over a few pieces of furniture.” Such was human frailty: “It’s in people; the movement or lack of it has nothing to do with such things.” She also indicted Parsons for her inconstancy in “go[ing] with every gang proclaiming itself revolutionary, the IWW [and] now the communists. Not to speak of her horrible treatment of [Albert R.] Parsons’ son, whom she drove into the army and then had him put in a lunatic asylum.”46

  Parsons’s social life now consisted of mostly modest pleasures. She entertained friends who passed through Chicago; in 1931, on his way home from California, Nold stayed with her, later reporting that she “kissed me heartily and served me wine.” Two years later she hosted him for more than a week; she was, he said, “well and happy.” Her house was sparsely furnished, but contained hundreds of volumes of European and American literature, including poetry, history, novels, and political theory. Pictures of her children as well as the urns containing their ashes were prominently displayed. She tended chickens and listened to the radio.47

  She especially enjoyed going to dinner at the North Mohawk Street home of Eugene Jasinski and his mother, who were both active radical labor organizers. The three would sit in the backyard surrounded by grapevines and lilac bushes, with shade from the apple, catalpa, and balsam trees, and Parsons would sing songs and recite classical poetry. Markstall (Parsons called him “Marks”), a short, quiet man, would sometimes accompany her, but he said little, preferring to read a book or write while the others talked. Usually expansive while recounting her turbulent life, she avoided mention of Lulu and Junior, and demurred when asked about them directly. Those who knew her well urged her to move somewhere so that someone could take care of her and make sure she had enough food in the house. The Chicago socialist Call began to commend her to their readers as an appropriate object of charity at Christmastime. She was receiving a small government pension for the blind, but she preferred her independence and her little house full of books. She did rely on party members to fetch her and drive her to parades and meetings, often in the company of Nina van Zandt.48

  Parsons’s writings and infrequent speaking engagements now took on added poignancy. In September 1934, she welcomed delegates to the Second U.S. Congress Against War and Fascism to Chicago; they were sponsored by the New York–based Communist Party of the USA. On April 12, 1936, she spoke at van Zandt’s memorial service, a huge event featuring a long car procession that traveled through Haymarket Square and on to Waldheim Cemetery. Not long before, the IWW had honored van Zandt at a meeting in Wobbly Hall. Ralph Chaplin described the scene: “Lucy Parsons was led to the platform to speak a few words. Mrs. Parsons was blind; Nina [van Zandt] Spies, almost in rags and wearing men’s shoes, made a pathetic effort at public reconciliation with her ancient rival.” Since Haymarket, the two had attended meetings together but never appeared together on the same speaking platform. At the memorial service, Parsons, who was the featured speaker, recounted a conversation with van Zandt when on one Haymarket anniversary they had found themselves together laying flowers on the graves at Waldheim Cemetery: “‘When I croak, will you speak at my funeral?’ ‘Yes, replied Nina, ‘unless I go first. In that case you must speak at mine.’” Parsons gave a sad goodbye: “You and I, Comrade Nina, have passed these 50 years together. Now the great curtain of mystery, death, has fallen and you are beyond. It is only a matter of days or months or hours before I must render my account with nature. If there be another world we will join hands and march on together, but I know nothing about that. Comrade Nina, fare thee well.”49

  Yet such sentimentality was uncharacteristic of Parsons, and perhaps in the end wholly disingenuous. Parsons was horrified to learn later that van Zandt had left her entire estate of $3,000 to care for stray animals, and not to further the cause of freedom. In a letter to a friend, Parsons railed about the former society girl, claiming she disgraced the name of August Spies—“he who died for the cause of the working class, he who flayed the rich exploiters during his lifetime.” She was certain that Spies himself never considered the marriage valid, citing his habit of referring to Nina as “Nina van Zandt” and never as his wife. Parsons confessed that she had only spoken at the service because people assumed they were rivals, and she feared that if she turned down the invitation, “I would be accused of being ‘jealous.’” Now she thought she had wasted her time.50

  Fifty years to the day after that fateful rally in Haymarket Square, Parsons was again featured in a May Day parade, this one on a rainy Friday, with 4,000 to 5,000 people processing through the Loop, holding aloft red banners and singing the Internationale. Joining in the parade was Studs Terkel, who had recently graduated from the Unive
rsity of Chicago Law School. Now on his way to becoming an activist-writer, he spoke to the crowd from a wagon, as Albert and the others had done a half-century before. The event received some surprising publicity in the Chicago Defender, with the headline “Labor to Honor Race Woman Widowed by Haymarket Riot”—the first and only time the paper acknowledged that Parsons was of African descent. In the article, Lucy Parsons was identified as “a member of the Race.”51

  The following year the procession was similar, what the Tribune called “radical labor’s annual May Day parade.” Local communists and socialists cooperated in planning the event at an earlier meeting, where Parsons spoke after being introduced by the head of Albert’s old Typographical Union No. 16. During the parade on May 1, the marchers passed by, scarlet banners flying, singing, “Arise you prisoners of starvation!” One disillusioned communist watched from the sidelines, his anguish revealing the party’s failures and foretelling its ultimate demise. Richard Wright had moved to Chicago from Mississippi in 1927, and found work in the post office. An aspiring writer, he at first resisted the entreaties of communists to contribute to the Masses and Left Front: “‘I don’t want to be organized,’ I said.” Still, because he thought party recruiters “conceived of people in too abstract a manner,” he decided to join: “I would tell Communists how common people felt, and I would tell common people of the self-sacrifice of Communists who strove for unity among them.” His comrades welcomed him—“We write articles about Negroes, but we never see any Negroes. We need your stuff,” one admitted.52

  Wright found party members to be “fervent, democratic, restless, eager, self-sacrificing.” Yet before long, even his fellow black comrades were expressing suspicions based on his dress—“my shined shoes, my clean shirt, and the tie I had worn,” and his manner of speech—“He talks like a book,” one sneered. Wright persisted in his own work with youths ages eight to twenty-five at the South Side Boys’ Club, recording their “word-rhythms and reactions.” Suspected of an “anti-leadership attitude,” he was labeled a “traitor.” By the time of the 1937 May Day parade, he had renounced his own stories “in which I had assigned a role of honor and glory to the Communist Party…. For I knew in my heart that I should never be able to write that way again, should never be able to feel with that simple sharpness about life, should never again express such passionate hope, should never again make so total a commitment of faith.” He would go on to a distinguished career as a writer, exploring the disastrous consequences of the idea of “race” for all Americans, stories beyond the limited purview of many white radicals. Wright’s political sensibilities, and also his dark skin color, made it impossible for him to ignore the depredations of racists, even as Parsons’s light skin color and persistently Europe-centric views had allowed her to do just that.53