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May 30, 1937: the Memorial Day massacre that Americans weren't supposed to remember
The Memorial Day massacre that Americans weren't supposed to remember
by Dartagnan for Community Contributors Team
Community
Monday, May 27, 2024 at 12:50:12p EDT
Attribution: Screenshot from Paramount film May 30, 1937, of Memorial Day strike at Republic Steel, from Greg Williams' PBS Documentary
A screenshot from the PBS documentary “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried.”
On May 30, 1937, the temperature in Chicago reached a balmy 88 degrees: a “perfect day for a picnic,” as some would later describe it. But 1,500 steel workers hadn’t gathered with their wives and children inside a dilapidated dance hall called Sam’s Place to enjoy a relaxing Memorial Day celebration. Sam’s was the headquarters of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, an arm of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the workers were organizing a peaceful strike.
They were striking because Republic Steel, the plant where they worked, had declared it would not recognize their new union. Unlike his counterparts at U.S. Steel, Republic’s president, Tom Girdler, felt no obligation to mollify the outrageous and insulting demands of his workers. A 40-hour work week? An eight-hour day? Time-and-a-half wages for overtime? That was preposterous. It was communism, and there was no way he’d stand for it. The country was still in the midst of an economic catastrophe, after all. Those people were lucky to have jobs in the first place.
Instead, he called on his friends in the Chicago police force, arming them with submachine guns, wooden ax handles, and tear gas, and let them set up a command post inside the gates of his massive steel plant on Chicago’s southeast side. If the workers tried to picket his plant, they’d be stopped before they even started. The beatings his cops had inflicted on a smaller group of strikers only a few nights prior should have given them a little taste of what to expect. ... What happened next is now regarded as one of the ugliest episodes of anti-worker violence in American history. One lone cameraman, an employee of Paramount News, filmed what actually occurred that day, and the footage he took is the only reason that any national memory of the actual event still survives.
{snip}
“An estimated 40 marchers were shot within seconds,” recounted filmmaker Greg Williams, writing for the Los Angeles Times. “Doctors later determined that the majority were wounded in the back or in the side. Dozens more were sent to hospitals with severe head wounds after police chased, caught and clubbed retreating marchers.” ... Ten unarmed steel workers were killed that day, most of them shot in the back while attempting to flee the phalanx of 300 Chicago police officers that had been fingering their weapons, preparing for violence from the outset. About 90 more people were wounded. Of those, many were roughly stuffed into police paddy wagons and taken to a distant hospital to treat their wounds.
{snip}
by Dartagnan for Community Contributors Team
Community
Monday, May 27, 2024 at 12:50:12p EDT
Attribution: Screenshot from Paramount film May 30, 1937, of Memorial Day strike at Republic Steel, from Greg Williams' PBS Documentary
A screenshot from the PBS documentary “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried.”
On May 30, 1937, the temperature in Chicago reached a balmy 88 degrees: a “perfect day for a picnic,” as some would later describe it. But 1,500 steel workers hadn’t gathered with their wives and children inside a dilapidated dance hall called Sam’s Place to enjoy a relaxing Memorial Day celebration. Sam’s was the headquarters of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, an arm of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the workers were organizing a peaceful strike.
They were striking because Republic Steel, the plant where they worked, had declared it would not recognize their new union. Unlike his counterparts at U.S. Steel, Republic’s president, Tom Girdler, felt no obligation to mollify the outrageous and insulting demands of his workers. A 40-hour work week? An eight-hour day? Time-and-a-half wages for overtime? That was preposterous. It was communism, and there was no way he’d stand for it. The country was still in the midst of an economic catastrophe, after all. Those people were lucky to have jobs in the first place.
Instead, he called on his friends in the Chicago police force, arming them with submachine guns, wooden ax handles, and tear gas, and let them set up a command post inside the gates of his massive steel plant on Chicago’s southeast side. If the workers tried to picket his plant, they’d be stopped before they even started. The beatings his cops had inflicted on a smaller group of strikers only a few nights prior should have given them a little taste of what to expect. ... What happened next is now regarded as one of the ugliest episodes of anti-worker violence in American history. One lone cameraman, an employee of Paramount News, filmed what actually occurred that day, and the footage he took is the only reason that any national memory of the actual event still survives.
{snip}
“An estimated 40 marchers were shot within seconds,” recounted filmmaker Greg Williams, writing for the Los Angeles Times. “Doctors later determined that the majority were wounded in the back or in the side. Dozens more were sent to hospitals with severe head wounds after police chased, caught and clubbed retreating marchers.” ... Ten unarmed steel workers were killed that day, most of them shot in the back while attempting to flee the phalanx of 300 Chicago police officers that had been fingering their weapons, preparing for violence from the outset. About 90 more people were wounded. Of those, many were roughly stuffed into police paddy wagons and taken to a distant hospital to treat their wounds.
{snip}