In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, the

Chicago Police Department The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, under the jurisdiction of the City Council. It is the second-largest municipal police department in the United States, behind t ...

shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in

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, on May 30, 1937. The incident took place during the Little Steel strike in the United States.

Background

The incident arose after U.S. Steel signed a union contract but smaller steel manufacturers (called ' Little Steel'), including

Republic Steel Republic Steel is an American steel manufacturer that was once the country's third largest steel producer. It was founded as the Republic Iron and Steel Company in Youngstown, Ohio in 1899. After rising to prominence during the early 20th Centu ...

, refused to do so. In protest, the

Steel Workers Organizing Committee The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO ( Committee for Industrial Organization) on June 7, 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Stee ...

(SWOC) of the

Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...

(CIO) called a strike.

Incident

Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...

, hundreds of sympathizers gathered at Sam's Place, a former tavern and dance hall at 113th Street and Green Bay Avenue, that served as the headquarters of the SWOC. As the crowd marched across the prairie towards the Republic Steel mill, a line of Chicago policemen blocked their path. The foremost protestors argued their right to continue. The police, feeling threatened, fired on the crowd. As the crowd fled, police shot and killed ten people, four dying that day and six others subsequently from their injuries. Nine people were permanently disabled and another 28 had serious head injuries from police clubbing. In the book ''Selected Writings'' by

Dorothy Day Dorothy Day (November 8, 1897 – November 29, 1980) was an American journalist, social activist and anarchist who, after a bohemian youth, became a Catholic without abandoning her social and anarchist activism. She was perhaps the best-known ...

(who was present), the events of the protest are summarized as thus: 'On Memorial Day, May 30, 1937, police opened fire on a parade of striking steel workers and their families at the gate of the Republic Steel Company, in South Chicago. Fifty people were shot, of whom 10 later died; 100 others were beaten with clubs.'

Legacy

Union demonstrators killed

Years later, one of the protesters, Mollie West, recalled a policeman yelling to her that day, "Get off the field or I'll put a bullet in your back." No policemen were ever prosecuted. A

Coroner's Jury A coroner's jury is a body convened to assist a coroner in an inquest, that is, in determining the identity of a deceased person and the cause of death. The laws on its role and function vary by jurisdiction. United Kingdom In England and Wal ...

declared the killings to be "

justifiable homicide The concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law is a defense to culpable homicide (criminal or negligent homicide). Generally, there is a burden of production of exculpatory evidence in the legal defense of justification. In most countri ...

". The press often called it a labor or red riot. President

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

responded to a union plea, "The majority of people are saying just one thing, ′A plague on both your houses′" A memorial plaque at the base of a flagpole with the names of the 10 people who were killed is located at 11731 South Avenue O, the former United Steel Workers Local 1033 union hall, which is now occupied by the

United Auto Workers The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American Labor unions in the United States, labor union that represents workers in the Un ...

Local 3212. Thirty years to the day of the massacre, it was dedicated on May 30, 1967. The Republic Steel Memorial Day Massacre Sculpture, created by former Republic Steel employee Edward Blazak, was dedicated in 1981. Originally located near the main gate at 116th Street and Burley Avenue, it was rededicated in 2008 and relocated to 11659 South Avenue O, at the southwest corner of the grounds of a

Chicago Fire Department The Chicago Fire Department (CFD) provides fire suppression, rescue services, Hazardous Materials Response services and emergency medical response services to the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, under the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Chi ...

station housing Engine #104. In the wake of the massacre, the news reel of the event was suppressed for fear of creating, in the words of an official at Paramount News agency, "mass hysteria."

Bibliography

*Auerbach, Jerold S. ''Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal.'' Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966. * Baughman, James L. "Classes and Company Towns: Legends of the 1937 Little Steel Strike." ''Ohio History.'' 87:2 (Spring 1978). * Bernstein, Irving. ''The Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941.'' Paperback edition. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1970. (Originally published 1969.) *Blake, Benjamin. "Ohio's Steel Mill War The Little Steel Strike of 1937." ''Crooked River.'' December 2001. *Brooks, Robert R. ''As Steel Goes... Unionism in a Basic Industry.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940. *Dennis, Michael J., "Chicago and the Little Steel Strike," ''Labor History'' 53 (Spring 2012): 167-204. *Dennis, Michael J. ''The Memorial Day Massacre and The Movement for Industrial Democracy''. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. *''Pursuant to S. Res. 266 (74th Congress). A Resolution to Investigate Violations of the Right of Free Speech and Assembly and Interference with the Right of Labor to Organize and Bargain Collectively. Part 14: The Chicago Memorial Day Incident.'' Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor. United States Senate. Seventy-Fifth Congress, First Session. June 30, July 1 and 2, 1937. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1937. *Sofchalk, Donald G. "The Chicago Memorial Day Massacre: An Episode of Mass Action." ''Labor History.'' Winter 1965. *Speer, Michael. "The 'Little Steel' Strike: Conflict for Control." ''Ohio History.'' Autumn 1969. *Stolberg, Benjamin. "Big Steel, Little Steel, and C.I.O." ''The Nation.'' July 31, 1937. *White, Ahmed. ''The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America''. University of California Press, 2016, pp. 130–146.

References

External links

"Memorial Day Massacre of 1937." Illinois Labor History Society. no date.Memorial Day, 1937
''

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''. May 29, 2017. {{DEFAULTSORT:Memorial Day Massacre Of 1937 1937 riots 1937 in Illinois 1937 labor disputes and strikes Labor disputes led by the United Steelworkers Mass murder in 1937 Massacres in the 1930s Labor disputes in the United States History of labor relations in the United States Riots and civil disorder in Chicago

1937 Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into ...