Early in the strike the workingmen's cause was gravely
injured by a bomb explosion on Haymarket Square in Chicago, attributed
to anarchists, which killed and wounded a score of policemen.
The bomb explosion on Haymarket Square connected two movements which had
heretofore marched separately, despite a certain mutual affinity. For
what many of the Knights of Labor were practising during the upheaval in
a less drastic manner and without stopping to look for a theoretical
justification, the contemporary Chicago "anarchists,"[19] the largest
branch of the "Black International," had elevated into a well
rounded-out system of thought. Both syndicalism and the Knights of Labor
upheaval were related chapters in the revolutionary movement of the
eighties. Whether in its conscious or unconscious form, this syndicalism
was characterized by an extreme combativeness, by the ease with which
minor disputes grew into widespread strikes involving many trades and
large territories, by a reluctance, if not an out and out refusal, to
enter into agreements with employers however temporary, and lastly by a
ready resort to violence.
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