I’m always fascinated when historians discover things that they didn’t expect and didn’t set out to find. Such histories are frequently the most interesting, the most challenging, and the most revolutionary.

Timothy Messer-Kruse began his journey into the history of the Haymarket Anarchists without any sense of what was waiting there. His reassessment of this piece of American and labor history is important and eye-opening.

His work is based on three basic premises:

1) The prevailing accepted historical understanding of the trial and conviction of the Haymarket Anarchists – that the judge was biased, the jury loaded, laws and procedures violated, and innocent men railroaded to their deaths as a punishment for their political beliefs – is wrong. This understanding simply isn't supported by the evidence of the original trial transcript and primary police records. The trial was fair by the standards of the time, the jury legally empaneled, and the judge actively sought to aid the defense at several points. The defense lost more through their own incompetence than any other factor.

2) The prevailing accepted historical understanding that the popular reaction to the conviction of the Haymarket Anarchists was one of outrage – is wrong. While there were some vocal individuals who protested the outcome, popular opinion at the time of their original conviction and sentencing – even amongst laborers – overwhelmingly upheld the conviction as just and the sentencing fair. It was only as the appeals process dragged on, and interested parties published and circulated a variety of propaganda and opinion pieces, that sentiment began to turn.

3) Contrary to the prevailing accepted historical understanding, the Haymarket Anarchists were guilty as charged, based on the evidence.

After reading this book, I’m thoroughly convinced of the first two premises. As for the third – given the evidence presented, I’m not entirely sold on their guilt. It’s apparent that these were not harmless men, martyrs merely preaching political views – they passionately advocated violence as the preferred means to their ends. They sought to foment full-scale, open, armed rebellion. The prevailing accepted historical view of their trial and deaths largely whitewashes this aspect of their beliefs and characters – much to the detriment of their true legacy. But I think the specific evidence of their guilt in the crime of conspiracy to commit murder is more open to alternate interpretations than Mr. Messer-Kruse acknowledges.

The prevailing accepted historical understanding – which is now proven incorrect – still has value in one aspect: it requires those of us who inherit the lessons of this history to question the legitimacy and righteousness of the laws under which the Haymarket Anarchists were convicted. I understand that these were the laws of the day, and that they were found to be just by judicial authorities at that time; I understand that these men were convicted fairly under those laws.

But for us today to determine whether we still consider those laws to be just is an essential aspect of both the study of history and the ongoing process of self-determined government. Inexplicably to me, though, Mr. Messer-Kruse raises this precise issue – only make some effort to dismiss the legitimacy of these questions and deny the usefulness of such assessments.

For me, this is pretty much the only major point on which the work fails. ( )

Timothy Messer-Kruse's book is a valuable corrective to many years of PC history about the Haymarket tragedy.

The Haymarket bombing and contemporaneous events are crucial to political and labor history in the US. In the several books and articles I've read over the years about the tragic events, I've always had the impression that the authors were straining too hard to make a politically correct case for the innocence or benignity of the anarchists accused of the bombing and the injustice of their treatment by the police and courts. Messer-Kruse's book is a valuable corrective to the superficiality of prior treatments.

The author has had a well-known fight with Wikipedia over his attempts to get a more rounded historical view of the bombing. He was thwarted for some time by the knee-jerk guardians of political correctness, but was ultimately able to get Wikipedia to open up to less rigid views. See his article of February 12, 2012, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia."

In his book Messer-Kruse discusses some aspects that have not had adequate coverage in the past. He identifies the actual bomber, who was never prosecuted and apparently lived out a normal lifespan as a free man. And, of course, not just a bomb was thrown, but there were many pistol shots, both by the anarchists and the police, and it is impossible to know who shot whom.

There are a few signs of clunky writing and editing. For example, at page 103, twice in the same paragraph the book says that Officer Krueger "brought the bullet that shattered his knee into the court with him." And at page 181 the beginning of the concluding chapter says, "While falling far short of what counts as fair and just today, the Haymarket defendants were accorded ..." Of course, the author meant to say, "While the trial fell far short of what counts as fair and just today, the Haymarket defendants were accorded ..."

At the University of Michigan this spring of 2012, I heard the author give an entertaining talk about his research and the resulting book and his fight with Wikipedia. He mentioned that he will soon have another book coming out on the anarchist movement, "The Haymarket Conspiracy: Transatlantic Anarchist Networks," which should also be worth a look. ( )