Price of Freedom, The

DESCRIPTION: "The night is dark about me, I hear the midnight bell, Before another midnight, It will ring my funeral knell." The singer's children are afraid, but the singer says, "Weep not above my ashes." "We to buy the toiler's freedom will pay the price and die."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1887 (Labor Enquirer)
KEYWORDS: labor-movement death execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1886 - Haymarket Riot
Nov 11, 1887 - Execution of Albert R. Parsons (who reportedly inspired this song) and four others for alleged complicity
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, pp. 446-447, "The Price of Freedom" (1 text)
Foner-AmericanLaborSongsOfTheNineteenthCentury, p. 229, "The Price of Freedom" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Annie Laurie" (tune) and references there
NOTES [333 words]: Kenneth Lougee, Pie in the Sky: How Joe Hill's Lawyers Lost His Case, Got Him Shot, and Were Disbarred, iUniverse, 2011, pp. 29-30, discusses the legal situation of the American labor movement in the late 1800s. In particular, he cites Oliver Wendell Holmes on how the law was applied at the time, based on the "needs of the day," and applies this to the Haymarket Riot.
"In 1886, after more than a decade of increasingly violent labor protests, a meeting was held at Haymarket Square [in Chicago]. The police mobilized a large force, which moved in to break up the meeting. Someone (and that someone was never identified) threw a dynamite bomb into the police ranks. This led to a general outbreak of violence, with casualties on both sides.
"Unable to indict the bomb thrower, the authorities charged the labor organizers. Ultimately, eight were convicted, with seven sentenced to death. This was the first great labor trial. Mass movements organized against the execution. Two sentences were commuted to terms in prison. The governor supposedly said that he would have commuted the other sentences had the labor leaders requested his action. Ultimately, four were hung, and one committed suicide before execution. Governor Altgeld pardoned the remaining leaders in 1890.
"There are some things that may be said for certain about this sad matter. The most important is that the leaders were unquestionably innocent of throwing the bomb. The second is that the case is an example of the bitter contest between labor leaders and the establishment.... The [Illinois Supreme] court's opinion cites for page after dreary page statements of various labor leaders. It must be admitted that the labor movement was largely composed of anarchists, but it must equally be admitted that the leaders had tried and failed to win concessions within the confines of elections and strikes....
The civic leaders in Chicago well understood that they were using the court system to intimidate and control labor." - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: CAFS2446

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