August Spies Speech Analysis

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In the 1880s, the division of two distinct social castes, the working class who were obedient dogs to the whistle and the elites who were the root of the despair, became apparent. The turmoil of the labor movement was sweeping the nation, resonating with the working class. Immigrants, blacks and whites were all consolidating on a united front to reform labor from the unjust treatment and wage. The Chicago Haymarket protest were one of many, however, it was at this particular protest that was a bomb exploding, injuring and killing seven police officers. Eight men were tried and convicted of the crime, one of them being August Spies. The primary source is of Spies’ testimony in court opposing the adverse party, the State, from their accusation …show more content…

And this court has done essentially the same”, by incorporating this quote by Joseph Fouché, in his speech, Spies reveals his educational background. Spies refer to numerous historical information throughout the duration of his speech breaking free from stereotypical views of immigrants. August Spies, being a German immigrant, demonstrated he wasn't as an intellectually inferior just because he is a migrant, which was a common stereotype at the time. Spies perfectly interweaves this quote into his speech to express how the courts using his words against him. As Spies stated in his testimony “ there is no person in this courtroom now who could not be "fairly, impartially and lawfully" hanged!” because of the way the court painted a picture of him being an un-American radical. The courts spun things so he would be perceived as guilty, hanging him out to dry and using him as a tool to spread propaganda about the movement. The industrial elites used the devastating tragedy of the Haymarket affair as poly to rally the public against the labor movement as an "un-american force prone to violence and controlled by foreign-born radicals" (Foner 633). To show the labor movement was anti-American movement that needs to stop. Using this as a larger poly to stomp out the labor and unions’

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