quare for the evening of May 4; but, as themeeting was breaking up, a group of anarchists took over andbegan to make inflammatory speeches. The police quicklyintervened, and a bomb exploded, killing seven policemen andinjuring many others. Eight of the anarchists were arrested, tried,and convicted of murder. Four of them were hanged, and onecommitted suicide. The remaining three were pardoned in 1893 byGovernor John P. Altgeld, who was persuaded that they had beenconvicted in such an atmosphere of prejudice that it was impossibleto be certain that they were guilty. The public tended to blame organized labour for the Haymarkettragedy, and many persons had become convinced that the activitiesof unions were likely to be attended by violence. The Knights neverregained the ground they lost in 1886, and, until after the turn of thecentury, organized labour seldom gained any measure of publicsympathy. Aggregate union membership did not again reach its1885-86 figure until 1900. Unions, however, continued to be active;and in each year from 1889 through the end of the century therewere more than 1,000 strikes. As the power of the Knights declined, the leadership in the tradeunion movement passed to the American Federation of Labor(AFL). This was a loose federation of local and craft unions,organized first in 1881 and reorganized in 1886. For a few yearsthere was some nominal cooperation between the Knights and theAFL, but the basic organization and philosophy of the two groupsmade cooperation difficult. The AFL appealed only to skilledworkers, and its objectives were those of immediate concern to itsmembers: hours, wages, working conditions, and the recognition ofthe union. It relied on economic weapons, chiefly the strike andboycott, and it eschewed political activity, except for state and localelection campaigns. The central figure in the AFL was SamuelGompers, a New York cigar maker, who was its president from1886 to his death in 1924.National...
