“On Tyrants Only We’ll Make War!”
By Dave Mano
On May 1st of 1915, 50,000 people came together in Union Square for a massive parade through New York City. They called for an end to the war in Europe, for the rights of Jewish people, for womens’ suffrage, and for the embrace of socialism. While May Day, or International Workers’ Day, had long been a day of protests and strikes in commemoration of the Haymarket Affair of 1886, this particular celebration held a certain urgency and poignance as the first May Day since the declaration of the Great War. On May second, 1915, the parade made the front page of The New York Times, showing to the world the strength and intensity of the labor movement of the day, which manifested in parades in Brooklyn, Queens, Hoboken, and Elizabeth, New Jersey; even a socialist childrens’ parade mustered 2,000 strong. The Times repeated in print some of the defiant outcries of the marching workers: “War is a curse on the entire working class of the world – we demand the immediate restoration of peace.” (1) The protest march also saw groups of anarchists in Union Square protesting police violence, giving speeches to the crowd in a multitude of languages, displaying the multicultural unity that backed the anti-war effort. Protesters proudly carried their red banners through the streets of New York City, proclaiming that without combatting capitalism itself, peace would never be truly attained.
The response of organized labor to the First World War fluctuated over the years, but more or less remained strongly opposed, with New York trade union members universally denouncing the war and its instigators. Unionists from every ethnic and cultural background recognized the hellish slaughter propagated by capitalism and took a firm stance against it. The American Socialist Party stood, from the beginning, as one of the staunchest forces of opposition to the Preparedness Movement of 1915, which attempted to persuade the American populace of the necessity of involvement in the war. In comparison to their European counterparts, American socialists remained overwhelmingly opposed to the war since its conception. Elizabeth McKillen explains that “Socialists argued that it was the capitalist quest for empire that ultimately lay behind the nationalist quarrels that provoked war in Europe.” (2) Workers recognized this threat as soon as the war was declared in Europe, and this protest march on the first May Day since attests to that.
Everyone had a stake in the war, or rather, a stake in ending it. As the conflict ramped up in Europe, American laborers feared what their own nation’s involvement might mean for their livelihoods, leading them to take a stand and march in their own shared interests and beliefs, against warfare and against capitalism. Socialist activist Helen Keller wrote quite summarily; “The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists.” (3) Opposition to war has always been a fundamental tenet of socialism, and in 1915, the Socialist movement was near its height. The unionists and socialists of New York City refused to be participants in bloodshed for the sake of the same capitalists who underpaid and abused them, leading the workers of New York City, and the world, to take up the red banner in solidarity with each other.
(1) “May Day Musters 50,000 for Parade: Labor Unionists and Socialists End Their Long Parade With Union Square Rally. Want Suffrage and Peace Equal Rights for Jews After War Also Demanded — “Reds” Rap Cathedral Bomb Plot,” New York Times, 1857-1922, May 02 1915, p. 1
(2) McKillen, Elizabeth. “Pacifist Brawn and Silk-Stocking Militarism: Labor, Gender, and Antiwar Politics, 1914-1918,” Peace and Change 33, no. 3 (2008): 388–425, p.397
(3) Keller, Helen. “Strike Against War.” 1916 in Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years. International Publishers, 1967 p.75
WORKS CITED
“May Day Musters 50,000 for Parade: Labor Unionists and Socialists End Their Long Parade With Union Square Rally. Want Suffrage and Peace Equal Rights for Jews After War Also Demanded — “Reds” Rap Cathedral Bomb Plot.” New York Times (1857-1922), May 02 1915, p. 1.
Keller, Helen. “Strike Against War.”(1916) in Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years. International Publishers. (1967) p.75
McKillen, Elizabeth. “Pacifist Brawn and Silk-Stocking Militarism: Labor, Gender, and Antiwar Politics, 1914-1918.” Peace and Change 33, no. 3 (2008) pp. 388–425.
IMAGE CITATION
Title: May Day ’16 Abstract/medium: 1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. Bain News Service. (1916) LC-B2- 3834-13 [P&P] LOT 10876-5.
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014701530/