The tensions were rising
And something had to give
A fourteen-hour working day
Was just no way to live
The CLU, the Knights and the IWPA
Reformers and the unionists
Walked out one Saturday
They wanted safe conditions
For all of working men
Benefits, eight-hour days
And pay for working ten
Some came again on Monday
To show their discontent
At McCormick's Reaper Plant
It's where the violence went
One day in May
The strikers were a-hecklin'
Their replacements good and loud
A fight broke out - the cops arrived
Killed two amongst the crowd
The anarchists were angry
And they called for everyone
To gather the next day
And protest what the law had done
A rally would be held at night
The place they were to meet
Was down at the Haymarket Square
Up on West Randolph Street
They came out by the thousands
And when everything seemed calm
The police showed up to break it up
Then someone threw the bomb
One day in May
The cops were scared - they drew their guns
And fired wildly
Bullets riddled bodies
As far as the eye could see
The dead and the dying
Were stretched upon the floor
This tragedy of bombs and blood
Was still to bleed some more
The papers and politicians
Had got it in their heads
To locate all the radicals
And drag them from their beds
Without good rhyme or reason
As to what they did or why
Eight men were arrested
Seven were to die
Four stepped to the scaffold
At the jail in County Cook
The men were hung
And suicide was what the fifth man took
The rest were given pardons
Allowed to walk away
But the blood had spilled in tons
One day in May
One day in May
When all was done and said
Books and demonstrations
And statues for the dead
One day in May
When all was said and done
Some thought that there was justice
But the rest knew there was none
One day in May
The spirit never dies
For Engel, Ling and Parsons
For Fischer and for Spies
One day in May
Never to forget
The drama and the tragedy
The struggle and regret
One day in May