By the latter part of July a considerable portion of the population had returned to Chicago, many of its business houses were open again for trade, and others were in process of rapid re-erection. The wharves were crowded with vessels bringing materials and supplies. The streets rang with the sound of workmen hurrying forward the construction of the new city. An intense rivalry sprang up between the proprietors of different stores as to which should be ready first for business. The workmen were pushed to the utmost; and it was not uncommon to see a whole street brilliantly illuminated by electric lights from sunset to sunrise, while work was pushed twenty-four hours in the day and seven days in the week. This moment was seized by the mysterious “Council of Seven” for the grand coup. The former riot had been only a rehearsal; the curtain was now rung up on the drama itself.

At noon on the 18th of July a large majority of the workmen employed upon the new buildings laid down their tools and compelled those who were not in the plot to do the same. Their plea was that no man had the right to exact over eight hours work for a day’s wages, while many of them were compelled to work twelve hours, and that for seven days in the week. They demanded fifty per cent increase of wages or a reduction in the hours of work. In their anxiety to complete their tasks, a few builders yielded. But the particular “strikers” who had thus won their case refused to begin work again till all the builders and contractors of the city should have agreed to their demand. This, too, was finally brought about. By that time the arrogance of the “strikers” had increased,—rather, their orders from “The Old Man,” as they called the revolutionist head, had been modified,—and they refused to take up hammer or trowel till the city council should pass an ordinance making eight hours a day’s work, with no deductions for holidays or for absences by reason of sickness, and with double pay for all night and Sunday work, whether of necessity, mercy, or caprice.

Roused at last to a conviction that they were being played with, and that the demands of their men were merely pretexts, a secret movement for the collection of fresh workmen from abroad was begun by certain contractors. It was manoeuvred with so much secrecy and success that no news of the scheme escaped till the 10th of August, three weeks after the beginning of the strike. On that day two long trains loaded with workmen from neighboring cities rolled into Chicago, and the jubilant contractors who had secured them led them to the unfinished buildings, which loomed amid skeletons of scaffolding in various parts of the city, and set them at work.

The news spread like wildfire among the “strikers,” and angry crowds gathered before every building on which work had been begun by the strangers. The interlopers were ordered to lay down their tools and leave the city. They treated these demands with contempt; and the superintendents, owners, and contractors, armed with revolvers, succeeded for a time in keeping the crowds at bay while the “strikers” waited for orders. Late in the afternoon the orders came. Messengers were seen forcing their way through the sullenly biding crowds, and issuing directions on either side as they passed. In an instant the aspect of affairs changed. The men, who had thus far shown no deadlier weapons than sticks or occasional bricks and paving-stones, suddenly drew the revolvers with which they were secretly armed, and began a deadly attack on the workmen who had refused to drop work at their bidding.

It would be useless to relate in detail the story of what ensued. The socialists, having formed an alliance with the Irish societies, had also absorbed the trades-unions,—another of the curses with which foreign immigration had endowed the country,—and had chosen them as the means through which to precipitate this second revolt. Once more the city was delivered up to a lawless and ravening mob, fourfold more vindictive and ferocious than that of the April Émeute.

The Government was again appealed to for troops. But the army was among the mountains and plains of the farthest West, engaged in the most desperate Indian war which had yet been waged. Congress was besought to do something. It continued to emit vast quantities of eloquence (?), unmingled with common sense, over the dangers attending an increase of the army. The President issued a proclamation and sent a message to Congress asking for instructions and authority to summon volunteers.

During the wearisome and fruitless debates with which Congress had occupied the previous month, bands had been formed in several of the larger cities, under the title of “Protective Associations,” or “Protectors,” to defend local interests in case outbreaks should occur before an increase in the army could be secured. In despair of securing efficient aid from any other source, the Governor of Illinois—for the Mayor of Chicago had long since shown himself unwilling to take any action against the revolutionists—sent an appeal to such cities in the West as had organized these associations, begging for whatever help they could send him. His appeal met with a ready and generous response. Detachments started with all speed for Chicago from Cincinnati, St. Louis, Louisville, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburg, Rochester, Buffalo, and other cities. They were undisciplined, but fully armed, and animated as one man with the determination to crush the revolutionists so utterly that they should cause no further danger to Chicago within a generation. Among them were many who had seen service in the Union army during the great rebellion. The detachments which first arrived found the enemy stronger than they had supposed, and discovered that their task was likely to be a severe and costly one. It was determined to summon still more men; and New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston were called upon. From all, the response was prompt and loyal. Fully fifty thousand men converged upon the environs of Chicago.

It does not seem to have occurred to any of those who thus gallantly hastened to the relief of their sister city that in so doing they were exposing their own homes, defenceless, to the danger of attack from domestic organizations in sympathy with the Chicago rioters and acting under the same direction. But this was the very event for which the master-spirit of the combined revolutionists had waited; the one which he had foreseen; the one upon which he had based his plans. While the trains bearing the last of the reinforcements from New York and Boston to the “Protectors” before Chicago were flying across the Illinois prairies, he issued his final order, and struck his long-delayed but crushing blow. Its effects were instantly and simultaneously felt in every quarter of the land.

As the little army of citizens, aided by a few national troops which the Government had been able to gather from forts along the Atlantic coast, were busily preparing for a movement upon the revolutionists, telegrams began to pour in upon them from New York, Boston, and the other cities which they had left, announcing the rising of mobs in each one and the impossibility of resisting them in the absence of so many of the natural militia at Chicago. The truth dawned, with the suddenness of lightning and with equal distinctness, upon the entire country. It was seen that the revolutionists had waited till a large proportion of those citizens bound together for the defence of law and the maintenance of order had been massed in another direction. They had then, in accordance with a thoroughly understood plan, risen in every city and begun the work of destruction for which their souls had long thirsted.

From East and West and South flashed over the shuddering wires dire tidings of riot, rapine, pillage, murder, anarchy. Destructive and insatiate mobs ruled in what had been the seats of order and prosperous trade and happy homes. Every city in the Union was turned into a veritable gateway of Gehenna. The scenes of barbarous vandalism which had made the name of Chicago a reproach in the ears of the world were re-enacted in scores of her sister towns. Leaving Chicago to its fate, the men who had been summoned to its aid hurried frenziedly homeward in the hope of saving their families or their possessions from utter annihilation. The nation stood aghast, panic-stricken, and bereft of its usual energies before this great horror of incredible wickedness which had burst with volcanic suddenness and havoc upon the land. From Boston to Galveston, from Savannah to Minneapolis, the heavens were thick with the smoke of burning cities bearing upwards in its coils the reek of innocent blood.