Memorial Day. Flags and flowers for the war dead. Strange to honor sacrifice while the city tears itself apart over working conditions.
Down to the Board of Trade this morning. Wheat futures climbing—drought rumors from Kansas. Men in silk hats speculating on grain while workers strike for bread.
The contradiction stings.
Trial preparations continue for the Haymarket defendants. Crowds gather daily, faces grim with anticipation. Justice or vengeance? The distinction blurs in the summer heat.
Overheard two lawyers debating anarchist philosophy over lunch. One called it "foreign poison," the other "inevitable evolution." Both missed the desperate humanity at its core.
Factory whistles mark time now—6 AM, noon, 6 PM. Our days measured not by sun but by production schedules.
Walked past Pullman's works on my way home. The company town gleams with paternalistic perfection. Workers' faces tell different stories.
Twenty-seven days since the bombing. The city's nerves still raw. Every gathering watched, every speech weighed for sedition.
At thirty, I've witnessed two decades of transformation. The prairie town of my youth barely recognizable in this industrial giant.
Electric lights flicker on across the grid. Progress illuminates and blinds simultaneously.
The question persists: Can we build a just society with unjust methods? Or do the methods inevitably corrupt the society?
No easy answers. Only the daily work of witness.