Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld’s political career was destroyed when he pardoned the remaining three men who had not been executed or died in their cells after the Haymarket Affair. The peaceful rally that became deadly at Haymarket Square in 1886 would result in an unjust trial, conviction and execution of men who were involved in the labor movement. The Pioneer Aid and Society would raise funds for a monument at Forest Home Cemetery. Although eight men were put on trial, only two men were present when the unrest at Haymarket occurred. Four men were executed by public hanging, one died by suicide in his cell and the remaining three men were pardoned in 1893. Governor Altgeld said, “No man … has the right to allow his ambition to stand in the way of the performance of a simple act of justice.”
