Lehr und Wehr Verein

The Lehr und Wehr Verein (Instruct and Defend Association) was a Chicago-based socialist military formation founded in 1875.

The Lehr und Wehr Verein was registered with the Illinois state authorities on 19 April 1875 with about 30 Bohemian and German members. The organization used to train and drill in anticipation of an envisaged confrontation between Capital and Labor. In 1879 the State Legislature passed an act establishing a state militia and obliging all other militia to obtain a license from the Governor. That December Lehr and Wehr Verien paraded 40 strong, armed with s. They were headed by Herman Presser a socialist worker armed with a. Presser was arrested, tried, and fined $10, as the organization had no license. As lawyers disputed whether the new law breached the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, Presser became a test case which proceeded through the Criminal Courts, via the Illinois Supreme Court to the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the state had the power to regulate militias. In each court his conviction was upheld and became known as Presser v. Illinois. The Lehr und Wehr Verein never again paraded in public but continued to train. According to an alarmist The New York Times article from 1886 at the time of the Haymarket massacre, there were 6 units in Chicago composed of "socialists of the ultra type" numbering 200 to 300 members who had been "training to fight the police". "Every socialist who is in favor of dynamite is among them."

External links and further reading

 * PRESSER v. STATE OF ILLINOIS, 116 U.S. 252 (1886)