The sentencing provokes outrage from labor and…

The sentencing provokes outrage from labor and workers' movements and their supporters, resulting in protests around the world, and elevating the defendants to the status of martyrs, especially abroad.

The Chicago Times describes the defendants as "arch counselors of riot, pillage, incendiarism and murder"; other reporters describe them as "bloody brutes", "red ruffians", "dynamarchists", "bloody monsters", "cowards", "cutthroats", "thieves", "assassins", and "fiends". (Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy, p. 216.)

The journalist George Frederic Parsons writes a piece for The Atlantic Monthly in which he identifies the fears of middle-class Americans concerning labor radicalism, and asserts that the workers have only themselves to blame for their troubles. (Parsons, George Frederic (July 1886). "The Labor Question". The Atlantic Monthly 58: 97–113.)

Edward Aveling, Karl Marx's son-in-law, remarks, "If these men are ultimately hanged, it will be the Chicago Tribune that has done it." ("Act III: Toils of the Law". The Dramas of Haymarket. Chicago Historical Society. 2000. Retrieved October 15, 2012.)

Schaack, who had led the investigation, is dismissed from the police force for allegedly having fabricated evidence in the case but will be reinstated in 1892.