'Hope, Fear, and Confusion: Coxey's Arrival in Washington

Hope, Fear, and Confusion: Coxey's Arrival in WashingtonAuthor(s): JERRY PROUTSource: Washington History, Vol. 25 (SUMMER 2013), pp. 1-19Published by: Historical Society of Washington, D.C.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41982414 .

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Hope, Fear, and Confusion

Coxey 's Arrival in Washington

BY JERRY PROUT

In ington havoc

unemployed

the spring throughout in the

of

men form

1894,

led

America of

by a

a

parading

depression

a Populist

arrived spectacle

wreaking in

business-

Wash- of

havoc throughout America arrived in Wash- ington in the form of a parading spectacle of unemployed men led by a Populist business-

man from Ohio with an African American as its standard-bearer. The nation's capital had little experience with factory workers, let alone the much anticipated arrival of this "industrial army." Dedicated to the business of government Wash- ington seemed from all outward appearances spared from the worst effects of an economic collapse that nationally resulted in one out of four men out of work. Nor was the Distria a populist stronghold. Even the thirteen members of the newly formed People's Party who occupied seats in the 53rd Congress struggled for recognition. And while Washington's growing African American population had its own tradition of political activism, overt discrimination against them remained the norm. Understandably then, the very anticipa- tion of the arrival of these "industrials," as the press referred to them for weeks in advance, aroused hopes in the black community, caused government officials to fear the violence that might ensue, and created confusion in the Populist caucus over what to do about "Coxey's Army."

By the time it arrived, this motley "industrial army" of unemployed workers had already marched some 400 miles in thirty-five days. Now they prepared for the final leg of their journey down Penn- sylvania Avenue and up the very steps of the Capitol. On May 1, 1894, just as planned in com- memoration of International Labor Day, they swung proudly onto the grand promenade design- ed by French planner Pierre Charles L'Enfant. The street had not yet become the sort of public space that attracted protest parades more familiar to residents of European capitals. Rather it remained a place more for retail shops and trolley lines than for political spectacles. But with its tattered banners unfurled and a brass band playing, this parade of unemployed reached the B Street entrance to the Capitol around one o'clock. There an unassuming man with rounded shoulders and a straw-colored mustache stepped out of his carriage, kissed his wife, tipped his bowler hat to the hordes of admirers, and entered the Capitol Grounds. Jacob Coxey, a successful Ohio businessman, who had the idea that inspired, and the money that capitalized, this first March to Washington, now hoped to give a speech before a large and excited crowd. With his original ragtag army of 120 jobless men now swollen to

Carl Browne and Jacob Coxey, respectively an itinerant artist and successful businessman, formed an unlikely partnership as leaders of a movement of industrial workers hit-hard by the Panic of 1 893. (Detail, photographer unknown, June 1 894, courtesy Massillon Museum, Ohio)

1



A portrait of Jacob Coxey at the age of forty, taken at the time of the march. (Photogra- pher unknown, ca. 1894, courtesy Massillon Museum, Ohio)

some 600, Coxey brought to the nation's capital refugees from a deepening depression. To the consternation of many Wash- ington officials, thousands more "industrials" were now reported to be on their way.1

Coxey also brought with him his ambitious plan, which called for the federal government to fund a program to build a nationwide system of roads that would put some four million unemployed back to work. America needed a plan to create jobs. For almost two decades farmers throughout the South and Plains states suffered from the effects of overproduction and penurious middlemen who left farmers at the mercy of local merchants.

This long-simmering agri- cultural depression had contributed to the dra- matic collapse of the stock market on May 5, 1893. The ensuing panic led to massive unemployment and homelessness in the rapidly growing industrial cities of the North. By the end of 1893, the government reported an unprecedented number of business, railroad, and bank failures. In this unsettled economy, the angry unemployed turned to violence, breaking store windows, raiding farms, and taking to the road in a desperate search for food, shelter, and work. The number of hungry steadily increased, particularly among the new, immigrant population. Evic- tions from tenements rose in the cities, just as many farmers left their lands in the plains. Showing no discrimination in its hollowing out of farm and factory, the nation, as described in Harper's Weekly, seemed visited by increasing "poverty, gaunt hunger, physical and mental anguish, and brooding despair."2

In the District, as a result of the depression, construction slowed, the government lost reve- nues, renters complained about escalating prices, and the naval ordnance works laid off 1,000

employees. However, the cadre of federal government employees continued to grow. And when the Post reported factory closings, it was for those in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, and places other than the District. As the Atlanta Consti- tution reported, "Washington has been less affected, perhaps, by the Panic in financial circles than any other city." Government employees continued to receive their salaries paid in gold coin.3

In all, Washington seemed a genteel city, charmed by a growing intelligentsia and a "slow pace of life that left its people time to enjoy it." One visiting British writer commented, "It looks a sort of place where nobody has to work for his living, or at any rate, not hard." The District even had become a fashionable, warm- weather winter haven for the newly rich. This new "aristocracy of the parvenus," as Mark Twain described them, was largely comprised of self-made "bonanza kings," often from west of the Mississippi, who had struck it rich in mining, ranching, or railroads. In a period named after the title of IWain's novel, The Gilded Age , an estimated 200,000 individuals possessed 70 percent of the nation's wealth. Many of this era's nouveaux riche found Washington a most attractive city and chose to spend their winters or early retirement in newly erected mansions in Georgetown, Kalorama, and Northwest suburbs. Their ostentatious incursion pushed the resident black population - many living at subsistence lev- els - further away from city center. Among these newcomers, the travail of a nation in depression

was a topic for polite-society discussion rather than a genu- ine concern.4

On Easter Sunday, as Coxey's march left Massillon, Ohio, the Washington Post's spectacular, front-page illustration was entitled "Sunday Afternoon on Connecticut Avenue: A Spring Pageant." It featured a promenade of the powerful and the rich. Washington "gentlemen" in top hats and ties and "gentle ladies" in corseted gowns spread across the entire page. Magnilo- quent prose described the scene:

"Here is the parade, the gay stream of humanity, the gaudy promenade of the fashion of youth, and beauty and distinction." Meanwhile, the paper's account of Coxey's departure for Washington and the march appeared innocuously on page two

By the time the marchers

reached the outskirts of

Washington, they had

become the single-most

reported story since

the Civil War.

WASHINGTON HISTORY Summer 2013



African Americans agreed with the editors of their standard-bearer, the Washington Bee, and eagerly awaited the arrival ofCoxey's army in Washington. (Reprinted from the Washington Bee, April 28 , 1894, courtesy Library of Congress)

surrounded by stories of the upcoming elections in England and a railroad scandal in Indiana.5

Yet, thanks to the captivating stories of Robert Skinner for the Massillon Evening Independent , forty-five reporters from across the nation de- scended on Massillon to watch Coxey's Army of an estimated 120 men depart in the cold and rain. And, as news coverage increased, it was not long before Coxey's group, and the other industrial armies, from as far away as Spokane and Los Angeles, captured Washington's attention. During the five-week March to Washington, news of Coxey's Army became the anticipated daily story told by a new breed of young journal- ists. A half-dozen such newspapermen remained with Coxey's troops throughout the duration of the march, trudging across almost four hundred miles of muddy, uneven roads, traversing steep mountains, and enduring the often inclement weather of early spring. Each night these young "demons," as the marchers facetiously referred to the reporters, sent their dispatches by telegraph to a depression-torn nation eagerly awaiting the latest installment. As a result, Coxey's drab ensemble soon acquired its own celebrity. In the midst of the nation's deepest depression to date, the army became a symbol of hope. By the time the marchers reached the outskirts of Washing- ton, they had become the single-most reported story since the Civil War.6

One newspaper eager to tout the progress of Coxey's march was the African American newspaper, the Washington Bee. It began advertising "Coxey is Coming" at the top of its masthead the very week the march departed. Coxey not only integrated his march, but placed Jasper Johnson Buchanan, "a gentleman of color, carrying the national flag," at the very front of the march. This open display of diversity attracted attention among Washington's African American community, which in both good and bad economic times, quietly bore the nation's brunt of economic hardship. Following the Civil War, an influx of 23,000 new black residents from tidewater Maryland and eastern Virginia swelled the black population to some 75,000. Throughout the decade of the 1890s, blacks represented almost one-third of Washington's population and by the end of the decade, Washington had the largest black population of any city in the United States. Nonetheless, in an economically and socially divided Gilded Age America, rationalized by healthy doses of social Darwinism, white retrenchment from black equality continued unabated. Despite enjoy-

ing a significant share of government employment, Washington's black population, as elsewhere North and South, remained segregated and disenfranchised.7

Although the relationship between races in the District during Reconstruction had briefly moved in the direction of greater social and political equality, this progress quickly deteriorated following the closure of the Freedmen's Bureau in 1872. When the Supreme Court in August 1883 over- threw the Civil Rights Act of 1875, many of the city's black residents feared the loss of their newly acquired civil rights. Moreover, the Panic of 1893 impacted the capital's black community to a much greater extent than its white counterpart. Of the 16,000 Washingtonians without any means of support as a result of the failing economy, the majority were black. A study that examined the 19,000 Washingtonians living in alleys, found three-quarters of them to be "Negroes."8

Despite the hardships it endured, made worse by the depression, the black community in Wash- ington remained active politically. Although often divided amongst itself on tactics, the tradition of black political activism that spurred Congress to grant emancipation to slaves in the Distria in April 1862 continued, as blacks in Washington publicly

COXEY lb COMING.

Nothwithstanding the opposition of certain daily newspapers in this ci

ty Coxey and his true and tried braves

are coming. There is no cause to corjetlure any

longer. -

It is an undisputed feet, tke coun-

try $ in an uneasy condition^

People are d ¡satisfied and if some

thing w not done soon tö ^jatisTy the

Coxey's Arrival in Washington



A portrait of Carl Browne taken during the weeks he organized Coxey's Army (Photograph by [?] Bell, April 1894, Harris & Ewing Collection, courtesy Library of Congress)

demanded equal treatment. In making their demands, black Washingtonians typically used petitions, protests, and demonstrations to make their point as forcefully as needed to draw attention to their unequal status. As one reminder to the white community, up until 1891, blacks in Washington festively celebrated their emancipation with a large parade. Their 1884 celebration stretched more than a mile with some 6,000 people present, representing persons of every class.9

As Washington's black community sought greater social and economic justice, their African American churches served as the forum where they could meet to engage in discussing how best to influence a white-dominated political process that seemed to turn a deaf ear. During the depression, this same network of politically active black churches formed "benevolent and Missionary societies" to help rescue the most destitute from the grips of the depression. Then, just as the Bee had proclaimed, Coxey came to Washington, pro-

moting his own rescue plan for the disenfranchised and downtrodden, who quietly bore the deepest hardship. Not only did Coxey have a plan for employment, but his decision to parade this integrated spectacle of the unemployed to the Capitol aligned well with the recent history of black political activism in the District. Though there were fewer marchers than in the emancipation parades, Coxey's army would draw on larger crowds of admiring spectators, at least half estimated to be black, as it marched through Wash- ington. The spectacle of an integrated march with a plan for full employment resonated in Washing- ton's black community.10

Coxey, the conventional and well-heeled businessman in an Edwardian wing-collared shirt and bowler hat, hardly seemed the person to champion the poor and the unemployed. From his first job as a water boy in the Iron Mills in Danville, Pennsyl- vania, Coxey had advanced steadily, and by the age of forty, he had already amassed a small fortune operating quarries in Massillon and horse farms in Ohio, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Young Chicago Record reporter Ray Stannard Baker, later to become one of the country's most notable muckrakers, noted that Coxey "did not impress me as a great leader of a revolutionary movement."11

Yet neither was Coxey a typical Gilded Age tycoon. A staunch advocate of an expansive money supply, Coxey's opposition to the gold standard caused him to attend a convention of silver and greenback advocates in Chicago in August 1893. At this so-called Bimetallic Convention, he first met fellow delegate Carl Browne, an itinerant artist and activist. Although the two contrasted in appearance and style, they shared the belief that money itself represented only a derivative symbol of labor, not in itself an intrinsically valuable com- modity. These soft-money advocates sought to grow the economy and spread wealth more broadly by expanding the supply of paper money rather than allowing wealth to concentrate in the hands of a few as the "gold bugs" advocated. Browne, who learned the art of protest at the feet of San Francisco sandlot organizer Dennis Kearney, came to Chicago wearing his trademark sombrero and buckskin jacket, claiming at different times to be a reporter for the San Francisco City Argus, a delegate to the convention, or a performer in the Wild West show at the Great Columbian Exposition (Chicago's World's Fair). Whatever his official role, Browne spent his evening giving rabble-rousing speeches at Chicago's Lake Front Park.12

WASHINGTON HISTORY Summer 2013 4



A group photograph of Coxey's Army in Hagerstown, Md., belies the popular characterization of the marchers as an especially disorganized group. (Photographer unknown, April 1894, Coxey's Army Collection, courtesy Ohio Historical Society)

Against the specter of homeless men sleeping on the marble floors of Chicago's City Hall, Coxey and Browne came together to plan the march they entitled "The Commonweal of Christ/' Browne convinced his new partner that creating this spectacle would capture the attention of the nation and lead to the adoption of Coxey's plan to spend $500 million for a system of national roads. As the group left Massillon, few thought the march would get very far. But as the days passed and the stories about their progress dominated the news, antici- pation grew as to what might happen when they did reach the nation's capital.13

Hope

As Coxey's Army steadily approached Washington, it seemed to embody the very spirit of hopefulness inherent in the Populist movement, itself an amal- gam of reformers and their followers who sought a fairer response to the nation's increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Coxey's Good

Roads Plan typified the reform ideas of the Populist movement, at the time almost two decades old, and only in 1892 institutionalized in the form of the Peo- ple's Party. From its earliest roots in the Farm Alli- ance movement that started in tiny Lampasas, Texas, in 1875, this inchoate alliance of farm and later factory workers, challenged not simply the wealth and power of the governing plutocracy, but also put forth its own bold ideas to reshape the economy and government. From Southern Farmer Alliance Presi- dent Charles Macune's idea to establish subtreasur- ies to help the over-leveraged farmer against the rapacious middleman, to United Mine Worker leader John McBride's market unionism that would expand mine ownership to coal workers, the idea of cooperatives owned and operated by the producers challenged the increasing concentration of wealth in America's corporations. With his Good Roads Plan, Coxey hoped to tap into this same producer unrest that by 1891 had spawned 131 Single Tax Clubs promoting political economist Henry George's idea for "making land common property," thus put- ting an end to railroad and bank land grabs.14

Coxey's Arrival in Washington 5



Coxey's army received an especially warm reception as it marched through the steel- and coal- producing regions around Pittsburgh. (Photographer unknown, April 1894, Ray Stannard Baker Papers, courtesy Library of Congress)

Populism was not simply an economic and political movement, but a reform movement with its own share of mystic leaders and evangelical messages. Coxey's Commonweal of Christ envel- oped itself in religious and millennial imagery of hopefulness and possibility. In an era when the Utopian novels of Edward Bellamy and Ignatius Donnelly captured the nation's readership with their visions of a brighter future, Coxey and Browne saw the march itself in millennial terms. Their peaceful march promised economic salva- tion, even though its detractors would try to asso- ciate it with class insurrection and anarchy. Browne and Coxey intentionally departed Massillon on Easter Sunday because it represented a day of redemption and hope. Browne painted banners such as one announcing "Peace on Earth, Good Will towards Men, But Death to Interest on Bonds." He even converted the Episcopalian Coxey to The- osophy, an increasingly popular Asian mystical religion grounded in the hopeful promise of rein- carnation. He boldly proclaimed Coxey to be the reincarnated cerebrum and himself the cerebellum of Christ. The Second Coming would be made possible because, Browne affirmed, the "remainder of the soul of Christ has been fully reincarnated," in the thousands of people who were supporting Coxey's March. On the eve of the Commonweal's

departure, Browne proclaimed: "To accomplish it [the march] means the second coming of Christ, and I believe in the prophecy that He is to come, not in any one single form, but in the whole people."15

Dr. James Boyd in Vital Questions of the Day suggested that Coxey and Browne created an event so suffused in an imagery of hopefulness that it soon developed its own momentum and attraction. Boyd observed this spectacle "would prove attractive to all elements of discontent, and would grow by daily accretions, till finally [it] became an irresistible energy, compelling respect- ful sentiment." Indeed, Coxey's Army resonated with farmers and laborers alike. Smiling women waved bouquets on balconies in tiny farming villages and offered supplies of food and clothing. As the march approached the site of a recent and violent strike at the Homestead Steelworks near Pittsburgh, tens of thousands of hard-bitten fellow

laborers and their families turned out to cheer the men on. In the spring of 1894, Coxey's march became the quintessential expression of the people's protest in the twilight of the Populist moment. 16

As this spectacle made its final approach along the "Great Road" in Maryland (today known as Rockville Pike) on April 29, a nighttime storm had turned the dirt road into "red, wet and sticky" mud, making it hard for the marchers to keep double file. Trudging down today's Route 40, which becomes 355 near Myersville - and today where a Coxey- Browne Road runs from Myersville to Frederick - the weary troop approached the Silver Spring train station. Here they were met by a contingent of workmen from Philadelphia, led by Christopher Columbus Jones, wearing a stove pipe hat. A cav- alry corps dispatched from Washington also arrived, a conspicuous sign of the growing apprehension of Washington officials. As the Commonweal reached the intersection of the Great and Blair Roads, they were met by the usual throng of enthusiastic bicy- clists, the staunchest supporters of Coxey's Good Roads Plan, who had greeted the march at other stops along the way.17

During the journey from Rockville, thousands of people cheered from each side of the road. The Washington Post reported, "A great crowd filed down the old Rockville turnpike, with cheering and

6 WASHINGTON HISTORY Summer 2013



As it marched through Frederick, Md., along the "Great Road"(Rockville Pike), Coxey's army picked up many followers who made the trek to Washington. (Photographer unknown, April 24, 1 894, courtesy Montgomery County Historical Society)

music and waving hats " By this time, the marchers were well accustomed to this sort of pos- itive reception. With its painted wagons, brass band, and colorful banners this sparse assembly of tramping men seemed to engender good will at almost every stop during its thirty-five-day journey to Washington. As they reached the outskirts of Washington, the previously all-male brigade, now added its first female, the fiery Populist Annie Diggs from Kansas and a friend of Coxey's. Coxey and Browne had been sensitive to criticism of the march for being a slovenly collection of tramps, and therefore sought to avoid any additional accu- sations of moral laxity if women and men slept together at campsites.18

Among the most hopeful of those greeting the march were Washington's African Americans. Coxey and Browne deliberately promoted and took pride in the march's diversity at a time when most states withdrew their support of civil rights legislation. Coxey not only placed Buchanan at the head of the march, but also welcomed other black Americans. In a nation where segregation remained the norm, Coxey's March fully integrated blacks and whites both on the road and at every campsite. Word of the march spread rapidly through the African American congregations, and leaders of black churches advertised its arrival throughout the long journey. Areas with large black populations produced significant turnouts to greet the marchers. Baker from the Chicago

Record noted the extent of the "negro" turnout around Frederick, Maryland. He wrote that Coxey and Browne "make no distinction between them ("the negroes") and their white companions," and "this fact has made all the Negro population friends."19

At twenty minutes past noon on April 29, after thirty-five days on the road, the march crossed the northwest Distria line and by one o'clock entered Brightwood Driving Park. Coxey identified this historic racetrack as an appropriate staging ground after an earlier attempt to secure a campgrounds near Woodley Park - close to the summer home of Grover Cleveland - fell through. Brightwood seemed altogether an appropriate campground for Coxey to select since he bred several famous trot- ters at his assorted horse farms. As they arrived at this track near Colorado Avenue and Sixteenth Street, the eastern edge of today's Rock Creek Park, the Massillon Independent's Skinner noted the men had survived "the brunt of mud and storms and cold. They were the most unique and inexpli- cable aggregation ever brought together." These three hundred weary and disheveled troops carrying tattered banners reading the "Commonweal of Christ" and "Jesus Saves" marked a triumph of hope in a spring of despair, and a tangible expression of the underdog. With this most direct form of democratic expression, they demonstrated to many observers what the Populist movement was all about in the first place.20




"Little Bobby,' ' the bag piper who joined the march at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, entertained the marchers at Camp Brightwood. (Photographer unknown, April 1894, courtesy Historical Society of Washington)

At Brightwood, the marchers gathered together for the last time, and for thirty-six hours prepared for their final, triumphant May Day parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the steps oí the Capitol. All day on April 30, a steady stream of spectators clogged the Brightwood road from Washington, kicking up thick clouds of dust. Skinner reported it seemed "every horse and wheel vehicle in the city had been pressed into service." He wrote, "the sight of so much splendor on wheels was really imposing." Even the street rail, which arrived a half mile from the track, was overwhelmed with traffic.21

The Brightwood interlude gave Coxey time to rehearse the speech he planned to give the next day. In his oration, he would defiantly say, "We stand here today on behalf of the million of toilers whose petitions have been unresponded to, and whose opportunities for honest, remunerative, productive labor have been taken from them by unjust legislation protecting idleness, speculators and gamblers." Coxey sided with the producer over the moneyman; the honest farmer and laborer over the greedy banker. His Commonweal now

entered a capital not accustomed to labor unrest and thus growing increasingly anxious about the arrival of this industrial army.22

Fear

Indeed the idea of Coxey's approaching "industrial army" seemed at odds with Washington's identity as a government town. In the thirty years following the Civil War, the number of government employees had doubled to some 21,000. Meanwhile, the city's influx of German, Greek, Chinese, Italian, and other immigrants was far smaller (about 8 percent) than that of northern industrial cities and these newcomers tended to be more skilled and entrepreneurial. Because it had very little industry, Washington had far fewer unskilled immigrants than the nation's industrial centers that needed large numbers of laborers. After the Civil War Washington's leaders clumsily tried to create an industrial base modeled on the northeast, but plans for transforming Washington into an industrial economy or a trade gateway to the South floundered. As Coxey entered the city, Washington's industrial economy consisted mainly of beer making, power generation, print shops, and the munitions factory at the Navy Yard. As the District commissioners reaffirmed, "The national capital is chiefly devoted to the public business."23

Thus the specter of Coxey's Army and other copycat "industrial armies" suddenly heading east- ward toward Washington from as far away as San Francisco and Spokane captured the capital's attention. Washington's newspapers began reporting outbreaks of violence associated with the related armies in the far West. The week before Coxey arrived Washington readers awoke to reports of bloodshed from industrial armies near Billings, Montana, as federal marshals fired on a stolen train. A front page Washington Post headline read: "IWo Deputies and One of the Commonwealers Shot." In Vancouver, heavily armed soldiers were reported protecting railroad property, and in Terre Haute, Indiana, an industrial army seized a train. Meanwhile, the Post quoted the leader of another army of industrials camped in Council Bluffs, Iowa, saying, "All revolutions have received a bap- tism of blood and I don't expect this one to be an exception to the rule."24

Coxey and Browne fueled the anxieties in the capital by dispatching an advance man to Wash-




ington to prepare for the marchers and entice new recruits to join. Colonel A. E. Redstone, who knew Browne from labor protests in San Fran- cisco, had moved to Washington where he prac- ticed patent law. A skilled organizer, Redstone began producing a small newspaper called the National Tocsin and used it as a way to publicize the arrival of Coxey's Army and attract local recruits. Redstone warned local residents that although 100,000 demonstrators would soon be in Washington, he stressed that the march would be peaceful and that its leaders would maintain a sense of "order and decency/' He sought to reassure District residents that the army would arrive in a Christian spirit of nonviolence. Yet with each public statement, Redstone fueled Washington's growing anxiety by drawing attention to the whole affair.25

The impending arrival in Washington of an estimated 100,000 protestors led the Secret Service to monitor Coxey's plans even before he left Massil- lon. By the time the march reached Pennsylvania, Secret Service agents posing as new recruits infil- trated Coxey's group. Matthew F. Griffin, one of the impersonators, noted in an account written in 1926, that although "looking like Coxey's Army" would become a sarcastic slang phrase intimating an almost comic disorganization, in its time officials treated it very seriously. "Every bit of news that came from Massillon in the week preceding the March to Washington was eagerly read," Griffin observed. Because the march route was thought to pass near the Treasury Building, some agents speculated that the real aim of these tramps was to raid this prominent symbol of the plutocracy. In response, the Treasury Department deployed fifty-five additional carbines and twenty revolvers to its seventy-man security guard.26

While President and Mrs. Cleveland took leisurely evening carriage rides through the city, preparations at the White House intensified. On April 22, the Pres- ident convened a day-long con- ference with the District of Columbia's Chief of Police Major William Moore and members of the cabinet to discuss the growing threat. Reports circulated that Cleveland's secretary of war, Daniel S. Lamont, ordered troops sta-

tioned at Fort Meyer to stop the Commonweal should it approach from the west, while marines stationed in the nearby Navy Yard went through riot drills in preparation for Coxey's arrival. Bands of cavalrymen patrolled Washington's outlying neighborhoods, preparing to meet the invasion. The Distria commissioners, who typically represented the interests of Washington's business and professional constituency, issued a forceful April 23 proclamation about the approaching "criminals and evil doers." They noted that "No possible good can come of such a gathering, and with no proper preparations or means of subsistence, suf- fering and ultimate disorder will certainly ensue." While the District commissioners were issuing their proclamation on the threat posed "to peace and good order," the House of Representative's Sergeant at Arms was meeting with the chief of the Capital Police. The two officials agreed to use armed force only as a last resort, but to prohibit the marchers from loitering on the Capitol grounds or entering buildings.27

As Coxey's Army grew nearer, the precautions escalated. On April 25 Attorney General Richard Olney, following meetings of the cabinet called by President Cleveland, ordered federal troops to pre- vent the western armies from commandeering trains. As the Chicago Tribune editorialized, "It is not surprising that the motley 'armies' known as the 'Commonweal/ tramping, begging, or stealing rides from various parts of the country to Washing- ton as the common center, have occasioned con-

siderable anxiety on the part of the authorities of the District of Columbia and Maryland." Offi- cials even erected what was referred to as "Fort Thurber" on the White House grounds. Henry Thurber, Cleveland's per- sonal secretary, ordered that a special shelter be erected where extra guards could be on the lookout for the suspicious criminals and anarchists rumored to be entering the District.28

The District's superintendent of police, William G. Moore, acknowledged major preparations to confront the Coxeyites.

In a newspaper interview on April 26, he sought on the one hand to reassure District residents. He observed he had already deputized an additional two hundred officers to handle any potential

His Commonweal now

entered a capital not

accustomed to labor

unrest and thus growing

increasingly anxious

about the arrival of this

industrial army.




danger. On the other hand, in the same interview he made the alarming claim that many criminals had already entered the city in advance of Coxey, hoping for a riot. Moore cited an obscure 1882 "Act to Regulate the Grounds/ as his basis to use force if necessary. He could also rely on other ordinances that allowed police ample authority to take care of Mr. Coxey and his cohorts. As Coxey would soon discover, District police would have no hesitation about enforcing the most triv- ial ordinances. City lawyers supported the superintendent and affirmed Coxey could be arrested just as any other citizen despite his prominence as a businessman.29

With all of this fortification and preparation, the Boston Daily Globe reported to its readers, "The rest of the country has not the least conception of the state of nervousness which prevails in Wash- ington at this time." Meanwhile, the Washington Post tried to reassure its anxious local readers by detailing how the District National Guard, under the leadership of Brigadier General Albert Ord- way, commenced emergency drills. Ordway carefully planned and charted the capital's defense against the "invading armies." He had earlier published a manual detailing how to respond to various types of civil disturbances, cautioning that these kinds of premeditated protests challenged conventional military techniques. He also noted that spontaneous outbreaks of group violence could be managed well by armed force, but premeditated, carefully planned protests like Coxey's proved almost impos- sible to contain.30

Nevertheless, conventional military preparations continued. At the Center Market Armory, Colonel Cecil Clay addressed three battalions of the District's National Guard and noted at least 1,200 Guard troops would be available immediately, and that some 3,000 more could be called up within a half-day's time if circumstances warranted it. Moreover, District and National Guard officials could rely on forces from Pennsylvania and New York, as well as marines stationed at the local Navy Yard and federal artillery. Newspaper stones reas- sured the anxious public that "the speed with

which it will be possible to mobilize troops in an emergency is not a matter of conjecture but of established fact."31

Coxey's own rhetoric did nothing to calm the situation. When reporters suggested the police would block their entrance to the Capitol building Coxey tersely replied, "Wait until we get there." Reporters asked if the protesters would resort to force if denied entrance to the Capitol grounds. Coxey shrugged, fueling even more speculation that violence might break out. More- over, Coxey indicated the men were prepared to stay the summer if necessary to make their point. If they did not receive legal recourse from Con- gress or the courts, Coxey hinted that revolution might ensue. "I do not advocate revolution, nor do I desire it, but it will be irresistible and it will be the greatest revolution of history, if the American people are thoroughly aroused," he warned.32

Coxey added to official concern with his speech to the crowd at Brightwood late on the afternoon of April 29. Not one of Washington's "high society" racetracks, it operated as a strictly commercial venture. Many of those arriving to see the army's encampment took seats in the track's grandstand. The infield was filled with carriages with women shading themselves under their parasols. Coxey spoke at the top of his lungs from an impromptu podium in front of the track's stands. He began with his usual Populist denunciation of the monopolists. He then urged Congress to pass his

Good Roads legislation that he believed would put four million unemployed Americans back to work. "Twenty million people are hungry and can't wait two years to eat. Four million people have been idle for nine months. That's what Grover Cleveland has cost this country," Coxey shouted. Cheers echoed through the park. Coxey went on defiantly, saying he and his men were prepared to endure the entire summer to see his legislation passed. On the eve of the final parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, Coxey did little to assuage Washington's growing

fears that the city was about to enter a summer of siege and violence by angry industrial armies.33

"I do not advocate

revolution, nor do I desire it,

but it will be irresistible and

it will be the greatest

revolution of history, if the

American people are

thoroughly aroused."

-JACOB COXEY

10 WASHINGTON HISTORY Summer2013



Reporters and spectators followed the marchers as they left Brightwood and made their way toward the Capitol. (Reprinted from Frank Leslie's Newspaper, May 1 0, 1 894, courtesy Library of Congress)

Confusion

All day and into the evening of April 30, streetcars overflowed with people eager to make their way to the Brightwood Driving Park. Eight thousand people were estimated to have visited the camp in some thirty-six hours. One press report characterized those flocking to the site as mostly from "the working class/' Washington's forgotten. Those who came witnessed sallow-faced men, some eat- ing chunks of bread, while others stretched out under weather-beaten tents using their coats for pillows. After walking four hundred miles, the men appeared "weary, footsore, and generally dilapidated." Though advertisers already hawked the "long wearing and rugged Coxey Shoe," the marchers were actually short on shoes. One of them wore a rubber boot on one foot, with the other covered in canvas.34

Among those visiting the site were Populist senators and congressmen. Following the 1892 elections, the thirteen Populists who now sat in the 53rd Congress, pushed their own bold agenda, including Coxey's Good Roads legislation. However, the small Populist caucus also argued over how to receive Coxey. Although Populists William Peffer (Kansas) and William Allen (Nebraska) would offer welcoming resolutions, not every Populist in this Congress agreed with Coxey's tactics.35

As a congressional minority, the Populists sought opportunities to combine or "fuse" their positions with those of the established parties in order to move the "people's" agenda. This collabo- rative effort complicated their views of Coxey's protest. Before the marchers departed Massillon, Populist Senator William Stewart (Nevada) wrote to Coxey imploring him to drop the idea. Although Stewart sympathized with Coxey's cause, he also passionately defended the ballot as the only proper way to exercise the people's voice in a democracy. Stewart believed that the march would provide a platform for the "money power" to accuse Popu- lists of being irresponsible. The march was sheer "folly," Stewart wrote.36

Nonetheless, Senator Peffer did not allow Stew- art's views to deter him from introducing a welcoming resolution calling for establishment of a receiving committee of nine senators, and for the vice president to officially greet Coxey as he came up the Capitol steps. The resolution also provided that Coxey could formally present his petition and give a speech. In his remarks, Peffer fixed on the anxieties now rampant among officials throughout

Washington. "Why should the police be preparing to arrest these marchers arriving in peace and carrying religious banners?" he asked rhetorically. To Peffer's eyes the march was not only a logical expression of constitutional rights, but also a welcome return of the energy of the original Populist movement.37

The senators who rose in opposition to the welcoming resolution displayed the same anxiety sweeping Washington. Several of them challenged the right of "Coxey's Army" to parade without a permit. Others felt that a formal welcome was unnecessary as the Constitution already granted citizens the right to peacefully assemble. On April 23 the resolution predictably failed 26 to 17, with 41 senators not even bothering to vote. All four Populist senators voted in favor, including Stewart who decided a welcoming committee might actually maintain the very decorum he sought when he tried to persuade Coxey against marching in the first place.38

Shortly after the resolution's defeat, the Popu- lists met for more than two hours behind closed doors, but they could not agree to endorse the march. Some of them were concerned that Coxey's so-called "petition on boots" had attracted a criminal element. They did agree amongst themselves that any violence would hurt the Populist

Coxey's Arrival in Washington 1 1



This satirical sketch depicted the sharp contrast in political influence between the unemployed and the captains of industry. With an army of industrialists behind him, Andrew Carnegie presented a petition to a dutiful congressman. (Sketch by W. A. Rogers, reprinted from Harper's Weekly, May 1 2, 1 894, courtesy Library of Congress)

electoral chances in November. Yet they also found it difficult to publicly criticize their fellow Populist from Ohio. On April 26 Senator Allen offered a new version of a welcoming resolution. Similar to Peffer's, it asked Congress to make no distinction among petitioners who sent their petition by mail, or brought it in person to Washing- ton. However, Allen's resolution did not even come to a vote.39

Meanwhile, Coxey did not wait for Congress to act. He took it upon himself to convince local officials to at least grant him a permit to parade to the Capitol. Coxey outlined a parade route for Police Chief Moore and the District commissioners. He would march his parade straight down Fourteenth Street to the Peace Monument on Pennsylvania Avenue, then along First Street and onto B Street (the current Constitution Avenue); there the procession would turn east and proceed down Dela- ware Avenue to the east steps of the Capitol. Coxey also informed the superintendent and commis-

Carl Browne, on horseback, leaves Brightwood Camp surrounded by marchers whose tired, dirty, and hungry condition was commonly noted by reporters. Marchers criticized Browne and Coxey for riding on horses and carriages and staying in hotels, as their followers walked from one makeshift encampment to another during the 400-mile trek from Massillon. (Sketch byT. Dart Walker, reprinted from Harper's Weekly, May 12, 1894, courtesy Library of Congress)

sioners that he had arranged a vacant lot at Second and M streets as the site wherê the marchers would convene after his speech was over and they departed the Capitol grounds. Without any cause to deny it, Chief Moore granted Coxey a parade permit even though he still had his reservations about Coxey's insistence on speaking from the Capitol steps. Granting him permission to speak was not for Moore to decide.40

Coxey needed explicit permission from either the Senate's Sergeant at Arms, the Speaker of the House, or the Vice President. On the afternoon of April 30, Coxey rode the trolley from Brightwood to the Capitol to seek such permission. Many riders hopped off the car when he arrived and followed him right into the halls of Congress. Most people recognized him, including young pages who hur- riedly sought his autograph. The Senate had just adjourned and as Coxey waited for the Sergeant at Arms to appear, passing senators greeted him as if he were a new celebrity. As word spread that Coxey was in the building, clerks and staff members thronged to see him, and he began signing autographs again for some two hundred spectators who gathered in the hallways. Unfor- tunately, the official meeting with the Senate Sergeant at Arms, Col. R. S. Bright, was not as friendly. Coxey was told in no uncertain terms that he would not be allowed to speak from the Capitol grounds.41




This map shows Coxey's route from Camp Brightwood down Fourteenth Street, crossing the Boundary Line (Florida Avenue), towards the Capitol. (Reprinted from the Boston Daily Globe, May 2, 1894, courtesy Library of Congress)

As evening approached and with the final leg of the march just hours away, Coxey - still on Capitol Hill - sought out Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson and Speaker Charles Crisp. He finally found the Speaker at 11:00 p.m., who inquired about the nature of Coxey's speech. Again, as Bright had done, the speaker informed Coxey he could not have approval to speak from the Capi- tol grounds. Thus as evening wore on, Coxey still had not received permission to enter the Capitol grounds. That night, instead of staying with the men at Brightwood, he returned to the National Hotel. Coxey and Browne often stayed in local hotels during the march, a practice that caused grumbling in the ranks. However, on this occasion, Coxey had ample excuse. He was joined by his wife, three-week-old infant son, "Legal Ten- der/ and eighteen-year-old daughter, Mamie, who had arrived from Massillon to make the final leg of the journey. Mamie and her mother had also made the rounds in Washington that afternoon preparing for Mamie's prominent role in the spectacle as the "Goddess of Peace," meant to reinforce the march's millennial promise.42

Verdict

Carl Browne deliberately chose May 1, Interna- tional Labor Day, for the final seven-mile parade through Washington. Browne thought May Day the appropriate moment "to protest in the name of bankrupt people against further robbery by interest upon paper notes (bonds), based upon the public credit, when that same credit can be used to issue other pieces of paper (notes or legal tender) without interest or profit to national (so-called) banks." The day was warm with a gentle spring breeze and crowds began forming early along the parade route. They would swell to some 30,000, with probably half of them being African Ameri- can. Inside the White House the Cabinet met as usual, but the Evening Star reported that nearly every Secret Service agent had been summoned for the occasion.43

Coxey looked forward to delivering his address. He planned to deliver a message of hope:

We have come here through toil and weary march, through storms and tempests, over mountains and amid the trials of poverty and distress at the doors of Congress in the name of Him whose banners we bear, in the name of Him who pleaded for the poor and the oppressed, that they should

heed the voice of the distress and despair that is now coming up from every section of our country, that they should consider the conditions of the unemployed of our land and enact such laws as will give them employment, bring happier conditions to the people and the smile of con- tentment to our citizens.

With his speech now tucked into his breast pocket and his wife and infant son at his side, Coxey's open carriage took its customary place at the rear of a procession now estimated to include some 600, but hardly the 100,000 rumored for weeks to be on their way. In addition to the core group of 120 who had made the entire journey, a contingent from Philadelphia now swelled the ranks as did other sympathizers wanting to revel in the moment. The police also assembled in full force. According to the Massillon Independent's Skinner, "Since the days of the [Civil] war, the Capitol and other buildings have not been guarded as they are now." Policemen reportedly slept at their posts on the Capitol grounds and all along the parade's route. In all, with more than 200 new policemen sworn in overnight, the city was patrolled by some 600 officers, or the equiv- alent of one per marcher. Ominously, many of the police arrived mounted on horseback.44

Browne reminded the marchers that "the eyes of the world are on you and you must conduct yourselves accordingly." He put them through drills, giving commands and asking them to respond by waving newly issued "peace sticks" in the air three times and shouting "Gloria Peace." Mamie was mounted upon a white horse deco- rated with red and yellow trappings. Dressed as




the symbolic Goddess of Peace, according to Baker's dispatch, she "wore a long white skirt, white gloves and a brimless cap trimmed with blue from which a single gold star shone, her only ornament. A wealth of blonde hair flowed loosely down her shoulders. Her delicate face was flushed with excitement and her fingers toyed nervously with the bridle." Browne with his typical cowboy attire now fell into line behind her on a magnificent stallion. He carried one of his own peace banners. Jesse Coxey, Coxey's sixteen-year-old son, mounted on an impressive stallion, wore a blue-gray ensemble to represent the union of once oppos- ing forces in the Civil War. He was assigned to relay his father's orders to the men. Populist sup- porter Annie Diggs, who had greeted the men at Rockville, rode in an open carriage with her fam- ily. Infant "Legal Tender" Coxey, draped in white embroidered flannel, was carried by Mrs. Coxey. In honor of the French 1871 uprising, the men were organized into "communes" with names like "Chicago" and "Philadelphia," and arranged in alphabetical order. Outfitted in his stove pipe hat and banking suit intended to mock the plutocracy, Christopher Columbus Jones led the "Philadelphia Commune." Heading up this Spec- tacle of Hope was its black standard-bearer Jasper Johnson Buchanan, marching to the tunes of a jangle brass band.45

Although the banners and wagons appeared shabby, the protesters tried hard to keep up appearances. As Baker reported, "The army itself looked better than it had for many a day. Most of the men spent hours in getting ready for the great occasion." As they marched peaceably, the spectators grew in number and enthusiasm. Even Browne's past association with anti-Chinese protests in San Francisco two decades earlier, did not dampen the warm greeting they received as they passed by the Chinese diplomatic quarters. As the army turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue the crowds became so thick they nearly choked the procession, and more mounted police were summoned to carve a path. One colorful Coxey recruit known as "Oklahoma Sam" helped the police with crowd control. As the procession approached the east side of the Capitol the onlookers grew more frenzied and a few tried to jump into the Coxey's carriage. At this point Mrs. Coxey decided to hand Legal Tender over to a nurse for safekeeping.46

As the army made the turn from Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, onto New Jersey Avenue, SE, Baker described the scene as approaching near pande-

monium. "Several thousand persons lined the ter- races, the plaza, and every available foot of space on the grass plot. The fronts of neighboring buildings were crowded and the hotel at the corner presented windows and doors full of sight seers." From New Jersey instead of marching directly into the Capitol grounds, the men marched up First Street, SE, with the police and guards following them. As they made it to the B Street entrance to the Capitol, Browne dismounted his stallion and entered into the crowds that now occupied the east front of the Capitol. Coxey stepped from his phaeton and then turned to kiss his wife, a gesture that brought more cheers from the enthusiastic audience. While Browne was able to leap the small retaining wall onto the Capitol grounds, Coxey tripped and was nearly trampled by those well- wishers, who now chased after Browne toward the Capitol steps. The crowd simply ignored the prominent "Keep off the Grass" signs. Browne made it to the corner of the steps before one of the mounted policemen, now wielding his club, tried to grab him. Browne flailed, swinging back wildly. He was accosted by police, who reportedly punched him several times. With his clothing torn and blood- ied, and a necklace made by his deceased wife broken and in pieces on the ground, Browne found himself suddenly under arrest.47

In the chaos now ensuing, flag-bearer Buchanan tried to come to Browne's rescue, but the police turned on him with special fury so that he had to be taken to the hospital. The Washington Bee , which had supported every phase of the march, decried the harsh treatment of the black standard-bearer. In a stern rebuke of the District's white police chief, the paper noted that he admitted to being more afraid of the "colored people than he was of Coxey's Army." The Bee also reported, "Finding the Negro the less offensive they clubbed him." The Bee's cri- tique of police conduct at the Capitol ends with the following rebuke: "The scene was disgraceful ... on the part of some of those brutal and pusillanimous officers of the police force." The entire event tested not only the endurance but also the motivation of Coxey's army - tests it passed. As for the response of Washington's officials, Bee writers declared their behavior as ample evidence of the reality of being black in Gilded Age Washington.48

As Coxey came to his feet after the close call with the stampeding crowd, he respectfully asked a policeman to be ushered toward the Capitol steps. The officer obliged and Baker described how "the two wormed their way through the mob like




The Boston Daily Globe suggested the march that had threatened to wreak havoc upon Washington had met its Waterloo, as the police force swiftly and decisively denied "General" Coxey and "Marshall" Browne access to Congress. (Reprinted in the Boston Daily Globe , May 2, 1 894, courtesy Library of Congress)

sparrows through a wheat field/' Afterwards, the Secret Service sent a telegram to the Cleveland White House describing the final moments:

Coxey went to the steps of the East Portico and went up about five steps. Lieutenant Kelly and other police officers met Coxey and informed him he could make no speech. Coxey said he wished to enter a protest. The officers said "you can take no action here of any kind." Coxey said he wished to read a program. The officers told him, "It cannot be read here/' Coxey showed no inclination to yield and the officers hustled him off the steps into the middle of the plaza in front of the Capitol. He made no physical resistance but protested all the while and the crowd gathered and obstructed the way but seemed moved by curiosity only. No one was struck. Coxey was not formally put under arrest.

In contrast to this dispassionate Secret Service dispatch, however, Skinner's contemporaneous account, telegraphed immediately to meet the Massillon Evening Independent's afternoon deadline, captured the event:

Coxey and Browne are walking up to the Capi- tol. Every inch of space seems to be occupied. There seems to be a stampede and people say that the police are using clubs. Coxey has been arrested. He just passed me, very white, in the center of one hundred policemen. Tens of thousands of people are following and yelling. The excitement is beyond anything the mind can conceive, yet no ugliness is manifested. The police are in entire control. ... In clearing the Capitol steps clubs were freely used. . . . Browne got severely clubbed.

Neither the Secret Service, nor Skinner could adequately describe what had transpired. The confusion created varying versions of the final chaotic episode. But following Coxey's failed attempt to give his speech, those from the Com- monweal, still half assembled in their communes outside the Capitol grounds, now retreated peaceably to their new camp site at Second and M streets. Thus the curtain fell ingloriously on this five-week-old crusade that had endured so much. In concluding his account of the events, Baker simply said, "As for the Commonweal, it vanished in thin air."49

A week later, despite Senator Peffer's eloquent defense before Judge Miller in the District Police Court, the defendants Coxey, Browne, and Jones, accused of trespassing on the Capitol grounds, received twenty days in jail and a five-dollar fine.

"GEN" COXEY'S WATERLOO.

His 329 Raggili Warriors Fail to Read Steps of CapDol

-Lleuls Browne and Jones Arrested.

By the end of June the rest of the marchers had moved to a new encampment in Rosslyn, Virginia, and with additions from other armies numbered some 2,000 people. During the summer as other remnants of the industrial-army movement made it to Washington, Browne talked about organizing another march on the Capitol. However, authorities moved the remaining protesters to a Bladens- burg camp site and finally to Hyattsville. Coxey, after being released from jail, returned to Massil- lon, where he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in November 1894. He would return to Washington often in the ensuing years to testify in favor of expanding the federal money supply to build public works. He even returned in 1944, at the age of ninety, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the march, where he gave the speech that had remained in his breast pocket in 1894. Browne married Mamie Coxey in the summer of 1895, much to the chagrin of her father, an episode that caused the two erstwhile partners to part ways.50

In the aftermath of the march, Congress returned to larger debates over tariffs and trade as if the whole Coxey event had never happened. Yet the depression would continue to take its toll on the nation. While in September a chief official of the Cleveland administration sought to reassure the public by suggesting commerce had




Surrounded by policemen, some wielding their batons to control the crowd, Jacob Coxey leaves the Capitol after being prevented from making his speech. (Sketch byT. Dart Walker, reprinted from Harper's Weekly, May 12, 1894, courtesy Library of Congress)

reached its lowest point, the depression would continue until 1897. Only Washington seemed largely to escape its worst effects. Reflecting on what was described as a "city of homes," former Kansas Senator John Ingalls noted that no other city in America responded as well as Washington did to the depression. The real estate boom had not diminished and brought with it a class of wealthy con- sumers to fuel the local economy, which in many instances, resulted in employment of domestic help and other jobs attendant to the wealthy suburbs. On Sep- tember 6, 1894 the Washington Post trumpeted "For- tunes to be Made," an article reporting on the money being made in residential and commercial real estate. While noting some slowness in sales and some stabilizing of values because of the depression, the market remained "unsurpassed by any city in the United States." Indeed, it remained an attrac-

tive haven for the accomplished and the wealthy.51

Following the march, the press quickly turned its attention to the Pullman strike that began in June. Seen as a genu- ine labor uprising, it did not threaten the District as Coxey's Army had. In the nation's newspapers Coxey's march receded from the front pages as quickly as it had appeared. However, it had set an important precedent for protest movements in the nation's capital. Later organizers

from the suffragettes (1913) to anti-Vietnam War demonstrators (1971) acknowledged the Coxey model. During the Great Depression in February 1931, Coxey testified at hearings about payment of World War I bonuses for soldiers, and by doing so set the stage the following spring for the arrival of the Bonus Army that called for immediate payment of these promised funds. The memory of Coxey's Army was also respect-

As the first march

on Washington, Coxey's

Commonweal set the

standard for this

most direct form of

political expression.




Christopher Columbus Jones, Carl Browne, and Jacob Coxey stood outside the District jail after serving a twenty-day sentence for trespassing on the Capitol grounds. (Photographer unknown, June 1894, courtesy Massillon Museum, Ohio)

fully invoked on the House floor prior to the march on Washington in 1963. Coxey's precedent became part of the protest lexicon. As the first march on Washington, Coxey's Commonweal set the standard for this most direct form of political expression.52

In its own day, the spectacle of hope Coxey and Browne conceived mirrored the genu- ine Populist energy that arose in the South and the West some twenty years before. Coxey's march did not distinguish between farmer and laborer, black or white. Yet in a city increasingly dominated by the newly rich and government elites, it produced an anxious and fearful reaction. For a brief moment as Coxey arrived, the depression was delivered to the Capitol's doorstep. Even the sympathetic Populist representatives in

Congress were confused by this spontaneous grassroots uprising reminiscent of the energy of protest at the very roots of their two-decade old movement. Though, as it turned out, Washington easily survived Coxey's march, it gave hope to the city's most disenfranchised population. As subsequent protests have revealed, the ten- sions between the hopeful, the fearful, and the confused that

characterized Coxey's arrival in the capital continue to fuel our democratic process. Today L'Enfant's grand promenade awaits the next March on Washington.

Jerry Prout teaches political science at Marquette University, following a forty-year career as a corporate lobbyist.

"The scene was disgraceful . . .

on the part of some of those

brutal and pusillanimous

officers of the police force."

-THE WASHINGTON BEE




NOTES

1 . Lucy G. Barber, Marching to Washington (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 5-9; Kenneth Bowling, "From 'Federal Town' to 'National Capital,' Ulysses S. Grant and the Reconstruction of Washington, D.C.," Washington History 14 (Spring/Summer 2002): 16; "Grand Army Parade," Atlanta Constitution , September 21, 1892; Ray Stannard Baker, "Coxey and His Commonweal," The Tourney, 72 (May 1894): 118.

2. Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America (New York, Oxford University Press: 1976), 26-39; The precise numbers of business failures are broken down as 15,242 business, 119 railroad, and 642 bank failures in Douglas Steeples and David O. Whitten, Democracy in Desperation (Westport, CT. Greenwood Press, 1998), 34-37; Junius Henri Browne, "Succor for the Unemployed," Harper's Weekly 38 (January 6, 1894): 10.

3. "Fortunes to be Made," Washington Post, September 6, 1894; "Industrial Depression: Various Manufacturing Enterprises Close Their Doors," Washington Post, December 24, 1894; "The Home of the President," New York Times, September 16, 1894; "A Double Itoist," Atlanta Constitution, September 3, 1893.

4. Reverend S. Reynolds Hole, A Little Tour of America (Carlisle, MA: Applewood Books, 1894), 311; Constance McLaughlin Green, Capital City, vol. 2, Washington: A History of the Capital (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), 5-8, 100; Carl Abbott, "Dimensions of Regional Change in Washington D.C.," American Historical Review 95 (December, 1990): 1375-1378; Zachary M. Schräg, The Great Society Subway (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 14-1 5; Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 7; Mark IVvain, The Gilded Age (Hart- ford, CT. American Publishing Company, 1884), 295, 79-96; Kathryn Allamong Jacob, "Like Moths to a Candle: The Nouveaux Riches Flock to Washington," in Franane Curro Cary, ed., Urban Odyssey: A Multicultural History of Washington, D.C. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 79-96.

5. "Sunday Afternoon on Connecticut Avenue: A Spring Day Pageant," and "Not Wholly a Myth," Washington Post, March 25, 1894.

6. Michael Sweeney, "The Desire for the Sensational," Journalism History 23 (Autumn, 1997): 114.

7. Washington Bee, March 31, April 7, and April 21, 1894; Abbott, "Dimensions," 1375; Lois Horton, "The Days of Jubilee: Black Migration During the Civil War and Recon- struction," in Cary, Urban Odyssey, 65-77; Green, Capital City, 70, 132; Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation 's Capital (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 967), 119-1 54.

8. Kate Masur, An Example for All the Land (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 198-200; Green, Secret City, 1 19-1 54.

9. Masur, An Example for All the Land, 7-1 1 . 10. Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom : Memory and Meaning in

African American Emandpation Celebrations, 1808-1915 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), 209-232.

11. Ray Stannard Baker, American Chronicle (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945), 7, 18-19; "Will Move Tomorrow," Chicago Record, March 24, 1894; "Freedom from Silver," Chicago Daily Tribune, August 2, 1893; "To Shout for Silver," Chicago Daily Tribune, July 30, 1893.

12. Carl Browne, When Coxey's Army Marchi [síc] (San Francisco: [no publisher], May, 1944), 4-6; "A Labour Leader," Boston Daily Globe, July 8, 1878; "The Hoodlum's King," Washington Post, July 8, 1878; "King Kearney," Boston Daily Globe, July 23, 1878; Dennis Kearney, Speeches of Dennis Kearney (New

York: Jesse Haney and Co., 1878), 6, 26-29; "Kearney at the Capital," Boston Daily Globe, August 30, 1878.

13. Coxey detailed the history of his plan in "The Cause and the Cure," Coxey's Good Roads and Non-Interest Bond Library (Massillon, OH: Jacob S. Coxey Publisher, January 1, 1895), from the Papers of Jacob Sechler Coxey, Massillon Museum, Massillon, Ohio.

14. Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2007), 32-44, 153-155, 208-214, 228-232.

1 5. Peter H. Argesinger, The Limits of Agrarian Radicalism: Western Populism and American Politics (Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1995), 64-79; "To Sing for the Army," Chicago Record, March 21, 1894; Browne, Coxey's Army, 8-9; Baker, American Chronicle, 13-15; Donald L. McMurry, Coxey's Army (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1929), 46-48; Carlos Schwantes, Coxey's Army (Moscow, ID: University of Idaho Press, 1994), 42-48; "On the March," Boston Daily Globe, March 26, 1894; "Stewart's Advice," Rocky Mountain News, March 26, 1894; "In Camp at Canton," Chicago Daily News, March 26, 1894. Steeples and Whitten, Democracy, 20; Henry Vincent, The Story of the Commonweal (Chicago: W. B. Conkey and Co., 1894), 50-51; "Reformers and Theoso- phists," Massillon Independent; February 20, 1894.

16. Susan Soderberg, "The Great Road: The Story of Frederick Road" (http://rockville.patch.com/articles/the-great-road), accessed January 22, 2012; James P. Boyd, Vital Questions of the Day (New York: Publishers Union, 1894), 397.

17. "Coxey Less Boastful," Washington Post, April 27, 1894; "Coxey and His 300," Washington Post, April 30, 1894; Schwantes, Coxey's Army, 172.

18. "Coxey and His 300," Washington Post, April 30, 1894; "Western Women in Coxey's Army," Arizona and the West 26 (Spring, 1984): 6, 8; Schwantes, Coxey's Army, 126-132.

19. Amy Louise Wood, Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America 1890-1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 201 1), 19-30; Ray Stannard Baker, unlike McMurry, Schwantes, or Vincent, refers to Jasper Johnson as Jasper Johnson Buchanan, see "Army is in Trouble," Chicago Record, March 27, 1894; Vincent however, names him Jasper Johnson from Buchanan, West Virginia, see Vincent, Commonweal, 56; "Pulpit View of Coxey," Wash- ington Post, April 23, 1894; Postel, Populist Vision, 257-258; "Met by Armed Forces," Chicago Record, April 24, 1894; "Coxey is Coming," Washington Bee, March 31, April 7, and April 21, 1894; Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), 205-232.

20. "Coxey at His Goal," Massillon Independent, April 30, 1894. 21. "Coxey's March Ended," Massillon Independent, April 30,

1894. 22. "Bivouac at Woodley," Washington Post, April 26, 1894;

"Coxey at the Capital," Chicago Record, April 29, 1894; "Coxey at his Goal," Massillon Independent, April 30, 1894; "Coxey Not Afraid of Grover," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 24, 1894; "Coxey's March Is Ended," North American (Philadelphia), April 30, 1894.

23. Keith Melder, Magnificent Intentions: A History of Washington, D.C. (Washington: Intac, Inc., 1983), 257-260; Cary, Urban Odyssey, xvi-xvii; Hole, A Little Tour, 311; Abbott, "Dimen- sions," 1375-1376; Green, Capital City, 6-7, 100; "In Advance of Coxey," Washington Post, April 24, 1894.

24. Industrial army movement detailed in Vincent, Schwantes, and McMurry; Simon Cordery, Mother Jones: Raising Cain and Consciousness (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010), 45-47; "Marshals Baffled," Washington Post, April 26, 1894; "General Kelley is Oratorical," Washington Post, April 23, 1894; "In Advance of Coxey," Washington Post, April 24, 1894; "Marshals Baffled," Washington Post, April 26, 1894.

25. "Coxey's Army," Boston Daily Advertiser, March 23, 1894; "Coxey at His Rubicon" Washington Post, April 23, 1894;




"Not Worth Worrying About," New York Times, April 24, 1894; Schwantes, Coxey's Army, 143; "Getting Near the Capital," Chicago Record, April 23, 1894; Barber, Marching, 18; "Crusade of the Idle," Washington Post, March 18, 1894.

26. "Report of Vital and Social Statistics in the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890," in Part ll-Vital Statistics: Cities of 100,000 Population and Upward (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1896), 376-377; Matthew F. Griffin, "Secret Service Memories" (Part 1), Flynn's Weekly 13 (March, 1926): 915-916.

27. "In Advance of Coxey," Washington Post, April 24, 1894; Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1932), 521; "Grover Isn't Afraid," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 26, 1894; Barber, March- ing, 27; "Not Worth Worrying About," New York Times, April 24, 1894; "Told to Keep Out," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 24, 1894; Delos Franklin Wilcox, Great Cities in America : Their Problems and Their Government (New York: MacMillan and Co., 1913), 30-32; "Preparing for an Emergency," New York Times, April 27, 1894; "Caught Napping," Boston Daily Globe, April 26, 1894; "Police Preparations," Washington Post, April 27, 1894; "Ridicule for Coxey's Movement," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 25, 1894.

28. Nevins, Cleveland, 521; "Grover Isn't Afraid," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 26, 1894; Homer E. Socolofsky, "Jacob Coxey: Ohio's Respectable Populist," Kansas Quarterly 1 (Fall, 1969): 66.

29. Barber, Marching, 27; Schwantes, Coxey's Army, 231; "Told To Keep Out," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 24, 1894; "No Place for Coxey," Washington Post, April 17, 1894; "Ready for Coxey," St. Paul Daily News, March 23, 1894.

30. "Caught Napping," Boston Daily Globe, April 26, 1894; "Police Preparations," Washington Post, April 27, 1894; "Ridicule for Coxey's Movement," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 25, 1894; Albert Ordway, Drill Regulations for Street Duty (Washington, D.C.: James J. Chapman, 1891), 312-313.

31. "Preparing for Coxey," Washington Post, March 23, 1894; "The Coxey Commonweals," Daily Picayune, April 29, 1894.

32. "Capital Invaded," Boston Daily Globe, April 30, 1894; "Commonweal at the Capitol," The Milwaukee Sentinel, April 30, 1894.

33. Coxey at His Goal," Massillon Independent, April 30, 1894; "More Men in Line," Boston Daily Globe, March 28, 1894; Lara Otis, "Washington's Lost Race Tracks," Washington His- tory 24 (2012): 145-46.

34. Barber, Marching, 32-33; "Commonweal at the Capitol," The Milwaukee Sentinel, April 30, 1894; "Coxey in Washington," Emporia Gazette, April 30, 1894; "Capital Invaded," Boston Daily Globe, April 30, 1894; The Coxey Shoe advertisement appears in the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette on April 7,1894.

35. "Coxey's Debut," Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1894; "Coxey at the Capital," Chicago Record, April 29, 1894; Browne, Coxey's Army, 17-18; "Encamped at the Capital," New York Times, April 30, 1894; "Capital Invaded," Boston Daily Globe, April 30, 1894; Mitchell Baird, "Ideology and Depression Politics," Presidential Studies Quarterly 15 (Winter, 1985): 81. Schwantes, Coxey's Army, 172-175; McMurry, Coxey's Army, 102-103; Vincent, Commonweal, 18; "Bivouac at Woodley," Washington Post, April 26, 1894; "Coxey Not Afraid of Gro- ver," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 24, 1894; "Coxey at the Capitol," Chicago Record , April 29, 1894; Browne, Coxey's Army, 17-18; Barber, Marching, 5; Gene Clanton, "Hayseed Socialism on the Hill: Congressional Populism 1891-1895," Western Historical Quarterly 15 (April, 1894): 143-147; "Coxey's March Is Ended," North American (Philadelphia), April 30, 1894.

36. "Senator Stewart Writes to Coxey," Chicago Daily Tribune, March 26, 1894.

37. "Hearings on Proposed Legislation," U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 53rd Cong., 2nd Sess., vol. 26, pt. 5, April 19, 1894, 3842-3844; "Peffer Champions the Armies,"

Chicago Daily Tribune, April 20, 1894; Argesinger, Agrarian Radicalism, 102-105.

38. "Hearing on Proposed Legislation," U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 53rd Cong., 2nd Sess., vol. 26, pt. 5, April 23, 1894, 3960-3961.

39. "Populists in Caucus," North American (Philadelphia), April 26, 1894; McMurry, Coxey's Army, 110; "Hearing on Proposed Legislation," U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 53rd Cong., 2nd Sess., vol. 26, pt. 5, April 26, 1894, 4105-4108.

40. "Will a Riot Result," Massillon Independent, May 1, 1894; "Mamie Coxey Has Gone," Massillon Independent, April 30, 1894; B Street became Constitution Avenue, see William C. Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction and Politics, Senate Document 106-129, February 22, 2003 (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO- CDOC-106sdoc29/content-detail.html), 343, accessed December 11, 2012; "Coxey in Washington," Emporia Gazette, April 30, 1894; "On the Capitol Steps," Washington Post, May 1, 1894.

41. "Coxey Will Defy the Law," New York Times, May 1, 1894; "On the Capitol Steps," Washington Post, May 1, 1894.

42. "Camp George Washington," The Standard (Ogden, Utah), May 2, 1894; "Goes to See Speaker Crisp," Logansport Daily (Indiana), May 1, 1894. "Coxey's 'Goddess of Peace,' Washington Post, March 22, 1894; "Join Coxey's Army," Chicago Daily News, March 23, 1894; "General Coxey's Waterloo," Boston Daily Globe, May, 2 1894.

43. "On the Capitol Steps," Washington Post, May 1, 1894; Barber, Marching, 33-37; "General Coxey's Waterloo," Boston Daily Globe, May 2, 1894; "He Takes Out a License," Evening Star, May 1, 1894.

44. Coxey's speech reprinted in Jacob S. Coxey, The Coxey Plan (Massillon, OH: Jacob S. Coxey, 1914), 48-51. "Will A Riot Result?" Massillon Independent, May 1, 1894; "600 Police- man on Duty," Washington Post, May 1, 1894.

45. "Climax of Folly," Washington Post, May 2, 1894; "March Ends in Riot," Chicago Record, May 2, 1894; "'Gen' Coxey's Waterloo," Boston Daily Globe, May 2, 1894.

46. "March Ends in Riot," Chicago Record, May 2, 1894; "'Gen' Coxey's Waterloo," Boston Daily Globe, May 2, 1894; "Climax of Folly," Washington Post, May 2, 1894.

47. "March Ends in Riot," Chicago Record, May 2, 1894; "With Policeman's Clubs Carl Browne, the Commonweal's Mar- shall, Arrested," Evening Star, May 1, 1894; "'Gen' Coxey's Waterloo," Boston Daily Globe, May 2, 1894.

48. "The Uncrowned King and His Subjects," Washington Bee, May 4, 1894; "Coxey Is Coming," Washington Bee, March 31, April 7, April 14, April 21, 1894.

49. Telegram from Capitol, May 1, 1894 from Secret Service to the Executive Mansion, Papers of President Grover Cleveland, Reel 84, Series 2, The Library of Congress; "Coxey and Browne Arrested," Massillon Evening Independent, May 1, 1894; "March Ends in Riot," Chicago Record, May 2, 1894; Baker's letter to his father written from Pennell's Grand Hotel in Fostonia, Ohio, en route back to Chicago can be found in Papers of Ray Stannard Baker, Box 23, Reel 23, Library of Congress.

50. Jury Finds Coxey Guilty, New York Times, May 9, 1894; "Coxey Tramps Appeal for Aid," Chicago Daily Tribune, July 29, 1894; "Coxey and Browne before Committee, Washing- ton Post, June 28, 1894; Coxey, The Coxey Plan, 28; "Coxey Candidacy May Be Serious," Chicago Daily Tribune, June 23, 1894; Schwantes, Coxey's March, 246-260.

51. "Commerce of the Year," Washington Post, August 3, 1894; "The Future of Washington, Washington Post, November 9, 1894; "Fortunes to be Made," Washington Post, September 6, 1894.

52. Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army (New York: Walker and Co., 2004), 42-43; Barber, Marching, 144, 156.

Coxey's Arrival In Washington 1 9



'Hope, Fear, and Confusion: Coxey's Arrival in Washington

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