COXEY'S ARMY Chapter Five - ENEMY AT THE GATES

I suppose, in the category of those seeing Coxey's Army as a relief from oppression,  you would have to include 14 year old Albert Hicks, of East 83rd street in Manhattan. According to the Brooklyn Eagle, Albert had a fight with his mother and ran away from home, saying he was going to join Coxey’s Army.  According to the Eagle, Albert made it no farther than the ten year old Brooklyn Bridge, where a police officer took him into custody, and called his father to come to collect the boy. It was a common story, an angry fourteen year old running away from home, not worth repeating on the front page of a large newspaper, except for the connection to “Coxey’s Army”. 

Which may explain why the hero of this story bore the same name as the last pirate hung in New York City, back on Friday, 13 July, 1861.

Pirates were basically sailors working for themselves, committing murder and robbery without government sanction.  And in that spring of 1892, the Congressmen, members of the cabinet and lobbyist for the wealthy, considered the Commonweal Army under General Coxey as pirates, practicing the dangerously romantic concept that government can be petitioned directly by its citizens. It had not really been tried in America since the civil war.  And consider what that experiment cost. 

So working class Americans came out to have a look at Coxey’s Army, which was doing this odd thing. And the vast majority were not frightened by what they saw.   The mixing of whites and blacks did cause some unease, but not enough to deny the logic of joining people looking for work with work that ought to be done, such as building roads. 

But the stories of Coxey's Army did scare Congressmen and the President, and infuriated the wealthy and powerful who were not interested in sharing their access to power. 

"Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little thing. This made the Tin Woodman very unhappy, for he was always careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept several tears of sorrow and regret."

1900  L. Frank Baum "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"

On Sunday, 22 April, 1892 , the Philadelphia recruits under the top hat wearing Christopher Columbus Jones,arrived in Hagerstown. They army had been waiting for them, but there were just 18 of them.  Similar reinforcements coming from Chicago, Kansas and Georgia were being cut off by local authorities and broken up. Clearly the powers that ran America were not going to surrender their positions without a fight. 

This day, too, William G. Moore, Chief of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police , publicly announced that if the Commonweal Army entered the Federal City, he would enforce an 1830 regulation making it illegal for anyone to enter the District who would likely become a “public charge’.  It was an absurdly pompous threat on the face of it, since being arrested for violating the 60 year old ordinance would achieve the very object the ordinance was designed to discourage. Prisoners were by definition, in the public charge. There is a reason criminalizing poverty has been discarded. But, it seems, every generation must relearn that reason on their own.

But the commission that ran the District of Columbia went even further. Knowing that Coxey's soldiers sought donations of food and money, Moore announced that hench forth it would be illegal to solicit funds without a license, even though no licenses yet existed and requirements had been written for such a license.

In addition it would now be illegal for there to be any  assembly on public property without a license., despite no such license being in existence, and no procedure for obtaining such a nonexistent license.  And no obstruction of public roads would be permitted, either, said the commission, such as pedestrians walking down a public street, enmasse.  If these regulations were meant to discourage Coxey’s Army, they failed. In fact, the confrontational approach probably added to the Army’s numbers, as the unemployed, who before had just been desperate and rejected, now began to get angry.

Bright and early on 23 April the 300 plus members of Coxey’s Army marched (above) out of the Hagerstown camp, with flags and banners flying. They only made about six miles that day, stopping for the night at the little community of Hyattstown, where some of the men were provided with home cooked meals by locals, and the rest were welcomed to camp along Little Bennett Creek. Thousands of people turned out for speeches and general festivities in the Army’s camp that night.

One of the reasons Hyattstown was so welcoming  was the nearby  the residents had been struggling with a “...deficient link of the Great National Western Road.”  The section between Rockville and Gaithersburg, Maryland, had been described for generations as,  “Deeply rutted and dusty in dry weather...a muddy morass after a heavy rain. Often it was nearly impassable, and its dismal condition was disparaged and deplored by the local press and public.”   A generation before the American Revolution, the English General Braddock had almost been defeated by this very stretch of road a year before he was killed in Pennsylvania. A generation after that war, Thomas Jefferson’s road improvements bill had failed to fix the problem. Now, four generations later, the problem persisted. In fact, this section would not be really fixed until 1925, when it was finally paved over, once the automobile became as powerful a lobby as the railroads.

The mayor of Frederick, Maryland (above), John E. Fleming,  lowered the old toll road barrier and boasted that Coxey's Army would never set foot in his town.  Forty additional deputies were sworn in to keep them out.  However, on 24 April , Coxey’s Army, now 340 strong, marched into town, escorted by the deputies. And the world did not end. That night the press reported a “drunken brawl”, but the details were never confirmed. And the next day, when the Army marched out, their numbers were now 400 strong. 

It was on Saturday, 28 April 1892  that Coxey’s Army reached the doorstep of their goal, Brightwood Riding Park – now the Brightwood Recreation Area - along Rock Creek, just outside the District of Columbia. Here they established what they called Camp Stevens. They were greeted by a crowd of 10,000 curious, friendly people. Also on hand were 1,500 federal troops (3 for every member of the Army), with more soldiers waiting in Baltimore, Annapolis, and Philadelphia, ready to rush to the capital to put down the first signs of any violence. There was none.

Instead, over Saturday and Sunday, an estimated 6,000 unarmed curious citizens visited the encampment in peace. Coxey was quoted in the papers as explaining the march this way; “Congress takes two years to vote on anything…Twenty-millions of people are hungry and cannot wait two years to eat.”

On Tuesday, May 1st, 1892  perhaps 15,000 people crowded around as the Army of 500 left camp (above) for their final seven mile march on the Capital. The Baltimore Herald said “Such a fantastic aggregation never paraded itself in seriousness before the public.” 

First came Mrs. Annie L. Diggs, carrying the American flag. She was followed by Jacob Coxey’s 17 year old daughter on horseback, representing the goddess of Peace. Then came Carl Browne, dressed in his buckskin fringe.

Then came Jacob Coxey in his carriage, riding with his second wife and their infant child, “Legal Tender Coxey”.  They were followed by an actress on horseback, Ms. Virginia Le Valette.  She carried an umbrella and was draped in an American flag. And only behind this final exhibit of female pulchritude, did the public at last get a view of the object of the entire discussion, the army of the unemployed, totting banners and signs. It must have been the most bizarre procession that ever walked down Washington's 16th street, not excepting the parade formed by Dolly Madison as she fled the White House in 1813, with wagons piled high with silverware and paintings, just ahead of the British arsonists.

As they had formed up for the final march, Carl Browne told the men, “The greatest ordeal of the march is at hand. The eyes of the world are upon you, and you must conduct yourselves accordingly.” And they did.

Ahh, if they only knew the high drama and low comedy that was about to descend upon their heads.

"The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. "You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful."
1900  L. Frank Baum  "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" 

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