A Petition in Boots

Unemployment was everywhere. In places like Michigan, over 43% of the work force was jobless. Caused by market speculation, the Panic of 1893 led to a shortage of cash. Families were going hungry, and the conditions weren’t getting better. In Massillon, Ohio Jacob Coxey witnessed the poverty around him. A populist and a successful business owner, Coxey was also a self-made man, who at age 16 worked in the iron mills. To combat the economic depression, Coxey called on the federal government to build modern roads and community buildings and employ the unemployed to build them.

Coxey was joined by frontiersman and free-lance journalist Carl Browne. The odd couple, one a straight-laced businessman and the other a rough and tumble cowboy, needed to raise awareness for their cause. Browne proposed a march on Washington. It would be he declared, “A petition in boots!” They would call themselves the “Commonweal of Christ” (see above right: at camp) and thousands of the unemployed would join them along their march from Massillon to Washington, DC. On the steps of the Capitol they would call for sweeping legislation that would employ thousands and get the economy back on track. It would be glorious! Akin to the Second Coming!

Their expedition was sensationalized by the national press, who was struggling to report on the human effects of the depression—covering stock markets and unemployment rates was dull and frankly, it was depressing. Readers wanted excitement and humor! When Coxey and Browne left Massillon on March 25, the Commonweal of Christ had just 100 followers. Throughout their trip the two leaders struggled to make their protest look respectable. Their parade was led by African-American man, named Jasper Johnson, who carried the American Flag, followed by a marching band. Coxey, his wife, and Legal Tender, his newborn son—I would not want to be this kid at recess—rode behind in a horse-drawn carriage (at left: Coxey and his son, Little Legal Tender). The media immediately dubbed them as Coxey’s Army, and mocked it was an army of cranks, vagrants, and tramps.

Hearing reports of the march’s progress, Congress and Federal authorities watched from afar, skeptical that the protest would reach the Capitol but preparing for it in any case. This would be the first march on Washington in history and it raised questions regarding freedom of speech and assembly. Do citizens have the right to use the Capitol grounds as public space, as a forum for debate? Not in 1894. Both parties in Congress fully supported the Metropolitan Police’s decision to allow Coxey’s Army to march down Pennsylvania Avenue, but to halt them at the Capitol and forbid them to enter the grounds.

Coxey’s Army reached camp at Bladensburg, Maryland in the last week of April. They were ready to protest on May 1st. The day before the march over 6,000 people visited their camp to hear speeches from Coxey and Browne. On May Day, Coxey’s Army, now 500 strong, entered the District and marched to the Capitol. There they were met by police, who reminded them that it was illegal to enter the grounds. As a distraction, Browne and a supporter jumped over a low wall and began running across the lawn. Browne was immediately swarmed by the police, clubbed, and taken away. At the same, Coxey climbed 5 steps at the Capitol and began to give his speech. A police officer shoed him off the steps and escorted him back to his carriage. The protesters returned to camp.

The next day Coxey attended the bail hearing for Browne. At the hearing both men were arrested and charged with carrying banners illegally. In fact their “banners” were 3 by 2 inch lapel pins. They were also charged with walking on the grass at the Capitol. They received a 20 day prison sentence with a $5 fine. Their loyal followers waited anxiously in camps around the district. Conditions in the camps were difficult as the men soon ran out of food and took to begging on the streets. By the time of their release, support for Coxey’s army had dwindled. The press was focused on the Pullman Riots in Chicago. Jacob Coxey returned to Ohio to run for Congress (he didn’t win). Carl Browne continued to speak on the rights of man, becoming increasingly socialist. In 1913, at age 64, he was often seen standing on a soapbox on 10th and Pennsylvania, preaching to any who would listen. He was considered a crackpot.

Though Coxey’s Army failed to achieve its goal, it marked a significant turning point in U.S. democracy. It established the city of Washington as a place where public protest could get substantial media attention. Marching on Washington became a form of political expression. Later in the year of 1894, the suffragists would borrow Coxey’s tactics and march in Washington themselves; their protest was better received by the media.

In popular culture we remember Coxey’s Army for the role it played L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Considered an allegory for the Gold Standard and Populism, Dorothy, the Scarecrow (farmer), the Tin Man (industry), and the Cowardly lion (political leader) follow the yellow brick road to Oz (aka...you got it!... Washington). So what do you think? Are those group of four misfits representative of Coxey's Army?

Sources: Lucy G. Barber, Marching on Washington.

"Coxey's Army Dwindling Away". New York Times (May 11). 1894.

Duel of the Month Club: Alternate Weapons Edition

Thus far, all of the duels we've mentioned have been pistol duels. If I remember my chivalrous movie scenes correctly, it's generally the challenged party who is allowed to choose their weapon. When Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) delivered a two-day-long speech beginning on May 19, 1856, he inadvertently became the challenger in an impromptu duel.

Sumner's speech, an hours-long tirade focused on Kansas, which had become a battleground after Congress had decided to make slavery in the state subject to a popular vote. Sumner accused the South of conspiring to make Kansas a slave state, and peppered his speech with personal accusations aimed at several of his fellow senators. Among them was Andrew Butler of South Carolina, whom Sumner described as having taken "the harlot, Slavery," as his "mistress."
Two days later, on May 22, Butler's nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks (D-SC), seeking to "avenge the insult to my State," walked into the mostly deserted Senate chamber. Finding Sumner working at his desk, Brooks began beating the Senator over the head with his cane, with enough force to snap the cane into pieces.

Admittedly, this is a somewhat one-sided duel. On the other hand, the public recognized that Sumner had struck a sound enough blow verbally, that his opponent was obliged to respond with physical assault. The fight had far-reaching consequences, polarizing those in the North and the South. For his part, Sumner's speech was printed, with a million copies distributed. Though suffering concussions and severe headaches, Sumner eventually recovered and was able to return to the Senate. As for Brooks, he was sent several new canes, with inscriptions reading "Hit him again," and was even reelected to Congress.

Source: David Brian Davis and Steven Mintz, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery through The Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Oration Nation

Do you ever watch CSPAN? It's OK to say no. The coverage of the floor of the two bodies of our legislature is really dull. Much of the time is devoted to procedural monotony, the shuffling of papers and feet, and the occasional speech delivered by someone you've never heard of before. Most importantly, however, is the fact that the chambers always seem empty. Sure, there are some aides running around, maybe a few congressmen here and there, but nobody seems to be paying any attention to what's going on. The aides are rushing to deliver papers; the senators are checking their Blackberries; the congresswomen look bored. Even the important moments, the ones that make the national news programs, are ignored by most everyone in the room.

This brings me to one of the many reasons I love history, especially eighteenth and nineteenth century history: People were so often passionate about things that matter. Of course, there was procedural nonsense and people who didn't care in the past, as well. Yet, I can't help but romanticize a time when delivering speeches was an art, and one could actually sway the opinion of another with rhetoric.

Daniel Webster was the kind of orator who could do that. Webster hailed from Massachusetts, and though he wasn't much to look at (but what politician ever is), his voice could hold even his opponents in rapture. In January of 1830, Senator Robert Hayne delivered a speech denouncing federal interference with the South, specifically a tariff that largely protected Northern industry at the expense of Southern landholders. Webster, who had been passing by on his way back from the Supreme Court, stopped to listen to Hayne speak. Hearing Hayne's impassioned denunciation of the federal government, Webster was displeased. The next day, he responded with an impassioned, eloquent defense of national policies. "[I cannot] regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this Government," Webster declared, "whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should best be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the People when it shall be broken up and destroyed."

Webster continued, pleading with his fellow Americans not to put their own interests before that of their country. Imagining a future in which the South took the drastic action of breaking up the Union, Webster hoped aloud that he would not see such a day: "When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union... Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather behold the gorgeous Ensign of the Republic... its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured -- bearing for its motto, no such interrogatory as What is all this worth? Nor other words of delusion and folly... but... that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart -- Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."

If you go to the Capitol today, you probably won't hear anyone speak like this. Admittedly, Webster's speech was considered exceptional even at the time: Hayne, his opponent, reputedly responded by telling Webster, "A man who can make such speeches as that ought never to die." Nevertheless, should you find yourself sitting in the galleries of the Senate chamber, close your eyes, and recall all the persons and words that have echoed through that hall. Maybe, just maybe, you can imagine Webster, standing with one hand in the small of his back, the other on the podium (the oratory style of the time), humbling his foes with fiery rhetoric and sweeping imagery.

Perhaps then you won't notice that the senator next to you is Twittering.

Source: Jon Meacham, American Lion: Jackson in the White House (New York: Random House, 2008).