Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: in the midst of today's very bananas world, which I
Speaker 1: think we have both talked about a lot, has been
Speaker 1: informing our choices of topics lately, uh, and which is
Speaker 1: involving this constant news cycle of economic instability and protests
Speaker 1: and those things being hashed and rehashed and discussed for
Speaker 1: their various merits, uh lack thereof in some cases. I
Speaker 1: got to thinking about earlier protests and wanting to talk
Speaker 1: more about those and specifically the first protest march on Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And that is the story of Coxey's Army,
Speaker 1: and it is one that's been requested a lot of times.
Speaker 1: It's really easy when you look at the facts of
Speaker 1: it to see why it is so compelling to people
Speaker 1: and why people request it because in a day should
Speaker 1: de parallels to our current situation. Uh. There are also
Speaker 1: just a lot of really fascinating details in the mix.
Speaker 1: So today is the day, and we're covering Jacob Coxey
Speaker 1: and what came to be known colloquially as Coxey's Army. Yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like this one has been on both of
Speaker 1: our lists at points because so many people have asked
Speaker 1: for it. Um So we've talked on the show before
Speaker 1: about the Panic of eight and the economic crash that
Speaker 1: came along with it. Railroad overbuilding that was financed through
Speaker 1: just really unsound lending practices had caused a lot of
Speaker 1: railroads to go under, and then that coupled with a
Speaker 1: run on the gold supply, the country was plunged into
Speaker 1: what amounted to a financial freefall. Those are obviously broad strokes,
Speaker 1: but since we have covered this many many times before, uh,
Speaker 1: we're just doing the light touch version. But as a
Speaker 1: result of that panic, five hundred banks closed across the country,
Speaker 1: and fifteen thousand businesses shut their doors for the last time,
Speaker 1: and seventy four railroads, which had been a huge economic
Speaker 1: driver in a lot of places, ceased operations. And this
Speaker 1: was of course all happening before things like unemployment insurance.
Speaker 1: So workers that had come into the labor market in
Speaker 1: a new industrial age and were prepared to work in
Speaker 1: that industrial age suddenly had no work and they also
Speaker 1: had no safety net. President Grover Cleveland continued his anti
Speaker 1: welfare stance that he had held for a long time.
Speaker 1: We talked about this earlier on in our episode about
Speaker 1: Grover Cleveland's secret surgery. But in short, he thought that
Speaker 1: this rush to embrace silver with the Sherman Silver Purchase
Speaker 1: Act had been a woeful misstep economically. He thought there
Speaker 1: needed to be a course correction, and he also felt
Speaker 1: really strongly that financial assistance for the country's common man
Speaker 1: was just not the business of the government. In seven,
Speaker 1: during his first term, he had vetoed a bailout for
Speaker 1: Texas farmers who were trying to get through a drought,
Speaker 1: and he wrote this as part of the the two
Speaker 1: I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in
Speaker 1: the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power
Speaker 1: and duty of the General Government ought to be extended
Speaker 1: to the relief of individual suffering, which is in no
Speaker 1: manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A
Speaker 1: prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power
Speaker 1: and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the
Speaker 1: end that the lesson should be constantly enforced, that though
Speaker 1: the people support the government, the government should not support
Speaker 1: the people. That's a whole bag of weasels to unpack.
Speaker 1: Chicago during this time reported an uptick in crime, not
Speaker 1: because people turned to crime as a way to make
Speaker 1: an illicit living in desperation, but because they wanted desperately
Speaker 1: to get arrested. Jail or prison, which offered shelter and
Speaker 1: regular meals, was preferable to the streets in a Chicago winter.
Speaker 1: And other cities. Also wrestled was Miller problems and how
Speaker 1: to manage a population that was losing its housing and
Speaker 1: ultimately completely losing stability. Of course, everyone wanted things to improve,
Speaker 1: but not many saw a way to get through this
Speaker 1: turbulent time. And that is where we get to Jacob Coxey,
Speaker 1: who came up with a novel plan. So at the
Speaker 1: center of this story is this man, Jacob Seckler Coxey
Speaker 1: and Coxey was the son of a sawmill engineer named
Speaker 1: Thomas Coxey. Jacob was born in Sellen's Grove, Pennsylvania, on
Speaker 1: April six, eighteen fifty four, in the log house he
Speaker 1: was born and actually now bears a historical marker. When
Speaker 1: Jacob was six, the family moved to Danville, Pennsylvania, where
Speaker 1: his father started working in an iron mill. Jacob completed
Speaker 1: nine years of school before going to work when he
Speaker 1: was sixteen, also at a mill, serving as the water boy.
Speaker 1: He worked his way up through various positions over the
Speaker 1: next eight years. When he was twenty, he married a
Speaker 1: young woman named Caroline Ammerman that two of them had
Speaker 1: four children together. Coxey voted for the first time during
Speaker 1: this stage of his life in the eighteen seventy six
Speaker 1: election at the age of twenty two. Over the years,
Speaker 1: he would switch political parties multiple times, and he was
Speaker 1: a member of the Greenback Party. At one point he
Speaker 1: even organized it's Danville, Pennsylvania chapter. He moved on to
Speaker 1: work with his uncle and a scrap metal business in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight, and it was while on a business
Speaker 1: trip for this job in eighteen eighty one that he
Speaker 1: first visited Massillon, Ohio. He decided he would like to
Speaker 1: move there, and that was really the end of his
Speaker 1: scrap metal career. He sold his interest in the business
Speaker 1: and his next move was to purchase a sandstone quarry
Speaker 1: in Masslin and converted into a crushing mill to process
Speaker 1: silica sand. He also purchased a farm where he would
Speaker 1: eventually start breeding horses in the eighteen eighties when he
Speaker 1: became interested in racing, and between the quarry and his
Speaker 1: fancy stock horse breeding, he was able to build a
Speaker 1: really nice living for himself. Coxey was also really interested
Speaker 1: in politics and the economy, and even before the Panic
Speaker 1: of eight three, he was aware of the problems that
Speaker 1: we're facing laborers in the US. Was this is things
Speaker 1: that he gave a great deal of thought to you,
Speaker 1: and allegedly a moment of inspiration led to the reform
Speaker 1: idea that would make him famous. Yeah, just for clarity, Like,
Speaker 1: even before the panic, there were economic downturn effects happening,
Speaker 1: and there there were labor shortages already. But the story
Speaker 1: of his inspiration goes that as he was traveling home
Speaker 1: one day, he noticed that the road that he was
Speaker 1: on was in really sorry shape. According to a write
Speaker 1: up in the Chautauquin in eight nine four, this was
Speaker 1: the result of an especially problematic mud hole in the
Speaker 1: road that hampered his progress. And after he got out
Speaker 1: of the mud hole and started thinking about how they
Speaker 1: really needed to fix that roadway, and they needed better
Speaker 1: roadways in general, he put together the idea that the
Speaker 1: many people who were out of work could be given
Speaker 1: jobs fixing the roads throughout the stay. He started putting
Speaker 1: these ideas to paper, and he wrote the Coxie Plan
Speaker 1: for Business and Unemployment Relief, How the State of Ohio
Speaker 1: and its subdivisions can help themselves. Coxey's idea evolved into
Speaker 1: what he called his Good Roads Bill. It called for
Speaker 1: fair wages and an eight hour work day to achieve
Speaker 1: both prosperity for the common man and better public works.
Speaker 1: And the Good Roads Bill was no small potatoes in
Speaker 1: terms of its ambition and its scope. This was a
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollar plan, yeah transition from being just
Speaker 1: about Ohio over the years to being a national effort
Speaker 1: on his part. And that five million dollars that he
Speaker 1: was talking about was to come from the Treasury in
Speaker 1: the form of non interest bearing bonds. He also later
Speaker 1: on developed a second bill that ran alongside this one,
Speaker 1: and in that one, state or city improvement projects could
Speaker 1: deposit non interest bearing twenty five year bonds with the
Speaker 1: Treasury and then get back the cash value of the
Speaker 1: bond paper currency minus one percent. And his thinking was
Speaker 1: that that paper currency, then paid as wages to the workers,
Speaker 1: was going to reinvigorate the economy. He saw this as
Speaker 1: a benefit on a couple of different levels. One, it
Speaker 1: would improve US infrastructure and ways that were just desperately needed. Too,
Speaker 1: it would provide much needed relief to laborers who had
Speaker 1: found themselves impoverished as the country went through an economic depression.
Speaker 1: And his rite up he noted, quote Congress takes two
Speaker 1: years to vote on anything, twenty millions of people are
Speaker 1: hungry and cannot wait two years to eat. And he
Speaker 1: started pitching this plan in its earlier versions to his
Speaker 1: local politicians as well as basically anyone who would stand
Speaker 1: still long enough. But he did not exactly get a
Speaker 1: warm reception initially. According to that same right up in
Speaker 1: the Chautauquin that I mentioned a moment ago quote, his
Speaker 1: neighbors dubbed him crank, and his wife secured a divorce
Speaker 1: partly on the grounds of his craze. A new wife
Speaker 1: was secured and the jeering neighbors ignored. Uh. We should
Speaker 1: be very clear that this was not the only reason
Speaker 1: he got a divorce. Uh. There was also a gambling
Speaker 1: problem that was driving a wedge into his marriage to Caroline.
Speaker 1: That gambling was part of Coxey's passionate interest in horses.
Speaker 1: So uh, sometimes people will use his interest in his
Speaker 1: bills and his efforts at labor reform as the reason
Speaker 1: his wife left him, But it's a little more complicated
Speaker 1: than that. So Coxey wasn't entirely without interested listeners. He
Speaker 1: presented his plan to the St. Louis Populist Convention in
Speaker 1: two It was adopted into the Ohio Populist Party's platform
Speaker 1: that same year, but it really didn't get much farther
Speaker 1: than that. It wasn't until eight three, again, while the
Speaker 1: nation was really hitting this panic, that Jacob Coxey found
Speaker 1: like minded collaborators to really champion this plan alongside him.
Speaker 1: That year, at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he met
Speaker 1: a man named Carl Brown. Brown was on assignment from
Speaker 1: San Francisco Business Weekly as an artist and correspondent at
Speaker 1: the event. He was there to send back reports with
Speaker 1: illustrations of what was happening. He was basically like a contractor.
Speaker 1: He kind of was one of those people that worked
Speaker 1: a lot of different jobs. He wasn't a regular reporter
Speaker 1: for the San Franisco Business Weekly, and Brown was also
Speaker 1: sent to the expo with a costume suit intended to
Speaker 1: make him look like Buffalo Bill. So that he could
Speaker 1: be part of a living exhibit about the wild West.
Speaker 1: So he was wearing a number of different hats, both
Speaker 1: literally and figuratively. Here. Brown was a big personality. He
Speaker 1: was a gifted speaker, he was a showman, he was
Speaker 1: a jack of all trades, and he's been described as
Speaker 1: a labor agitator. His ideas of reform, which centered around
Speaker 1: ensuring that any able bodied person who sought work could
Speaker 1: find it, really aligned with Coxi's. His orations on labor
Speaker 1: reform had so irritated the leadership of Chicago that the
Speaker 1: mayor kicked him out of the city. He was not
Speaker 1: a quiet, subdued man in the least. But Jacob Coxey
Speaker 1: saw Carl Brown's potential and he saw that he could
Speaker 1: be the megaphone for the Coxie Plan. And while they
Speaker 1: sort of are often described as an odd couple, as partners,
Speaker 1: Brown and Coxey aligned on their shared vision that something
Speaker 1: big and drastic had to be done to get the
Speaker 1: country back on track. Carl came with some quirks, though.
Speaker 1: He believed and told anyone who would listen that Coxey
Speaker 1: was the reincarnation of Andrew Jackson. Brown had some interesting
Speaker 1: views religiously speaking, he thought that he had absorbed his
Speaker 1: wife's soul into his own as he sat at her deathbed.
Speaker 1: He also thought that he had many others that they
Speaker 1: eventually rallied to their cause, had absorbed the soul of
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, and that that was what was driving their efforts,
Speaker 1: and that Jacob Coxey had absorbed a significant amount of
Speaker 1: that soul. He also didn't stop wearing that buffalo bill
Speaker 1: costume when the expo ended, and said he just made
Speaker 1: it part of his personal brand. He is really a
Speaker 1: fascinating character. As for Jacob Coxey's views of all of this,
Speaker 1: reincarnate should talk. One reporter at the time wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: Coxey's religious views did not prevent his ready conversion to
Speaker 1: Brown's abortive theosophy. He does not claim any supernatural wisdom
Speaker 1: as Brown does, but modestly poses as the living representation
Speaker 1: of Christ because Brown says so. Though he was an eccentric,
Speaker 1: Carl Brown was crucial to the growth of Coxey's support base.
Speaker 1: He was really good at communicating with people and gaining
Speaker 1: their trust. Carl's orations and the desperation of the men
Speaker 1: that they were speaking to. That was a powerful combination.
Speaker 1: Slowly they garnered up pretty significant following, and at this
Speaker 1: point Coxey was more passionate about his plan than ever.
Speaker 1: He was a wealthy man, but his own businesses had
Speaker 1: struggled due to the panic. He had to sell his
Speaker 1: horse farm and his crushing mill was struggling. On December seven,
Speaker 1: Brown and Coxey formed the J. S. Coxey Good Roads
Speaker 1: Association of the US. Brown was the organization's secretary and
Speaker 1: Jacob Coxey was, of course it's president. In Coxey's eyes,
Speaker 1: one of the villains and all this was the press.
Speaker 1: He felt that all the reporting about a currency crisis
Speaker 1: had actually caused some of the worst problems as panicked
Speaker 1: readers started to hoard gold. His relationship with the press
Speaker 1: only became more contentious as his activism became more high profile.
Speaker 1: That's something we'll get back to you shortly. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting and you'll you'll see it as we talk about it.
Speaker 1: But even though Coxey has this sort of like dim
Speaker 1: view of the press and what they have done at
Speaker 1: various points, it's really Carl Brown that kind of gets
Speaker 1: into it with them. Just a few months after its founding,
Speaker 1: the Good Roads Association was making very real progress. Senator
Speaker 1: William a Peffer, a populist from Kansas, was willing to
Speaker 1: introduce Coxey's two bills in Congress. But this idea of
Speaker 1: getting the Federal Reserve to print money to fix the
Speaker 1: economy didn't go over all that well. But Coxie and
Speaker 1: Brown were just undeterred. They attatched a plan early year
Speaker 1: in the year that was intended to underscore their idea
Speaker 1: and make it clear to elected officials just how much
Speaker 1: support Coxey's plan had among the working men of the country,
Speaker 1: who were voters who were unable to find jobs. Coxie
Speaker 1: and Brown, who was likely the architect of this whole idea,
Speaker 1: organized a march on Washington. This is an unemployment protest
Speaker 1: that would be too big to be ignored. And before
Speaker 1: we dig into how that all plays out, let's pause
Speaker 1: for a quick sponsor break. So this march that we
Speaker 1: mentioned before the break was conceived as what Coxy and
Speaker 1: Brown called a petition in boots. They intended to gather
Speaker 1: supporters as they traveled with the hopes of reaching Washington
Speaker 1: with a huge throng of men. The men they had
Speaker 1: won over while still in Ohio started their journey in
Speaker 1: Massilon on March, which was Easter Sunday. The residents were
Speaker 1: not all that in used about being a convergence point
Speaker 1: for this rally. A lot of them believed that the
Speaker 1: participants and Coxy's protest march were just itinerant troublemakers and
Speaker 1: they wanted them to hurry up and get out of
Speaker 1: town quickly. This perception would follow them throughout the whole trip.
Speaker 1: A lot of write ups referred to Coxy's men as
Speaker 1: just a band of tramps. There were also always people
Speaker 1: who were suspicious that they would bring lawlessness and violence
Speaker 1: as they moved through the country. Yeah, they definitely got
Speaker 1: like a duality reception in most places, where some people
Speaker 1: were really genuinely enthusiastic about them and what they were
Speaker 1: trying to do, and others were like, uh, keep those
Speaker 1: troublemakers out of our town. In the beginning, there were
Speaker 1: an estimated fifty to one participants in the march. That
Speaker 1: number varies depending on your source, and there were also
Speaker 1: forty three reporters that marched with them, but they were
Speaker 1: of course not counted among their numbers. These reporters were
Speaker 1: there on assignment because this story was sensational, and in
Speaker 1: chasing that sensationalism, their coverage was not always act you're it.
Speaker 1: It also sometimes made fun of the whole effort. But
Speaker 1: the important thing to Jacob Coxey was at his march
Speaker 1: was getting national coverage. As I was looking for a
Speaker 1: picture to use on our social media and stuff with this,
Speaker 1: I found a lot of editorial cartoons satirizing Coxey in
Speaker 1: his march. The side of the march had been a show.
Speaker 1: Coxy's wife, Henrietta Jones Coxey, and their newborn son were
Speaker 1: at the front of the parade. Coxie had named this
Speaker 1: baby Legal Tender to show his commitment to legal tender
Speaker 1: currency as a revitalizing force for the nation. So there
Speaker 1: are some accounts that Henrietta and the baby marched with
Speaker 1: the group. That's actually a little misleading. They were part
Speaker 1: of the procession as it was headed out of town,
Speaker 1: but they didn't stay with the march. They arranged to
Speaker 1: meet back up with Coxey at the destination of the
Speaker 1: nation's capital. But still quite a trip with a five
Speaker 1: week old baby, though yeah, uh, not an awesome thing
Speaker 1: to do with the best modern conveniences and health standards,
Speaker 1: really unwise. In the eight nineties, uh Brown had set
Speaker 1: up the structure of this whole march. He's often really
Speaker 1: really cited as being like the guy who is running
Speaker 1: the actual march, And as we said, he was a showman.
Speaker 1: He dubbed the march the common Wheel of Christ. He
Speaker 1: made banners and fabric badges for the men to wear,
Speaker 1: all of which read things like peace on earth, goodwill
Speaker 1: toward men, but death to interest on bonds. And these
Speaker 1: banners all had a mix of religious symbolism and economic
Speaker 1: commentary in the art I've often I've seen them described
Speaker 1: in a number of sources as being really confusing because
Speaker 1: he was trying to get a lot of different ideas
Speaker 1: and ideologies represented in them, like his religious views as
Speaker 1: well as his political views, as well as issues of
Speaker 1: the economy, and kind of blending them together, leaving some
Speaker 1: onlookers to kind of scratch their heads. Brown continued to
Speaker 1: wear that buffalo bill costume, and Coxey wore a Union
Speaker 1: Army uniform. Brown also may have cost Coxy a lot
Speaker 1: of money. It was reported that the bill for printing
Speaker 1: up recruitment flyers had come to a whopping two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: That's two thousand dollars. On top of that, Coxy was
Speaker 1: footing the bill for some of the camp supplies, although
Speaker 1: they did take donations to cover most of their needs,
Speaker 1: as particularly being food. Food turned out to be an
Speaker 1: ongoing problem as the march played out, because in a recession,
Speaker 1: donations could be pretty sparse. The men really weren't ever
Speaker 1: getting enough to eat. Yeah, there are lots of descriptions
Speaker 1: of how like in some towns, you know, volunteers and
Speaker 1: people that wanted to welcome them would come and they
Speaker 1: would have brought food and prepared like these huge meals,
Speaker 1: but like there was never enough to go around, and
Speaker 1: so it was like, well, you might get soup one
Speaker 1: day and only bread the next, or you might only
Speaker 1: get two meals this day and one meal this day.
Speaker 1: It just was not consistent. And when you think about
Speaker 1: how much they were walking in any given day, you
Speaker 1: realized that this was a very, very difficult undertake ging
Speaker 1: because of all the press coverage, though more groups had
Speaker 1: started marching from all over the country, some as far
Speaker 1: as California in the hopes of joining what had at
Speaker 1: this point colloquially come to be known as Coxey's Army.
Speaker 1: Some of this coverage had actually started way back in January,
Speaker 1: when Coxey and Brown announced that they were planning this
Speaker 1: uh And to be very very clear, the reason people
Speaker 1: were so willing to do this was because there was
Speaker 1: a lot of desperation throughout the country at this time.
Speaker 1: This was only the second year of what would be
Speaker 1: a four year recession, and families were going hungry and
Speaker 1: there was no relief on the horizon. So for a
Speaker 1: lot of men, this seemed like the only way that
Speaker 1: they were ever going to make their voices truly heard
Speaker 1: by people with power and hopefully catalyze an improvement in
Speaker 1: their family's quality of life. Some of them traveled in wagons,
Speaker 1: some on horses, some were simply on foot, but all
Speaker 1: of them had the intent that they were going to
Speaker 1: meet up with Coxey and converge on Washington. So while
Speaker 1: there were occasional deserters who probably joined up for the
Speaker 1: promise of free meals along the way, maybe even just
Speaker 1: the security of traveling with a group, the spots that
Speaker 1: they left filled in behind them is the army kept
Speaker 1: moving through more towns. Increasingly it was made up entirely
Speaker 1: of men who were just tired of waiting for better
Speaker 1: times and they wanted to take some kind of action.
Speaker 1: And as they traveled, the press became more and more
Speaker 1: critical of this whole operation. They started writing commentary about
Speaker 1: how Brown's cowboy gear was an affectation, and then they
Speaker 1: started talking about how dirty his suit and he was,
Speaker 1: and they started calling him old greasy, which he enjoyed
Speaker 1: about as much as you might expect. The press characterization
Speaker 1: of the rest of the marchers similarly degraded over time.
Speaker 1: While some of the accounts in the early days described
Speaker 1: the participants as enthusiastic and idealistic, that shifted soon they
Speaker 1: were referring to the protesters as an unwashed army. For example,
Speaker 1: there's one early article at the start of them, mark
Speaker 1: Jin massilin where the New York Times reported quote, most
Speaker 1: of those now here are hard looking people, but up
Speaker 1: to the present time, they have shown no disposition to
Speaker 1: be unruly. Coxie and his lieutenants are elated and declared
Speaker 1: that they will have ten thousand men in line when
Speaker 1: the word forward is given. But in a story from
Speaker 1: mid April, a few weeks into the march, the Times
Speaker 1: first outlined how the Fife core of Coxey's army traded
Speaker 1: their instruments for beer and then got arrested. The right
Speaker 1: up of the incident describes Coxie handling the situation well,
Speaker 1: explaining that there would be no tolerance for that kind
Speaker 1: of behavior and that the point of their march was
Speaker 1: much more important than getting drunk, But then it completely
Speaker 1: discredits him at the end, saying that he was made
Speaker 1: happy when he met a fortune teller on their journey
Speaker 1: who told him that he would live to be a hundred. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's when you read the flow of that particular brief article,
Speaker 1: it's the weirdest thing, because it really is like this
Speaker 1: great portrait of like, Wow, he's really a good leader,
Speaker 1: Like he explains to them like why they are doing
Speaker 1: what they are doing and reminds them of the gravity
Speaker 1: of this effort. And then they're like, oh, and then
Speaker 1: he got all into a fortune teller for a little while.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, eventually Carl Brown got really tired of
Speaker 1: all these jobs from reporters and he started calling them
Speaker 1: argus eyed demons of hell. This actually quite delighted the press.
Speaker 1: They started a little club amongst themselves that they dubbed
Speaker 1: the argus Side Demons, and this club even had elected officers.
Speaker 1: But really it was mostly just about like finding a
Speaker 1: good watering hole and drinking wherever they stopped for the night.
Speaker 1: But even without the press commentary, the group was not
Speaker 1: helping its own reputation because of the hard scrabbled nature
Speaker 1: of their day to day survival. When Coxie and his
Speaker 1: men arrived in a town, they could basically watch the
Speaker 1: faces of the people who greeted them fall as they
Speaker 1: saw how ragged everyone looked. The movement sounded so robust
Speaker 1: on paper, but in person it was often really disappointing,
Speaker 1: and men who had planned to join Coxy sometimes opted
Speaker 1: out of that plan one they saw how rough things
Speaker 1: had become. When Coxey's army finally arrived in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: On May first, that was after thirty five days of walking,
Speaker 1: it had quintupled in size, at least by some counts.
Speaker 1: There are others that put it closer to being four
Speaker 1: hundred men versus five hundred others listed as thousands, But
Speaker 1: this gets a little bit unclear because there were multiple
Speaker 1: groups that were starting to come together, so the numbers
Speaker 1: shift really quickly and like in big chunks, depending on
Speaker 1: how any given reporter defined Coxey's group, whether it was
Speaker 1: only counting those that traveled with him and Brown specifically
Speaker 1: or whether other groups that joined up towards the end
Speaker 1: should be part of that count. But it quickly got
Speaker 1: to be really pointless to try to count the newcomers anyway,
Speaker 1: as thousands of thousands of locals had also shown up
Speaker 1: for the march, some to support it and some just
Speaker 1: to watch the spectacle of it. But they were kind
Speaker 1: of all traveling in this huge throng together. Coxey really
Speaker 1: hoped that he and his marchers would be able to
Speaker 1: enact rapid change. After all, he had the bill written
Speaker 1: and ready to go for Congress, and it read, in
Speaker 1: part quote, be it enacted by the Senate and House
Speaker 1: of Representatives in Congress assembled, that the Secretary of the
Speaker 1: Treasury of the United States is hereby authorized and instructed
Speaker 1: to have engraved and printed immediately after the passage of
Speaker 1: this bill, five million dollars of treasury notes, a legal
Speaker 1: tender for all debts public and private. Said notes to
Speaker 1: be in denominations of one dollar, two dollars, five dollars,
Speaker 1: and ten dollars, and to be placed in a fund
Speaker 1: to be known as the General County Road Fund System
Speaker 1: of the United States, and to be expended solely for
Speaker 1: said purpose. Mami Coxey, who was jacobs seventeen year old
Speaker 1: daughter from a previous marriage, joined this procession at some
Speaker 1: point before it arrived in Washington, and when they approached
Speaker 1: the Capitol Building, she was at the front of the parade,
Speaker 1: dressed as the Goddess of Peace, all in white, and
Speaker 1: she wrote a white Arabian horse that was from Coxey's
Speaker 1: farm like she was intended to be a visual harbinger
Speaker 1: of change, but maybe he had a primary admirer, and
Speaker 1: Carl Brown, who said of the young woman quote, I
Speaker 1: thought that she was the most beautiful site I had
Speaker 1: ever beheld. So they had made it. Coxie and Brown
Speaker 1: had led their bands at Washington. They were right there,
Speaker 1: ready to demand a jobs buill that they believed would
Speaker 1: help get the lives of so many Americans back on track.
Speaker 1: But the end of Coxey's march for reforms that would
Speaker 1: reinvigorate the working class in the economy was a bit
Speaker 1: of a letdown. And we're going to talk about their
Speaker 1: arrival at the Capitol Building and what happened there after.
Speaker 1: We first take a quick sponsor break. So when he
Speaker 1: and all of his followers had arrived in Washington, D. C.
Speaker 1: Jacob Coxey had applied for and received a parade permit.
Speaker 1: He had also applied for a permit to speak on
Speaker 1: the steps of the Capital. That permit was denied. And really,
Speaker 1: if Jacob Coxey had been paying attention and actually accepting
Speaker 1: certain truths, he probably would have seen that coming. As
Speaker 1: early as March. The day before the march started, reports
Speaker 1: thought of Washington had made clear that this common wheel
Speaker 1: or army was not going to be welcomed by lawmakers.
Speaker 1: A report from Washington that ran in the New York
Speaker 1: Times from March read quote, nothing but ridicule is heard
Speaker 1: in regard to the Coxy movement among well informed persons.
Speaker 1: Here there is not the remotest prospect of any Congressional
Speaker 1: action to grant a permit for any mob to assemble
Speaker 1: on the Capitol grounds in violation of a specific Act
Speaker 1: of Congress. So as they got up to the Capitol,
Speaker 1: and Coxie and Brown moved through the crowd of onlookers
Speaker 1: and police in d C. As the parade got to
Speaker 1: their destination, the scene quickly turned frantic. They had been
Speaker 1: headed for the steps that was off limits, and the
Speaker 1: police were watching Brown, who, of course in this uh
Speaker 1: nutty garb and was very large man stood out in
Speaker 1: any crowd, so he was pursued by police. He was
Speaker 1: tackled and beaten. A chant of Coxey Coxie started among
Speaker 1: the thousands of spectators and supporters. The police, realizing they
Speaker 1: had no control over the situation, panicked, and they also
Speaker 1: turned on bystanders. They swung their clubs without regard for
Speaker 1: who they were striking. After about fifteen minutes of mayhem,
Speaker 1: it was over and no speeches had been given. The
Speaker 1: headlines the next day read Coxie driven from the Capitol,
Speaker 1: not allowed to deliver his harangue. That same story often
Speaker 1: ran with another subheader that indicated that Coxey had not
Speaker 1: even been arrested, but he and several of his associates
Speaker 1: were in fact arrested, and they did face charges. Jacob Coxey,
Speaker 1: Carl Brown, and Christopher Columbus Jones were all found guilty
Speaker 1: of carrying illegal banners onto capital grounds. They were sent
Speaker 1: tense to twenty days in jail a week after the rally.
Speaker 1: They also had to pay a fine of five dollars
Speaker 1: each for trespassing on the grass. Yeah, that was one
Speaker 1: of one of those things. It was off limits. While
Speaker 1: the three movement leaders, Christopher Columbus Jones had come in
Speaker 1: later and kind of served in a capacity of of
Speaker 1: wrangling some of the people on the march while they
Speaker 1: were serving out their jail term. The men who had
Speaker 1: followed them to Washington did not all disperse. They still
Speaker 1: wanted to advocate for Coxe's plan, so they had made
Speaker 1: a camp at Bladensburg, Maryland, and they waited the three
Speaker 1: weeks out. But most of them at that point had
Speaker 1: moved on. And while there really were some efforts to
Speaker 1: keep the protest in the movement going, including a second
Speaker 1: smaller protest in which Carl Brown allegedly appeared in drag
Speaker 1: as the Goddess of Liberty, this whole thing was really
Speaker 1: over though. By mid July even the most ardent supporters
Speaker 1: and stragglers had moved on. After the March, Jacob Coxey
Speaker 1: had stayed, how fly, involved in politics. He also expanded
Speaker 1: his business and bought a second quarry in nineteen fourteen
Speaker 1: in Dundee, Ohio. He ran for public office eleven times
Speaker 1: for various positions. He was elected mayor of Massillon, Ohio
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty one. This was his only election win,
Speaker 1: and his time in office went pretty poorly. He also
Speaker 1: spearheaded a second march on Washington in nineteen fourteen, once
Speaker 1: again championing the cause of laborers, and he made it
Speaker 1: to the Capitol and he addressed a small group of
Speaker 1: protesters from the steps. He wasn't arrested that time, but
Speaker 1: he also didn't have much press coverage, and not many
Speaker 1: people really seemed to care about what he was doing.
Speaker 1: Although Coxey had been ridiculed for his ideas by a
Speaker 1: lot of people, a lot of those same concepts were
Speaker 1: part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, including the
Speaker 1: make work projects of the nineteen thirties. On the fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the original March on the Capitol, Jacob Coxey
Speaker 1: was invited and finally able to get of the speech
Speaker 1: on the Capitol Steps that he had planned for. Tracy
Speaker 1: and I are going to take turns reading it because
Speaker 1: it's quite long, and this is an abridged version, but
Speaker 1: it begins the Constitution of the United States guarantees to
Speaker 1: all citizens the right to peaceably assemble and petition for
Speaker 1: redress of grievances, and furthermore declares that the right of
Speaker 1: free speech shall not be abridged. We stand here today
Speaker 1: to test these guarantees of our Constitution. Here, rather than
Speaker 1: at any other spot on the continent. It is fitting
Speaker 1: that we should come to mourn over our dead liberties,
Speaker 1: and by our protest aroused the imperiled nation to such action.
Speaker 1: I shall rescue the Constitution and resurrect our liberties. Upon
Speaker 1: these steps where we stand has been spread a carpet
Speaker 1: for the royal feat of a foreign princess. Up these
Speaker 1: steps the lobbyists of trusts and corporations have passed unchallenged
Speaker 1: on their way to committee rooms, access to which we,
Speaker 1: the representatives of the toiling wealth producers, have been denied.
Speaker 1: We stand here today on behalf of millions of toilers,
Speaker 1: whose petitions have been buried in committee rooms, and whose
Speaker 1: opportunities for honest, remunerative, productive labor have been taken from
Speaker 1: them by unjust legislation which protects idlers, speculators, and gamblers.
Speaker 1: We come to remind the Congress here assembled of the
Speaker 1: declaration of a United States senator quote that for a
Speaker 1: quarter of a century the rich have been growing richer,
Speaker 1: the poor poorer, and that by the close of the
Speaker 1: present century, the middle class will have disappeared. As the
Speaker 1: struggle for existence becomes fierce and relentless. We are here
Speaker 1: to petition for legislation which will furnish employment for every
Speaker 1: man able and willing to work. We are engaged in
Speaker 1: a bitter and cruel war with the enemies of all mankind,
Speaker 1: a war with hunger, wretchedness, and despair. And we ask
Speaker 1: Congress to heed our petitions and issue for the nation's
Speaker 1: good a sufficient volume of the same kind of money
Speaker 1: which carried the country through one off full war and
Speaker 1: saved the life of the nation. We have come here,
Speaker 1: through toil and weary marches, through storms and tempests, over mountains,
Speaker 1: and amid the trials of poverty and distress, to lay
Speaker 1: our grievances at the doors of our national legislature, and
Speaker 1: ask them, in the name of Him whose banners we bear,
Speaker 1: in the name of him who plead for the poor
Speaker 1: and the oppressed, that they should heed the voice of
Speaker 1: despair and distress that is now coming up from every
Speaker 1: section of our country. That they should consider the conditions
Speaker 1: of the starving unemployed of our land and enact such
Speaker 1: laws as will give them employment, bring happier conditions to
Speaker 1: the people, and the smile of contentment to our citizens.
Speaker 1: In his later years, Coxie continued to pursue new business
Speaker 1: endeavors as well as politics. He sold a mild laxative
Speaker 1: called Coxilax, which he swore with the source of his longevity.
Speaker 1: He also sold copper and zinc disks to wear inside
Speaker 1: of shoes we're supposed to help with aches and pains,
Speaker 1: and he gave instructions out to people who wanted to
Speaker 1: make their own. Incidentally, Carl Brown and Maymie Coxey did
Speaker 1: become a couple uh They were married in Eve. That
Speaker 1: was much to Jacob Coxey's chagrin. The couple had a
Speaker 1: son together, but that marriage did not last. Jacob's second wife, Henrietta,
Speaker 1: died on January thirteenth, nineteen fifty one, after their child
Speaker 1: legal Tender, who only lived to be seven. The couple
Speaker 1: had three other children. They were Jacob Jr. David, and Ruth.
Speaker 1: After Henrietta's death, Jacob Coxey's own health went downhill pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: He had a stroke on May eighteenth, nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 1: He had lived only four months longer than his wife did.
Speaker 1: He is um one of those eccentric and marvelous characters
Speaker 1: in histories that we don't really get all that much
Speaker 1: information out about normally, but I both love his idealism
Speaker 1: and shake my head and go, oh, ma'am, do you
Speaker 1: have some listener mail for us? I do, um. I
Speaker 1: have a couple of pieces. The first is from our
Speaker 1: listener Naomi, who writes hello. In a recent podcast. The
Speaker 1: letter was read where a listener thanks Tracy for her
Speaker 1: contribution to a BBC show. It was described like a
Speaker 1: game of Thrones, of sort. I was listening in traffic
Speaker 1: and forgot the name. I would love to check it out,
Speaker 1: please help. That was actually mem but the I wanted
Speaker 1: to read this because I want to make sure she
Speaker 1: knows about it in case she wants to hear it.
Speaker 1: Because it is a really good show. That is called
Speaker 1: Tu Mon Bay Tu m A n b A y
Speaker 1: Um by John Dryden, and it's wonderful. You can find it,
Speaker 1: uh like our show everywhere you get podcasts. Wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure I touched on that. Our other one is
Speaker 1: from our listeners Cynthia, and it is exciting to me,
Speaker 1: she writes. In decluttering my husband's stuff, I found this
Speaker 1: pamphlet that his mother had kept, and I thought of you.
Speaker 1: I would be happy to mail it to you. If
Speaker 1: you send me an address that is Cynthia. This pamphlet
Speaker 1: is called how to Buy a School Dress and it
Speaker 1: is I'm not sure what year it's from the style
Speaker 1: I would guess early fifty ease, and it talks about
Speaker 1: how you should think about your clothes as you purchased
Speaker 1: them for the school year. I think this is some
Speaker 1: charming business and I super duper want it, uh And
Speaker 1: I assure you it will be in a place of
Speaker 1: love and probably framed and hanging on my wall. So, Cynthia,
Speaker 1: I am sending you an address. UM. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us, you should absolutely do that.
Speaker 1: You can do that at History Podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us pretty much everywhere
Speaker 1: on social media is Missed in History And if you
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