The Story of the Commonweal. ... Narrative of the origin and growth of the movement. Similar movements in history, etc

Front matter

Franklin Series. — VoT. i. No. 7, May. 1894. Monthly. t6.oo per year. Entered at the . ostoffice at Chicago as second-class matter. PRICE. 30 GENTS. Chicago: W. B. CONKfiY CO/1PANY, Publishers. Chicago, April 28, 1894. Messrs. J. S. Coxey and Carl Browne: In pursuance to instructions received from Mr. Browne, written from Camp Victory, April 18th, that "you are the historian— please get your history right," I have scrupulously endeavored to comply, and trust you will be pleased with the work as it will appear. I have taken the lib erty to authorize, as the insignia of the Commonweal, the use of your original badge, which Will form a part of this volume. Obediently yours, r Copyrighted 1804 br W. B. Conkey Company. Entered according to Act ot Congress, in the year A D 1894, by the W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington D C J. S. COXEV, ESQ., PRESIDENT OK THE J. S. COXEY GOOD ROADS ASSO- CIATION OF UNITED STATES, MASS1LLON, OHIO. CARL BROWNE, SECRETARY THE J. S. COXEY GOOD ROADS ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES.

Preface

. _5|| HIS book is the story of the great industrial -*- movement in the United States, in the year 1894. It has the indorsement of the leaders of the movement in different parts of the country, and consists only of absolute facts; these facts exceptionally complete and full, obtained with unusual facilities and all aid from the leaders themselves It is written without bias or prejudice, and is presented to the American people as a correct history of one of the most remarkable of movements, one well worth the consideration of every thinking man and woman. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGB. Preface 3 Contents 5, 6 and 7 Introduction 9 Beginning of the Movement 16 Similar Movements in History 22 Magna Charta, Marcel, Wat Tyler 30 Jack Cade, Achamber, Suabians, Joseph 39 Coxey and His Aims 49 Start of the Commonweal 56 Alliance to Sewickly 62 Allegheny City and Pittsburg 73 Homestead and McKeesport 80 Uniontown to Cumberland , 90 Hancock to Hagerstown 95 On to Washington 100 Petition in Boots 104 Life of Carl Browne 109 Incidents By the Way 114 Kelly's Industrial Army 125 Experience of the Kelly Army in Iowa 132 Unlawful Aid Refused by Kelly 139 Kelly's Plans and Hopes Ir,3 Kelly Alarms the Railroads 156 The Frye Movement 163 The Commonweal in Chicago 174 Randall's Cohorts 180 Latest Days in Chicago 185 A Day with Randall's Men 191 Different Western Movements 199 Excitement Along the Outposts 208 The Northern Pacific Episode 216 Camp Gossip at Chicago 220 The Senate and Washington 224 Opinions of the Press 233 What the Condition Is 243 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Gen. J. S. Coxey.

Secretary Carl Browne, The Coxey Army at Massillon L. L. Polk. On the Flagship Ben Vaughn. A Scene on the Canal. School Children Watching the Procession. Henry Vincent. General Randall. The Chicago Army Headquarters. Gen. Louis C. Frye. Mayor Bemis of Omaha. The National Capital. she White House, Washington. Viola and Alice Bradley. Kelly at Camp Despair. Leaving Council Bluffs. The Arrival at the Transfer, Council Bluffs. The Wait at the Transfer, Council Bluffs. Omaha to the Rescue. The March to the Chautauqua Camp. View of Chautauqua Grounds and Army. Kelly at Chautauqua Camp. Kelly's Army at Camp Despair. Gen. Chas. T. Kelly. Lunch ;<t Shelby. Entering Avoca. Gen. Frye's Army in Camp near Terre Haute. Misses Hooten and Harper. Gen. Coxey's Army at New Waterford, Ohio. A Group of Coxey Army Marshals. Mrs. Niles C. Smith of the Chicago Army.

Introduction

. I have been asked to write an introduction to the story of the industrial army, or rather armies, the movements of which have, thus far; formed the most striking event in the history of the United States for the year 1894. I respond willingly and readily, because to me this movement appears destined to rank as one of the phenomena of note in the growth of nations. It has been ridiculed beyond all reason. What can be more absurd than a body of men marching across the country to ask the members of Congress to legislate for them in such manner as would make the condition cf things better ! Theoretically, the men now in Congress are the men whom those who are marching, with others, have selected to make the best laws for them. The whole country is divided into a number of districts, and the one person whom al! the other peo ple in the district suppose the most honest and best fitted for the purpose, either in inclination or in ability, is the one who is made their representative; but if, as things are, the best man is not sent to Congress, the ends of legislation are not achieved.

There has been a season of the most extraordinary business depression. There has been a panic, lacking many of the ordinary panic's features. Thousands of men have been out of work, and have gone hungry, as have their families. The condition of things is not yet satisfactory. It is better than it was, but there is not yet the average of prosperity, when all classes are considered. There is a degree of suffering still existing in the entire country, and the conditions still, as many seem to think, call for an abnormal movement to relieve an abnormal situation. It occurred to one man or group of men — it does not matter which, but all these things somehow center about one man — that if everybody out of work could have work and get even somewhat less than a proper return in the way of wages, the situation would be improved. But men who work for the government must be paid by the government, and there is always a method of doing <j

INTRODUCTION.

. these things. The man who suggested the matter suggested also the method. He proposed the issuance of non-interest-bearing bonds — and there is no necessity for explanation here of the exact method of doing this; the matter of bonds having always been a perplexing one to the greatest of thinkers. If the particular method proposed were not the best, perhaps, if the proper spirit were shown, some way might be devised by which the country, as a whole, should raise money to give labor to the unemployed. It was proposed that good roads should be made all over the United States, that men should always have employment on them; that the country as a whole should pay the wages of the men so employed. Omitting the question or manner of payment, could there, in a general way, be a better suggestion ?

Good roads every where are an absolute necessity and a profitable investment. They are, ordinarily speaking, of equal benefit to everybody. England has good roads; France, Germany, Italy, Austria, all civilized countries, have good roads. It is a matter of time only when this country must come to it, and the United States does things in less time than was required by other nations in other days, and under other conditions. Suppose the Congress of the United States should decide, in its wisdom, that the whole country should henceforth be constantly taxed to provide all men out of work with employment upon the roads, until all its highways from Maine to California and from Florida to the state of Washington should be perfect. Suppose the daily stipend for such work be made somewhat less than ordinary pay, so that there would be no inducement to linger in such employment, and that a just, proper and decent day's work be ever required in return for this.

Would not the country be better off? Would not its material condition be improving day by day? Would not the problem of dealing with the unemployed who are strong and vigorous be dispensed with? Tramps then need no longer be tolerated. Of course the remedy could not last forever, nor could it be held to cover all present needs, but would it not be a step in the right direction? Would not the members of all classes of the community be benefited by it? Of course, there would remain the crippled and infirm, but these we must support anyhow, and to do so is a matter of conscience, religion and duty, and is a part of the scheme of political economy. The thought is only a suggestion, a question as to whether or not in this proposi-

INTRODUCTION.

. 9 tion so scoffed at, so ridiculed, there is not the germ of a remedy for existing evils which may be good for years? To ask Congress to consider this proposition, certain bodies of men are converging toward the capitol from various parts of the country. They are daring men, and their conduct has been some thing remarkable. Consider any popular uprising, and it will be found that this one movement stands almost without a perfect parallel. It is as well to put things as they are. This is not an unintelligent aggregation, hoping to affect for the better the welfare of the country. It is not even a collection of those who, because not long enough in the country, are not yet fully in accord with the pulse and .thought of its institutions. It is neither here nor there where a man is born, save that as a man born in Patagonia knows more of Patagonia than any one else, so a man born in America knows more of America than anybody else; but it is a fact worthy of note that one of the officials in power, con trolling the actions of one of the railroads directly interested in the movements of one of these armies, was half convinced when he saw the men who wished to be carried, and that he referred to them in an astonished way as ninety per cent, native Americans, and all intelligent!

This is the Washington-seeking force. Of such a body as this is comprised the mass marching upon the National Capitol, to ask something which, in the estimation of those men, is for the good of the country at large — something which they think will prevent dire poverty in a land where there is, to a certainty, enough for everybody, and which will assist toward making life worth living for hundreds of thousands who are less fortunate or less shrewd, though not less honest or earnest or temperate, than those among their fellows who have more than enough. One group of men goes to seek another group of men to consider things with them The men who compose Congress, which is the lawmakmg power, and which is, in one acceptation of the term, the \ j nited States, are of course not a lot of vicious, grasping, con scienceless men, as some agitators term them.

They are just like other men. They are not much better nor much worse. They are a little shrewder than the average man. because, necessarily, the man elected to Congress must be, under existing conditions, a rea sonably shrewd person, but in Congress is quite the usual per centage of honest men — of men doing undoubtedly the best they

INTRODUCTION.

. 10 can. But the problem to be dealt with is not a srmpie one. It is one to an extent new in the history of the world. It is a new one, because this is the greatest nation in the world's history; one which has subdued a greater extent of nature than any other nation in the same time; one which is a republic, and therefore presents conditions for legislators to deal with which did not exist in the monarchies that made the history of the past. Here is a country swept of wild beasts and forests, and peopled with the children of a strong and thinking race. It was all right as long as there were only wild beasts and forests to deal with, but gradually came the thickening of population, the growth of cities — of enormous centers increasing in magnitude. Never before has the world's history seen such swift and enormous growth.

That of Chicago, for instance, has been such that the growth of Rome, or London, or Paris, or Vienna, or any other center anywhere, is as the grovyth of a coral island compared with it. There has come an influx of heterogeneous elements into the population, of human beings from abroad seeking a better place of living. There has come the usual overflow of cities. There has come a drifting group. There has come an entity into the population which, supposing certain conditions, is a suggestion toward the downward drift. The panic was but an incident in the regular story of human effort in business adventure, which, after rising to a certain point, then becomes too reckless, and must necessarily dip again. Liquidation came, but it came at a time when other causes were at work, also economic, and the confluence has resulted in an abnormal effect, one of which, and the chief one, has been the converging armies of the earnest unemployed toward Washing ton.

The word earnest is used sensibly. The industrial army, despite the cartoons in the comic papers, despite the flippant paragraphs in the dailies, despite what those who have not seen them naturally imagine, does not include that army, scattered all over the country, of those called, generally, tramps. It consists of men who ordinarily work hard, who are now out of work, who have certain ideas of their own, and who count them selves American citizens having equal rights with all other American citizens. These are the men going to Washington in a body to suggest— merely to suggest, with only such degree of demand as would be accorded to them by the most con-

INTRODUCTION.

. 11 servative— such legislative act, such co-operative course, as they think best. These are the people marching across-country today. They are straightforward, honest Americans, intending no wrong nor disturbance, and intending to ask other Americans, who happen to have been elected lawmakers, to follow a suggested course, and improve a situation admitted bad by every body. A man's face is his fortune, to a great extent, just as it was that of the pretty girl in the song, and these men's faces, together with their demeanor, whether in the army of Coxey, or Kelly, or Frye, or any other of the various leaders, have impressed the com munities with their quality, have made converts and brought accretions, have resulted in procuring sustenance, and have made this great force, springing into being as a novelty, existing as a novelty, converging toward a common center, wax instead of wane.

Even the farmer has recognized the quality ot the army, and the farmer— God grant he may be always that tribunal — is the final court in the United States. Whatever may happen in the United States this fact stands out; <t stands out and is likely to be forceful for the next half century: The farmer, the man who feeds the nation, the man who makes the nation, will rule it, inevitably. Involuntarily, when popular movements on a gigantic scale occur, the mind turns to Paris and to France as the reminis cent theater for all scenes of that sort. It turns in that direction because in that highly civilized country, and among that im pulsive race, have occurred those surges of national emotion which have changed the history of the nation and, incidentally, the history of the world. In France, that typical land of revolutions, the capital is the nation -Paris is France.

In this country it is not that way. Here is a continent; here is a civilized people spread over a gigantic area, and having no capital, in the sense that the capital from its centripetal influence can effect materially the affairs of the nation. Washington as a city is nothing. Chicago and New York, and St. Louis and Philadelphia, and San Francisco, have their ebullitions, and may feel themselves Parisian for a time, and one of them may think itself for the moment the whole country, but it is not. The people of one of them are not many nor much among sixty millions. The intelligence and force of France is largely concentrated in Paris. The intelligence of the United States is not concentrated in any one of the great cities. Modern methods of newspaper cir-

INTRODUCTION.

. 12 culation, and modern methods for the diffusion of thought prevent all this. The average intelligence of the American farmer is probably the greatest in the world. The average farmer is supe rior not only in intelligence, but in aculeness, to the inhabi tant of the great city. He is his equal in ability, and is cleaner blooded, clearer headed, and more reflective. He is the immediate successor of all who have made this nation great. ' From his ranks, almost exclusively, come the legislators of the nation. He was the Lincoln and he was the Grant. But, after all, the fact that such men were of him is nothing. It is the great whole-entity of the farmer which makes the history of the United .States. Itjs the farmer now, just as when the minute men seized their guns and powder horns and ran to Lexington.

It is the farmer now. just as when these same men formed armies in millions, north and south, and met in a death grapple, each fighting for what they thought was right in the Civil War. It is the farmer now — and it is the salvation of this experiment of a republic on such a gigantic modern scale — who will determine tfee destiny of the nation's future. It is the farmer who will pass upon this present movement and determine its real value, whether or not it be an index of the time's needs and an absolute effort rightly directed toward doing what should be done. Here is an army converging toward Washington. What are we going to do with it? No one can answer the question definitely. But this every intelligent and patriotic person knows, that the movement is not one to be ridiculed, or laughed or chaffed at, but one to be met with such sympathy as one group of human beings, under any existing circumstances, can offer to another.

It is a peaceful movement. Where in the whole of the .United States have assembled great numbers of men demanding something from the existent powers who have maintained absolute peace and regard for the law in the face of every provo cation and every obstacle? What great strike has ever been without its temporary lapses from the course most considerate and politic? Yet all these converging armies so far have been most peaceful. They have done more than secure endurance, they have won regard. They are not armies of tramps and raga muffins. They may contain in their ranks a great proportion of enthusiasts and dreamers, but they are Americans, decent Ameri' cans, seeking to attain a more than justifiable end by justifiable THE COXEY ARMY IN MASSILLON, OHIO. L. L. POLK, LATE PRESIDENT FARMERS' ALLIANCE AND INDUSTRIAL UNION.

INTRODUCTION.

. 15 means. They are peaceful and earnest, and there is an eloquence in the patient dreariness of their plodding toward a goal. This is an honest movement. It is one made by those who have an absolute right to suggest. It is imperative, as a matter of equity and common humanity, with regard to the vested privi leges of the moving armies of peace, to meet their requests with consideration and earnestness and dignity, and dispose of them according to best judgment. More is asked by no one, and less would be wrong. Stanley Waterloo.

Chapter I. Beginning Of The Movement

The Commonweal or Coxey movement had its birth in the little city of Massillon, Ohio, in November, 1893, its author being Jacob Selcher Coxey, a well known horse breeder, farmer and quarryman of that place. The head of this enterprise, which has the merit of great novelty, had petitioned Congress for an issuance of non-interest bearing treasury notes, to be applied toward the improvement of the highways of the country, and despairing of accomplishing anything in this way he finally, in the fall of last year, hit upon the expedient which has made his name household throughout the country. Claim is made that the late L. L. Polk, a distinguished leader of the Populist party, was first to suggest the idea of presenting a "living petition to Congress," he having said upon one occasion, after deploring the alleged inaction of that body in relatiqp to signed petitions, "We will send one to Washington with boots on."

There is no evidence, however, that the Masillon leader ever heard of this threat of Polk. Nor does it matter if he did. Coxey's was the brain that formulated the present plan, and his the will that has projected it forward to its present degree of success. The first announcement of the movement was received with de rision and sneers all over the land. The proclamation of J. Selcher Coxey demanding the expansion of the volume of currenc), and the improvement of the highways over all the country, as well as his expressed purpose to gather together, from east and west, and north and south, great masses of the unemployed proletariat only served to evoke sarcasm and unrestrained laughter. Inquiry was made concerning the antecedents of this self-constituted leader and redresser of alleged human wretchedness, and when it was found that he was himself a man of the commons he was dis- 1.6 missed by the reputed wise of the earth as a harmless sort of idiot.

Why should the little town of Massillon be favored above all cities, and why should it be selected above all others to raise up a prophet and priest out of its ranks? The newspapers of the country, while they with characteristic enterprise published such general intelligence as was procurable at the headquarters of the movement, treated it as a low comedy with every trace of seriousness eliminated. They demonstrated to their own satisfaction, at least, that nothing could possibly come of the proposed " On to Washington " march beyond an ill assorted journey of a few miles by a motley company which would rival that of the pot-valiant Falstaff. The editorial paragraphs were jocose, satirical and frequently downright funny. It would seem that they made the mistake of failing to appreciate the value of earnestness in any given cause, as well as the benefit that might accrue to this one in particular by the wide notoriety which they gave to it.

Discontent with the existing order of things was widespread. The army of the unemployed was an immense one, as the result of the shutting down of factories and the many business failuresf and to many of these the message of Coxey came as the rain upon the thirsty ground. They heard and became thoroughly con vinced of the righteousness of his enterprise. Men touched with the same spirit as Coxey, with compassion for the unemployed masses, as well as the distresses of those making vigorous efforts to better their existence, proceeded diligently to work enlisting recruits for the great crusade. Now, in direct disproof of the prediction of the sneerer and scorner, not less than seventeen separate and distinct armies are now plodding wearily yet reso lutely toward the National Capitol, bearing in their own personality petitions to present to the great lawmaking body.

First and foremost, the John the Baptist of this dispensation is Coxey, with his potent assistant Browne, now nearly in sight of the majestic dome of the Capitol itself; the aggressive yet patient Frye, moving eastward through Iowa; the energetic Kelly, forging ahead in his across-country journey; Fitzgerald, of Massachusetts; Grayson, oi Colorado; Twanley, of Oklahoma; Galvin, of Ohio; Shepherd, of Washington; Sweetland, of New Jersey; Aubrey, of Indiana; Norman, of Wisconsin; and Jones, of Maryland; each of these leaders having a following of resolute, determined men, with a set purpose to sustain to the fullest the objects and aims outlined for the movement. The various besetments which befell Kelly and Frye, the almost insuperable barriers which intervened at East St. Louis and Council Bluffs, the sturdiness and steadiness of the march of Coxey's band over the Appalachian mountains, and the thousand and one incidents connected with the journeyings of these armies, have been retailed in the columns of the daily papers of the country, and while but too often told in " lighter vein," show the character and purpose of the wayfarers.

The progressive stages of the various armies have been marked by the acclaims of great crowds of sympathizers, and by steady accretions to the ranks. The commissary has not always been abundantly supplied with food, yet no murmurs have escaped the lips of the men; the roads have been rough arid the way dark at times, but there has been no turning back on the part of any. The speck in the sky was a small one, but it has been steadily growing and increasing until it has spread and covered the entire political sky. "On to Washington" was the rallying cry, and from cities and villages and hamlets and farms representatives of every rlass of the common people responded thereto. Steadily and surely the Commonweal grows, and the success of the movement, as far as numbers go, is an accomplished fact.

This gigantic movement of the proletariat in the year of our Lord, 1894, affords a most interesting study for the student of his tory. The antecedents and lives of the leaders, the progress and growth of the movement, the various incidents and events of the march, combine to form a great drama in real life, the rendition of which carries with it some forcible lessons. Who are these men who have passed years and years among their fellows without exciting attention, and unsuspected of the possession of qualities to command. Whence the power that influenced them to action and whence the merit which qualifies them to command? The narrative of the journey of Coxey toward Washington abounds with proofs of the determination, the iron will of the man. Equally does his private life at Massillon afford an earnest of his fitness to execute forcibly any plan he may resolve to carry out.

He does not perceive barriers that are formidable and insur mountable to less decided characters. While riding along in his phaeton one day recently he was asked: "Suppose Congress will not pass your bills, Mr. Coxey? " "They will pass them, they've got to pass them; and if any thing we can't foresee should prevent, I shall march my men through the Southern states, through the entire West, and, af'.er having awakened the people of the country by speeches at every point to the iniquities of Congress, I will bring the Commonweal again to Washington in the spring of 1895." His followers are fully persuaded he is capable of executing the plan thus named by him, and numbers of them declare they are enlisted with him to the end of the peaceful war he has inaug urated, whether that period be three months or three years.

Among the unique features of the Coxey movement are the speeches of Carl Browne, which while distinctively peculiar to the man and his surroundings, they likewise reflect the spirit and purpose of the leader. He will frequently address his audience as "fellow dogs," and then offer the following explanation: "Mr. McCullom, of Chicago, who'is here with us, has written a book, entitled the "Dogs and the Fleas," in which he anticipates the march of Brother Coxey and myself in our march to Wash ington. He tells how in Kyhidrom there dwelt a colony of dogs, which were bitten to death by fleas and not one of the canines could tell why they were in such straits. One day a crank dog came along and nudging one of the flea-ridden brutes called out, 'fleas, ' and then passing on to various groups of the insect pes tered animals, cried viciously,' Fleas, ye fools, fleas,' until finally the distressed dogs were induced to stop scratching and look in the right direction, being made to see that all their troubles came from fleas."

Thus with rapid speech he applies the story; he declares the people to be the dogs and the bankers, bondholders and monop olists as fleas who suck the life blood out of their victims. " We are the dogs, " he shouts, " and we are going to Washington to rid ourselves of the fleas," and then tells how he and Coxey propose to do it. "On one occasion when the troubles of the dogs had become almost unendurable, a number of them were assembled discussing the situation when a big dog appeared on the scene with the light of a big idea and the others accepted him as their leader. Under his directions they came to a place where a lot of timber had been cut and each one of the canines seized in his mouth a chip and trotted away with it to the banks of a river into which they all slowly plunged. Every one knows how much a flea dislikes water and the result was that as the several bodies of the animals became submerged the fleas crept forward until they were driven upon the chips, when the enlightened dogs let go the chips, which went floating down stream carrying a dense mass of howling, disappointed bloodsuckers.

Now, we are the dogs, and Brother Coxey is giving us the chips in the shape of his two bills before Congress, and we are going to Washington to get rid of the fleas." Having thus secured the attention of his audience and excited it to keen enjoyment of his quaint and apt illustrations, ne unfolds his panoramas, which consists of a series of banners, which he offers to the gaze of the populace, and by means of the pictures thereon inscribed, with rapid speech he covers the financial his tory of the country from his standpoint, and makes hits upon the alleged plutocrats of the day which seem to greatly tickle the fancy of his hearers. Mr. Browne is, indeed, a most notable feature of the Coxey Commonweal. Equally striking features characterize the onward progress of the various other armies of the Commonweal, although the original body attracts the closest and most intimate attention of the newsgatherers of the land.