Coxey’s Army of the Unemployed Rolls Through the West
Across the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies, an army of unemployed men seize trains and lobby local mayors for bread as they march toward the nation's capital.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Kelley's contingent of Coxey's army took breakfast at Piedmont, east of Evanston, this morning, and proceeded East. Many of them had blankets around them to ward off the cold. They captured a freight train about 10 o'clock last night. It was useless to resist them, and the trainmen agreed to haul them to the end of the division. At Evanston the mayor presented them six dressed beeves and a quantity of other provisions. The Union Pacific officials have decided to hurry the men along to the Missouri river without stopping at any of the principal towns where there might be danger of the men committing depredations. The tram reached Green River at noon and stopped west of the bridge, where more provisions were furnished. The train arrived at Rawlins at 8 o'clock tonight where the mayor met them with more provisions. In Tacoma, Frank T. Cantwell, the all-around sport, has made a definite proposition to lead the Tacoma Industrial Army to Washington City. For $1,000, 'Jumbo' will agree to take the 300 or 400 industrial soldiers inside of a week and provide every member of the army with three square meals a day.
“They had as much right to come here as the president of the New York Central Railroad Company or any other citizen.”
This reflects the 1894 economic depression, where 'industrial armies' formed to march on D.C. to demand public works programs. Today’s echoes appear in the persistent national debate over whether cities or the federal government are responsible for addressing mass homelessness and unemployment.
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