The Industrial Army Marches Across Washington
Unemployed men, dubbed 'Coxeyites' or 'Industrial Soldiers,' seize freight trains and defy officials in a desperate push toward Washington D.C.
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.
The Industrials are strung along the entire length of the Northern Pacific track in this state, stealing rides wherever possible. In Ellensburg, the army men claim that each freight train had two box cars loaded with 'soldiers,' but officials deny it. 'Jumbo' Cantwell, leader of the Sound contingent, has been vigorous in explaining the objects of the pilgrimage to Washington City, denouncing foreign immigration and demanding the government build the Nicaragua canal with strictly American labor. In Sprague, the Coxeyites pulled a neat coup on the Northern Pacific; one of them, evidently a railroad man familiar with air brakes, rode the pilot of the engine and stopped the train at the depot amid the applause of a mob of sympathizers. The officials have ordered the stock unloaded, and swear they will not carry the Commonwealers out of town if not a wheel turns for a month.
“He was talking to empty stomachs and the minds of his men were evidently dwelling on the hot dinner that was being prepared for them.”
This 1894 incident was part of the 'Coxey's Army' movement, where unemployed workers organized to protest the economic devastation of the Panic of 1893. Today's Seattle transit debates and labor activism for unemployed workers echo these same tensions between desperate populations and the massive corporate infrastructure that controls their mobility.
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