The Coxeyites Descend on Spokane
Populist supporters and unemployed 'Industrial Army' marchers head toward Spokane, setting up a confrontation with the city's new leadership.
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.
Some of the fruits of the Populist victory will now be showered upon Spokane. The Coxey 'army' at Puyallup has broken into small bands, and these are headed for this city, where they will rendezvous with the ones already here. These hobo bands are coming here upon the implied if not explicit invitation of Mayor-elect Belt. Spokane is getting results sooner than she had anticipated. But there is going to be lamentation when the Western Washington Coxeyites pile in on Brother Belt. By nature and training, Belt has nothing in common with these vagabond forces of society. He is a banker, a capitalist, a money changer, a note shaver, a speculator. He could not possibly trot far with the Coxey gentry, because the characteristics and training of a lifetime are sure to crop out and force an estrangement. But the Webfoot 'Industrials' don't know Belt yet, and so Spokane will have to suffer the infliction of having his chickens come here to roost.
“These hobo bands are coming here upon the implied if not explicit invitation of Mayor-elect Belt.”
In 1894, the 'Industrial Army' movement saw unemployed men marching across the U.S. to demand federal public works. This reflects the early tension between Seattle's nascent populism and the established power of the banking class, a dynamic that remains a central theme in Washington's political landscape today.
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