The Commonwealers Ride the Rails
Across Washington and the West, the 'Industrial Armies'—unemployed men marching on Washington—capture freight trains, clash with marshals, and scramble for food as the government cracks down.
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 movement of the 'Industrial Army' (Coxeyites) continues to roil the West. In Washington, the army has left Ellensburg for Moses Coulee and Spokane, with the city providing provisions to hasten their departure. In Spokane, clashes have broken out as the army attempts to seize Northern Pacific freight trains. Federal deputy marshals have been rounding up participants, and in Tacoma, a U.S. marshal was jailed for assaulting an elderly man during the unrest. Meanwhile, in Idaho and Wyoming, the Union Pacific is taking a hard line. General Scheffler’s group, which had previously captured a train, was intercepted by marshals near Cokeville after a federal judge issued an injunction against them. Despite initial lenient treatment from judges in Portland, federal authorities are now responding with force, promising that resistance will be met with bullets.
“The citizens are determined to drive the Commonwealers out of the neighborhood, and are prepared to use every means to accomplish their end.”
In 1894, the desperate, jobless participants of the 'Commonweal Army' mirrored the intense class anxiety of the Gilded Age. Today, Seattle faces a different kind of pressure on its infrastructure and public space as it struggles to balance the humanitarian needs of the unhoused with the rigid demands of municipal order.
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