Coxey’s Army and the Capital Crackdown
Industrial protesters are jailed for trespassing on Capitol grounds, as federal troops mobilize across the West to protect railroad lines.
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.
J.S. Coxey has issued bulletin No. 6 to the American patriots of 1894, in which he gives a highly colored account of the arrest and conviction of the leaders in Washington City. Judge Mills today sentenced Coxey, Browne, and Jones to twenty days' imprisonment in jail for displaying a banner on the Capitol grounds on the occasion of the May Day demonstration. Coxey and Browne were also sentenced to a fine or ten days' imprisonment for trespassing on the Capitol grounds. Meanwhile, Company C, 14th Infantry, left Vancouver, Washington, by the steamer Undine for Umatilla Junction, leaving only one troop at Vancouver Barracks, as nearly all troops of this department are in the field protecting transportation lines in the hands of the United States courts.
“Nearly all the troops of this department are now in the field protecting transportation lines in the hands of the United States courts.”
The 1894 march of the unemployed on Washington, D.C., reflects a recurring American tension between economic desperation and the state's protectiveness toward private industrial property—a dynamic that echoes in modern debates over public protest and the policing of infrastructure.
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