Federal Judge Hanford Sentences Coxeyite Protesters
Twenty-six members of the Coxeyite industrial army face jail time after seizing a Northern Pacific train in defiance of federal court orders.
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.
United States Judge Hanford yesterday sentenced twenty-six Coxeyites to sixty days in the United States penitentiary on McNeil’s Island. The sentence is not severe but it is entirely just and a much needed vindication of the laws of the land. Judge Hanford did this community a signal service when he denounced the whole Coxeyite movement, and said that those who participated in it had acted from no sane cause. The defendants in this instance had violated an order of the Federal court. Their purpose in going to Washington to influence legislation by physical demonstration was absurd; they were not delegated by the community to force their views upon the government.
“Any departure from strictly honest, straightforward and legal methods only makes the burden rest heavier on our unfortunate people.”
The 'Coxey's Army' movement was a mass protest of unemployed men marching on the nation's capital, reflecting deep Gilded Age frustrations with industrial crashes. Today, the tension between civil disobedience and the enforcement of infrastructure 'order' remains a live debate in Seattle's political discourse.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.