Coxey's Army
As part of my duties as a copy cataloging clerk for the university libraries I recently processed an archival photocopy replacement of a book from 1928 being withdrawn due to old age. There was something about the book that caught me up enough that I flipped through the initial chapters. Here was theosophy, Kickapoo Joy Juice, and the origin of the phrase enough food to feed Coxey's army. The book in question was
Coxey's army, a study of the industrial army movement of 1894, [WorldCat.org]. Here also was a triggering moment of serendipity. Which I will get to after a few words on the immediate subject.
The primary event here was the petition in boots of 1894
Coxey's Army - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. More formally known as the Commonweal in Christ a march on Washington DC in 1894 during the depression of the 1890's. Its leader was one Jacob Coxey (and baby son little Legal Tender Coxey) a fairly well-to-do Ohio businessman, owner of a quarry. In addition he was a Greenbacker and proponent of a Good Roads movement
Jacob S. Coxey Sr. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I should take a moment to try to explain what that might mean. Greenbackers were part of the free silver or bimetal currency movement. They favored an expanded currency unlocked from rigid gold reserves in order to have the fiscal wherewithal for a public works program to ease unemployment and to gain farmers value for their product. At this period in American history much of the true value of the American economy did not exist in circulating currency issued by the Federal Government through the Banks. This remained only a portion, much of it was held in private script covering the flow of industrial and retail production and service. The book is lengthy and I declined to read it all before writing this post. The critical point is that these issues came together for Coxey in the form of a notion for non-interest-bearing public bonds, rather like modern municipal bonds in some ways. And he conceived of a march on Washington DC to popularize the cause. A march that would leave his home town in Ohio on Easter Sunday and arrive in Washington around May first
The opening chapters of the book build up vivid detail of the characters: cowboys, indians, mysterious strangers, and ladies in veils that gathered to make up this march. The whole thing was a real Chautauquafest from start to finish. The times were fascinating: though, always more complex than I imagine. The early chapters of Stegner's Big Rock Candy Mountain cover the same period. It was a time of tight money and unemployment. Of scattered hoboes and itinerant workers traveling the only way that existed in those times - foot or rail
Coxey's army : an American odyssey [WorldCat.org]. And of how as unemployment rose these gave way to more organized movements of workers looking for employment the Industrial Army movement. At the same time as Coxey; Fry's army and Kelly's army were also marching on Washington. The panic of 1893 and recession for the remainder of the 1890's can be seen as rehearsal for the great depression of the 1930's but it was too early then for a new deal. L Frank Baum was supposed to have observed Coxey's army on its progress and used it as the inspiration for the Wizard of Oz tales. Its not thought they formed a full and rigorous analogy on ounces of gold (Oz) and yellow brick roads wicked witches (McKinley Cleveland) and gold slippers (only ruby for the movie) so much as a running series of metaphors loosely joined
JSTOR: Journal of Political Economy: Vol. 98, No. 4, p. 739 Wizard of Oz as Monetary allegory. The March arrived at the end of April passing down Rockville Pike, Hagerstown Frederick Rockville Bethesda into Washington. whereupon Coxey and the others were promptly arrested for walking on the grass and the whole thing fell apart. Well that and the fact that a significant portion of the marchers had been police and secret service anyways and their vacation was over once they got to DC.
Jacob Coxey was not indifferent to ambition. He allowed himself to be nominated to run for governor of Ohio by the peoples party in 1895, and 1897. And he habitually contested Congressional or Senate seats from Ohio over next 20 years either as independent or republican without ever winning anything until he won a term as mayor of his hometown in 1931. A sample slogan of his campaigns in the mid 1920s: "Unhorse the Coupon Clippers" has a certain Hugoian ring to it. Coxey lived 97 years, until 1951, and saw the ideas of a progressive age and a new deal push out and replace the plutocratic diffidence of the gilded era.
The actual serendipity, came when I noticed the name of the town Jacob Coxey hailed from; Massillon Ohio. I recalled the email address I had recieved from my old navy friend Mark E. Which ended with what I took to be a company name at the time Mr. Massillon. I made a command decision (as we used to say) at this point to equate Jacob Coxey with Mr. Massillon and will not be shaken from this. I recalled the curious phrase Mark used to obscurely describe what he did for a living "I'm stilling selling people, kind of a legal pimp if you will."
Well, I certainly will.
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