Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1931-05-14
(By GRACE STONE COATEs)

10Y OnANG " SOH xLoJ
On Saturday night, April 4, 1894,
an organizer for the Commercial
Army, as its founder called 1t, Coxey's
Army as 1t everywhere became,
stepped In the R~athskeller saloon in
the basement of the Lizzie block,
Butte, and looked around at the
hungry, jobless, embittered men that
slept there nightly. He opened the
lists for enrolment in the army, and
within an hour 235 men had signed
up. 1t was a good place to enroll
members for the band of Common
wealers. When men are without
food, or work, or a place to sleep,
any change may be for the better,
and they embrace what offers itself.
At 1880 p. m. they fell in line in front
of the Lizzie block, and marched to
a vacant lot at Montana and Granite
streets to listen to an address by
william Hogan, Marshal"
An enormous crowd gathered to hear
and other speakers. Nothing
.incendiary was said. The more PROM
inent speakers were competent men,
bers of the Knights of Labor, who ex-
planned soberly and without oratory
what they believed could be accom-
plished by the presence of thousands
of Coxey's followers at the seat of
government in Washington, D. C.
The Knights of Labor were past their
zenith as an organization in the east
Tin 1886 they had numbered 1000, 900
but they were still strong
in the western states. The organiza-
ton of Coxey's army was well under
way outside Montana, and was pre-
a serious national problem. On
February 20, 1894, 5000 unemployed
men at Boston had demanded relief
from the Massachusetts, legislature.
The CommOnwealers were marching
from the East, from the South, from
West; and everywhere they pre-
the same problems to perplexed
officials-the problem of feeding them,
Of housing them, and above all, of get
Ting rid of them as quickly as possible,
passing them on to the next COM
munity, and the next, and into the
neighboring state.
California, Washington and Oregon
could not complain that the Common
veal army gathering in their borders
had been passed on to them from their
western neighbors. But the states to
.he east, already helpless before the
problem OF their W unemployed, saw
With growing apprehension these in
,reaslng armies being hurried toward
hem.
BY April IL the Butte army num-
)ered 500, and Marshal Hogan, with
courteous irony, was formally petit
the mayor and city council
o provide transportation for the des-
itute unemployed, who proposed to
cave Butte for Washington on April
z. He admonished them: "As it is
probable that the hospitality OF the
southern routes has been taxed to its
Utmost endurance, we beg to suggest
he northern route for your consider
What Hogan said of the strain on
southern hospitality was true. Natura'-
ly, cities of the milder climatic belt
attracted the heaviest numbers of un-
employed. Enormous armies" had
moved from Los Angeles, a city al
ways sensitive to economic depression,
San Francisco and Denver. 1t is
possible for officials and private citi-
zens of a town to shut their eyes to the
suffering of individuals whom they do
not know, but civilized communities
can not permit organized and vocal
bodies Of the unemployed to starve or
freeze. The people in general were in
sympathy with these destitute unem-
Public emotion had been
played upon, and wherever a detach-
.ent of the army camped, private citi-
were contributing food and cloth
ing, and supplying the constant de-
mand for shoes. They gave money,
literally, for two reasons: one, to re-
lieve their sense of obligation; the
other, to hurry these troublesome, po-
tentially explosive marchers on their
way.
In Ogden there was talk Of force
ably moving the Industrial army, and