page_title: Boston Police Strike
section_title: Strike
hierarchical_section_title: Boston Police Strike / Strike
caption_attribution_description: Boston Police Strike, 1919
context_page_description: In the Boston Police Strike, Boston police officers went on strike on September 9, 1919. They sought recognition for their trade union and improvements in wages and working conditions. Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis denied that police officers had any right to form a union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the American Federation of Labor, which some attribute to concerns that unionized police would not protect the interest of city official and business leaders. Attempts at reconciliation between the Commissioner and the police officers, particularly on the part of Boston's Mayor Andrew James Peters, failed.
  During the strike, Boston experienced several nights of lawlessness. Several thousand members of the Massachusetts State Guard, supported by volunteers, restored order by force. Press reaction both locally and nationally described the strike as Bolshevik-inspired and directed at the destruction of civil society. The strikers were called "deserters" and "agents of Lenin." Samuel Gompers of the AFL recognized that the strike was damaging the cause of labor in the public mind and advised the strikers to return to work.
context_section_description: On September 9, Boston Police Department officers went on strike at 5:45 p.m. Of the force's 1,544 officers and men, 1,117 (72%) failed to report for work. Coolidge assigned 100 members of the state's Metropolitan Park Police Department to replace the striking officers, but 58 of them refused to participate and were suspended from their jobs. Despite assurances from Commissioner Curtis to Mayor Peters and Governor Coolidge, Boston had little police protection for the night of September 9. Volunteer replacements were still being organized and due to report the next morning. Many of the strikebreakers were students at Harvard University.
  Over the night of September 9–10, the city witnessed an outbreak of hooliganism and looting. Some was rowdy behavior that scared respectable citizens, such as youths throwing rocks at streetcars and overturning the carts of street vendors. More overtly criminal activity included the smashing of store windows and looting their displays or setting off false fire alarms. Such activity was restricted to certain parts of the city and, according to the New York Times, "throughout the greater part of the city the usual peace and quiet prevailed." In the morning the mayor asked the governor to furnish a force of State Guards; Coolidge promptly agreed and eventually provided almost 5,000 men under the command of Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Parker. Commissioner Curtis later praised the State Guards' performance in his Annual Report: "The whole community is now aware of the effectiveness with which the Massachusetts State Guard worked when it came into the city. I cannot add anything to the universal chorus of commendation that has greeted their work." The morning papers following the first night's violence were full of loud complaints and derogatory terms for the police: "deserters", "agents of Lenin."
  Violence peaked the next evening, the night of September 10–11. Businesses were better prepared. Some had boarded up and others stayed open all night with armed guards visible to discourage thieves taking advantage of the strike. Gamblers played dice in open view, and women had their handbags snatched. But the Guard's inexperience at handling crowds resulted in dangerous attempts to assert control. Gunfire in South Boston left two dead and others wounded. One person died in a riot at Scollay Square, a center of amusement halls and theaters. Whether the crowds were threatening property or making trouble because they were in sympathy with the strikers is unknown. 
  The death total ultimately reached nine.  In the "cavalry charge" of State Guard troops in Scollay Square on the 10th, Robert Lallie was shot and killed; Miss Margaret Walsh was wounded and died the next day.  Henry Groat (or Grote), age 20, was killed near the Armory near Jamaica Plain for refusing to abandon a game of craps.  On the 11th a striking policeman, a nine-year veteran named Richard D. Reemts, disarmed two strikebreaking policemen at Columbus Avenue and Buckingham Street then was fatally shot by an auto parts dealer.  Passerby Arthur E. (or E.B.) McGill was shot to death in Howard Street.  Three other men, Raymond L. Barnen (reported elsewhere as Bayers or Barros), Robert Sheehan, and Anthony Carr, were also killed on the 11th.  The final fatal casualty may have been 25-year-old Gustave Geist on the 13th.  All but Reemts were shot by members of the state militia.  
  City life continued relatively normally, especially during daytime hours. Schools remained open. Later claims against the city for losses incurred during the two nights of disorder ran to $35,000, of which the city paid $34,000. Those figures represent a non-partisan calculation of the costs of the strike to the Boston business community.
  When Governor Coolidge called the strikers "deserters" and "traitors," a mass meeting of the Boston Police Union responded:
  When we were honorably discharged from the United States army, we were hailed as heroes and saviors of our country. We returned to our duties on the police force of Boston.
  Now, though only a few months have passed, we ar
caption: Newly arrived Massachusetts Militia try to keep order in Scollay Square
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