Coxey's Army
By Archie P. McDonald

When our family gathered for a Thanksgiving feast in the 1940s or 1950s, one of the elders would pronounce it "enough for Coxey's army," except to my immature and ignorant ear, I thought they said "Cox's army." Either way, they referred to a not-socurrent event from their youth - 1894 - that must have left a lasting impression. Here's what happened.

The United States suffered one of the periodic downturns evidently a characteristic of our capitalism system. Our nation had been doing that every 20 years or so, usually with increased severity because more people had moved to the city and surrendered subsistent agriculture as a survival device. This one coincided with a national debate over maintaining a monetary system based exclusively on gold, expanding it to include the "free coinage of silver," or even printing paper money.

Jacob Sechler Coxey of Massillon, Ohio, wanted the government to issue $500 million in paper currency and spend it on public works - roads, municipal buildings, etc. Such an infusion of "new" money would put the out-of-work on a payroll and simultaneously demonstrate the utility of a monetary system not exclusively golden.

Naturally, men out of work everywhere thought this a splendid idea and willingly joined Coxey's call for an "army" of them to march on Washington to convince national legislators to get off their reluctance to adopt Coxey's plan. This occurred long before everyone marched on Washington - or Austin - over anything, and the prospect did, at first, frighten the faint of heart.

The part of Coxey's Army that might have benefited from our heavily laden table started out from Los Angeles, first marching and then illegally occupying freight trains, until they reached Sierra Blanca, near El Paso, near Easter in March 1894.

Governor James Stephen Hogg resisted those who urged him to ask for assistance from US Army forces in Fort Bliss but did offer additional police assistance if needed to the City of El Paso. Coxey's army remained pacific while there, waiting for a train, so to speak. They finally caught a freight train, but Southern Pacific officials stopped it 70 miles east of El Paso, where it remained for three days. Ranchers contributed a few cows and sympathetic Mexican families provided water, but the men remained essentially without sustenance until the citizens of El Paso chartered a train to take them on east. Coxey's Army's special train traveled to San Antonio, Austin, and eventually made stops in Palestine and Longview before taking the men on eastward toward Washington. Meantime, Jacob Coxey led his own portion of his "army" to Washington, where he was arrested for walking on the grass outside the Capitol - where I, one day, played touch football during a break while attending a humanities meeting in the capital city.

Coxey was not without some influence, though - many people credit him with introducing the basic concept of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

(The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and author of more than 20 books on Texas.)