A March to Remember

by Anna Loan-Wilsey

  “And you have your map of the Senate floor so you know who is who?” I showed him the 53rd Congress’s Official Congressional Directory that Claude Morris had given me, with its map of numbered desks and list of the senators’ names who sat at each desk.

  “Yes, sir. But—”

  “Ah, Smith. Is it time?” Sir Arthur said, cutting off anything I was about to say, when he saw our host, Senator Smith, approaching.

  The senator, a solid older man with a thick gray mustache, standing several inches shorter than Sir Arthur, nodded while looking up at me through his spectacles. The intensity in his eyes and the perpetual scowl on his face remained unchanged.

  “Sir Arthur.” The senator acknowledged him with the slightest bow of his bald head. “Why is Miss Davish here?”

  “She is going to record the session for me,” Sir Arthur said. “Shouldn’t we go in?”

  “Quite right,” Senator Smith said, wrinkling his nose in obvious distaste at my presence. And he continued to scowl as a young, handsome man with thick brown hair and a beard smiled at the senator as he passed.

  “Fine day, eh, Meriwether?” the man said, in an obvious Southern drawl.

  “Go to Hell, Abbott,” Senator Smith sneered under his breath. The young man laughed as he headed down the hall to the Senate Chamber.

  Before Sir Arthur could question the senator about the incident, Senator Smith said, “Ah, Chester,” to a man of similar height, build, and sullen countenance as the senator making his way across the floor toward us. He too had a bald pate but a crescent of thick black hair encircled his crown. Sir Arthur glanced at his watch again.

  “Chester, I don’t think you’ve met our houseguest,” Senator Smith said.

  “No, I haven’t,” the new arrival said.

  “Chester, this is Sir Arthur Windom-Greene. He’s a renowned historian staying with us while he conducts his latest research. Sir Arthur, this is my son, Chester Smith.”

  As Sir Arthur shook hands with the newly arrived man, I ignored the senator’s snub of not introducing me and studied the new arrival. I had seen him before. He was the man I’d watched at the train station jab his carriage driver in the back with his umbrella for his presumed lack of haste. At the time, his resemblance to our host had struck me and now I knew why. My first impression was not improved upon as he began a discussion with the men without even looking at me in acknowledgment.

  “Can you believe that counsel for Boss McKane filed an appeal today at the Supreme Court?” Chester said. “Do you think they’ll consider it, Father?”

  “I should say not,” Senator Smith said, taking off his spectacles and wiping them with a handkerchief.

  “Anyone associated with Tammany Hall, any politician at all, for that matter, caught defrauding the voters deserves to be in prison,” Sir Arthur said.

  Did Chester Smith wince? If he had, the look was gone as quickly as it came.

  “Shall we go?” Sir Arthur said, less of a question than a command. The men turned their backs on me. As was expected, I followed.

  “This is where I leave you,” the senator said when we arrived at the gallery doors. “Must go and take my seat now.”

  “Right.” Sir Arthur, not hesitating a minute more, stepped through. Chester followed and I came in behind, relinquishing my pass to the attendant. “There’s the ladies’ gallery, Hattie.” Sir Arthur pointed to the other side of the room. “I’ll meet you here when it’s over.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, turning to make my way past the rows of gallery seats.

  As the chamber was built with the acoustics of a theater, I heard Chester ask quietly, “Who is your lovely companion, Sir Arthur?”

  “Pardon me, Mr. Smith, but I’ve been remiss in not introducing you. Hattie,” Sir Arthur said, beckoning me back.

  “Chester Smith, this is Miss Hattie Davish.”

  “Miss Davish, how charming,” Chester said, bowing his head, the distracted look in his eye not matching the smile on his face. “And how do you come to be here today?”

  “Miss Davish is my private assistant and secretary,” Sir Arthur said, again pulling out his pocket watch.

  “Oh, I see.” Chester Smith purposely glanced down at the chamber floor where the senators were gathering. “Shall we find our seats, Sir Arthur?” He avoided looking at me again.

  “By all means.” The two men set off down the aisle.

  Unperturbed by the senator’s son’s cool reception, I navigated my way across to the ladies’ gallery. Armed with my pencil and notepaper, I settled myself in the front row next to a group of women all wearing National American Woman Suffrage Association stickpins. As the men below were still standing about in clusters whispering, I took the time to look around me. The chamber was a large rectangular room, at least 100 feet long and almost that wide, with second-story public galleries on each of the four sides, all crowded by now, all painted in hues of gold and white. Below where I sat, the senators’ individual wooden desks, some dating back to the Old Senate Chamber almost a half-century ago, were arranged on a tiered semicircular platform facing a raised rostrum. Above me, beautifully illuminated by the sun rays streaming through, was a skylight made of iron and glass panels painted in the symbols of the Union, the army, the navy, and the medical arts.

  There he is again!

  As my eyes rested on the press gallery, directly above the desk of the president pro tempore on the raised rostrum, I instantly recognized the man I’d seen outside the bawdy house this morning. Craning his neck as if to find a particular person in the adjacent gallery, he smirked when he spied who he’d been looking for. He left his spot, shoving his way through the crush of journalists crammed together in his row, and headed down the aisle. He reached the gallery where Chester Smith and Sir Arthur sat and headed straight up toward them, taking two stairs at a time. I expected him to be greeted by Chester Smith, but Sir Arthur patted the man on the back. To my dismay, the two men shook hands. How could Sir Arthur know such a man? Could he know what that man was doing this morning? I doubted it. When Sir Arthur, by his gestures, introduced Chester Smith, the reporter wagged his finger toward the scowling senator’s son. The two men obviously knew each other as well.

  Whack! “The Senate will come to order.”

  The sound of the gavel interrupted my ponderings and alerted me to my purpose for being here. Immediately I was poised with pencil and notepad to record every word, my attention absorbed by the men below. And after the chaplain led the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance was recited by all, the topic of the day’s debate was soon evident and much to my surprise.

  “Mr. President?” Senator Smith said, wiping his spectacles.

  “The senator from Virginia,” Senator Isham Harris, the president pro tempore, said, acknowledging Smith.

  “Mr. President, I would like to begin by reminding my esteemed colleagues of the 1882 Act to Regulate the Use of the Capitol Grounds.” He flipped open a large book of statutes. “As it states:

  ‘Whereas the Capitol Grounds have been formed to subserve the quiet and dignity of the Capitol of the United States, and to prevent the occurrence near it of such disturbances as are incident to the ordinary use of public streets and places: Therefore, the following statute for the regulation of the public use of said grounds is hereby enacted.’

  “I list only those parts of sections of which my friends who support Mr. Coxey and his followers should take heed.” He read again.

  “ ‘That it is forbidden to make any harangue or oration, or utter loud, threatening, or abusive language. That it is forbidden to parade, stand or move in processions or assemblages, or display any flag, banner, or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice any party, organization or movement. That it shall be the duty of all policemen having authority to make arrests in the District of Columbia to be watchful for offences against this act and to arrest and bring before the proper tribunal those who shall offend against it.’ ”

  With this, Senator Smit
h ceded the floor. Several senators spoke for over an hour, arguing back and forth, adding to an earlier debate on whether Coxey’s March constituted a legitimate way of petitioning the government for the redress of grievances, until one rotund senator spoke, all the while rubbing his protruding belly.

  “As my colleague from Virginia said, Mr. President, there should be no debate. These lawbreakers should be arrested the moment one of them utters a word on Capitol grounds.”

  “Hogwash!” cried the young Southern man who had infuriated Senator Smith earlier. I looked at my map of the Senate floor. It was Clarence Abbott, the Populist junior senator from North Carolina.

  Did Senator Smith dislike him because he was a Populist? Or was there something more between them?

  “Mr. President?” a tall, sturdy, clean-shaven man said as he rose.

  “The senator from Nebraska,” President Pro Tempore Harris said, ignoring Senator Abbott’s comment and acknowledging Senator William Allen, a fellow Populist.

  “I once said that this march on Washington was ‘absurd and useless,’ that it was ‘the work of a man who, if not a knave, is crazy and who does not represent any of the principles of our party.’ And that may still ring true. But I must object and am dismayed by the buildup of military and police forces in our fair city for the purpose of repelling the Coxeyites.”

  So it was true. The rumors I had overheard at the White House weren’t idle gossip after all.

  “And the suggestion of the senator from Virginia to use the Capitol Grounds Act to stop them, I ask, is it American?” Allen said. “Is it right to deny to such men the privilege of not only entering the District of Columbia and the city of Washington, but to enter these galleries, if they see fit to enter them?”

  Senator Allen gestured to the galleries above him with a sweep of his arm, eliciting a few sharp gasps and cries of “No!” from those seated above him.

  “Are American citizens coming here for a lawful purpose to be met at the confines of the capital of their nation by hired soldiery, by a police force, and kept out of the city and beaten into submission if they persist in coming?”

  This elicited both boos and shouts of approval from Allen’s fellow senators. Immediately Senator Hawley, a Republican from Connecticut, rose to oppose him.

  “Now, sir,” Hawley declared, “it is a matter of common sense that the behavior of multitudes around this Capitol and these squares here should be carefully regulated by laws and rules. And if there be any patriotism in the misguided company of men near here, or the others who are coming, there are men in this Senate who could address them and satisfy them, I am sure, if they are Americans and have any respect for their country. And may I add that the speech given by the gentleman from Nebraska, though roughly received here, as it should be, would have been received with tumultuous applause in a meeting of anarchists, having as it did the bacteria and bacilli of anarchy!”

  A large uproar followed, both on the floor and in the galleries above, as men shouted and waved their arms in objection to Senator Hawley’s words.

  “That’s absurd!”

  “Boooooo!”

  “Hissssss!”

  “Preposterous!”

  Whack! Whack! Whack!

  As Senator Harris hit the gavel several times trying to restore order, I stole a moment to glance at the press gallery. There the men were feverishly writing, trying to capture the words and mood for their articles. The reporter I’d seen at the bawdy house this morning was among them again. Absentmindedly he unwrapped something and popped it in his mouth. From the mastication of his jaw, I guessed he was chewing gum. He suddenly looked up and stared across the chamber toward me. I immediately looked down and engrossed myself in my own work. Could he sense I was staring at him? Could he have recognized me from this morning? What if he told Sir Arthur?

  That’s preposterous, I thought, echoing the shouts from below. He was too distracted to notice me outside the bawdy house. Wasn’t he?

  CHAPTER 5

  “There’s Coxey!” someone shouted.

  A rush of men, clerks and journalists I recognized from the press gallery and visitors alike, pushed past Sir Arthur, Chester Smith, and me as we left the galleries at the end of the session. The man from the bawdy house wasn’t among them. One man’s unexpected pause to tie the loose laces on his shoe forced three others to slip and stumble on the marble floor as they attempted to navigate around the bent figure, one grabbing Sir Arthur’s arm for support, another bumping into Chester Smith.

  “Hey!” Chester said, shoving the man away, into the path of the stragglers.

  In a chaos of flying hats, waving arms, and curses, men tumbled into a heap. But nothing deterred them. Untangling themselves and collecting their fallen hats, they gained their feet and hurried away.

  “I say,” Sir Arthur said, brushing his sleeve. “What was that about?”

  “General Coxey appears to be in the corridor, sir,” I said as calmly as I could, inwardly sharing the crowd’s enthusiasm.

  “Oh, well then, we must meet this Coxey. Care to join the spectacle, Mr. Smith?” Sir Arthur said. Chester yawned, but my heart fluttered with excitement. I couldn’t wait.

  “Very well.”

  We three headed toward the congregation of reporters, pages, and clerks surrounding the famous man and waving scraps of paper in the air. Coxey was signing autographs. For all the descriptions of “revolutionary” and “crank” and “crazy” and “cerebrum of Christ,” the man I’d followed in the newspaper for months was slighter of build than I’d imagined, wore a tidy, light-brown mustache, wire-rimmed spectacles, and a well-tailored dark gray suit. To my relief and satisfaction, I would have more easily mistaken him for a senior government clerk than a maniacal leader of an invading army of miscreants.

  “What brings you to the Capitol?” someone was asking when Sir Arthur led the way into the crowd.

  “I seek permission to speak from the Capitol steps. I first attempted to gain it from the office of the police superintendent. Major Moore asked me if it was my idea to make a speech from the east front of the Capitol, and I told him yes. He told me I can’t do that, that the law prohibits it. When I asked him if there is any law against making a speech on the streets, again he said the law prohibits that too.”

  As autograph seekers flapped their papers as close to Coxey’s face as possible, the journalists were jotting down his every word. Although I would have preferred an autograph, I too took down what he said. Sir Arthur didn’t ask it of me, but I knew he’d expect a copy of the man’s comments later.

  “But that’s what we propose to attempt,” Coxey said. “It’s a constitutional right!” A few cheers rose from the crowd. To emphasize his point, he said it again. “I claim it under the Constitution.”

  “But what brings you to the Capitol today?” someone asked again.

  “Only Vice President Stevenson or Speaker Crisp can suspend the law.”

  “And did they?” a reporter asked.

  “The chief representative of the Democratic Party in Congress has refused to grant these rights to the American people,” Coxey said of Speaker Crisp’s refusal to help. “I’m still trying to locate the Vice President.”

  “What do you think of Congress using the 1882 Capitol Grounds Act to stop you?” someone asked. I craned my neck to see the speaker. The man from the bawdy house, pad and pencil in hand, had joined the crowd around Coxey.

  “We will keep off the grass around the Capitol,” Coxey replied. “Of course, I appreciate as well as anyone else the fact that the preservation of the grass around the Capitol is of more importance than saving thousands from starvation.” Both guffaws and gasps followed Coxey’s verbal jab.

  “Will you resort to violence to make your point? Does the city have something to fear from you and that army of thousands suffering from starvation on the city’s border? I overheard one of your zealots claiming he’d blow up the Capitol.”

  Was he referring to the same man who ha
d proclaimed his violent intentions at the White House or to someone new? I wondered.

  Distant steps could be heard echoing down the corridor as everyone hushed and strained to hear Coxey’s reply. The fate of the city could depend on it. Coxey straightened his shoulders and took a big breath.

  “We come in peace to lay our grievances at the doors of our national legislature and ask them in the name of Him whose banners we bear, in the name of Him who pleads for the poor and the oppressed, that they should heed the voice of despair and distress, that they should consider the conditions of the starving unemployed of our land, and enact such laws as will give them employment, bring happier conditions to the people, and the smile of contentment to our citizens.”

  Audible sighs of relief rose from the crowd, my own included. And then dozens of voices began at once.

  “Who are these men of violence who claim to speak for the Commonweal of Christ?”

  “How can you guarantee peace when your men are suffering so?”

  “Amen and thanks be to Him whom we praise.”

  Ignoring all questions and comments, Coxey excused himself and proceeded to push through the crowd.

  “Sir Arthur Windom-Greene.” Sir Arthur introduced himself as he stepped in front of General Coxey and halted his advance. “And this is Mr. Chester Smith.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Coxey said.

  “It was my secretary, Miss Davish here, who made me aware of your extraordinary trek from Ohio,” Sir Arthur said, pointing to me. “Hattie has been an avid follower, I can assure you.”

  “And supporter too, I hope, Miss Davish?” General Coxey said. I smiled.