I glanced at my watch. Oh, no! It was already eight thirty, and I had much work to do before the march.
I hurried back the way I had come, nearly running to the trolley stop, the brisk exercise and the focus on what I needed to do doing more for my troubled thoughts than anything I’d tried so far. I alighted from the trolley in front of the Metropolitan Club and walked past the Corcoran Art Gallery as a man was unlocking the doors. Knowing the Treasury Building would be locked until after the march, I headed straight across the street and into the State, War and Navy Department building. Not far from the entrance, several distinguished and well-dressed men stood about in discussion. And they all wore black lasting buttons on their vests.
“And I, for one, believe that if tramps and vagabonds can be kept out of the procession and a respectable lot of men gathered together, as I think will be the case, the demonstration will have a wholesome effect,” a man wearing the collar of a clergyman said.
“I disagree. This march is the work of a man, who, if not a knave, is crazy, and who does not represent any of the principles of our party,” another man said. “I for one am glad the police and the army are on hand.”
“But they come under the guise of doing Christ’s work,” the clergyman said.
“Have you seen this morning’s headline? They stole a train!” another man declared, holding up the newspaper he had held rolled under his arm. In letters large enough for me to see, it read:
GOVERNMENT WILL STOP THE STEALING OF RAILROAD TRAINS
ATTORNEY GENERAL OLNEY TAKES
ACTION AGAINST THE COXEY
MEN WHO HAVE SEIZED A TRAIN
BELONGING TO THE NORTHERN PACIFIC,
AND ARE NOW FLYING THROUGH MONTANA
That’s terrible, I thought. Having been to their camp and having met Jacob Coxey, Carl Browne, and some of the marchers, I’d dismissed the talk of the destruction and danger Coxey and his army posed. But stealing a train. That did sound serious.
And then I saw him again! Jasper Neely was standing no more than fifteen feet away from me. He was speaking to someone, with their backs to me. The two men’s heads were close, and I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. I continued on my way, but slowly, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man Neely seemed to be conspiring with. As several others traversed the hall, including a woman pushing a cart with squeaky wheels filled with file folders, Neely never noticed me. And then I was rewarded. With the nodding of heads, the two men parted. Neely disappeared almost immediately into an alcove behind him. The other man turned and strode confidently across the hall toward the front entrance. It was Senator Abbott.
What a coincidence, I thought, knowing full well I didn’t believe in such coincidences. Jasper Neely had prearranged to meet someone in Senator Smith’s home in the early hours only to meet with Senator Smith’s rival a few hours later, all on the morning of the much-anticipated march. I watched Senator Abbott push through the tall, heavy doors, before heading toward the Record and Pension Office in the War Department and the work I needed to do, but I couldn’t shake the dread I felt.
What was Jasper Neely up to?
CHAPTER 15
“The march is finally here! Isn’t this exciting?” Sarah
Clayworth said.
After working for several hours in the War Department, I’d returned to Senator Smith’s house. I’d explained to Sir Arthur about the Treasury closure and gave him the Civil War pension records I’d compiled. Luckily he was satisfied. Neither one of us mentioned the drowning incident or Simeon Harper’s article about it. I was relieved. And then Walter, his sister, and brother-in-law arrived. We’d planned to all meet and go to the Capitol together. Sir Arthur, Senator and Mrs. Smith, Chester Smith, and Claude Morris opted to squeeze into their cabriolet phaeton, which bore the golden MLS monogram on its dash, while Walter, Sarah, Daniel, and I decided to walk, hoping to join the marchers as they passed.
“It is exciting!” I heartily agreed with Sarah.
Walking arm in arm with Walter while his sister did the same with her husband, we made our way down Pennsylvania Avenue, along with a throng of tens of thousands of others lining the streets, who had come out for the arrival of Coxey’s Army. Despite being elbowed in the back and having my foot stepped on, we were lucky to squeeze through the crowd and find a spot on the curb to see the approaching procession. With the carriages of the Public Comfort Committee of Washington, D.C., for escort, the “Goddess of Peace” Mamie, Coxey’s seventeen-year-old daughter, dressed in an all-white riding habit and a red, white, and blue cap, led the way on her white stallion. Behind her was Coxey himself, in a phaeton with his wife and infant son. In a crowd, the architect of this entire enterprise, this unremarkable, bespectacled man, would never had stood out. Marshal Browne, on the other hand, in his buckskins and a formal necktie, on a gray Percheron stallion flanking Coxey’s carriage, was unmistakable.
Other characters I’d read about came to life before our eyes: the cowboy “Oklahoma Sam,” who showed off by riding his pony backward; Jesse Coxey, the eighteen-year-old son of Coxey, who wore blue and gray symbolizing the Civil War; and Christopher Columbus Jones, the wrinkled old leader of the Philadelphia contingency, who wore a suit of shiny broadcloth and an oversized stovepipe hat. And behind them came the faithful, dust-covered, road-weary men who had marched in dilapidated shoes and threadbare suits all the way from Ohio. They carried American flags and banners that read: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN, BUT DEATH TO INTEREST ON BONDS and CO-OPERATION, THE CEREBELLUM OF THE COMMONWEAL and THE MEDULLA OBLONGATA AND ALL OTHER PARTS OF THE REINCARNATED CHRIST IN THE WHOLE PEOPLE. A small band, mostly of brass drums and cymbals, accompanied the men with a rendition of “Marching Through Georgia,” an old Civil War song.
Adding to the carnival atmosphere were spectators cheering and chanting “Coxey, Coxey, Coxey!” Some overenthusiastic admirers even attempted to climb into Coxey’s carriage. As the procession passed us, the streets and the sidewalks grew more and more crowded. It was soon impossible to say where the men who had marched from Ohio began and the spectators who had joined them ended. I clung to Walter tightly, afraid to be separated from him in the melee as we pushed through the crowd up the hill toward the House of Representatives entrance, hoping to reach the Capitol steps in time to see Coxey speak. And we weren’t the only ones. Along with thousands of onlookers, Coxey and his men had three or four hundred policemen waiting for them.
“We’re so close, we’ll be able to see everything,” Sarah said gleefully. I smiled at her enthusiasm.
And then I saw him again. Jasper Neely! He was leaning on the low stone wall, talking to a woman next to him. It was Lottie Fox, the madam. Unlike most of the revelers, her face was somber. She nodded her head several times in response to whatever Mr. Neely was saying.
“Hattie, is something wrong?” Walter asked.
“No, it’s just that—”
“Daniel Clayworth, I will have a word with you!”
We all turned at the shout above the din of the crowd around us to see the man I knew only as Billy pushing his way toward us. Daniel was scowling.
“Daniel?” Sarah asked, concern on her face.
“Let’s go,” Daniel said, grabbing Sarah’s hand and pulling her in the opposite direction.
“But, Daniel, stop! We’ll miss everything!” Sarah’s desperate pleas were ignored. As the two disappeared into the crowd, Walter stepped in front of the approaching stranger.
“Can I help you?” he said, blocking Billy’s forward progress.
“No,” Billy said, with a resigned sigh. From Daniel’s anger, I’d expected Billy to be combative or try to force his way past, but instead he sadly shook his head, turned away, and disappeared into the crowd.
“That was odd,” Walter said. “Wasn’t that the same man Daniel argued with at the camp yesterday? The same one you met after the carriage accident?” I nodded. “But what does he have to do with Daniel?”
“Something upset
ting or Daniel wouldn’t have left so abruptly. Poor Sarah, she’ll miss everything.”
“But you haven’t missed a thing,” a voice said behind me. Walter and I turned to find Simeon Harper beaming from ear to ear. “And it looks like you found a prime viewing spot.”
“How did you find us?” I asked, looking out at the crowd, a teeming sea of hats stretching in all directions.
“Sir Arthur told me where you all were to meet. Speaking of . . .” I studied the mass of people Simeon Harper pointed to and found Sir Arthur, Senator Smith, Mrs. Smith, Chester Smith, and Claude Morris slowly making their way toward us.
“What happened?” I asked when the Smiths and Sir Arthur arrived.
The once oversized puffy sleeves on Mrs. Smith’s dress were crushed against her shoulders, and she clutched Spencer as if he’d leap from her arms at any moment. She wasn’t smiling. The senator and his son, whose pant legs were splattered with dirt, wore the same identical scowl.
“It seems you were right to walk, Hattie,” Sir Arthur said, brushing dust from his jacket. “We had to abandon the Smiths’ phaeton at Sixth Street.”
“It’s ludicrous!” Senator Smith said. “Arrangements should’ve been made; an escort should’ve been supplied. I’m appalled we were forced from our carriage to walk among the common throng in the street!”
“If we hadn’t, we’d never had made it,” Claude Morris said.
“Yes, but the filth. Just look at my suit.” Senator Smith brushed his vest and the lapels of his coat.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have come, Father,” Chester said. “What’s the point anyway? No one is going to let any of these riffraff speak from the Capitol steps.”
Senator Smith shook his head in disappointment. “You were right to go into banking, son,” was all his father could say.
“Well, you see, Mr. Smith,” Claude Morris began explaining, “it is important that your father be here to do exactly that, prevent the riffraff, as you call them, from gaining the steps. His constituents will expect him to witness firsthand Coxey’s arrest.”
“Arrest?” Mrs. Smith said with some alarm. “I didn’t know they were going to be arrested. Is it proper for us to be here?” She gestured toward me as she said it. “By the way, dear girl, where is Congressman and Mrs. Clayworth?” She made the effort of glancing about her. “Weren’t they to meet us here as well?”
“Yes, my sister and her husband were here, but that’s a strange story,” Walter said. Mrs. Smith searched my face, hoping to learn the meaning of Walter’s cryptic comment without outright asking.
“A man approached Congressman Clayworth who the congressman didn’t want to see,” I said. Mrs. Smith nodded and smiled, as if accepting the explanation, but I could tell she wanted to know more. The senator, his aide, and his son didn’t even appear to have heard a word of what we’d said.
“So, Harper,” Chester Smith was saying, a sneer on his face, “this is where they kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. Once these cranks are locked up and the rest of the rabble go home, you won’t have an easy story to write.”
“I could always write about you,” the journalist said, unwrapping a piece of chewing gum. Chester’s face reddened and he curled his hands into fists at his sides. His mother stepped between the two men.
“That’s enough. You’d think you were schoolboys again!” Chester shot one last angry glance at Simeon, who simply popped the gum into his mouth and smiled, before storming off into the crowd. “Chester! You’ll miss all the excitement,” Mildred Smith called to her son.
“You knew the senator’s son in school?” Sir Arthur asked the journalist.
“We both went to Emerson before he was kicked out for cheating.”
“Explains quite a bit,” Sir Arthur said. Simeon nodded and opened his mouth to reply.
“Attention, Commonweal! Halt!” Marshal Browne’s voice boomed above the din of the crowd, cutting off Simeon Harper’s reply.
The procession had reached its destination and stopped before the waiting line of police. The journalist motioned for us to follow, and we hurriedly got as close as possible to Coxey’s phaeton. After escorting Mamie Coxey, the “Goddess of Peace,” to the safety and shade under a maple at the curb, Browne returned to the phaeton.
“Are you ready?” he said to Coxey.
Coxey nodded, bent to kiss his wife, which brought cheers from the crowd, and then jumped to the ground. To my relief, he wore white agate buttons on his vest. With Browne carrying a banner and Coxey carrying his speech, the two men headed for the steps.
CHAPTER 16
“You can’t pass here with that flag,” a mounted policeman said, blocking their way.
“Why can’t I pass?” Browne asked.
“Jump over the wall,” an onlooker shouted before the policeman could reply.
In a flash, Coxey and Browne cleared the low stone wall that encircled the Capitol grounds and disappeared into the crowd already gathered on the hillside lawns. Well-wishers and members of the Commonweal of Christ rushed the steps; arms, shoulders, and hands pushing and shoving their way through our group, separating us from one another. The mounted police were quick to follow in pursuit.
“Walter!” I called out as I was swept away by a throng of mounted police, onlookers, and marchers.
With my hat slipping off my head, I stumbled along, jostled by the mob racing by, as I desperately tried to keep my feet beneath me. The small trees, bushes, and flower beds that were flattened by the onslaught of mounted police in pursuit of Coxey and Browne were proof of what would happen should I fall. Ahead of me, Christopher Columbus Jones, the old Coxeyite from Philadelphia, dodged the pressing crowd, hoping to join his leaders, but was grabbed by several policemen, who jammed his stovepipe hat over his eyes and dragged him to a nearby patrol wagon. Suddenly Marshal Browne was not far in front of me. Coxey was nowhere to be seen.
“I am an American citizen. I stand on my constitutional rights!” Browne yelled as a dozen policemen tackled him.
But as they led him to a patrol wagon, Marshal Browne twisted around suddenly, freeing himself from their grasp, and attempted to run back into the crowd. As the onlookers stared in horror, myself included, a policeman launched himself onto Browne’s back while others beat him upon the head and face, tearing his shirt from the collar to the trousers and ripping from his neck a string of amber beads, given to him by his deceased wife.
Browne struggled to free himself again as the police forced him toward the nearest patrol wagon. As they attempted to get Browne into the wagon, Lottie Fox, the madam, shouting, “He’s alive! The Cerebellum of Christ—He’s alive!” forced her way against the patrol wagon door. She wouldn’t budge. As one officer grabbed Lottie Fox by the arm and yanked her free of the patrol wagon, several of the marshal’s other well-wishers grabbed the bridles of the policemen’s horses. The policemen and horses together were forced against a low wall with several officers tumbling violently to the ground. Provoked by such defiance, the police charged into the crowd, their clubs held high, and beat anyone within range. Lottie Fox was the first woman I saw fall, collapsing to her knees in a daze. Screams erupted as I twisted about in an attempt to flee. But as I ran, a woman frantically pushing a baby buggy crossed my path. While trying to avoid the baby, I toppled onto one knee, landing on the sharp edge of a rock. Stifling a cry, I glanced back as the ground trembled with the trampling and pounding of hundreds of feet, horses’ among them. Then a man, bareheaded and wearing no coat, turned as I had at the sound of the approaching police and stepped on my skirt, pinning me in place. I yanked at my skirt, freeing myself, but the man’s boot left a muddy footprint on my skirt’s field of yellow flowers. I looked back again. They were coming! Elbows, knees, loose bags, and boot tips bashed into me as I scrambled in a vain attempt to rise. And then a mounted policeman was upon me. I could feel the breath of the horse on my face and smell the shoe polish on the officer’s boot as he leaned toward me.
“No!” I sc
reamed, throwing up my hands to protect my head as he swung the thick wooden club toward me.
Crunch!
As the club made impact, I cringed at the sickening sound I heard the instant before intense pain exploded in my arm. I crumpled to the ground, cradling my shattered arm. The officer and his horse skidded around me in his haste to attack the next person unfortunate enough to be close at hand. I sat swaying, the heel of my shoe stabbing my hip, the taste of salt in my mouth as tears streamed down my face. And then the pandemonium was over almost as soon as it had begun. But instead of cheers and applause, the grounds were filled with wailing, crying, and angry shouts.
“Oh my God, Hattie!” Walter shouted as he raced toward me, dropping to his knees before me. Tears blurred my vision, but I knew it was him.
“My arm, Walter. My arm,” I sobbed, collapsing into his embrace.
* * *
“What do you want to do here?” Simeon Harper said, performing his best impersonation of a police officer by frowning and sternly folding his arms across his chest.
“I wish to make an address,” Harper continued, now trying to copy Jacob Coxey’s voice.
“But you can’t do that.” Again Harper was using the stern police officer’s voice.
“Then can I read a protest?” Harper said, imitating Coxey’s response.
“And you know what Coxey did then?” Harper asked, in his own voice. He waited for my response. “Miss Davish, do you know what Coxey did then?”
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