Coxey’s Army

Coxey’s Army, a group of the unemployed who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. It was the only one of several groups that had set out for the U.S. capital to actually reach its destination.

Led by Jacob S. Coxey, a businessman, the group left Massillon, Ohio, on March 25, 1894, with about 100 men, accompanied by a large contingent of reporters, and arrived in Washington on May 1 with about 500. Coxey hoped to persuade Congress to authorize a vast program of public roadbuilding, financed by a substantial increase of the money in circulation, to provide jobs for the unemployed. His proposal was written in the form of a congressional bill, which stated, in part:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, that the secretary of the Treasury of the United States is hereby authorized and instructed to have engraved and printed, immediately after the passage of this bill, $500 million of Treasury notes, a legal tender for all debts, public and private, said notes to be in denominations of $1, $2, $5, and $10, and to be placed in a fund to be known as the General County Road Fund System of the United States, and to be expended solely for said purpose.

Despite the publicity his group received, it had no impact on public policy; however, it inspired other marches and was symptomatic of the unrest among working people. The venture came to an ignominious end when Coxey and some of his followers were arrested for trying to speak from the Capitol steps and jailed for trespassing on the lawns of the Capitol.