and consistent and vindicated by subsequent events. It was a very difficult question to handle in the then heated condition of the public mind, especially in 1886 when expulsion was demanded. All are now ready to deprecate assaults upon Chinese but denunciation of such acts twenty-five years ago excited bitterest animosities, with attacks of malignity and folly. The spirit of riot and outrage, of incendiarism, robbery and midnight assault assailed the Chinese during a decade.
XII "COXEY ARMIES"
The other period of turbulence was that of "Coxey Armies" in March and April, 1894. "Hard times" and the worst stagnation in business the country ever knew, followed the collapse of 1893. Loud clamor went up from the unemployed for work. The noise was heightened by a large element of the thriftless, who having saved nothing from "good times," turned agitators and even vagabonds and called upon government for the means of livelihood. They organized "armies" which set out for Washington, D. C, to lay their "grievances" before Congress and to demand "aid." The movement was started by Jacob S. Coxey, of Massillon, Ohio, and was encouraged by the Populist political party and by many followers of fiat money. Chief of the Coxey demands were free silver coinage and immediate issue of $500,000,000 greenbacks, unsecured, wherewith to employ the "army" on road building which, if done, would have plunged the nation into the lowest depths of currency degradation and industrial chaos. The commonweal parties started from many directions and but few reached the National Capital. Coxey himself was arrested there for breaking the rule, "Keep off the grass." The travelers had no means to pay for food, clothing or passage and the mania made them hostile to work; therefore they first imposed themselves on charity and then resorted to thievery and even to capture of railroad trains. Governor Pennoyer of Oregon afforded them sympathy, thereby increasing the local tension. Oregon became a hotbed of Coxey propaganda, and United States officers were called upon to protect railroad traffic from interference.
