The Return of Coxey’s Army

In 1894, Coxey’s Army, a legion of purportedly needy people, came to Washington to demand radical reform of the capitalist system. It was supposed to be a “march,” but some of Coxey’s soldiers tried to make their trip to the capital by hijacking railroad trains. The depredations of the Army were widely feared, especially by communities that lay on its route, but by the time it reached Washington its numbers had dwindled. It ended when its leaders were arrested for walking on the capitol grass. That took care of Coxey’s Army.

During the past few weeks, downtowns across the country have been the unwilling hosts of tribes of ignorant savages shouting about the wickedness of, guess what, the capitalist system.  They maintain that they represent the 99% of Americans whose lives are controlled by the remaining 1%, who supposedly own 99% of property in this country. Ironies abound: people who have nothing better to do than hang out in a park and empty their bladders in a McDonalds restroom are lauded and supported by labor unions; people who want to abolish wealth are bankrolled by “liberal” billionaires; and people who never vote are courted by the highest official representatives of the Democratic Party. Friendly media note with relief that the Occupy mobs are (usually) “peaceful.” I suppose that if you come over to my condo complex, pitch a tent, and refuse to leave, denouncing me day and night and threatening my neighbors with the risk of epidemic disease, you are being “peaceful.”

It’s a safe bet that not one Occupier, or mainstream commentator on the Occupiers, has ever heard of Coxey’s Army. So such people haven’t fully realized what the lowest level of police power can do to wipe up a “movement.” On October 13, all around the country, local mayors and cops started moving against the demonstrators, evicting them from their zones of occupation for reasons of health. Their tent cities were fouling the environment.

Of course, that’s another irony that should be savored.  One of the Occupiers’ great complaints is that capitalism is ruining the environment. Well, just look at what the Occupiers did to New York’s Zuccotti Park (which by the way is privately owned, despite Mayor Bloomberg’s apparent assumption that he owns it and can let protestors in and out whenever he wants). It’s hard to imagine a more degraded environment.  For this reason, the protestors were nearly kicked out of the park on October 14, a mere four weeks after they started to degrade it. On that day and the day after, they were kicked out of parks and other civic spaces in many other cities. On October 16, they were prevented from starting a camp in Chicago’s Grant Park.

A few more run-ins with local government, and the movement will probably go the way of Coxey and Friends. This is yet another irony, because what the protestors, “anarchist” or not, are really screaming for is more government, government that will run everyone’s life in the minutest detail. That’s the only way in which their multitudinous demands — for equal incomes, free money, vast solar energy projects, whatever — could ever be satisfied.

But there’s one nice, nonironic touch.  For once, one of the Occupiers said something correct. According to a CNN report on October 13, Occupy Wall Street spokesman Tyler Combelic promised resistance to any attempt to move the protest out of its usurped location, observing. "It's not an occupation if you can't occupy the park."  How true, how true.