Boston Police Strike
Encyclopedia
In the Boston Police Strike, the Boston police
rank and file
went out on strike
on September 9, 1919 in order to achieve recognition for their trade union
and improvements in wages and working conditions. They faced an implacable opponent in Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis
, who denied that police officers had any right to form a union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the American Federation of Labor
(AFL). Attempts at reconciliation between the Commissioner and the police officers, particularly on the part of Boston's Mayor Andrew James Peters
, failed.
During the strike, Boston
experienced several nights of lawlessness, although property damage was not extensive. Several thousand members of the State Guard, supported by volunteers, restored order. Press reaction both locally and nationally described the strike as Bolshevik
-inspired and directed at the destruction of civil society. The strikers were called "deserters" and "agents of Lenin."
Samuel Gompers
of the AFL recognized that the strike was damaging the cause of labor in the public mind and advised the strikers to return to work. The Police Commissioner remained adamant and refused to re-hire the striking policemen. He was supported by Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge
, whose rebuke of Gompers earned him a national reputation. The strike proved a setback for labor, and the AFL reversed its attempts to organize police officers for another two decades. Coolidge won the Republican nomination for vice-president of the US in the 1920 presidential election
.
In the years following World War I
, inflation dramatically eroded the value of a police officer's salary. From 1913 to May 1919, the cost of living rose by 76%, while police wages rose just 18%. Police officers worked long ten-hour shifts and often slept over at the station without pay in case they were needed. Officers were not paid for court appearances. They complained about the poor conditions of most police stations, including the lack of sanitation, baths, beds and toilets. They typically worked between 75 and 90 hours per week.
After repeated requests from local police organizations, the American Federation of Labor
(AFL) began accepting police organizations into their membership in June 1919. By September, it had granted charters to police unions in 37 cities, including Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, and St. Paul, though not without protests from some city officials, who also opposed the unionization of firefighters and teachers.
In Boston, firefighters threatened mass resignations in August 1918 and won raises. Police officers had their own association called the Boston Social Club, founded by the Police Department in 1906 and operating under its sponsorship. In 1918, the Police Commissioner made it clear to the rank and file that they were not entitled to form their own union. The next year, their new Police Commissioner, Edwin Upton Curtis
, refused to deal with the Social Club and set up his own grievance committee to handle management-employee disputes.
The police determined to organize under an AFL charter in order to gain support from other unions in their negotiations with the Commissioner and, if it came to it, a potential strike. On August 9 the Boston Social Club requested a charter from the AFL. On August 11, Curtis issued a General Order forbidding police officers to join any "organization, club or body outside the department," making an exception only for patriotic organizations such as the American Legion
. His administration argued that such a rule was based on conflict of interest between police officers' duties and union membership:
On August 15 the police received their AFL charter. On August 17 the Central Labor Union of Boston welcomed the police union and denounced Curtis for his assertions that the police had no right to unionize. Curtis refused to meet with the eight members of the police union's committee. He suspended them and 11 others who held various union offices, and scheduled trials to determine if they had violated his General Order. At this point, Curtis was a hero to business interests. Late in August, the New Hampshire Association of Manufacturers called him "the Ole Hanson of the east," equating the events they anticipated in Boston with the earlier Seattle General Strike.
Mayor Andrew James Peters
sought to play an intermediary role by appointing a Citizen's Committee to review the dispute about union representation. He chose a well-known local reformer as its chair, James J. Storrow
. Storrow's group recommended that Curtis and the police agree to a police union without AFL ties and without the right to strike. Curtis would recognize the police union and the union would agree to remain "independent and unaffiliated." Storrow's group also recommended that no action be taken against the 19 men whom Curtis had suspended. Four of Boston's five newspapers backed the compromise, with only the Boston Transcript holding to a consistent anti-union position. The Boston Chamber of Commerce backed it as well. Curtis, with the backing of Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge
, rejected Storrow's proposal.
Curtis proceeded with department trials of the 19 and on September 8 found them guilty of union activity. Rather than dismiss them from the police force, he extended their suspensions. He later explained that he was giving them an opportunity to reconsider their actions and avoiding discharges, which would have been irrevocable. The police union members responded that same day by voting 1134 to 2 in favor of a strike, and scheduled it to start at evening roll call the next day. Their stated grounds omitted wages and working conditions. They were striking to protest the Commissioner's denial of their right to ally themselves with the AFL.
Over the night of September 9–10, the city witnessed an outbreak of hooliganism and looting. Some was rowdy behavior that scared respectable citizens, such as youths throwing rocks at streetcars and overturning the carts of street vendors. More overtly criminal activity included the smashing of store windows and looting the displays. In the morning the Mayor asked the Governor to furnish a force of State Guards; Coolidge promptly agreed and eventually provided almost 5,000 men.
Commissioner Curtis later praised the State Guards' performance in his Annual Report: "The whole community is now aware of the effectiveness with which the [Massachusetts State Guard] worked when it came into the city. I cannot add anything to the universal chorus of commendation that has greeted their work."
Violence peaked the next evening, the night of September 10–11. Businesses were better prepared. Some had boarded up and others stayed open all night with armed guards visible to discourage thieves taking advantage of the strike. Gamblers played dice in open view, and women had their handbags snatched. But the Guard proved inexperienced at handling crowds and they were quick to assert control without regard for loss of life. Gunfire in South Boston left two dead and others wounded. Scollay Square, a center of amusement halls and theaters, was reportedly the scene of a riot where one died. Whether the crowds were threatening property or making trouble because they were in sympathy with the strikers is unknown. The death total ultimately reached nine.
City life continued relatively normally, especially during daytime hours. Schools remained open. Later claims against the city for losses incurred during the two nights of disorder ran to $35,000, of which the city paid $34,000. Those figures represent a non-partisan calculation of the costs of the strike to the Boston business community.
When Governor Coolidge called the strikers "deserters" and "traitors," a mass meeting of the Boston Police Union responded with wounded pride and a taunt of its own:
On the evening of September 11, the Central Labor Union met to consider calling a general strike in support of the striking police. Earlier it had expressed enthusiasm for a general strike, more likely as an expression of solidarity than a declaration of serious intent. It collected the votes of its constituent unions and then delayed a decision on September 21, only deciding against a general strike on October 5. When it came to a vote, the proposal failed, demonstrating the labor movement understood the public reaction to the police strike as a threat to the movement. Their statement advertised their sensitivity to popular perceptions: "We are not to act in a manner that will give the prejudiced press and autocratic employers a chance to criticize us."
Samuel Gompers
, just returned from Europe, quickly assessed the situation and the strength of public sentiment and urged the strikers to return to work. The police accepted his recommendation immediately. On September 12, Gompers telegraphed Mayor Peters and Governor Coolidge asking for the strikers to be reinstated and for all parties to agree to wait for arbitration "to honorably adjust a mutually unsatisfactory situation." Coolidge replied with a statement of support for Curtis' hard line. Gompers telegraphed Coolidge again, this time blaming Curtis for the crisis. Coolidge dismissed the Commissioner's behavior as irrelevant, because no provocation could justify the police walkout. His terse summation created his reputation on the national scene: "There is no right to strike against the public safety, anywhere, anytime." Coolidge said he would continue to "defend the sovereignty of Massachusetts."
By the weekend, the presence of the State Guards had become a curiosity. Larger than usual crowds strolled in the center of the city. Thousands attended a band concert on the Boston Common. "The shootings of the last few days for interference with guardsmen," said the New York Times, "seem to have had a marked effect."
Coolidge said he originally hoped to reinstate the officers, stating in a telegram to a labor convention, "I earnestly hope that circumstances may arise which will cause the police officers to be reinstated". Over the objections of Mayor Peters, Commissioner Curtis announced on September 13 that he planned to recruit a new force. He fired roughly 1,100 and hired 1,574 replacement police officers from a pool of unemployed World War I
veterans. Members of the United Garment Workers
refused to sew uniforms for the new hires, who had to report for work in civilian clothing.
The new officers hired in the wake of the strike received higher salaries, more vacation days and city-provided uniforms, just as the original strikers had sought. They enjoyed a starting salary of $1,400 along with a pension plan, and the department covered the cost of their uniforms and equipment. The population of Boston raised $472,000 to help pay for the State Guards until new police officers could be recruited.
Newspaper accounts exaggerated the level of crime and violence that accompanied the strike, resulting in a national furor that shaped the political response. A Philadelphia paper viewed the Boston violence in the same light as other labor unrest and numerous race riots in 1919: "Bolshevism in the United Sates is no longer a specter. Boston in chaos reveals its sinister substance." President Woodrow Wilson
, speaking from Montana, branded the walkout "a crime against civilization" that left the city "at the mercy of an army of thugs." The timing of the strike presented the police union in a poor light. September 10, the first full day of the strike, was also the day of a huge New York City parade that celebrated the return of Gen. John J. Pershing
, the hero of the American Expeditionary Force
.
A report from Washington, D.C. included this headline: "Senators Think Effort to Sovietize the Government Is Started." Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
saw in the strike the dangers of the national labor movement: "If the American Federation of Labor succeeds in getting hold of the police in Boston it will go all over the country, and we shall be in measurable distance of Soviet government by labor unions."
The Ohio State Journal opposed any sympathetic treatment of the strikers: "When a policeman strikes, he should be debarred not only from resuming his office, but from citizenship as well. He has committed the unpardonable sin; he has forfeited all his rights."
The strike gave momentum to Coolidge's political career. In 1918, he had narrowly been elected governor. In 1919 he won 62% of the votes when running against an opponent who favored reinstating the strikers. The voters of Boston were less enthusiastic about him than those in other areas. Coolidge failed to carry the city by 5,000 votes. He later said, "No doubt it was the police strike in Boston that brought me into national prominence." President Wilson's post-election telegram shows he shared that view: "I congratulate you upon your election as a victory for law and order. When that is the issue, all Americans must stand together." In 1920, Coolidge was nominated as the Republican candidate for vice-president.
The strike heightened public fear of labor unrest and the possible radicalism that lay behind it. The strike contributed to the public anxiety of the period known as the Red Scare
of 1919–1920. The failure of this and other strikes in the years following World War I contributed to declining union membership in subsequent years. The American Federation of Labor responded to political pressure experienced during the strike and revoked the charters it had granted to police unions. That ended police unionism in the U.S. for two decades, as police would not try to organize until World War II
.
In 1930, a history of the Boston Transcript, the most resolutely anti-union of Boston's newspapers in 1919, perpetuated its original account of urban chaos during the strike's first nights. It described large crowds, including a number of sailors from docked naval ships, that took to the streets, smashing windows, committing robbery and stoning bystanders and cars. It said that the northern, southern, and western areas of the city were all taken over by armed gangs.
In 1931, the Massachusetts legislature voted to allow the officers who had struck to be rehired. But, the Boston police commissioner refused to admit them to the force.
Boston Police Department
The Boston Police Department , created in 1838, holds the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the oldest police departments in the United States...
rank and file
Rank and file
In politics and labor unions the rank and file are the individual members of an organization, exclusive of its leadership. The phrase originated in the military, denoting the horizontal "ranks" and vertical "files" of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the noncommissioned officers....
went out on strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
on September 9, 1919 in order to achieve recognition for their trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
and improvements in wages and working conditions. They faced an implacable opponent in Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis
Edwin Upton Curtis
Edwin Upton Curtis was an American attorney and politician from Massachusetts who served as the 34th Mayor of Boston in 1895...
, who denied that police officers had any right to form a union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL). Attempts at reconciliation between the Commissioner and the police officers, particularly on the part of Boston's Mayor Andrew James Peters
Andrew James Peters
Andrew James Peters was an American politician. He was born on April 3, 1872 in Jamaica Plain, a section of Boston. His family had been in Massachusetts since the first Andrew Peters arrived there in 1657. Peters attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He served two terms in the...
, failed.
During the strike, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
experienced several nights of lawlessness, although property damage was not extensive. Several thousand members of the State Guard, supported by volunteers, restored order. Press reaction both locally and nationally described the strike as Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
-inspired and directed at the destruction of civil society. The strikers were called "deserters" and "agents of Lenin."
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
of the AFL recognized that the strike was damaging the cause of labor in the public mind and advised the strikers to return to work. The Police Commissioner remained adamant and refused to re-hire the striking policemen. He was supported by Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
, whose rebuke of Gompers earned him a national reputation. The strike proved a setback for labor, and the AFL reversed its attempts to organize police officers for another two decades. Coolidge won the Republican nomination for vice-president of the US in the 1920 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1920
The United States presidential election of 1920 was dominated by the aftermath of World War I and a hostile response to certain policies of Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president. The wartime economic boom had collapsed. Politicians were arguing over peace treaties and the question of America's...
.
Background
The Massachusetts legislature altered the management structure of the Boston Police Department twice in the years before the strike. First, in 1895, it removed the department from the control of Boston’s mayor and placed it under the control of a five-person board of commissioners appointed by the governor. In 1906, it abolished that board and gave authority to a single commissioner, appointed by the governor for a 5-year term of five years and subject to removal by the governor. The mayor and the city had responsibility for pay and physical working conditions, but had little incentive to devote resources to the department while the commissioner controlled department operations and the hiring, training, and discipline of the police officers.In the years following World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, inflation dramatically eroded the value of a police officer's salary. From 1913 to May 1919, the cost of living rose by 76%, while police wages rose just 18%. Police officers worked long ten-hour shifts and often slept over at the station without pay in case they were needed. Officers were not paid for court appearances. They complained about the poor conditions of most police stations, including the lack of sanitation, baths, beds and toilets. They typically worked between 75 and 90 hours per week.
After repeated requests from local police organizations, the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL) began accepting police organizations into their membership in June 1919. By September, it had granted charters to police unions in 37 cities, including Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, and St. Paul, though not without protests from some city officials, who also opposed the unionization of firefighters and teachers.
In Boston, firefighters threatened mass resignations in August 1918 and won raises. Police officers had their own association called the Boston Social Club, founded by the Police Department in 1906 and operating under its sponsorship. In 1918, the Police Commissioner made it clear to the rank and file that they were not entitled to form their own union. The next year, their new Police Commissioner, Edwin Upton Curtis
Edwin Upton Curtis
Edwin Upton Curtis was an American attorney and politician from Massachusetts who served as the 34th Mayor of Boston in 1895...
, refused to deal with the Social Club and set up his own grievance committee to handle management-employee disputes.
Events leading to the strike
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
. His administration argued that such a rule was based on conflict of interest between police officers' duties and union membership:
- It is or should be apparent to any thinking person that the police department of this or any other city cannot fulfill its duty to the entire public if its members are subject to the direction of an organization existing outside the department....If troubles and disturbances arise where the interests of this organization and the interests of other elements and classes in the community conflict, the situation immediately arises which always arises when a man attempts to serve two masters,he must fail either in his duty as a policeman, or in his obligation to the organization that controls him.
On August 15 the police received their AFL charter. On August 17 the Central Labor Union of Boston welcomed the police union and denounced Curtis for his assertions that the police had no right to unionize. Curtis refused to meet with the eight members of the police union's committee. He suspended them and 11 others who held various union offices, and scheduled trials to determine if they had violated his General Order. At this point, Curtis was a hero to business interests. Late in August, the New Hampshire Association of Manufacturers called him "the Ole Hanson of the east," equating the events they anticipated in Boston with the earlier Seattle General Strike.
Mayor Andrew James Peters
Andrew James Peters
Andrew James Peters was an American politician. He was born on April 3, 1872 in Jamaica Plain, a section of Boston. His family had been in Massachusetts since the first Andrew Peters arrived there in 1657. Peters attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He served two terms in the...
sought to play an intermediary role by appointing a Citizen's Committee to review the dispute about union representation. He chose a well-known local reformer as its chair, James J. Storrow
James J. Storrow
James Jackson Storrow II was a Boston-area investment banker instrumental in forming General Motors and its third president . He was a business partner of Henry Lee Higginson, founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra...
. Storrow's group recommended that Curtis and the police agree to a police union without AFL ties and without the right to strike. Curtis would recognize the police union and the union would agree to remain "independent and unaffiliated." Storrow's group also recommended that no action be taken against the 19 men whom Curtis had suspended. Four of Boston's five newspapers backed the compromise, with only the Boston Transcript holding to a consistent anti-union position. The Boston Chamber of Commerce backed it as well. Curtis, with the backing of Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
, rejected Storrow's proposal.
Curtis proceeded with department trials of the 19 and on September 8 found them guilty of union activity. Rather than dismiss them from the police force, he extended their suspensions. He later explained that he was giving them an opportunity to reconsider their actions and avoiding discharges, which would have been irrevocable. The police union members responded that same day by voting 1134 to 2 in favor of a strike, and scheduled it to start at evening roll call the next day. Their stated grounds omitted wages and working conditions. They were striking to protest the Commissioner's denial of their right to ally themselves with the AFL.
Strike
On September 9, Boston Police Department officers went on strike at 5:45 p.m. Of the force's 1,544 officers and men, 1,117 (72%) failed to report for work. Coolidge assigned 100 members of the state's Metropolitan Park Police Department to replace the striking officers, but 58 of them refused to participate and were suspended from their jobs. Despite assurances from Commissioner Curtis to Mayor Peters and Governor Coolidge, Boston had little police protection for the night of September 9. Volunteer replacements were still being organized and due to report the next morning.Commissioner Curtis later praised the State Guards' performance in his Annual Report: "The whole community is now aware of the effectiveness with which the [Massachusetts State Guard] worked when it came into the city. I cannot add anything to the universal chorus of commendation that has greeted their work."
Violence peaked the next evening, the night of September 10–11. Businesses were better prepared. Some had boarded up and others stayed open all night with armed guards visible to discourage thieves taking advantage of the strike. Gamblers played dice in open view, and women had their handbags snatched. But the Guard proved inexperienced at handling crowds and they were quick to assert control without regard for loss of life. Gunfire in South Boston left two dead and others wounded. Scollay Square, a center of amusement halls and theaters, was reportedly the scene of a riot where one died. Whether the crowds were threatening property or making trouble because they were in sympathy with the strikers is unknown. The death total ultimately reached nine.
City life continued relatively normally, especially during daytime hours. Schools remained open. Later claims against the city for losses incurred during the two nights of disorder ran to $35,000, of which the city paid $34,000. Those figures represent a non-partisan calculation of the costs of the strike to the Boston business community.
When Governor Coolidge called the strikers "deserters" and "traitors," a mass meeting of the Boston Police Union responded with wounded pride and a taunt of its own:
- When we were honorably discharged from the United States army, we were hailed as heroes and saviors of our country. We returned to our duties on the police force of Boston.
- Now, though only a few months have passed, we are denounced as deserters, as traitors to our city and violators of our oath of office.
- The first men to raise the cry were those who have always been opposed to giving to labor a living wage. It was taken up by the newspapers, who cared little for the real facts. You finally added your word of condemnation....
- Among us are men who have gone against spitting machine guns single-handed, and captured them, volunteering for the job. Among us are men who have ridden with dispatches through shell fire so dense that four men fell and only the fifth got through.
- Not one man of us ever disgraced the flag or his service. It is bitter to come home and be called deserters and traitors. We are the same men who were on the French front.
- Some of us fought in the Spanish war of 1898. Won't you tell the people of Massachusetts in which war you served?
On the evening of September 11, the Central Labor Union met to consider calling a general strike in support of the striking police. Earlier it had expressed enthusiasm for a general strike, more likely as an expression of solidarity than a declaration of serious intent. It collected the votes of its constituent unions and then delayed a decision on September 21, only deciding against a general strike on October 5. When it came to a vote, the proposal failed, demonstrating the labor movement understood the public reaction to the police strike as a threat to the movement. Their statement advertised their sensitivity to popular perceptions: "We are not to act in a manner that will give the prejudiced press and autocratic employers a chance to criticize us."
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
, just returned from Europe, quickly assessed the situation and the strength of public sentiment and urged the strikers to return to work. The police accepted his recommendation immediately. On September 12, Gompers telegraphed Mayor Peters and Governor Coolidge asking for the strikers to be reinstated and for all parties to agree to wait for arbitration "to honorably adjust a mutually unsatisfactory situation." Coolidge replied with a statement of support for Curtis' hard line. Gompers telegraphed Coolidge again, this time blaming Curtis for the crisis. Coolidge dismissed the Commissioner's behavior as irrelevant, because no provocation could justify the police walkout. His terse summation created his reputation on the national scene: "There is no right to strike against the public safety, anywhere, anytime." Coolidge said he would continue to "defend the sovereignty of Massachusetts."
By the weekend, the presence of the State Guards had become a curiosity. Larger than usual crowds strolled in the center of the city. Thousands attended a band concert on the Boston Common. "The shootings of the last few days for interference with guardsmen," said the New York Times, "seem to have had a marked effect."
Coolidge said he originally hoped to reinstate the officers, stating in a telegram to a labor convention, "I earnestly hope that circumstances may arise which will cause the police officers to be reinstated". Over the objections of Mayor Peters, Commissioner Curtis announced on September 13 that he planned to recruit a new force. He fired roughly 1,100 and hired 1,574 replacement police officers from a pool of unemployed World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
veterans. Members of the United Garment Workers
United Garment Workers
The United Garment Workers of America was a trade union formed in New York in April 1891, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor....
refused to sew uniforms for the new hires, who had to report for work in civilian clothing.
The new officers hired in the wake of the strike received higher salaries, more vacation days and city-provided uniforms, just as the original strikers had sought. They enjoyed a starting salary of $1,400 along with a pension plan, and the department covered the cost of their uniforms and equipment. The population of Boston raised $472,000 to help pay for the State Guards until new police officers could be recruited.
Views of the press and political leaders
In anticipation of the strike, all of Boston's newspapers called it "Bolshevistic," pleaded with the police to reconsider and predicted dire consequences. One also warned the police that their eventual defeat was guaranteed, that they would lose because "behind Boston in this skirmish with Bolshevism stands Massachusetts, and behind Massachusetts stands America." The morning papers following the first night's violence were full of loud complaints and derogatory terms for the police: "deserters", "agents of Lenin."Newspaper accounts exaggerated the level of crime and violence that accompanied the strike, resulting in a national furor that shaped the political response. A Philadelphia paper viewed the Boston violence in the same light as other labor unrest and numerous race riots in 1919: "Bolshevism in the United Sates is no longer a specter. Boston in chaos reveals its sinister substance." President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, speaking from Montana, branded the walkout "a crime against civilization" that left the city "at the mercy of an army of thugs." The timing of the strike presented the police union in a poor light. September 10, the first full day of the strike, was also the day of a huge New York City parade that celebrated the return of Gen. John J. Pershing
John J. Pershing
John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, GCB , was a general officer in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I...
, the hero of the American Expeditionary Force
American Expeditionary Force
The American Expeditionary Forces or AEF were the United States Armed Forces sent to Europe in World War I. During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France alongside British and French allied forces in the last year of the war, against Imperial German forces...
.
A report from Washington, D.C. included this headline: "Senators Think Effort to Sovietize the Government Is Started." Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot "Slim" Lodge was an American Republican Senator and historian from Massachusetts. He had the role of Senate Majority leader. He is best known for his positions on Meek policy, especially his battle with President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 over the Treaty of Versailles...
saw in the strike the dangers of the national labor movement: "If the American Federation of Labor succeeds in getting hold of the police in Boston it will go all over the country, and we shall be in measurable distance of Soviet government by labor unions."
The Ohio State Journal opposed any sympathetic treatment of the strikers: "When a policeman strikes, he should be debarred not only from resuming his office, but from citizenship as well. He has committed the unpardonable sin; he has forfeited all his rights."
Aftermath
In the police commissioner's Annual Report for 1919, Curtis presented his view of the strike. He argued that he could not have requested State Guards for the strike's first night because the city remained quiet and he had reports that many policemen would not join the strike. By the end of the year the strikers had formed a new organization called the Association of Former Police of the City of Boston.The strike gave momentum to Coolidge's political career. In 1918, he had narrowly been elected governor. In 1919 he won 62% of the votes when running against an opponent who favored reinstating the strikers. The voters of Boston were less enthusiastic about him than those in other areas. Coolidge failed to carry the city by 5,000 votes. He later said, "No doubt it was the police strike in Boston that brought me into national prominence." President Wilson's post-election telegram shows he shared that view: "I congratulate you upon your election as a victory for law and order. When that is the issue, all Americans must stand together." In 1920, Coolidge was nominated as the Republican candidate for vice-president.
The strike heightened public fear of labor unrest and the possible radicalism that lay behind it. The strike contributed to the public anxiety of the period known as the Red Scare
First Red Scare
In American history, the First Red Scare of 1919–1920 was marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism. Concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and alleged spread in the American labor movement fueled the paranoia that defined the period.The First Red...
of 1919–1920. The failure of this and other strikes in the years following World War I contributed to declining union membership in subsequent years. The American Federation of Labor responded to political pressure experienced during the strike and revoked the charters it had granted to police unions. That ended police unionism in the U.S. for two decades, as police would not try to organize until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In 1930, a history of the Boston Transcript, the most resolutely anti-union of Boston's newspapers in 1919, perpetuated its original account of urban chaos during the strike's first nights. It described large crowds, including a number of sailors from docked naval ships, that took to the streets, smashing windows, committing robbery and stoning bystanders and cars. It said that the northern, southern, and western areas of the city were all taken over by armed gangs.
In 1931, the Massachusetts legislature voted to allow the officers who had struck to be rehired. But, the Boston police commissioner refused to admit them to the force.
In popular culture
- The Dropkick MurphysDropkick MurphysDropkick Murphys are an Irish-American punk rock band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1996. The band was initially signed to independent punk record label Hellcat Records, releasing five albums for the label, and making a name for themselves locally through constant playing and yearly St....
album Rock Against BushRock Against BushRock Against Bush was a project mobilizing punk and alternative musicians against the 2004 U.S. Presidential re-election campaign of George W. Bush...
Volume 2 includes the song "We Got the Power" about the Boston police strike. - Dennis LehaneDennis LehaneDennis Lehane is an American author. He has written several award-winning novels, including A Drink Before the War and the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film. Another novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, was also adapted into an Academy...
's novel The Given DayThe Given DayThe Given Day is a novel by Dennis Lehane published in September 2008; it is about the early twentieth-century period and set in Boston, Massachusetts, where its actions include the 1919 police strike, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the thriving Greenwood District was known as the "Black Wall Street"...
is partly set during the Boston police strike.