People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — COXEY’S CONCEIT. [ARTICLE]

COXEY’S CONCEIT.

The Novel Scheme of an Ohio Good Hoe do Advocate. Massillon. 0., March 14.—J. 8. Coxey. of this city, who is a “good roads’’ advocate, announced that he intended to muster his band of followers and start for Washington overland and demand that congress issue $500,000,000 • legal tender notes for road improvements. 1 hey would speak in every I town on the way and expected 50,000 followers before reaching Washington on May 1. The last speech will be made from the capitol steps. Easter Sunday (if the authorities do not put a stop to the proceedings) the army, or “commonweal,” as Coxey calls it, will leave Massillon at noon for Washington. Their first stop will be at Reedurban, 4 miles out on the pike, where they will stop for refreshments and organization. Canton will be reached by evening, where a mass meeting is to be held on the public square. The army will i then bivouac, probably on the fair grounds. Then the line of march will be through Stark and Columbiana I counties into Beaver Falls, Pa., where, Coxey announces, the unarmed army I will spend the first Sunday on its way ; to the national capital. The mayor of ' Beaver Falls says not Pittsburgh is to be marched into on Tuesday, April 8, where hundreds will fall into the ranks behind the banner of the “commonweal” army, positively assert Coxey and Browne. It is said Cumberland, Md., will be reached the following Saturday, Hagerstown a week later and Washington on Tuesday, April 17. Congress is expected to take care of the mob and that honorable body will be asked to pass the following: "Be it enacted by the senate and house of represeniatives. in congress assembled, that whenever any state, territory, county, township. municipality or incorporated town or vil- ■ lage deems it necessary to make any public improvements they shall deposit with the sec- , retary ot the treasury of the United States a non-interest bearing twenty-five year bond, not to exceed ono-half the assessed valuation of the property in said state, ' territory, county, township. municipality I or incorporated town or village, and said bond to be retired at a rate of 4 I per cent, per annum. Whenever the foregoing section of this act has been complied with it shall be mandatory upon the secretary of the treasury of the United States to have engraved and printed treasury notes in the denomina- ; tions of SI, 82, 85, JlO and 820 each, which shall ! be a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, the face value of said bond, and de- 1 liver to said state, territory, county, etc., 99 per cent, of said notes and retain 1 per cent for j the expense of engraving and printing the same.”

Coxey says this will settle the greatest question before the people to-day, giving wont to the unemployed all over the United States. He has issued a bulletin in which he calls on his army to remember Washington and his men in the snow at Valley Forge, and, if necessary, to suffer like them in a good cause.