Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1894 — THE COXEY CRUSADE. [ARTICLE]

THE COXEY CRUSADE.

In the Middle Ages crusades' to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the infidel were often organized, and the deeds of valor and frenzied zeal of soldier and fanatic and countless hordes of barbarians who fought and bled and perished in those awful wars have served as themes for history and romance that still enthrall the interest with a wondrous charm. Richard of the Lion Heart, and Barbarossa, and Pope Gregory, and Saladin will ever live in the minds of men because of their deeds in those campaigns, and the cowardice of Peter the Hermit — whose impassioned appeals were the inspiration of the phenomenal mobilization of countless thousands of human beings,. men wdmen and children, moved by a cotnmon impulse to lay down their fives in an effort to attain a purely visionary object—will ever remain a source of derision and amusement to the student of history. And although history records that the movements spreading over the greater part of a century —no less than six campaigns ■being conducted—attained a certain success, and a decimated army, a mere fraction of the numberless hosts that gathered from the far off wilds of Norway, and the bogs of Ireland, the coasts of England, and from every Christian country in Europe,’ entered the Eternal City and established a new order of things that endured for a time, yet it must be always held that the untold suffering inflicted, as a result of the foolish movement, upon the human race, far more than outweighed the gain to the cause of Christianity. -Although it is claimed that results were brought about that could not otherwise have ever been attained, in the light of our present civilization we see that time would have brought the same results without the fearful and needless sacrifice of human life. So it will probably be in the case of Coxey’s crusade. While this latter-day movement can not rank in importance with the great crusades of history, its importance need not be underestimated, for its author's methods have been very similar to the frenzied appeals of Feter the Hermit. That it has not attained alarming proportions is surprising, and can only be accounted for on the theory that people have grown too wise to be humbugged to any great extent. What the outcome will be none can foretell. What the ultimate results none can foresee. If it has already reached high tide it may be safely predicted that a failure will be the resuit of the grand demonstration to take place on the Capitol steps on the Ist of May.