e ranks.
These crusaders Coxey described as the "Army of the Commonweal of
Christ," and their purpose was to proclaim the wants of the people on
the steps of the Capitol on the 1st of May. The leader of this band
called upon the honest working classes to join him, and he gained
recruits as he advanced. Similar movements started in the Western
States. "The United States Industrial Army," headed by one Frye, started
from Los Angeles and at one time numbered from six to eight hundred men;
they reached St. Louis by swarming on the freight trains of the Southern
Pacific road and thereafter continued on foot. A band under a leader
named Kelly started from San Francisco on the 4th of April and by
commandeering freight trains reached Council Bluffs, Iowa, whence they
marched to Des Moines. There, they went into camp with at one time as
many as twelve hundred men. They eventually obtained flatboats, on which
they floated down the Mississippi and then pushed up the Ohio to a point
in Kentucky whence they proceeded on foot. Attempts on the part of such
bands to seize trains brought them into conflict with the authorities
at some points. For instance, a detachment of regular troops in Montana
captured a band coming East on a stolen Northern Pacific train, and
militia had to be called out to rescue a train from a band at Mount
Sterling, Ohio.

Coxey's own army never amounted to more than a few hundred, but it
was more in the public eye. It had a large escort of newspaper
correspondents who gave picturesque accounts of the march to Washington;
and Coxey himself took advantage of this gratuitous publicity to express
his views. Among other measures, he urged that since good roads and
money were both greatly needed by the country at large, the Government
should issue $500,000,000 in "non-interest bearing bonds" to be used
in employing workers in the improvement of the roads. After an orderly
march through parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, in the course
of which his men received many donations of supplies from places through
which they passed, Coxey and his army arrived at Washington on the 1st
of May and were allowed to parade to the Capitol under police escort
along a designated route. When Coxey left the ranks, however, to cut
across the grass to the Capitol, he was arrested on the technical charge
of trespassing. The army went into camp, but on the 12th of May the
authorities forced the men to move out of the District. They