Boston police strike

Newly arrived Massachusetts Militia tries to keep order in Scollay Square

In Boston Police Strike, the Boston police rank and file went out on strike on September 9, 1919 after Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis refused to allow the creation of a police union. The other issues between the police officers and the Commisssioner were stagnant wages and poor working conditions. The strike, which plunged Boston into civil chaos, heralded a dramatic shift in traditional labor relations and views on the part of the police. Governor Calvin Coolidge's intervention in the strike brought him national fame and led to his nomination as Harding's running mate for Vice-President in the 1920 presidential election.

Background

The New York police force had been controlled by an individual commissioner who since 1906 took control of the police force; control of the force was taken away from the mayor's office in 1885. Despite this, the city remained responsible for pay and working conditions. 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 10 hour shifts and often slept over at the station without pay in case they were needed. Officers were not paid for court appearances and they also complained about the conditions of police stations, including the lack of sanitation, baths, beds and toilets.

In the early months of 1919, the nation saw a number of strikes in which workers sought to increase wages that had not been adjusted for post-war inflation. Furthermore, the number of police unions throughout the United States mushroomed after the American Federation of Labor began granting charters to police unions so that 37 cities had unionized police forces. In Boston, Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis forbade the creation of a police union, claiming that the position of police officers as "state officers" rather than employees meant that no union should be allowed. On August 15, 1919 the police gathered and formed a union despite the orders of their commissioner, and denounced Curtis' position. A number of officers were suspended and Curtis refused to meet with the union. Mayor Andrew James Peters ordered an outside committee to investigate the possibilities of improving working conditions and averting a strike. Curtis refused their recommendations even as four of Boston's newspapers supported them.

The suspended officers were found guilty of union activism. The police union members voted 1134 to 2 to strike on the evening of the following day. On September 9, Boston Police Department officers went on strike at 5:45 p.m. One hundred Metropolitan Park Police were brought in to replace the striking officers, but 58 of them refused to participate. Despite assurances from Curtis to Peters and Governor Calvin Coolidge, Boston had no police protection for the night of September 9, as the volunteer replacements were not told to report until the following morning.

The city soon fell into riots and public chaos as over three-fourths of the department was no longer enforcing the public peace. The police commissioner's report strongly suggested that striking officers initiated the rioting. Large crowds, including a number of sailors from docked naval ships, took to the streets, smashing windows, committing robbery and stoning bystanders and cars. The northern, southern, and western areas of the city were all taken over by armed gangs, despite the 300 officers that were still on duty. These remaining officers who did not strike, however, were mainly found in the outlying areas and could do little to prevent the unrest. Nevertheless, newspaper accounts exaggerated the level of crime and violence that accompanied the strike, resulting in a national furor hat shaped the political response. President Woodrow Wilson branded the walkout "a crime against civilization."

Coolidge's response

Governor Coolidge originally hoped to reinstate the officers, stating in a telegram that "I earnestly hope that circumstances may arise which will cause the police officers to be reinstated". However, he then decreed that the police force did not have the right to strike, stating that "There is no right to strike against the public safety, anywhere, anytime." Despite calls for the striking officers to be reinstated, roughly 1,100 were fired. Coolidge hired 1,574 replacement police officers from a pool of unemployed World War I veterans. Refused uniforms from members of the United Garment Workers Union, they 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. The new officers had a starting salary of $1,400 along with a pension plan and the cost of uniforms and equipment were covered by the department. The population of Boston collected $572,000 to help pay for the new officers.

Consequences of the strike

The Boston Police Strike gave added momentum to Coolidge's political career. Coolidge was re-elected governor by 124,000 votes, and he himself later stated that "No doubt it was the police strike in Boston that brought me into national prominence." In 1920, Coolidge was nominated as The Democratic candidate for vice-presidenct.

In 1931, the officers who had struck were officially allowed back onto the force by the Massachusetts legislature. However, the Boston police commissioner refused to admit them to the force. The failure of the Boston Police Strike, and of other strikes during the period, contributed to declining union membership in subsequent years. At the same time it heightened public fear of labor unrest and the possible radicalism that lay behind it, making it another component in the ongoing public anxiety of the period known as the Red Scare of 1919–1920.

The American Federation of Labor responded to political pressure brought on by the strike and revoked the charters it had granted to police unions. That put an end to police unionism in the U.S., which would not reappear until World War II.

In popular culture

• The Dropkick Murphys album Rock Against Bush Volume 2 includes the song "We Got the Power" about the Boston Police Strike.
• Dennis Lehane's historical novel The Given Day is partly set during Boston Police Strike.

References

Printed sources:

• Chamberlin, Joseph Edgar, Boston Transcript: A History of its First Hundred Years (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969), ISBN 0836951468
• Fuess, Claude M., Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976 [1940]), ISBN 0-837-19320-6
• Fogelson, Robert M., Big-City Police (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), ISBN 0674072812
• Foner, Philip S., History of the Labor Movement in the United States: Postwar Struggles, 1918-1920, v. 8 (New York: International Publishers, 1988), ISBN 0-717-80388-0
• Hagedorn, Ann, Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007)
• Murray, Robert K., Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955), ISBN 0313226733
• Russell, Francis, A City in Terror: Calvin Coolidge and the 1919 Boston Police Strike (1975), ISBN 0-807-05033-4.
• Schmidt, Regine, Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States, 1919-1943 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000), ISBN 8-772-89581-0

Websites:

• Official records of the Office of the Police Commissioner, Boston, MA, 1919