Today in Labor History September 9, 1919: Boston police walked off the job during the strike wave that was spreading across the country. The police had affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, prompting the police commissioner to suspend 19 of them for their organizing efforts, and prompting other cops to go on strike. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge announced that none of the strikers would be rehired and he called in the state police to crush the strike. However, over half of them showed solidarity and refused to work. Coolidge then mustered the state militia and created an entirely new police force made up of unemployed World War I veterans, and Harvard students. The poorly trained “cops” killed 9 people during the strike. But all the blame was placed on the strikers. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson called their strike a crime against civilization. AFL President Samuel Gompers urged the cops, whom he represented, to return to work. The press attacked the striking cops as Bolsheviks. The NY Times wrote: “A policeman has no more right to belong to a union than a soldier or a sailor. He must be ready to obey orders, the orders of his superiors, not those of any outside body. One of his duties is the maintenance of order in the case of strike violence. In such a case, if he is faithful to his union, he may have to be unfaithful to the public, which pays him to protect it.” And ever since, the cops and their “unions” (professional association might be a more appropriate term) have overwhelmingly followed the NYT advice, rarely striking themselves (only about 25 police strikes in the U.S. over the past 100 years) and eagerly attacking other working-class people who are on strike.
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