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(108,903 posts) Thu Jul 4, 2013, 07:44 AM Jul 2013

Fourth of July a Day of Bloody Protest in U.S. History

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-03/fourth-of-july-a-day-of-bloody-protest-u-s-history.html

Preparing to celebrate Independence Day, 1906. Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

On July 4, 1934, the U.S. was in the fourth year of an economic crisis. On the West Coast, longshoremen had taken advantage of their newly acquired unionization rights and were on strike. In San Francisco, there was an uneasy calm on the waterfront after a vicious battle between police and strikers the day before.

The peace lasted only for a few hours. San Francisco’s police were planning another attempt to open the port. On the morning of July 5, they fired tear gas and charged the picket lines. The struggle lasted for hours. “It was a Gettysburg in the miniature,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. By evening, two strikers were dead and the National Guard had set up machine-gun nests to guard the port.

The violence wasn’t surprising. The Fourth of July often has been the occasion for such incidents, particularly when the economy turned bad. The last deep economic crisis had been in the 1890s. In 1894, commerce was paralyzed by a railway strike that began in Chicago. On July 4, federal troops were sent to open the city’s rail yards. That evening, Chicago erupted in violence. “Gatling guns scarcely kept the mob at bay,” a newspaper account read. Eleven people died before order was restored a week later.
Cavalry Charge

There had been an equally bloody railroad strike in July 1877, in the midst of the previous depression. In Chicago, federal cavalry -- “veteran Indian fighters, who could be relied upon in any emergency” -- charged a mob of 10,000 on Halstead Street. Egged on by Chicago businessmen, the federal government established a permanent garrison at Fort Sheridan, 30 miles north of the city.