WASHINGTON, April 7. – The advance guard of Coxey’s Army, forty-one in number, got within two miles of Washington this evening, and were taken in charge by the police and locked up.
They came in on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in freight cars, and when they reached Eckington, a suburb of the city, a squad of police took them from the cars and marched them from the cars and marched them to the Ninth Precinct Station House where they will be held until Monday for examination.
Major W.G. Moore, who, in addition to being the commanding officer of the district police, holds the rank of Colonel in the District of Columbia National Guards, received a dispatch this afternoon from the Chief of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Detective Corps, reading:
“A crowd of about sixty men, who claim to be a part of the Coxey Army, have trespassed upon our freight trains from Cincinnati, Ohio, and are now in our yard at Brunswick Station, Maryland, a point fifty miles west of Washington. They are making their way to our city, and are traveling in a body, and will reach here to-night. I send you this information, and will see you in person this evening.”
Immediately upon receipt of that information Major Moore telephoned to the various police stations of the country through which Coxey’s cohorts would be most likely to pass, directing that policemen be on the lookout for them.
Mounted policemen were especially notified to patrol the country and send to headquarters any information concerning the approach of the advance guard.
From The New York Times, Sunday, April 8, 1894.
See also Stale Bread for the President, The San Francisco Call, April 8, 1894
The Package Was Taken In, But It Was Not At All Relished. Washington, April 7.— The advance guard of Coxey’s army, consisting of sixty soldiers, arrived here to-night. There was delivered at the White House this morning a small loaf of very stale bread bound with strings and addressed, “To D. C., care Grover Cleveland.” The label was stamped, “D. H., Account of Charity,” and showed that the package came from Arkansas. The expressman said he had taken the package to Mr. Redstone as the representative of General Coxey, but that he would not receive it and told him to take it to the President, as it had been sent in his care. A receipt was given for the bread and it was taken into the executive mansion.