United States 1919

Synopsis

To protest poor working conditions and low pay, the Boston police unionized and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Boston police commissioner Edwin U. Curtis, in the belief that the police would take orders from the AFL—thereby hampering discipline—banned the officers from associating with any outside organization. When he suspended several union officials for disobeying his order, the police walked out in the first strike by public safety workers in U.S. history. Poor strike preparations left the city without any protection, and Bostonians quickly ran amok. Assaults, rapes, vandalism, and looting went unpunished as the city struggled to get replacement police in place. Angered by the violence, Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge proclaimed, in a remark that would catapult him to the presidency, that no one had the right to strike against the public safety. Striking officers...