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The Elementary School of the Army: the Pennsylvania National Guard, 1877-1917

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The Elementary School of the Army: the Pennsylvania National Guard, 1877-1917 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OF THE ARMY: THE PENNSYLVANIA NATIONAL GUARD, 1877-1917 by Steven Patrick Schroeder B.A., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1983 M.A., Duquesne University, 1986 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2006 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Steven Patrick Schroeder It was defended on April 28, 2006 and approved by Peter D. Karsten, Ph.D., Professor, History Robert Doherty, Ph.D., Professor, History Donald M. Goldstein, Ph.D., Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs Dissertation Director: Van Beck Hall, Ph.D., Associate Professor, History ii Copyright © by Steven Patrick Schroeder 2006 iii THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OF THE ARMY: THE PENNSYLVANIA NATIONAL GUARD, 1877-1917 Steven Patrick Schroeder, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2006 This study examines the role of the Pennsylvania National Guard during the years between the railroad strike of 1877 to its mobilization for the Great War in 1917. An analysis of the labor disputes and strikes that took place during these years indicates that the Guard was used sparingly and with great reluctance by state authorities. Out of the hundreds of strikes during those years following the 1877 railroad strike, the Guard was deployed only six times. The Guard was a tool of last resort that was dispatched by Pennsylvania governors only after all other means to suppress violence and restore order in affected areas were exhausted. During its rare use in industrial disturbances the Guard was not at the disposal of corporate interests and certainly did not take orders or direction from factory and mine owners. On the contrary, the Guard proved such an unreliable “ally” that corporations increasingly turned to, and relied upon, private police forces such as the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the Coal and Iron police to engage the forces of organized labor. The Commonwealth authorities finally relieved the Guard of strike-related duties by creating the cost-effective and efficient Pennsylvania State Constabulary in 1905. Rather than serving as a “policeman of labor” during this period, the Pennsylvania National Guard had initiated significant reforms in structure, training, and discipline that brought it into greater conformity with the standards of the Regular Army. Years before the Root reforms and the Dick Act, the Pennsylvania National Guard had initiated its own program of iv reform that moved it toward higher standards of military efficiency and professionalism. The Pennsylvania National Guard had consciously fashioned itself to serve as a first-line reserve for the Regular Army, and its excellent performance in the Spanish-American War and the Mexican Border Campaign proved its value to the nation. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................1 Chapter One ...........................................................................................8 I. “From Small Beginnings”......................................................................9 II. “Volunteers” ......................................................................................18 III. “A Suitable Instrument”....................................................................26 IV. “Urban Warfare in Pittsburgh, 1877”................................................43 Chapter Two.........................................................................................58 I. “Critics”..............................................................................................59 II. “Institutional Post Mortem” ...............................................................66 III. “Governors, Sheriffs, and Strikes” ....................................................78 IV. “Reform and Renewal”.....................................................................90 vi Chapter Three ....................................................................................105 I. “Camping” ........................................................................................106 II. “Training”........................................................................................122 III. “Shooting”......................................................................................134 IV. “Cooperating”.................................................................................143 Chapter Four ......................................................................................149 I. “Flood” .............................................................................................151 II. “Connellsville”.................................................................................157 III. “Homestead” ..................................................................................167 IV. “Buffalo and Homestead”...............................................................198 vii Chapter Five .......................................................................................205 I. “Jefferson County”............................................................................207 II. “Into the Anthracite Fields”..............................................................214 III. “Relieving the National Guard” ......................................................244 Chapter Six .........................................................................................255 I. “United States Volunteers”................................................................256 II. “The Militia Act and the National Guard” ........................................273 III. “Mexican Border Service” ..............................................................289 Epilogue and Conclusion....................................................................300 Bibliography .......................................................................................306 viii INTRODUCTION But the primary design of the militia is to form a reserve for the regular army, and is, in fact, the only form of national military organization compatible with republican institutions. Major General John F. Hartranft, Commander, Division, Pennsylvania National Guard, 1884. This work began as an investigation into the organizational history Pennsylvania National Guard after the Anthracite Strike of 1902 and was to culminate its service as the Twenty-Eighth Division in World War I. It was to be a narrative that detailed the evolutionary development of the Guard from a half-organized, amateurish state constabulary to a solid military unit that was thoroughly prepared for national service in 1917. As I gathered material relating to the Guard’s pre- 1902 service it became apparent that organizational efficiency and thoroughgoing professionalism marked its service throughout the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The Pennsylvania National Guard had conducted all of its operations with a significant degree of expertise and soldierly detachment. Research indicated that most of the Guard’s officers and its political supporters viewed the organization as an adjunct to the Regular Army as early as the 1880s. Its actual interventions in industrial strikes were few, and these were handled with speed, strength, and restraint. The Pennsylvania National Guard deployed for six highly volatile strike situations in the period 1878-1902, and not one death was attributable to Guard action. The Ohio National Guard of 1969 could not lay a similar claim to such a high standard of restraint, efficiency, and tactical ability in its deployment at Kent State University. The research also belied the claim that the Guard was established and maintained as a policeman of industry and a prop for corporate interests and state power. The scholarship of numerous American military and labor historians has portrayed the Pennsylvania National Guard as a military force that was consciously recruited, trained, and supported by the forces of industrial capital to control the working class. Those who propose this thesis contend that the militia system of the post Civil War period was nearing extinction due to lack of public interest, state funding, and a mission. This argument then assumes that the labor uprising of 1877 instilled such terror in the hearts and minds of both politicians and corporate interests that they took hold of a moribund state militia and transformed it into a formidable protector of upper class interests. The National Guard was a “private police force” at the beck and call of factory and mine owners who called upon state forces to intimidate their workers and break strikes.1 In this respect the National Guard was employed in the same way as the various European civil guards. Proponents of this thesis argue that the Pennsylvania state legislature and wealthy industrialist subsidized and promoted the Guard’s interests in exchange for the organization’s assumption of an industrial police role. This support was evident in annual appropriations from the General Assembly and private gifts from wealthy benefactors that enabled Guard units to 1 John Joseph Holmes, “The National Guard of Pennsylvania: Policeman of Industry, 1865- 1905” (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1970); Hyman Kuritz, “Pennsylvania State Government and Labor Controls from 1865-1922” (Ph.D diss., Columbia University,
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