Boston police strike

The Boston police strike occurred on September 9, 1919, when Boston police officers went on strike seeking recognition for their trade union and improvements in wages and working conditions. Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis denied that police officers had any right to form a union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which some attribute to concerns that unionized police would not protect the interest of city officials and business leaders. Attempts at reconciliation between the Commissioner and the police officers, particularly on the part of Boston's Mayor Andrew James Peters, failed.

During the strike, Boston experienced several nights of lawlessness. Several thousand members of the Massachusetts State Guard, supported by volunteers, restored order by force. Press reaction both locally and nationally described the strike as Bolshevik-inspired and directed at the destruction of civil society. The strikers were called "deserters" and "agents of Lenin."^[1] Samuel Gompers of the AFL recognized that the strike was damaging the cause of labor in the public mind and advised the strikers to return to work. Commissioner Curtis refused to re-hire the striking policemen. He was supported by Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge, whose rebuke of Gompers earned him a national reputation.^[2]

Nine civilians were killed in several days of civil unrest and the threat of a general strike. Eight of the nine were fatally shot by members of the State Guard. The police strike ended on September 13, when Commissioner Curtis announced the replacement of all striking workers with 1,500 new officers, given higher wages. The strike proved a setback for labor unions. The AFL discontinued its attempts to organize police officers for another two decades. Coolidge went on to win election as the Republican nominee for vice president of the United States in the 1920 presidential election and became President in 1923 upon President Warren Harding's death.