FLOUR RIOT OF 1837.
Starvation will always create a Riot.--Foreign Population easily aroused
against the Rich.--Severe Winter of 1836.--Scarcity of Flour.--Meeting
of Citizens called without Result.--Meeting called in the
Park.--Speeches.--Sacking of Hart & Co.'s Flour Store, in Washington
Street.--Strange Spectacle.--National Guards called out.--Disperse the
Mob.--Attack on Herrick's Flour Store.--Folly of the Riot.
Hunger will drive any people mad, and once let there be real suffering
for want of food among the lower classes, while grain is piled up in
the storehouses of the rich, and riots will surely follow. In the French
Revolution of 1789, there was a great scarcity of provisions, which
caused frightful outbreaks. It will never do to treat with scorn the cry
of millions for bread. When, amid the general suffering in Paris, one
said to Foulon, the minister of state, the people are starving for
bread, he replied, "Let them eat hay." The next day he was hung to a
lamp-post. The tumultuous multitude marching on Versailles, shouting
wildly for "bread," was a fearful spectacle. One can hardly blame
starving men from seizing food by violence, if it can be got in no other
way; and if ever a mob could be justifiable, it would be when they see
their families suffering and perishing around them, in the very sight of
well-stored granaries.
In the old despotisms of Europe, the poor and oppressed attribute all
their want and suffering to the rich and powerful, so that they are not
held back from redressing their wrongs by ignorance of their source, but
fear of the strong hand of their rulers.
These men, embittered not only by their own sufferings, but by the
traditions of the past, when they come to this country are easily roused
to commit acts of violence by anything that reminds them of their old
oppressions. They have tasted the wormwood and the gall, and refuse
to have it pressed to their lips in a country where liberty is the
birthright of all. This is what has made, and still makes, the foreign
population among us so dangerous. The vast proportion of them are from
this very class. Ignorant of everything but their wrongs, they rise in
angry rebellion at any attempt, or fancied attempt, to renew them here.
Unfortunately there are Americans among us, who, knowing this, work upon
this sensitive, suspicious feeling, to accomplish their own ends. The
politician does it to secure votes; but the worst class is composed of
those who edit papers that circulate only among the scum of society, and
embittered by the sight of luxuries beyond their reach, are always ready
to denounce the rich and excite the lower classes against what they call
the oppression of the aristocracy.
It is doubtful whether the frightful riot of 1863 would ever have taken
place, but for this tone assumed by many of the city papers. So of this
flour riot, it probably would never have happened, but for demagogues,
who lashed the ignorant foreign population into fury against their
rich oppressors. Starvation, which as we said may be a justification
of violence, did not exist--it was only the high price of provisions,
growing out of scarcity, that caused it, but which scarcity, they were
told, was created solely by the cupidity of the rich.
The year in which the great fire occurred, was a disastrous one to the
crops of the country. The mighty West, that great granary of the nation,
was not then open as now, and the main supply of grain came from east of
the Alleghanies. Hence the cause which would create a short crop in one
section, would be apt to prevail more or less over all the grain region.
We imported wheat at this time very largely; not only from England, but
from the Black Sea.
In September, flour was about seven dollars a barrel, but this, as the
winter came on, went up to twelve dollars--a great rise at that time.
From Virginia, a great wheat State, came disastrous tidings; not only
was the crop short and the price of flour high, but it was said that the
latter would probably go up to fifteen or twenty dollars a barrel. In
Troy, a great depot for State flour, it was stated that there were
only four thousand barrels against thirty thousand at the same time the
previous year. As February came on, a report circulated in the city that
there were only three or four weeks' supply on hand. This was repeated
in the penny papers, with the information added, that in certain stores
were hoarded vast amounts of grain and flour, kept out of the market
to compel a still greater advance in the price. This was very probably
true, as it is a rule with merchants, when they have a large stock of
anything on hand, of which there threatens to be a scarcity, to hold on
in order to make the scarcity greater--thus forcing higher prices. This
will always prove a dangerous experiment in this country in the article
of flour. It is the prime necessary of life, and the right to make it
scarce for the sake of gain, and at the expense of human suffering, will
always be questioned by the poorer classes.
Although the stock of grain on hand at this time was small, there was
no danger of starvation, nor was it to the instinct of self-preservation
that demagogues appealed. They talked of the rich oppressing the poor
by their extortions--of monopolists, caring only to increase their gains
without regard to the distress they occasioned.
There was, doubtless, much suffering among the poorer classes, not only
on account of the high price of flour, but also of all the necessary
articles of living. Meat advanced materially, while from some strange
fatality, coal went up to ten dollars a ton. There seemed no reason for
this, as the amount sent to market was said to be largely in excess
of the previous year. In Canada, coal was so scarce, that the line of
steamers between Montreal and Quebec was suspended before winter set in.
This state of things excited the attention of the people generally,
and in the fore-part of this month, a public meeting was called at the
Tabernacle to consider what could be done. It amounted to nothing.
Some speeches were made, resolutions offered, but nothing practical was
proposed. The temperance people attempted to make a little capital out
of it, by asserting that the high price of grain was owing to the amount
used by the distilleries--rye being sold as high as one dollar and
seventy cents per bushel.
But a different class of people were now discussing the subject, and
in a different spirit. Their attention was directed to _men_, not
_theories_--the individual oppressors, not the general causes.
Chief among those against whom the popular feeling was now directed, was
Hart & Co., large commission merchants in Washington Street, between Dey
and Cortlandt Streets. Their store was packed with flour and wheat, and
every day men passed it with sinister looks. Sometimes a little knot
of men would stop opposite it, and talk of the loads of grain stored up
there, while their own families were pinched for bread. They would
gaze savagely on its heavy iron doors, that seemed to defy the weak and
helpless, and then walk on, muttering threats and curses. These signs
of a gathering storm were, however, unheeded by the proprietors. Others,
better informed, were not so tranquil; and by anonymous letters tried
to arouse Mr. Hart to take precautionary measures. An anonymous letter
addressed to Mr. W. Lenox was picked up in the Park, in which the writer
stated that a conspiracy was formed for breaking open and plundering Mr.
Hart's store, and gave the following plan of action. On some dark night,
two alarms of fire were to be given, one near the Battery, and the other
up town, in order to draw off the watchmen and police, when a large
crowd already assembled in the neighborhood would make a sudden rush
for the building, and sack it before help could arrive. This letter was
handed to the High Constable Hays, who showed it to Hart & Co., but they
seemed to regard it as an attempt to frighten them. This was followed by
anonymous letters from other parties, that reached the Mayor, insisting
on it that danger was hanging over this house. He sent them to Hart &
Co., but they, thinking it was only a trick to put down the price of
flour, paid no attention to them. They locked their three massive iron
doors at night as usual, and went to their homes without fear, and the
underground swell kept on increasing in volume.
The first plan of operation, if it ever existed, was either abandoned by
the mob or deferred till after other measures were tried.
At length, on the afternoon of the 10th of February, the following
placard was posted up all over the city:
BREAD, MEAT, RENT, FUEL!
_The voice of the people shall be heard and will prevail._
The people will meet in the PARK, _rain or shine_, at four o'clock on
MONDAY AFTERNOON,
to inquire into the cause of the present unexampled distress, and to
devise a suitable remedy. All friends of humanity, determined to resist
monopolists and extortioners, are invited to attend.
Moses Jacques. Daniel Graham. Paulus Hedle. John Windt. Daniel A.
Robertson. Alexander Ming, Jr. Warden Hayward. Elijah F. Crane.
NEW YORK, _Feb_. 10_th_, 1837.
The idle crowd had all day Sunday to talk over this call. Everywhere
knots of men were seen gathered before these placards--some spelling
out slowly, and with great difficulty, the words for themselves--others
reading the call to those unable to read it. The groggeries were filled
with excited men, talking over the meeting, and interspersing their
oaths with copious draughts of liquor, and threatening openly to teach
these rich oppressors a lesson they would not soon forget.
There was something ominous in the hour selected for the meeting; four
o'clock in February meant night, before it would get under full headway.
It was evident that the leaders did not mean the meeting to be one of
mere speech-making. They knew that under cover of darkness, men could be
incited to do what in broad daylight they would be afraid to undertake.
Before the time appointed, a crowd began to assemble, the character of
which boded no good. Dirty, ragged, and rough-looking, as they flowed
from different quarters together into the inclosure, those who composed
it were evidently a mob already made to hand.
At length, four or five thousand shivering wretches were gathered in
front of the City Hall. Moses Jacques, a man who would make a good
French Communist to-day, was chosen chairman. But this motley multitude
had no idea or respect for order, or regular proceedings, and they broke
up into different groups, each pushing forward its favorite orator.
One of the strangest freaks of this meeting, was an address to a
collection of Democrats by Alexander Ming, Jr. He forgot all about the
object of the meeting, and being a strong Bentonian, launched out into
the currency question, attributing all the evils of the Republic, past,
present, and to come, to the issue of bank-notes; and advising his
hearers to refuse to take the trash altogether, and receive nothing but
specie. This was the more comical, as not one out of ten of the poor
wretches he addressed had the chance to refuse either. Half starving,
they would have been glad to receive anything in the shape of money that
would help them through the hard winter. Yet when Mr. Ming offered a
resolution, proposing a memorial to the Legislature, requiring a law to
be passed, forbidding any bank to issue a note under the denomination
of a hundred dollars, the deluded people, who had been listening
with gaping mouths, rent the air with acclamations. It was a curious
exhibition of the wisdom of the sovereign people--this verdict of a
ragged mob on the currency question. They were so delighted with this
lucid exposition of the cause of the scarcity of flour, that they seized
the orator bodily, and elevating him on their shoulders, bore him across
the street to Tammany Hall, where something beside specie was received
from behind the bar to reward their devotion.
There was, however, some excuse for him. He had been several times
candidate for city register, and hence was more anxious to secure votes
than flour--be a popular demagogue rather than a public benefactor.
But there were other speakers who kept more directly to the point. They
launched at once into a bitter tirade against landlords for their high
rents, and against monopolists for holding on to flour at the expense
of the poor and suffering. Knowing the character of the audience before
them, and their bitter hatred of the rich that had grown with their
growth, and strengthened with their strength in the old country, it was
not difficult to lash them into a tempest of passion. They depicted
the aristocrats around them rolling in wealth, wrung from their
necessities--laughing at their sufferings while rioting in luxury--nay,
hoarding up the very bread without which they must starve, in order to
realize a few dollars more on a barrel of flour. Loud oaths and deep
muttered curses followed these appeals, and the excited multitude became
agitated with passion. One of the speakers closed his bitter harangue
with "Fellow-citizens, Mr. Eli Hart has now 53,000 barrels of flour in
his store; let us go and offer him eight dollars a barrel for it, and
if he will not take it--" It was not difficult to know how he meant to
close the sentence; but just then, a friend shrewder than he, seeing
the legal consequences to themselves of an open proposition to resort to
violence, touched him on the shoulder, when in a lower tone of voice
he concluded: "_we shall depart in peace_." In the excitement of the
moment, he had evidently forgotten the guarded language he intended to
use, and was about to utter that which would have consigned him to a
prisoner's cell, but checked himself in time. He was willing others
should suffer the consequence of violating the law, to which his appeals
urged them; but his love for the poor did not prompt him to share their
fate.
It was bitterly cold, and it was a wonder that the crowd had listened
patiently so long. The proposition to go to Hart's store with a demand
for flour, was instantly seized, and those around the speaker started
off with a shout, and streaming down Broadway, poured in one dark living
stream along Cortlandt Street into Washington Street. The clerks in
the store heard the turmoil, and suspecting the object of the rioters,
rushed to the doors and windows, and began to close and bolt them.
There were three large iron doors opening on the sidewalk, and they
had succeeded in bolting and barring all but one, when the mob arrived.
Forcing their way through this middle door, the latter seized the
barrels, and began to roll them out into the street. Mr. Hart, who,
either from curiosity to hear what the meeting would propose to do, or
from his suspicions being aroused from what he had previously heard,
was on the spot, and as soon as he saw the crowd stream out of the
Park, down Broadway, he hurried to the police, and obtaining a posse of
officers, made all haste for his store. But as they were going down Dey
Street, the mob, which blocked the farther end, rushed on them with such
fury, that before they had time to defend themselves, their clubs, or
staves as they were then called, were wrenched from their hands and
broken into fragments. The crowd was not yet very great, and the
disarmed officers forced their way into Washington Street and into
the store. Their presence frightened the few inside, and they hastily
decamped. The Mayor, who was in his room at the City Hall, had been
speedily notified of the riot, and hurried to the spot. The crowd
remaining in the Park had also been informed of what was going on, and
dashing madly down Broadway, and through Cortlandt Street, joined with
loud shouts their companions in front of the store. The Mayor mounted a
flight of steps, and began to harangue the mob, urging them to desist,
and warning them of the consequences of their unlawful action. He had
not proceeded far, however, before brick-bats, and sticks, and pieces of
ice came raining around him in such a dangerous shower, that he had to
give it up, and make his way to a place of safety. The street was now
black with the momentarily increasing throng, and emboldened by their
numbers, they made a rush at the entrance of the store. Driving the
police-officers before them, they wrenched by main force one of the
heavy iron doors from its hinges. A half a score of men at once seized
it, and using it as a battering-ram, hurled it with such force against
the others, that after a few thundering blows, they one after another
gave way, and the crowd poured in. The clerks fled, and the rioters went
to work without hindrance. Mounting to the upper lofts, they first broke
in all the doors and windows, and then began to roll and heave out the
flour. The barrels on the ground-floor were rolled, swift as one could
follow another, into the street, when they were at once seized by those
waiting without, and their heads knocked in, and their contents strewn
over the pavement. On the upper lofts, they were rolled to the broken
windows, and lifted on to the sill, and tumbled below. Warned by their
descent, the crowd backed to the farther side of the street. Part would
be staved in by their fall; those that were not, were seized as they
rolled off the sidewalk, and the heads knocked out. One fellow, as he
stood by the window-sill and pitched the barrels below, shouted as
each one went with a crash to the flagging: "_Here goes flour at eight
dollars a barrel!_"
The scene which now presented itself was a most strange, extraordinary
one. The night was clear and cold, and the wintry moon was sailing
tranquilly through the blue and starlit heavens, flooding here and there
the sea of upturned faces with its mellow light, or casting the deep
shadow of intervening houses over the black mass, while the street
looked as if a sudden snow-storm had carpeted it with white. The men in
the windows and those below were white with flour that had sifted over
their garments; while, to give a still wilder aspect to the scene,
women, some bareheaded, some in rags, were roaming around like
camp-followers after plunder. Here a group had seized empty boxes; there
others pressed forward with baskets on their arms; and others still,
empty-handed, pushed along, with their aprons gathered up like a sack.
These all knelt amid the flour, and scooped it up with an eagerness
that contrasted strangely with the equal eagerness of those who were
scattering it like sand over the street. The heavy thud of the barrels
as they struck almost momentarily on the sidewalk, could be distinctly
heard above the shouts of the men. Some of the mob found their way into
Mr. Hart's counting-room, and tore up his papers and scattered them over
the floor. It was evident they were bent on utter destruction; but when
about five hundred barrels of flour had been destroyed, together with
a thousand bushels of wheat in sacks, a heavy force of police came
marching along the street. These were soon after followed by detachments
of the National Guards from Colonel Smith's and Hele's regiments. The
flashing of the moonbeams on the burnished barrels and bayonets of their
muskets, struck terror into the hearts of the rioters. The cry of "The
soldiers are coming!" flew from lip to lip, causing a sudden
cessation of the work of destruction, and each one thought only of
self-preservation. Many, however, were arrested, and sent off to
Bridewell under the charge of Officer Bowyer, with a squad of police.
The latter were assailed, however, on the way, by a portion of the mob
that pursued them, and a fierce fight followed. In the struggle, Bowyer
and his assistants had their clothes torn from their backs, and some of
the prisoners were rescued.
In the meantime, the military paraded the street, clearing it of the
mob, and preventing their return. In front of the store, and far beyond
it, the flour lay half-knee deep--a sad spectacle, in view of the daily
increasing scarcity of grain.
Just before the military and police reached the ground, some one in the
crowd shouted "Meeches." This was another flour store at Coenties Slip,
on the other side of the city, nearly opposite. A portion of the mob
on the outside, that could not get to the store, and aid in the work of
destruction, at once hurried away to this new field of operations. On
the way over, they passed Herrick & Co.'s flour store, and stopped to
demolish it. They were loaded down with brick-bats, which they hurled
at the windows, smashing them in. The doors followed, and the crowd,
rushing through, began to roll out the barrels of flour. But when some
twenty or thirty were tumbled into the street, and about half of them
staved in, they, for some cause or other, stopped. Some said that they
ceased because the owner promised, if they did, he would give it all
away to the poor the next day. At all events, they would soon have been
compelled to abandon the work of destruction, for the police hastened to
the spot, accompanied by a large body of citizens, who had volunteered
their help. Some were arrested, but most of the ringleaders escaped.
How many of those who attended the meeting in the Park anticipated a mob
and its action, it is impossible to say; but that a great number of them
did, there can be no doubt.
By nine o'clock the riot was over, and those who had engaged in it were
either arrested or dispersed.
The next day, Mr. Hart issued a card, denying that the exorbitant price
of flour was owing to his having purchased a large quantity for the sake
of monopolizing it, but to its scarcity alone.
It was certainly a very original way to bring down the price, by
attempting to destroy all there was in the city. Complaining of
suffering from the want of provisions, they attempted to relieve
themselves by putting its possession out of their power altogether. With
little to eat, they attempted to make it impossible to eat at all. A
better illustration of the insensate character of a mob could not be
given.