A City in Terror: The 1919 Boston Police Strike

by Francis Russell

On September 9, 1919, an American nightmare came true. The entire Boston police force deserted their posts, leaving the city virtually defenseless. Women were raped on street corners, stores were looted, and pedestrians were beaten and robbed while crowds not only looked on but cheered.The police strike and the mayhem that followed made an inconspicuous governor, Calvin Coolidge, known throughout America, turning him into a national hero and, eventually, a president. It also created a for two days, more than 700,000 residents of Boston's urban core were without police protection, and the mob ruled the streets.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Labor, Crime, American History

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 1975

About the author

Francis Russell was an American author specializing in American history and historical figures.

Reviews

[David R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an old one (mid 1970s) but fortunately isn't badly dated. Russell documents the infamous 1919 police strike in Boston---the incident that almost certainly made the Calvin Coolidge presidency possible. Russell's challenge is that he's torn: contemptuous of Coolidge, but also of the hack Democrat politicos of Boston (among them James M. Curley); broadly supportive of labor action, but cognizant of the collapse of social order as the police force struck--and of the huge P/R mistake made by the police union. So in the end he bobs and weaves, laying the blame for the entire incident on Commissioner Edward Curtis, braying about police unionization in later decades and puffing with relief that walkouts never occurred. Russell is captivated by the idea that in the O'Meara period (1906-18) that if only the Boston (Democratic) and Massachusetts (Republican) political orders had cheerfully worked together to properly compensate the troops that the entire union-and-strike mess was avoidable. But he somehow misses his own observations: the all-Democratic Massachusetts of later times didn't reinstate the fired cops, didn't really increase pay, and allowed standards to decay, not to mention that unionization was probably inevitable. The book is interesting, but doesn't adequately resolve its own questions.

[Craven · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two reasons why I was interested in this:

A. The conflict of interest between police striking as well as unions supporting police.

B. People rioted and tore the place down.

But no, this book was really fucking boring. As far as (A) goes, it is really only worth ruminating on, and (B) is only talked about in short number of pages. Otherwise, this is just so dull it includes every goddamn trivial fact fully explained and a bunch of shit about Calvin Coolidge. I suggest you just google this event and think about it, but don't bother with this.

[Joe Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book on the history of the strike. I really enjoyed reading this, but right near the end, I had a month or so where I could not sit down an read so this book took a lot longer than it should have for me to finish off.

[Jocelyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dry, boring, no citations. Not worth it.

[Irwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Downloaded this book since I'll be expected to make informed and intelligent comments in a podcast about Calvin Coolidge in a few weeks, and Coolidge hasn't exactly inspired deep or sustained scholarship. Maybe he can't. Maybe it's not possible for Calvin Coolidge to inspire a better book than this 1975 collection of journalistic anecdotes, all of them vivid but few of them revealing, puffed up with archaic or inappropriate adjectives (the "rufous" beard was cute, Mr. Russell [whom I'm addressing posthumously], but why did you describe Vladimir Nabokov as "lepidopteran," i.e., like a butterfly?). There's no analysis here, just assumptions: that every reader is so familiar with Boston neighborhoods that they'll be riveted by the descriptions of rioting, looting, and gambling during the strike; that every reader agrees America is bad and getting worse, so asides about a 1974 Baltimore police strike being "a cue to young blacks to take to the streets" aren't racist, just realistic; and that every reader will just shrug at pedophilia when he mentions, in yet another anecdote, that Boston mayor Andrew J. Peters drugged and raped an 11-year-old girl (hence the glib reference to Nabokov). Still, there's stuff here that I didn't know, although it's reasonable to question Mr. Russell's scholarship since he only lists his sources but doesn't cite them in footnotes, and I've discovered new ways to ridicule Calvin Coolidge. So reading "A City in Terror" wasn't a waste of time.

[James Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It is a re-read for me from 30 years ago and now, I think I appreciate it more. It is very detailed in Boston's history during the 1919 period and the author demonstrates a nice analysis of the labor movement in that time. He alternates between the Massachusetts politicians and everyday policemen. A great read for anyone who likes Boston history.

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really the information in this book would have been best shared in two chapters. 1) Calvin Coolidge's rise to presidency and the part the Boston Police Strike played in his journey 2) An actual account of the Strike. These sections of the book were informative, but the book focussed on too much of the incidental details.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engrossing account of the Boston Police Strike of 1919. Rusell relays the chaos and loss of lives, while providing the context of the post-WWI, pre-Red Scare, labor upheaval taking place across the country and the world. It would be an amazing fiction if these events hadn't actually taken place.