The Militia are Called In

Guarding approach to mills, Lawrence, Mass.

A call for troops was sent on January 15th by Mayor Michael Scanlon to Captain Louis Cox of Battery C of the Massachusetts State Militia (now the National Guard). Battery C was the first company to be called to Lawrence to help maintain order during the strike. Later, police and militia would come from Lowell, Haverhill, Lynn, Newton, Wakefield, Stoneham, Charlestown, Waltham, and Boston. 

A troop of Boston Metropolitan Police, and a number of sharpshooters from the US Marine Corps was in the city as well. Even Harvard’s Cavalry Troop C arrived in the city in early February. A New York Times story noted, “A large number of students will escape the ordeal of a mid-year examination as a result. All will be passed.”

The language in the second line of Mayor Scanlon’s call for the militia — “a tumult is threatened”—provides a sense of how it must have felt to be a city official, only a few days into his post, during the strike. Scanlon's command encapsulates the fear and panic felt by Lawrence’s power brokers and political leaders at the onset of the strike.