and Argus-eyed Demons of Hell When Chicago Record reporter Ray Stannard Baker arrived at a farmhouse outside Massillon, Ohio, in March 1894, he thought bizarre-looking man who greeted him was too good to be true.' Carl Browne, seated beside a mountain of letters, telegrams, and newspapers piled on home's dining room table, was strongly built and heavy. His face resembled Buffalo Bill's, except Browne had fleshy cheeks and a hint of jowl beneath beard he combed into two spirals. His clothes were those of a Wild West showman: fringed, leather coat; tight, knee-length cavalry boots; sombrero; and breeches. His coat buttons were silver coins stamped with word Free. Completing effect, he handed Baker a card that said, pen is mightier than sword.2 That day in home of sand merchant Jacob Coxey, who with Browne's help was planning a mass march of unemployed people to Washington, D.C., Baker recognized elements of a major story. The two organizers predicted that their political beliefs a mix of populism and a Christian form of reincarnation-would lead 500,000 men on May I to steps of U.S. Capitol, where Coxey would demand passage of two bills he had written proposing unemployment relief.3 The march of Coxey's Army was a sensational yet factual event, virtually guaranteed to draw readership day after day during highly competitive era of 1890s journalism. Over next month and a half, it generated most newspaper coverage of any event since Civil War, with possible exception of disputed presidential election of 1876.4 This article presents newspaper coverage of as a symbiosis between journalists who covered march and its principal organizers. The journalists, who came to be known as Argus-Eyed Demons of Hell, wanted drama and sensationalism to win and maintain readership. Coxey, and more particularly Browne, recognized potential of newspapers and telegraphy as tools of grass-roots democracy. They responded to journalists' needs by creating pseudo-events and exaggerating march's circuslike qualities-a skill that Baker called Browne's genius for oddities.5 Both sides acknowledged this collaboration. Browne and Coxey wrote in 1895 that the main idea of march was to call attention of whole people of United States to Coxey bills, rather than, as Browne had said a year earlier, to Get there! in order to petition Congress en masse.6 The Demons admitted that they had abetted Browne's publicity campaign by ignoring or distorting facts for sake of a good story. The most striking example of this acquiescence was their agreement to not identify Browne's lieutenant other than by name that Browne had given him, the Great Unknown, or his pseudonym, Louis Smith. News accounts of often speculated about Unknown's identity, but both Browne and reporters knew he was P.A.B. (or A.P.B.) Pizzaro, a patent medicine seller. He was recognized at once by Chicago demons-but they called him 'Unknown' for reason solely that that it excited interest and made story more readable and interesting, Baltimore American said after Pizzaro was thrown out of march.7 This study, focusing on relationship of Demons and march's leaders, examines press coverage of and influences that shaped it, relying primarily on personal papers of Ray Stannard Baker and two newspapers, Baker's Chicago Record and Evening Independent of Massillon. The Record was chosen for opportunity it provides to compare Baker's private thoughts on march with stories he produced for public consumption; Independent was selected for its unique coverage, as hometown paper, of genesis of ideas for army and beginnings of Browne's theatrical methods of attracting press coverage. Unfortunately, no significant collection of private papers could be found for Independent's Demon, and no other archives of Demon reporters could be located for this study except a scrapbook of news clippings, telegrams, and photographs belonging to Wilbur G. …