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Archives: Union organizer murdered in Gastown

This day in Vancouver history: April 13, 1903
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Frank Rogers' grave in Mountain View cemetery. Photo: Past Tense Vancouver

On April 13, 1903, Frank Rogers, one of the first "professional union men" in Vancouver, was gunned down on the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks at the foot of Abbott Street.

To this day, nobody knows who fired the fatal shot. It might have been one of the special constables the CPR brought in to police a clerical workers' strike that the longshoremen were supporting--a strike that had turned ugly. Or it might have been one of the non-union clerks brought in from Eastern Canada by the CPR in an effort to break the strike.

The bullet pierced Rogers' stomach and intestines and lodged in his back. Rogers lingered in hospital for two days before dying on April 15. His funeral was one of the largest gatherings of trade unionists Vancouver had ever seen, with hundreds of union members crowding the Labour Hall on the corner of Homer and Dunsmuir streets. Musicians, carpenters and joiners, building trades, civic employees, cigar-makers, machinists, shingle sawyers and millworkers, moulders and foundry workers, tailors, blacksmiths, barbers, team drivers, railway employees, fishermen, typographers and longshoremen all turned out to pay their respects.

A longshoreman by trade, Rogers came to Vancouver from the U.S. in 1897. He joined the city's first socialist group -- the Socialist Labour Party -- but split with that group when it renounced unionism. He helped form the rival United Socialist Labour Party in 1900.

Although he never worked in the fishing industry, Rogers was hired by the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada to organize the Vancouver local of the B.C. Fishermen's Union in 1899. Unionized fishermen went on strike against the canneries in 1900 and again in 1901, seeking union recognition and a uniform price per fish. Labour organizers patroled the Fraser River in boats, trying to discourage strike-breakers, but a number of recent Japanese immigrants continued to fish.

The Japanese complained that their nets were cut and sails torn, and threats were exchanged. The Duke of Connaught's Own Rifles were called out and were jeered by the strikers as the "sockeye fusiliers."

In February of 1903, CPR employees staged a walkout after a clerk was fired for organizing employees into the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees. Rogers organized a strike by longshoremen, who refused to handle CPR freight.

On the night that Rogers was shot, a fight broke out around 10:30 p.m. between union men and strike-breakers at the north end of Abbott Street. Rogers was eating supper at the time in a Carrall Street coffee house.

After dinner, around 11 p.m., he began walking with two friends back to his rented room in Gastown. According to a statement made to police by Rogers from his hospital bed, he and his friends saw a group of men standing near an office on Stimson's wharf and began walking over to see who they were.

At the same time, a CPR wharf foreman who was involved in the earlier fight was returning to the spot where the altercation occurred to search for an umbrella and hat he'd dropped.

Two CPR special constables, both armed, accompanied him.

As Rogers and his friends crossed the railway tracks and stepped into the light from an electric lamp, someone near the office fired a shot. It was immediately followed by anywhere from four to nine additional shots. Rogers later recalled that gun flashes were coming from two different locations.

The Vancouver Daily Province of April 14 noted that the shooting followed several violent incidents. "Non-union men in several instances have been beaten lately, and it was suggested this morning that this attack was made on Rogers by way of revenge."

Following Rogers' funeral, union members crowded city hall to condemn the CPR and demand that the government forbid employers from arming strikebreakers.

The B.C. Police charged CPR special constable Alfred Allan with the shooting. Allan had admitted to firing his .32 revolver but pleaded not guilty.

Police later released Allan and charged James MacGregor, a non-union freight clerk in his mid-20s, with the murder. MacGregor had been brought in as a strike-breaker two months previously from Montreal.

On April 17 in police court, William F. Armstrong, the foreman who had been looking for his umbrella and hat, quoted MacGregor as saying: "I know I shot one of the men because I saw him drop on his knee."

MacGregor was committed to stand trial, but during the July trial Armstrong changed his testimony. MacGregor was acquitted by the jury. The coroner's report concluded that Rogers was "murdered by person or persons unknown."

The strike against the CPR ended two months after Rogers' death. The union failed to achieve recognition and was unsuccessful in forcing the CPR to rehire organizers and strikers.

Rogers’ grave at Mountain View Cemetery is marked by a plaque placed in 1978 by the Labour Memorial Society. It reads, "Frank Rogers, murdered by a scab in the strike against the CPR... union organizer and socialist."

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Frank Rogers' grave in Mountain View cemetery. Photo: Past Tense Vancouver