20. Anti-Straw Hat Crime and Violence Went Viral
As anti-straw hat crime and violence spread and went viral, some straw hat wearers pulled guns to protect their headgear. Elsewhere in Pittsburgh, some had their hats taken off their heads at gunpoint. Eventually, police were mobilized to disperse the rioters, and serious bloodshed and loss of life were narrowly avoided. In the aftermath, many newspapers downplayed it as “youthful exuberance”. As the scale of the September 15th rioting grew in subsequent years, however, the patience of the public and media with such exuberance grew thin.
Violent youth gangs that roam the streets and assault hapless passersby have probably been around since cities first came into existence. However, it has probably been a long time since such youthful gang violence was driven by an intense dislike of the victims’ fashion choices. America’s youth got it into their heads that, come every September 15th, they were entitled to yank straw hats off of people’s heads and destroy them. It proved quite difficult to put that genie back in the bottle. Many newspaper reports on Pittsburgh’s 1910 straw hat disturbances noted that things were bound to get worse. They were right.