The Shooting of Frank Rogers, 1903
Published: April 16, 2018
Authors: Donna Sacuta, BCLHC Executive Director
Late in the night on April 13, 1903, labour organizer and longshore worker Frank Rogers was walking home from dinner and stopped by the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks at the foot of Abbott Street in Vancouver, to check on picketers from the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees.
There, he was set upon by the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) Special Police and a scab. After a brief exchange, shots were fired and Rogers was hit in the stomach. He died in hospital two days later, on April 15th.
The CPR paid the legal fees for the police officer and scab, and no one was ever convicted for Rogers’ murder in the 115 years that have passed. He is buried in Vancouver’s Mountainview Cemetery near Fraser and 33rd. Rogers’ grave location is: HORNE1/2/02/018/0011. A labour history project in 1986 placed a new gravestone which reads “Frank Rogers / Murdered by a scab in strike against CPR / Died April 15, 1903 / Union organizer and socialist”.
The entire trade union movement was shocked and outraged, turning out in masses for his funeral. Longshoreman Fitz St. John was prominent among the mourners who marched through drenching rain to the cemetery and recalled the remarkable variety of vehicles that made up the procession in front of the hearse – wagons, buggies, early automobiles and trucks. He kept the old top-hat he wore at the damp, silent wake to his dying day.
Rogers was profiled in an article featured in the Vancouver Sun (2018) and continues to be remembered as one of Vancouver’s first labour martyrs.