The Pen Is Mightier Than the Pistol
A Tacoma newspaper editor survives a point-blank assassination attempt after writing a stinging column about a local rival's reputation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Herbert Sylvester Harcourt, the city editor of the Tacoma News, was shot and Mr. Boies, another editor at the same paper, was accidentally shot in the hand by S. W. Wall this afternoon in the editorial rooms of the News office. Mr. Wall is the Tacoma correspondent for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The attack by Mr. Wall upon Mr. Harcourt was prompted by the publication of an editorial column in the News on Wednesday afternoon. The piece claimed that an unnamed man had lived in Spokane with a woman of questionable reputation, engaged in a 'pistol marriage,' and had beaten the town. Mr. Wall, deeming this a covert attack upon himself and his wife, entered the editorial offices shortly before 2 o'clock. An eyewitness reports: 'Mr. Wall walked over to the desk of Mr. Harcourt and informed him that he had come there to shoot him.' As Mr. Harcourt rose, Mr. Wall pulled a small pistol—a .22 caliber weapon called 'The Defender'—and fired. The ball struck Mr. Harcourt just over the heart, but was stopped by a steel-linked pendant of his necktie. Mr. Harcourt and Rev. C. J. Logan retreated to an adjoining room. Mr. Boies and the foreman struggled with Mr. Wall to take the pistol, during which the weapon discharged again, the ball passing through the fleshy portion of Mr. Boies' thumb. Mr. Wall was arrested and taken to the office of Judge Morton. Mr. Harcourt has lodged a formal complaint against Mr. Wall for assault with intent to kill. Mr. Wall was placed under $10,000 bond to appear for a preliminary hearing.
“Mr. Wall walked over to the desk of Mr. Harcourt and informed him that he had come there to shoot him.”
This 1887 incident in Tacoma highlights the extreme volatility of local journalism in the Washington Territory, where reputation-destroying columns were treated as physical provocations. Today's digital vitriol rarely results in a duel with 'The Defender' pocket pistol, but the underlying tension between media accountability and personal retaliation remains a recurring, violent theme in civic life.
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