The Perjury Game in Tacoma’s Courts
Federal authorities struggle to stem the tide of fraudulent entry certificates as legal battles over the Geary Act intensify.
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.
Judge Hanford is set to pass judgment on three Chinese men who were denied entry from the Northern Pacific steamer Victoria. While Commissioner Clifford ordered two deported and one admitted, both the Treasury and the defense appealed, dragging the case into federal court. The proceedings were marked by flagrant instances of perjury; Captain Thomas W. Hawks, labeled by the government as a 'professional certificate signer,' provided testimony that was repeatedly contradicted by members of the very firms he claimed the prisoners represented. In one instance, a witness claimed a business existed at a specific Portland address, only for others to prove the firm hadn't even been in existence for that duration. Meanwhile, Inspector Coblentz intercepted an attempt to smuggle men from the steamer Danube onto the Haytian Republic by palming them off as 'fresh' arrivals. Despite these maneuvers, the government remains in limbo as Collector Wasson waits for official word from the Treasury on the constitutionality of the Geary Act before proceeding with full-scale arrests.
“There was some interesting swearing in the case. For instance, Capt. Thomas W. Hawks, who is termed by the government as a 'professional certificate signer,' stated that Wah Ni was a member of the firm.”
This 1893 report captures the frantic, often chaotic administration of the Geary Act—a piece of legislation that essentially forced all Chinese residents to register or face deportation. The 'perjury' mentioned reflects the desperate measures taken by immigrants and intermediaries to bypass an exclusion system that sought to render their presence in the Pacific Northwest illegal.
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