The $14 Hole in the Newsboys’ Treasury
Seattle’s newsboys demanded an accounting from their union treasurer, sang through the chaos, and threatened to take the missing money back out of his jeans.
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.
Members of the Seattle Newsboys’ Union held a lively meeting in the Marine Firemen’s Hall, on Yesler dock, Friday evening. As a result of an investigation, charges of misappropriation of funds were made against the secretary of the union, “Chinee” Henry Hoege. Hoege immediately resigned, and “Red” Gleason, president of the club, said that unless the amount of the defalcation—$14—was refunded by the next day, he would swear out a warrant for “Chinee’s” arrest.
Charges of misappropriation have also been made against former treasurers Fred Gomett and Jack Leckie. Henry Collins, a member of the union, called at the Post-Intelligencer office and gave an account of the newsboys’ troubles:
“We’ve had a lot of trouble in the union with the treasurers, because every time they got their fists on the dough we had to watch ’em or they’d swipe the whole cheese. Jack Leckie was treasurer for a long time, and now we have found out that he is $14 short, and we think he just put that much in his jeans. Then, up to three years ago, Fred Gomett was treasurer. We thought he was all right and elected him for three different terms. We finally fired him and put in Henry Hoege. Gomett was so mad that he put what he collected from the kids in dues down in his pants and won’t dig up. We don’t know whether he got away with any more or not, ’cause when we put in Hoege we looked at the book and found one leaf torn out. We don’t know who did it, but we’re mighty suspicious.
“Then we had a meeting last night. The kids were so noisy that nothing could be done at first; they kept singing ‘Niddy Won’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow,’ ‘Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay’ and ‘After the Ball,’ and it was a tough job making them shut up. When they got quiet, ‘Red’ called the meeting to order, and I moved that ‘Chinee’—that’s what we all call him—make a report of the dough he had on hand. The motion carried. When the kids were told that the treasurer was short they hooted and swore and said they would knock ‘Chinee’ down and take the money right out of his jeans. Hoege said he didn’t have it, but would refund it in three days.
“When ‘Chinee’ resigned we had to elect another treasurer, of course. The boys elected a new treasurer, and now there is more trouble. But at that, we’ll probably have a fight before it is over. If ‘Chinee’ had tried to put the new man out, there’d have been a general row.”
“We’ve had a lot of trouble in the union with the treasurers, because every time they got their fists on the dough we had to watch ’em or they’d swipe the whole cheese.”
In an era when street-working children organized their own unions, a $14 shortage was serious money—and a test of self-government. The newsboys’ instinct to audit the books, demand accountability, and threaten a warrant echoes every modern fight over union transparency and who controls the till.
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