The Opium Ring's Man on the Inside?
A government inspector alleges that a U.S. Deputy Marshal in Spokane is actively protecting opium smugglers.
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.
In his letter of May 1894, from Spokane to the Secretary of the Treasury, Inspector J. G. McCurdy wrote: 'I deem it both proper and pertinent to call attention to the conduct of Deputy United States Marshal Samuel Vinson on the occasion of Bodman’s arrest. The warrant was placed in the hands of Deputy Marshal Vinson on the 31st with a request to serve it without delay. He allowed the prisoner to remain out of jail and to go where he pleased, and so easily sent his store of opium out of town. All the while, the deputy marshal was loud and persistent in his declarations that there was no case against Bodman. It is my pleasant duty to bear testimony to the honest, conscientious character of Mr. A. J. Shaw, postmaster here; Mr. A. H. Kenyon, U.S. commissioner; and Mr. Joseph Warren, chief of the detective association. Proper investigation will disclose that Deputy Marshal Vinson is a subservient tool of those who are defrauding the government of large sums of money by smuggling. He is an insurmountable obstacle in the way of successfully prosecuting violators of the custom laws.'
“The customs officers here regard Marshal Vinson as the active friend of the smugglers and the enemy of the treasury department.”
Accusations of corruption within the ranks of local law enforcement are a perennial feature of the region's history. The 1890s Pacific Northwest was a hub for international smuggling routes, and the tension between federal mandates and local interests remains a key theme in Seattle's political identity.
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