Mob Violence Against Federal Officers on Seattle Streets

A correspondent who thinks that the police department has been unjustly criticized by the Post-Intelligencer writes as follows: 'I was present last Sunday when the occurrence which you point out took place, and I, like others, followed it up through curiosity until Gannon, the deputy, located himself in the Snoqualmie Hotel, with his revolver conspicuously displayed. The police acted wisely! Thus everything passed off in noise. Had the police been too active, serious results might have followed.' Mr. Brown, it will be noted, does not dispute the facts in the case. These were that a man who was acting in a perfectly peaceable and inoffensive manner was threatened with violence by a turbulent crowd, which undertook to mob him simply because he was an officer of the United States court. He prudently withdrew and was followed for two blocks by a noisy and threatening mob. He attempted to enter the Abbott House but was refused shelter. He then crossed the street to the Snoqualmie Hotel and, drawing his revolver, warned his tormentors that he would defend himself if necessary. During all of this time police officers of the city were present, but did not make the slightest effort to protect the deputy marshal. The events of Saturday morning were no more creditable to the city. A party of deputy marshals was followed by a threatening crowd from Marion Street down Front to Pioneer Place, thence back to Columbia, thence to Second and thence to Cherry, and were finally compelled to draw weapons in their own defense and take refuge in a business building.