The Sheriff Deputized a Killer to Keep the Peace at a Seattle Primary

So many intimations have been made and are being made concerning the disgraceful occurrence at the Republican primaries in the First Ward on Saturday that a few statements of facts concerning important points may not be out of place.

The statement that the police officers resisted the service of the warrants by the sheriff and his deputies is untrue. On the contrary, the judges at both polling places permitted themselves to be arrested without offering resistance, and when Woolery arrested several of the officers themselves on the warrant sworn out by John Considine they submitted without a pretense of resistance. In fact, they went at once to Justice Humphrey's court alone, Sheriff Woolery, whose prisoners they were, having left them in order that he might return to the polling place and engage in a disgraceful disturbance.

The only conflict occurred when Woolery and his deputies attempted, without a warrant or any legal authority whatever, to drag the officers who were not under arrest from the polling place, where they had been stationed in accordance with the mayor's instructions, and where they were performing their legal duty in a perfectly proper manner. For such an assault as this, whether it was made by the sheriff of King County or by the veriest hobo, there was neither excuse nor justification, and the officers acted with entire propriety when they resisted the attack and insisted upon remaining where they had been stationed and where they would doubtless have been beaten into insensibility if their fellow officers, returning from Justice Humphrey's court, had not hastened to their rescue. For this conflict Sheriff Woolery, and Sheriff Woolery alone, was responsible.

The pretense of Sheriff Woolery that he acted in this matter in good faith, with a view to preserving the public peace and protecting the rights of citizens, is the veriest make-believe. His own actions give him the lie. If he had really anticipated a conflict between the factions and had been desirous of averting it, he would have chosen deputies from among unprejudiced and law-abiding citizens. He could have secured such deputies without difficulty. Hundreds upon hundreds of reputable men in this community are willing to aid the sheriff in maintaining law and order whenever called upon to do so and under whatever circumstances they may be placed.

Did Sheriff Woolery call upon such men? Did he station level-headed and unprejudiced men in the First Ward? He did not. On the contrary, he chose for his deputies men who could be relied upon to provoke a riot if it were possible to do so. He made a deputy of the notorious Considine, who, in addition to his general bad reputation, was a bitter partisan in the quarrel. He made a deputy of Lampkin, who was intoxicated throughout the affair. He made a deputy of Dave Black, a murderer and well-known "gun fighter," who was released from the jail in Tacoma apparently for the sole purpose of coming to Seattle to act as a deputy sheriff. It was such men as these that Sheriff Woolery chose to aid him in preserving the peace. He will soon be asking King County to pay them for their services.

Woolery has disgraced himself and his office by his actions. He has insulted King County by placing arms and legal authority in the hands of such men as he chose for his deputies on Friday.