A Waterfront War Over Who Ships the Sailors

Thomas W. Wright and J. Newman were before Judge Humes yesterday, charged with carrying concealed weapons, the outgrowth of a long feud between their sailors' boarding house and Paddy Glynn and the Sailors' Union. The case was continued on motion of their attorney. The trouble, they said, began when they opened the Sailors' Home about two months ago. They undertook to ship crews for the Coast Shipowners' Association, composed of local ship captains, and their room was to ship crews at the best rates the shipowners offered, in competition with the union men.

According to Wright's story, Glynn came to the house and asked what he was doing in the city, and informed him in the forceful language of the average tailor that he had no business here and had better get out. Wright told him he had a right to stay. Glynn then, according to Wright, threatened to kill him and blow up the house. 'If you always want to open up a house here,' Wright quoted Glynn as saying, 'you'll have to split me. I'm in the business for all I can make out of it. If you don't do as I say, I'll kill you. I'd blow your house up tonight if I didn't know your family was there. I'll give you one chance to get out, and if you don't do it, you'll be moved out or carried out.'

The new boarding-house people remained, and their reputation as two husky fellows ready to fight was protection. But the sailors they shipped caught the worst of it. They were attacked unawares, beaten, their baggage taken or thrown into the bay, and in more than one instance followed aboard their ships and set upon.

Only a week ago last Saturday night John Anderson, who had been engaged to ship on a vessel at Port Blakely, while accompanied by Wright, was attacked and he and his guard were forced to give up the sailor's clothing. At the same time union men are said to have induced the chief to have Wright arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. The chief is reported to have said, as soon as he learned what was up: 'Give him a Winchester, instead of putting him under arrest.'

Officer Corbett and Capt. Garrison called at the union rooms to recover the clothes, but the union manager reported that Glynn was not there. Anderson's troubles were not over. He was escorted by Ross at Berry's wharf, and Officer Corbett placed him safely aboard. The officer was not off the vessel two minutes before two burly ruffians sprang down from the dock to the deck and set upon the sailor. He was beaten with sledge-hammer blows.

Wright and Newman are conducting the first establishment of the kind ever attempted in this city, and after two months they think they have received enough encouragement to remain permanently. They say Seattle ought to be made a port of entry, so that when a vessel ships a crew here she could go straight out to sea without having to stop at Port Townsend and be delayed by the machinations of scheming boarding-house proprietors. Before the trial in Judge Humes' court they had been twice arrested on complaint of Glynn, but each time the chief ordered them released. Finally the union man applied to the prosecuting attorney and, it is said, described his two enemies as longshoremen from San Francisco who were going about armed and terrorizing people. The complaint was sworn to before Judge Caldwell April 10.