The Chain Gang Preacher is Back on the Loose
A notorious 'anarchist' reformer and jailbird, known for preaching to guards while in shackles, has been banished from Seattle and is expected to surface in Tacoma.
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.
Joe Young, the most picturesque criminal that ever figured in local police circles, was banished from Seattle yesterday by Chief of Police Delaney. Young had served a 30-day sentence on the chain gang, during which time he preached daily sermons to the prisoners. Often during the time the gang was at work, Young would sink down on his knees and start to pray. His prayer would last until one of the guards reached him and forced him to work. Young is thought by Chief Delaney to have been the man who wrote several threatening letters to Mayor Ballinger and to himself. Letter writing is one of Young's pet pastimes. Since he has been in the chain gang he has written several letters of an anarchistic trend. Young claims to be a reformer, although he has served two terms in the penitentiary. He is charged by the police with being the man who set off a charge of dynamite in a building in the restricted district and also with having set fire to a church. Now that he has been turned out of Seattle, he will probably appear in Tacoma again.
“Often during the time the gang was at work Young would sink down on his knees and start to pray. His prayer would last until one of the guards reached him and forced him to work.”
Public figures who disrupt the status quo through 'performative' civil disobedience—like Young’s chain-gang sermons—often find themselves branded with whatever political fear-word is current, from 1904's 'anarchist' to today's political labels. His forced expulsion to a neighboring city was a common 20th-century tool for managing undesirable people before modern civil rights protections.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.