The War on 'New Japan'
A criminal gang attempted to terrorize and bomb a Seattle newspaper for its editorial crusade against them.
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.
A band of Japanese outlaws attempted to dynamite the offices of the Seattle New Japan on Tuesday night. Fortunately, the police department was notified and an officer guarded the building. For five days past, respectable Japanese citizens in the colony have traveled armed or in pairs due to the violence of the 'Gonda gang.' The trouble reached a climax when the editorial force of the New Japan sat in their office on Jackson Street near Eighth Avenue, fearing the building would be blown into fragments. The gang had previously abducted a young woman and attacked employees of the paper to silence its reporting on their blackmail schemes. Police, acting on tips, were able to station an officer at the building, successfully scaring the outlaws away.
“The story of the recent midnight raids of these men sounds more like extracts from pages of a novel than police records.”
This 1903 conflict highlights the internal struggle of the Seattle Japanese community to resist criminal exploitation, a history often overlooked in favor of later, state-sponsored exclusion. It mirrors modern instances where local, independent journalism acts as a frontline defense against organized predatory behavior within vulnerable communities.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.