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The Jailbird Strikebreaker

A man serving time in the county jail is identified as a former railroad worker who crossed a picket line.

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.

Hoke, the fellow who is serving a 25-day jail sentence here for unlawful cohabitation, is the 'scab' who took the place of the W.C.T. brakeman at Walla Walla some time ago when there was a slight difficulty between the company and its trainmen, says the Pendleton East Oregonian. The brakeman went on a strike and Hoke, who had been braking a short time, undertook to run a train for the company. He got the train over the road, it seems, all right, and on his return to Walla Walla, got into an altercation with the striking brakemen and was pretty roughly handled. His railroad career was brief and unpleasant and he soon abandoned the work for an easier life which he is now leading.

“His railroad career was brief and unpleasant and he soon abandoned the work for an easier life.”

— Printed in The Evening Statesman (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1903
Then · 1903123 years apartNow · 2026

This snippet illustrates the era's intense hostility toward strike-breakers, a tension that defined early labor movements in the Pacific Northwest. Today, the debate over labor rights continues, though the terminology and legal protections for unions have shifted significantly from the violent altercations of 1903.

The original page

The Evening Statesman (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1903-12-26. Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

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About this story

From
The Evening Statesman (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, DEC 26, 1903, Page 2
Rights
Public domain
Place
46.20552, -118.51743 · placed automatically
The paper in the Library of Congress catalog ↗