The Great Austrian Hunt: A Sunday Afternoon Panic in Kennewick
When rumors spread that a Mexican revolutionary was hoisting the Huerta flag on Second Street, Chief of Police Cope and his deputies launched a dramatic chase. The 'insurgent' turned out to be an innocent Austrian worker looking for directions.
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.
The placid monotony of an ordinary Kennewick Sunday afternoon was rudely shattered last Sunday when a thought-to-be Mexican was reported to have invaded the town with the supposed intention of hoisting the Huerta flag. Afternoon strollers along Second street saw Chief of Police Cope and beating it down the street on double quick accompanied by his son Raymond and Neal Harper. The strollers quickened pace and joined the chase which ended near the Washington street bridge where the Chief clamped the handcuffs on a stranger of rather a demure disposition and drab complexion. He was reported to have drawn a knife on the boys but investigation at the jail revealed that he didn't have a knife, was not a Mexican only an Austrian, an industrious worker in a local section crew, and was hunting for the home of S. D. Peckenpaugh. He was released.
This 1914 incident captures the intense geopolitical anxieties rippling through rural America during the Mexican Revolution. Just as modern communities might react with suspicion to unfamiliar figures or rumors of civil unrest abroad, Kennewick residents projected international conflict onto their own quiet streets, turning a lost worker into a perceived enemy combatant.
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