A Seattle Woman’s Day in Tacoma Police Court
After being arrested for intoxication, a visitor challenges a patrolman's honesty in court before fleeing back to Seattle.
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.
Mrs. Mabel Keebler, 35, who was arrested yesterday morning by Officer Modahl on a charge of intoxication and profane language, faced Judge Arntson this morning in police court. She bitterly upbraided the patrolman, stating, 'You can't believe what that cop tells you, judge; he isn't an Irishman. If he was Irish, I would believe anything he says, but when he tells you that I was intoxicated and was talking indecently he is not telling the truth.' According to the officer, Mrs. Keebler was sadly the worse for strong drink and was using language which would affect a hardened criminal. Mrs. Keebler, who is from Seattle, said that she was hysterical at the time, and, to prove the assertion, suddenly became so hysterical in the court room that the officers were on the point of sending for a physician. She was fined $10 and costs, and after paying the fine headed straight for the docks to take a steamer back to Seattle.
“If he was Irish, I would believe anything he says, but when he tells you that I was intoxicated and was talking indecently he is not telling the truth.”
The historic transit between Tacoma and Seattle via steamer has long been replaced by I-5 and the Sounder train, but the 'visitor causing a scene' trope remains a constant in urban police blotters. Keebler’s defense—that the officer lacked the specific ethnic background she associated with trustworthiness—is a vivid, if bizarre, artifact of early 20th-century social prejudice.
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