The Vigilante Committee: Tacoma's Desperate War on Crime

TACOMA, Wash., March 10. — Public information has been secured and Tacoma will soon be free from the reign of terror. For weeks a carnival of crime has marred the fair face of the city.

The leading men of the city, in an emergency assembled, have sworn to act if all the lives of the municipality must be sacrificed in the bill.

Indignant citizens held a meeting in the chamber of commerce and resolved to follow the matter in the bill. Every prominent business man in the city was present at the meeting, with resolute faces and eyes full of determination. It was decided that a resistance committee must be organized at once and every effort made to stop the holdups which for weeks have raged in the city.

The fearful incompetence of the police department has thoroughly disgusted the citizens with their dilatory tactics, and the matter will be taken out of the hands of city government which has shown no ability, made no arrests, and done nothing to stop a series of disgracefully robberies, the basest and most disgraceful ever perpetrated in the Northwest.

Fierce denunciations were made at the meeting today, sending the police and city council total and everyone involved with the supervision of crime in Tacoma for their inefficiency. The object of the meeting was that the citizens undertake to rid the town of the tough characters. A temporary organization was effected to enable the work to go on in the most expeditious manner, and it was practically decided to form a vigilance committee within the next day or two.

It was found necessary. The mayor was requested to take every possible step in the eradication of this criminal evil, and would have the support of the masses.

There was no hint of delay in the expression of the meeting, as the mayor and the police were not to be left to their own devices a moment longer.

Many plans for procedure by the citizens were suggested and discussed. Tacoma is not without precedent in the present trouble, and the plan pursued at that time received the general approbation of the indignant citizens today.

The criminal act of the tough characters was the murder of young Crosby on C Street. He was an unpremeditated youth, and it is well understood that Nelson Bennett was the real object of the murderous assault. Three days after this tragedy there was not a tough character in Tacoma, and the city was rid of a disgrace which disgraces the present one.

The most remarkable feature of this organized raid on vice is the organization of a secret vigilance committee. A few of the most prominent and determined men in the city met in the back room of a bank and organized. One of the best known citizens of Tacoma was elected chairman, and every member was sworn to kill without mercy the terrorizers of the peaceful community. All were pledged to absolute secrecy, and if any man was found deviated, none of them were to know anything of the matter.