Mayor Yesler Calls Meeting to Address Anti-Chinese Violence
Following a series of attacks, the Mayor seeks to organize property owners against vigilante methods.
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.
At the earnest request of a large number of property owners, Mayor Yesler has called a meeting of taxpayers and property holders to be held at Yesler Hall, for the purpose of discussing the situation, and to endeavor to devise ways and means to prevent further bloodshed and destruction of property. This is a matter which concerns every business man and property owner in Seattle. There are very few persons in this community who believe that mob rule is the best means of ridding the country of Chinese, and it is to devise ways and means to prevent further lawlessness, and bring about the desired end of giving white laborers the preference over Chinamen that tonight's meeting is called.
“There are very few persons in this community who believe that mob rule is the best means of ridding the country of Chinese.”
This meeting took place in the lead-up to the 1886 anti-Chinese expulsion in Seattle, a dark chapter in the city's history. It documents the city's power structure struggling—often ineffectually—to control the violent nativism of the era, a moment that continues to shape our understanding of racial exclusion in the region.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.