Stranded in Seattle by Fake Alaska Jobs
Two hundred men were swindled by a fake construction company, leaving them stranded without pay or prospects.
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.
Two hundred men, victims of Kansas City sharpers, sat all day yesterday about the Ocean dock, bewailing their luck and vowing vengeance on those who had been instrumental in bringing them to Seattle. These poor fellows, who had been induced to pay their fare to Seattle on a promise of free transportation to Alaska to work for the mythical Alaska Central Yukon Construction company at fabulous wages, found themselves far from home and without the prospect of work. Some of the men reached Vancouver, B.C., before discovering that they had been duped, and others stopped here. Last night a number of the men slept in a Salvation Army tent and were fed by the police department. All the men are without money and some have lost all their baggage. Unless work can be found for them, most of the men will become city charges.
“These poor fellows... found themselves far from home and without the prospect of work.”
This 1904 swindle mirrors the predatory recruitment practices often seen in modern 'gig' work or international labor trafficking. The cycle of vulnerable workers being promised 'fabulous wages' for non-existent labor remains a recurring theme of exploitation in the Pacific Northwest economy.
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