The Secret Business of Deportation
Shipping firms compete for lucrative federal contracts to transport Chinese residents being forcibly removed from the Pacific Northwest.
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.
Tacoma, Feb. 27.—Interested parties believe they have found a string which was attached to Henry Villard's donation to the Democratic national campaign fund years ago. Since the donation was made the Northern Pacific Steamship Company, which flies the British flag, has secured the transportation of Chinese ordered deported from the Pacific Northwest. The representatives of the Southern Pacific, who lose business through this change, say the Northern Pacific underbid them, but just what the Northern Pacific is doing the business for remains a secret. Of the recent emergency appropriation made by the government, nearly all will be needed for transporting Chinamen. 'It's nobody's business,' say the Northern Pacific people, but as near as can be ascertained the charge for transporting the Chinese from Tacoma to China is between $25 and $35. Their boats are owned by the Fairfield Steamship Company, of London, England, and the Northern Pacific derives a percentage of the gross earnings.
“Of the recent emergency appropriation made by the government, nearly all will be needed for transporting Chinamen.”
This article exposes the dark intersection of corporate interests, federal immigration policy, and anti-Chinese xenophobia, revealing how deportation was treated as just another government-subsidized shipping contract.
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