Barroom Argument Leads to Stabbing in Tacoma
A Sydney barrister and newspaper editor was severely wounded by a former mayor turned political zealot during a heated debate over Populist doctrine.
Crose S. Gannon, a handsome Sydney, Australia, barrister and newspaper editor, was stabbed today by Capt. Frank V. Hogan, a wealthy real estate man, formerly mayor of Anacortes. Hogan was formerly a Republican, but lately has become a Populist zealot, at times going entirely daft on the Populist doctrine, especially when under the influence of drink. Today while drinking he started to disembowel Ben R. Everett, a prominent Republican politician, and while pressing an argument with Everett in the latter's saloon Gannon reprimanded him for abusing Everett, whereupon he attacked Gannon with a knife, laying open his abdomen eight inches, but without severing the bowels. Hogan was held without bonds until Monday to await the result of Gannon's injuries.
“Hogan was formerly a Republican, but lately has become a Populist zealot, at times going entirely daft on the Populist doctrine, especially when under the influence of drink.”
Political violence in saloons was a common occurrence in 1890s Washington, but the intersection of Populist fervor and local power dynamics marks this as a particularly vivid example of late 19th-century factionalism. It serves as a reminder of how volatile the political climate became during the severe economic contractions of the 1890s.
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