The Union Sailor Fined for Heckling a Nonunion Captain
Joseph Hanson shouted at Captain H. Blekum across a Seattle wharf over lower wages. A justice fined him $5 for language tending to provoke an assault.
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.
Joseph Hanson, a union sailor, was fined $5 and costs yesterday by Justice Humphrey for using language toward H. Blekum, a nonunion captain, tending to provoke an assault. Blekum went down to the wharf last Monday to see his brother on the steamer State of Washington, and Hanson, whom he says he never saw before, abused him from the other side of the wharf. Incidentally he claimed that Blekum had been working for less than the union schedule of wages. Hanson spoke of appealing from the decision.
“Incidentally he claimed that Blekum had been working for less than the union schedule of wages.”
The fine is a small-scale version of a familiar fight: union standards versus nonunion undercutting, and how far speech at the waterfront can go. Seattle’s labor history has repeatedly turned on exactly that tension.
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