A Stabbing in Tacoma's Black Political Class
A state Senate candidate and a lodge prosecutor fought over $7 and a treasurer's report—then the wounded candidate returned to the jury box.
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, Aug. 14.—[Special.]—John Conna, a Black politician of this county and a candidate for state senator in the North End, was stabbed this noon by William Brown, a Black lawyer who came here about six months ago from St. Paul. Brown is the prosecuting attorney for the United Order of Odd Fellows, which has a lodge on the Sound, its membership confined to Black men. Brown claims Conna, as treasurer of the lodge, made an erroneous report of his finances, and forgery is intimated in connection with a note for $7. Conna is a juryman in the United States court in the Merchants' National Bank case. During the noon recess he was on the street and met Brown, who talked to him about the finances of the lodge. The lie was given, and Brown and Conna went at each other like prizefighters. Conna, on the other hand, says Brown stabbed him repeatedly with a pocket knife with which he had been whittling a stick. Conna's head was cut and he had a scratch on the breast bone. He bled profusely, but after getting out of a surgeon's hands he changed his linen and returned to his seat in the jury box. Brown was jailed, and the members of the lodge had him released on $50 bonds. Both men have a mild, inoffensive record.
“After getting out of a surgeon's hands he changed his linen and returned to his seat in the jury box.”
John Conna and William Brown were part of Tacoma's Black civic leadership at a time when Black lodges, lawyers and candidates formed a dense community network. The story is a rare, if violent, glimpse of internal community politics—and of how quickly a financial dispute could become a public spectacle.
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