A $2 Promise, a $1.50 Payday, and a Fight at the Tacoma Theatre
Two high-school supers said they were promised $2 for four Ben-Hur performances. When they objected to $1.50, the theater men were arrested for 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.
Walter Francois and Jimmie Dugan, attaches of the Tacoma theater, were arrested this afternoon on warrants sworn to by Arthur Olson and Teddy Dally, high school boys, charging them with assault and battery.
The two boys were engaged to act as supers for the four performances of “Ben-Hur.” They say that they had been promised $2 for the four performances, but that at the beginning of the show Saturday they were told that the wages would only be $1.50. When they remonstrated, they claim, the theater men attacked them, inflicting severe bruises about the head.
The case is being tried before Judge Arnston this afternoon.
“They say that they had been promised $2 for the four performances, but ... they were told that the wages would only be $1.50.”
The Ben-Hur road show was a big cultural event, but the dispute behind it was ordinary wage work: a promised rate cut at the last minute and young workers with little leverage. Tacoma’s theaters, then and now, depend on people paid to be unseen; the fight over that $2 still rhymes with modern gig and service work.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.