A Suitcase Standoff in Newport's Japanese Colony
A worker tried to leave town without settling with his labor boss; the boss seized his suitcase, and a deputy sheriff had to restore the peace.
There was a small-sized war cloud hanging over the Japanese colony on Wednesday. One of the members desired to leave the city without the formality of squaring accounts with the boss. The latter held on to a suit case filled with the personal property of the boarder. The air was blue with angry words in Japanese for a time, until Deputy Sheriff Harper assisted in settling the affair.
“The latter held on to a suit case filled with the personal property of the boarder.”
The episode is a small window into the power labor contractors held over immigrant workers, whose wages, housing, and belongings could be bound up with a single boss. Newport's Japanese colony was part of the region's railroad and mill economy, and the paper's casual tone hints at how often such disputes were racialized.
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