Exclusion League Organizer Faces $50,000 Libel Suit
Seattle's A. E. Fowler is summoned to federal court over a circular attacking Collier's coverage of Japan.
Seattle — A. E. Fowler, of Seattle, secretary of the Asiatic Exclusion League, and the man who is circulating 10,000,000 diminutive stickers all over the United States bearing an anti-Japanese slogan, has been served with a summons by the United States district court to appear within 20 days and show cause why he should not pay to P. F. Collier Son, of New York, publishers of Collier's Weekly, the sum of $50,000 for malicious libel. Fowler is sued over a circular charging that Collier's hesitated at nothing to poison the public mind regarding the Japanese situation and submitted all articles relating to Japan to a Japanese sub-editor.
“Fowler is sued over a circular charging that Collier's hesitated at nothing to poison the public mind regarding the Japanese situation.”
The Asiatic Exclusion League was part of the same anti-Asian organizing that drove the 1885–86 expulsions in Washington and later Japanese exclusion. Today, media campaigns and hate stickers still test the line between racist speech and legal liability.
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