The Saloon Tip-Off That Saved Six Italians From a Shangaied Ship
A sailor boarding-house man promised six Italian longshoremen 35 cents an hour at Port Townsend. Union men smelled a shanghai and got word to the waterfront before the ship sailed for South America.
The story in The Post-Intelligencer yesterday morning concerning an alleged attempt to shanghai six Italian laborers at Port Townsend had more light thrown upon it last evening through the statement of John Langley, who is known among the variety theater people as Biddy Doyle.
Langley says that he is satisfied the Italians secured to work for Thomas Wright, the sailor boarding house man, were to have been shanghaied at Port Townsend.
"I was in Clancy's saloon last Monday night," continued Langley, "when Wright came in and said he wanted to get six Italian longshoremen. He asked me if I could get the men, and after some of the boys had said Wright was all right, I went with him to the Columbus house, where we got the men spoken of. Wright told them they would receive 35 cents an hour, and could return from Port [Townsend] to Blakeley on the ship, and that it would only cost them 50 cents to reach Seattle. He gave me a letter for the men, and I took them down to the Rosalie.
After they had gone, some of the union men told me that I had better look out, as the laborers would probably get shanghaied. Then I went to the Columbus home immediately and told the men's friends. Word was sent to Port Townsend, and that is how the plan to get them on board the ship that was going to South America was spoiled. After the men got back to this city they wanted me to give them $5 each to repay them for a wild-goose chase. I did not have any money, but went with them and tried to find Wright, who wouldn't be found anywhere. Newman came to town and told the men I had nothing to do with the case."
“Some of the union men told me that I had better look out, as the laborers would probably get shanghaied.”
Before labor law and the Seamen's Act, a boarding-house man could sell a crew to a captain and a man could wake up at sea with no way home. The union men who tipped off the Italians were practicing the oldest form of worker protection there is: watching each other's backs at the dock. Seattle's waterfront still runs on that instinct, though today the fight is over trafficking and wage theft rather than a crimp's letter of introduction.
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