The Ghost of Labor Unrest in Newcastle
A local coal miner pushes back against sensationalist newspaper reports of an 'impending strike,' exposing the tense standoff between workers, company bosses, and imported armed guards.
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.
Newcastle, Jan. 14, 1891. In Tuesday's issue of the Seattle Democratic paper appears an article headed, 'A Strike Is Impending.' The article is intended to give people the impression that the miners here are about to begin fighting each other. This was a surprise to most of the people here, who concluded that the source must be troubled by 'softness in the upper story.' If there is any trouble here, then Mr. T. B. Corey and his miners will be the parties responsible for it—but the people are on better terms than they have been in years. There is a clique of about a dozen men, and Mr. Corey and his subordinates seem to have a pull on them; if they are told to shout that there is trouble, they do so.
I wonder if Sheriff Woolery considers the company officers played a fine joke on him when they got him to come to Newcastle to quell a 'disturbance,' only for him to find the men all at work. We have nearly a score of Pinkerton men here, and only two deputy sheriffs. The Pinkertons are good fellows at playing seven-up, getting on a tear, and raising Cain, sometimes finishing by firing revolver shots in the early morning to scare the women. I think the people ought to denounce the action of the parties responsible for this congregation of armed forces, seeing there is no indication that there is any trouble. This talk of the people of Newcastle being at swords' points is nothing but sheer nonsense.
“The Pinkertons are good fellows at playing seven-up with the boys, getting on a tear and raising Cain generally, sometimes finishing up with firing a few revolver shots in the early morning, to scare the women a little.”
This 1891 letter highlights the long history of anti-union agitation and corporate-funded 'security' in the Pacific Northwest. Today, the tensions between labor, private security firms, and media portrayals of organized workers continue to shape the political landscape of the Puget Sound region.
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