Federal Troops Sent to Seattle to Quell Anti-Chinese Violence
President Grover Cleveland’s 1885 message to Congress highlights the deployment of federal troops to Seattle and Wyoming to protect Chinese laborers from mob violence.
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.
Troops were also sent to Rock Springs in Wyoming Territory, after the massacre of Chinese there, and afterward to Seattle, in Washington Territory, to avert a threatened attack upon Chinese laborers and domestic violence there. In both cases, the mere presence of the troops had the desired effect. The admitted right of a government to prevent the influx of elements hostile to its internal peace and security may not be questioned. Yet, the bitterness of feeling against the Mongolian race on the Pacific Slope may find vent in such demonstrations as are beyond the power of local authorities to prevent. It is but just to state that these violent outbreaks are traceable to the influence of men not citizens of the States engaged in competition with Chinese labor; race prejudice is the chief factor in originating these disturbances.
“The bitterness of feeling against the Mongolian race on the Pacific Slope may find vent in such demonstrations as are beyond the power of local authorities to prevent.”
This excerpt highlights the 1885-1886 period of state-sanctioned anti-Chinese expulsion movements in Seattle. Today, it resonates with ongoing debates about the role of federal intervention in local civil rights crises and the historical cycle of scapegoating immigrant labor during periods of economic instability.
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