The Unpaid Labor of Seattle's Waterfront

A laboring man, F. D. Sprague, who works with his hands, told Justice Moore of a case in which he claimed he was swindled for wages of $40 by a man named M. McMillan. The evidence showed he had been hired by McMillan to work on the dock at the waterfront, but he had never been paid. Following the testimony, a judgment was rendered for Sprague. On the same day, a suit was filed against M. McMillan by James Farria, a laboring man, claiming $27.80 for work and labor performed, having been employed by McMillan in stopping the crack at the waterfront. A judgment was awarded to that plaintiff from McMillan. No appeal has ever been taken, and they are still of record upon the docket of the court, owing for nothing but hard, honest labor. Personally, I do not know Mr. McMillan, and have no unkind feeling toward him, but as I look upon it, he and a few others are, by word and pen, bringing the cause of the laboring classes into disrepute in the eyes of law-abiding citizens. I call the attention of laboring men to the fact that he is their friend when it pays him to be, and he has not felt a sufficient friendship for them to pay his laborers their just deserts.