store goods will leave tomorrow morning. . . . It affords me genuine delight to recall my assurances to you at Olympia and here, that the Chinese would get out of Tacoma without any trouble, and point to the denouement in confirmation. Those who predicted differently were partly swayed by their wishes, and greatly underrated the intelligence, character and resolution of the men who worked up the movement, and who were flippantly called ‘rabble’ bu their moral and intellectual inferiors.”
While this letter was being written, or soon thereafter, the superior moral and intellectual people referred to were burning the buildings lately occupied by the Chinamen on the water front, and two days later they burned the Chinese stores and residences built on ground leased from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, some of which appear to have still contained goods of considerable value.
No steps were taken to punish the men who had participated in this riotous proceeding, and they would have been ineffectual had the attempt been made. This encouraged and emboldened the lawless, and turbulent element elsewhere, and forcible, heretofore called “peaceful” expulsions continued in the smaller towns of Pierce, King, Kitsap, Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom Counties, until most of the Chinese were driven away.
While these proceedings were taking place in Tacoma, the governor was advised of what was going on by numerous telegrams from Chinese merchants and others, who appealed to him for assistance. But without the sheriff's support he could do nothing at the time, and it was now apparent, if it had not been so before, that the sheriff was in sympathy with the expulsionists. So far as Tacoma was concerned, all had been done that could be done, except to burn the
