Editor’s note: Originally published in The Daily World on July 4, 2017. Updated on May 8, 2025. Tom Quigg writes for the Polson Museum, and provides stories on nationally or internationally recognized people or events with strong connections to Grays Harbor. Many are updates of previously written stories. All fees generated benefit the Polson Museum and the Grays Harbor Community Foundation.
To me Sunset Memorial Park Cemetery has always been an intriguing place. As a young boy in Hoquiam it was interesting to wander around the old section in the southernmost part, where many of the tombstones from Hoquiam’s earliest days had become unattended.
The coolest part was the old access road that came up from Lincoln Street, parallel to Grand Avenue. At that time, it was overgrown to just a trail through what was once a single-lane rock road, with an occasional rock retaining wall in the steep side slopes. I would imagine that it was designed just wide enough for a single horse drawn hearse, followed by a long line of mourners.
It’s always been a history lesson for me to just walk down the aisles of tombstones, and recall names of people I’ve heard of, or known. Decrees made by President Trump, caused me to recall one person in particular — Albert Johnson who is buried in the cemetery.
According to an essay posted on HistoryLink.org by Aaron Goings on Sept. 3, 2008, Albert was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1869. He began a journalism career in 1888. And over a span of several years worked as a reporter for the St. Joseph (Missouri) Herald, and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat; as managing editor of the New Haven Register; as news editor of The Washington Post; and editor of the Tacoma News.” You can read the entire Goings essay by searching HistoryLink.org for Albert Johnson.
In 1907 he moved to Hoquiam and became the editor, publisher and owner of the Grays Harbor Washingtonian.
For those researching Albert Johnson, the correct name for the newspaper can be confusing. According to Edwin VanSyckle in The River Pioneers, the newspaper began as the Hoquiam Washingtonian, then the Daily Washingtonian, was the Grays Harbor Washingtonian when it was purchased by Albert Johnson, and later was simply the Washingtonian, affectionately known as The Washie.
In the summer of 2017 I went on a mission to find the gravesite of Johnson, one of Hoquiam’s leading citizens of the past. I sought the help of Tracy Wood, who among her many duties with the city of Hoquiam, oversaw the operation of the Sunset Memorial Park.
With her plat map in hand, Tracy walked me right to the gravesite of Congressman Johnson, and his wife Jennie Smith Johnson. Johnson was a Republican U.S. Congressman from 1913 to 1933.
Let me tell you about Johnson, and the imprint his work made on America as we know it. My story is not to draw any opinion, but just to inform you how history may be repeating itself, from what began right in my hometown of Hoquiam.
According to the Goings HistoryLink.org essay, Johnson became one of the most powerful congressional leaders in the United States. “Johnson’s political interests varied widely from his support of women suffrage, and editorial assaults on monopolies. But the two defining characteristics of both his life in Hoquiam and his service as Congressman were his militant opposition to ‘radical labor unions’ and his hatred of immigrants.”
While living in Hoquiam, he was the U.S. Congressman for the 2nd District of Washington state from 1913 through 1915, and the 3rd District from 1915 until 1933.
Long before the internet was even a dream, Johnson published the Grays Harbor Washingtonian, and a second newspaper he called the Home Defender. Johnson was noted for his strong views, and Goings writes that “the Home Defender carried ‘news’ and opinions that would have shocked the more subdued Washingtonian subscribers.”
Goings seemed to use “news” in quotations to emphasize that the “news” was Johnson’s opinion. Goings adds that while working with the minority Republican Party in Congress, Congressman Johnson worked to establish the Home Defender as “A National Newspaper Opposed to Revolutionary Socialism” (Home Defender, March 1914).
According to Goings, “in one Home Defender harangue” the Congressman suggested that the United States “Put up the Bars” against immigration: “The character of immigration has changed and the newcomers are imbued with lawless, restless sentiments of anarchy and collectivism. They arrive to find their hopes too high, and the land almost gone and themselves driven to drown in the cities and struggle for a living. Then anarchy becomes rife among them.”
He is most remembered as the author of the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. Jim Scott writes in Festschrift, 1994, that “History has neglected Congressman Albert Johnson, ‘Father of the 1924 Immigration Bill.’ The act codified the concept of admitting aliens into the United States on the basis of quotas.”
In a biography on the Congressman, written for Pacific Northwest Quarterly in 1945, Alfred J. Hillier referred to the 1924 bill as “the most important immigration law to be enacted in the history of the country.”
The bill was reported to be designed to limit immigration to favored European nations, based on 2% of each nations population within the United States, with a maximum of 150,000 per year. According to Goings, “the act excluded from entry anyone born in a geographically defined “Asiatic Barred Zone,” which included most of the continent of Asia.
In 2003 a British author by the name of Kristofer Allerfeldt published the book Race, Radicalism, Religion, and Restriction — Immigration in the Pacific Northwest 1890-1924. He did extensive research on the topic, much of it in Hoquiam.
It was his opinion that although there was a lot of hostility toward immigrant groups after WWI, the Pacific Northwest exerted more pressure on the national legislature than any other region. His conclusion said in part that there was a primary leader in this pressure. “In large measure this was the result of the work of one man. If the region has one claimant … it must be given to Albert Johnson.” He adds that “Johnson was re-elected on his anti-Japanese, anti-radical, anti-Slavic, anti-immigrant plank for over 20 years, only losing his seat in the 1932 landslide.”
Although Johnson came to Hoquiam over 100 years ago, his Grays Harbor Washingtonian, through its companion newspaper, the Home Defender, may have been the forerunner of some of today’s online opinion websites or social media platforms. To me, much of today’s news on immigration sounds very similar to what Johnson published.
By the way, my first job for pay was a delivery boy for The Washingtonian. By the mid 1950’s it had become a weekly, and no longer printed political opinions like those of Johnson’s. The stories were primarily of community interest news.
As delivery boys, we got paid a silver dollar when the newspapers were neatly rolled, in the delivery bag, and passed the inspection of the circulation manager, J. Val Dalby. We were trusted to make the delivery, even though we had been paid in advance. My 1950’s memory of The Washingtionian was J. Val Dalby, and his very valuable lesson of verifying his people were prepared for the job at hand, and trusting that we would do the right thing. He was a very wise and nice man.
Update:
On Labor Day weekend of 2017, two months after the story was published, I received a call from a friend from Seattle. Before I could say hello he said “You’re live on the Rachel Maddow Show.” I checked the archive of the news segment, and sure enough Rachel’s staff had discovered my story online, and Rachel built her evening commentary on how the concept of restricting immigration began with U.S. Congressman Albert Johnson of Hoquiam.
At one time during her show she showed the headline of my The Daily World story, listed me as the author, and quoted some of the content from the story. If you’re curious you can do an online search for: “U.S. Anti-Immigrant Policy Has Roots In Racist Eugenics, Rachel Maddow, MSNBC.”
An interesting side story is that during the time Johnson served in the U.S. Congress, a future Congressman by the name of Russell V Mack was working at the Aberdeen Daily World.
Johnson retired from the news business in 1934, and sold the Grays Harbor Washingtonian to Mack. In 1947 Mack was elected to the U.S. Congress and died on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on March 28, 1960. It should be noted that according to GovTrack.us, Congressman Mack voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960.
The two Harborites, Johnson and Mack of the Grays Harbor Washington, played significant roles in the adoption of key federal legislation from 1913 to 1960 — the Johnson Reed Immigration Act of 1924, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960.
For a list of notable Harborites visit www.cultureofsuccess.com
Author Tom Quigg
