The Beer-Fueled Rebellion Against Tacoma’s Political Bosses
When the 'Young Democrats' were counted out of a local primary, they threw a mass meeting at Germania Hall with free beer, sandwiches, and fiery speeches against the corruption of the Griggs faction.
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.
Tonight at a mass-meeting held in Germania hall, the Wallace men rebuked the alleged corrupt methods of the Griggs faction. One of the inducements held out to ensure a big crowd was a promise of a supply of 1,000 sandwiches and all the beer that could be drunk! Five hundred greeted Wallace. The walls were decorated with banners and mottoes denouncing corruption at the polls and a repetition of the frauds of 1870, and alluding to Wallace as the 'idol of the people.' The beer and sandwiches were served in a side room. Many made speeches denouncing ballot box stuffing and the counting-out frauds of the Griggs faction. Ex-Mayor Wheelwright, chairman of the Democratic city convention, said he could not be called a 'kid' or 'silk-stocking aristocrat.' He wanted harmony, but he admitted the ballot box stuffing, and declared the Griggs faction mistook the mettle of the Wallace men if they thought they would countenance corruption.
“The sort of harmony desired by the young men is that which obtains after the Griggs men have been rebuked for the corruption alleged to have been countenanced by them.”
Political infighting and accusations of 'ballot box stuffing' have deep roots in Washington’s local history. This 1892 scrap over primary results and candidate legitimacy echoes the ongoing civic debates about the integrity of our own democratic processes.
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