A Falling Out Over the Postmastership
When two business partners both quietly sought the same political appointment, their professional union came to an abrupt end.
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.
The late firm of Shields & Thorne is candidates for postmaster. This apparently ungrammatical statement is literally correct. Not long after the election, H. E. Shields, without saying anything to his partner, F. P. Thorne, began circulating a petition for his appointment as postmaster and soliciting signatures among the faithful. At the same time, Mr. Thorne, without saying anything to Mr. Shields, began doing precisely the same thing. In course of time, each found the other out and there was an explanation. Each said to the other, 'Here, if you are going to crowd me like this, we had better dissolve partnership,' or words to that effect. So they dissolved and, though they continue to occupy adjoining offices in the Butler Block, there is no longer that community of interests there used to be before the sun of Democratic victory hatched every Democratic chrysalis into a radiant office-seeker butterfly.
“There is no longer that community of interests there used to be before the sun of Democratic victory hatched every Democratic chrysalis into a radiant office-seeker butterfly.”
Office-seeking in the 1890s was a scramble for patronage that often disrupted professional life. While today's postmaster positions are far less politicized, the story captures a timeless Seattle frustration: the ego-driven collapse of a business partnership during a moment of civic transition.
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