Anti-Allen Dark Horse Scheme Fails in Olympia
While anti-Allen forces scramble for a candidate, the state legislature remains paralyzed by 'dark horse' rumors and fabricated desertions.
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.
Olympia, Feb. 13.—Not a single dark-horse prediction of the anti-Allen prophets was verified today. The stable boys sent out by the disorganizers into the dark horse pasture have been unable to get a halter on more than a couple of these representatives of the political equine race. Notwithstanding the utter failure of the scheme to divide the Allen men, the managers of the bureau for the dissemination of incorrect information have had the effrontery to send out statements that certain representatives were about to leave Senator Allen for new men. From the time when the anti-Allen plotters commenced to work the dark horse dodge to their fruitless search tonight for a man who is willing to enter the contest, their schemes have met with disaster. Even the Tacoma Ledger and the Seattle Telegraph continue to print the fiction supplied by the anti-Allen news bureau. The scuttlers are frantic in their efforts to win votes from Allen, for they know they cannot much longer prevent his election. But the majority Republicans possess the steadfastness that will win success.
“The stable boys sent out by the disorganizers into the dark horse pasture have been unable to get a halter on more than a couple of these representatives of the political equine race.”
The 1893 legislative deadlock over the U.S. Senate seat mirrors the intense partisan theater of modern political maneuvering. While the mechanisms of 'dark horse' candidates have evolved, the usage of local media and 'news bureaus' to spread disinformation to destabilize an incumbent remains a resonant tactic in Washington politics.
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