The Clallam County Newspaper War
A bitter political brawl over government printing contracts forces a rivalry from Port Angeles to the steps of Seattle's auditor's office.
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 war over the opening of the Port Angeles townsite goes merrily on, but the seat of war has been for the past few days transferred to Seattle. Two days ago C.P. Toner, editor of the Port Angeles Tribune, and Col. W.W.C. Gray, a leading Populist, came to Seattle. What message they sent back has not been divulged. Yesterday John W. Troy, editor of the Democratic Leader and county auditor, and A.J. Maloney, Clallam county's member of the Democratic state central committee, also came to Seattle to represent their side of the case. The actual fight has become centered in the matter of publishing the notices; it has become a war between the newspapers. The Democratic paper naturally wished the date of proving up set forward to March 1, in the hope that a Democratic register of the land office would be appointed and give out the printing accordingly. The Republican contingent was perfectly contented to see things go ahead now. Both have been pulling strings for days, and what the result will be may not be known until the notices are published.
“The actual fight has become centered in the matter of publishing the notices; it has become a war between the newspapers.”
This 1893 conflict over the power of legal notices to drive newspaper revenue perfectly illustrates how local politics were once entirely tethered to official public printing contracts. Today, while the mediums have shifted, the fierce competition for government advertising revenue remains a quiet but intense pillar of local journalism's survival.
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