Corruption Scandal Sweeps Whatcom
Former city officials are arrested for embezzlement while the community demands a grand jury to investigate municipal rot.
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 indignation of the people on the subject of the looting of the city treasury by city officials and reports of rank corruption in various branches of the municipal government culminated in a mass meeting at Lighthouse Hall. Maj. Cole, ex-county attorney, presided. A committee of citizens was appointed to investigate the affairs of the various offices since the consolidation of Whatcom and Sehome, and a resolution was requested to Judge Winn to call a grand jury. A warrant for the arrest of B. W. McIntosh, late city clerk, was sworn out, charging him with the embezzlement of funds while marshal in 1892. It is reported that he fled to Arizona. Ex-Deputy Clerk E. Y. Grassett and former marshal A. J. Lawrence were also arrested on embezzlement charges, and Ex-Treasurer Isensee was arrested for willfully refusing to pay city warrants.
“The indignation of the people on the subject of the looting of the city treasury by city officials and reports of rank corruption in various branches of the municipal government culminated tonight in a largely attended and business-like mass-meeting.”
Public outrage over municipal 'looting' and the consolidation of towns remains a perennial issue in the Pacific Northwest. Whatcom and Sehome, once separate entities, were folded into the modern city of Bellingham, yet the tension between citizen-led oversight and local government transparency continues to echo in today's local politics.
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