The Price of a Scandalous Dinner
When the Liberal Club stopped holding dinners at the Tacoma Hotel, the local Ledger newspaper turned its editorial page into a weapon.
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 Liberal Club during most of its first year had its meetings and dinners at the Tacoma hotel, owned by the proprietor of the Ledger. That newspaper has been in the habit of publishing reports of the meetings so long as they were held at the Ledger's hotel and the receipts went into the cash drawer of the Ledger's hotel. The club desired a relief in the matter of the bill of fare and a change was made to the Commercial Club dining room. An additional reason for the change was that it was found that a better dinner could be had at the Commercial club for a less sum per plate. Because the club did not meet at the hotel that newspaper showed its spleen by omitting all mention of the meeting, and published jealous and mercenary paragraphs in its editorial columns questioning if the club had abandoned its purpose. Members of the Liberal club characterize the course of the Ledger as narrow-minded, mean, and contemptible.
“The first editorial paragraph might apply to any restaurant in the city outside the Ledger's eating house; the second paragraph is a club held over the Commercial club to compel it not to repeat the dose—and what is that but blackmail?”
Local media gatekeeping is nothing new; this 1893 feud over venue choices highlights how regional newspapers once leveraged their near-monopoly on civic information to punish businesses that strayed from their preferred orbit. It’s an early instance of the 'pay-to-play' dynamic that remains a tension in local journalism today.
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