City Hall Corruption and the Great Bail Reduction
A dramatic day in court sees prominent figures accused in a city treasury scandal secure reduced bonds as the machinery of municipal justice grinds on.
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 justification of surety on the bonds of Krug and the five men indicted with him for complicity in the city treasury scandal, the arrest of Henry Fuhrman in open court by Sheriff Woolery, and the first appearance of ex-Senator John B. Allen in the superior court since his return to the practice of law were the events in Judge Langley’s court room yesterday. Considerable reductions were made in the bail bonds of Krug and Fuhrman, but the bonds of the others were allowed to remain as fixed by the judge at $5,000 on each indictment. Krug, whose bonds had been fixed at $110,000, saw his bail reduced to $54,000 following an agreement between his attorneys and Prosecuting Attorney Miller. In an amusing and unforeseen circumstance, while Attorney Allen argued for a reduction of Fuhrman's bond, Sheriff Woolery called Fuhrman to the clerk's desk and formally placed him under arrest for previously unserved warrants, a move that went largely unnoticed by his own bondsmen.
“The sheriff took from his pocket a number of warrants which had not yet been served upon Fuhrman and read them to the latter, placing him under arrest with due formality.”
Public corruption scandals remain a staple of Seattle civic life, though today’s battles over 'bail reform' and the role of the city treasury in private interest yield a more complex modern debate than the 1893 court room drama. The intersection of political power and legal representation seen in the 1890s echoes the perennial struggle to ensure that the city's resources serve the public rather than private interests.
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