The Fight for Port Angeles Public Funds
Mayor M.J. Maloney of Port Angeles travels to Washington D.C. to lobby for a bill that would keep land sale revenue in the city for local improvements.
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.
M.J. Maloney, the mayor of Port Angeles, has been making a much longer stay here in Washington City than he originally intended. He has been here since last month and for more than a fortnight was confined to his bed. He feels now that he has recovered his health and will push the bill which brought him here. He endeavors to secure the indorsement of the secretary of the treasury to a measure which will in due time be presented to congress, providing that the money derived from the sale of lots and acres in the Port Angeles government townsite reservation, which it is hoped will soon be opened to the public, shall be appropriated for certain Federal improvements in that city. In this way it is hoped to keep the money which the residents of Port Angeles pay for the land to the government instead of sending it away to be absorbed among the government revenues.
“It is hoped to keep the money which the residents of Port Angeles pay for the land to the government instead of sending it here to be absorbed among the government revenues.”
This is an early example of a local government fighting to keep tax/land revenue within the community rather than letting it be absorbed by a larger federal bureaucracy—a dynamic that echoes modern arguments over local control and municipal funding.
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