The Mayor's Purge: Tacoma's Public Works Scandal Erupts Into Impeachment
A sewer-pipe kickback, secret electric-light favors and a board loyal to the old machine: Mayor Orr moves to oust President Demorest.
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.
TACOMA, July 21.—[Special.]—Mayor Orr is having unusual success in knocking the heads off the opponents of his administration. Today the utter routing of the board of public works, or the Huston wing of it, in the Hollidge charges, was followed with charges of criminal incompetency, neglect of duty and practical malfeasance in office against President Demorest of the board, and it is probable, we anticipate, that after the inauguration of the Orr administration the board will be ousted. When the Post-Intelligencer stated that it would be unattached if it could not be gotten out in any other manner, it was not considered a possibility, but recent developments have shown that the board will have to go, if the council can get rid of it.
The charges were directed against Demorest personally, and it is not decided whether the other members will be impeached, as Demorest is apt to be, if the charges are sustained. The sewer pipe scandal, heretofore referred to by the Post-Intelligencer, is thrown up again, it being one of the counts that Demorest and the board cheated the city out of $2,000 by buying pipes of the highest priced dealer. Demorest is also charged with disgracing his office, disorganizing the department and being reckless, domineering and arrogant.
Demorest stood for ex-Mayor Huston's interests, and latterly for Nelson Bennett and the Ledger. The men who made affidavits maligning Hollidge were driven out of the city's employ today. Hollidge says: "The Ledger is the only paper that did not give me a square deal. I've stood by Bennett and helped send him to the national Republican convention, but I'll have no more to do with him."
Hollidge was unanimously vindicated by the council. Councilman Watson says: "It was a glorious victory. Now, then, we will have no more special electric lighting privileges." The significance of Watson's statement is that, as published in the Post-Intelligencer this week and made one of the counts against Demorest today, the board of public works allowed Bennett to string electric light wires about town, while cutting the wires which others tried to put up. A supply of pure mountain water will now be sought with what little money was saved from the water loot.
“It was a glorious victory. Now, then, we will have no more special electric lighting privileges.”
Tacoma's 1894 fight over sewer-pipe contracts and electric-light franchises reads like a blueprint for every later argument about who gets city contracts and who watches the watchers. The details change; the pattern—public money, private friends, and a reform mayor—does not.
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