A Bloody Hat and a Missing Republican Farmer in Spokane County
Charles Gloystein was called from his bed at midnight and vanished. A search party found his hat bloodied and cut, and neighbors pointed to the Populist feud that had already hanged him in effigy.
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.
SPOKANE, July 30.—The people of the southern part of Spokane county are intensely excited over the probable kidnapping and murder of Charles Gloystein, a prominent farmer and Republican politician of Mica. Gloystein was called out of his bed at midnight last night, and has not since been seen. His hat, cut with an instrument and covered with bloody hair, was found today by a searching party. The missing man had incurred the enmity of the Populists of his neighborhood, and the feeling against him in that part was intense. A short time ago he was hung in effigy, and a number of threats were made against his life.
“His hat, cut with an instrument and covered with bloody hair, was found today by a searching party.”
Political violence and partisan suspicion are not new to Washington. In the Populist era, a local feud could turn a farmhouse doorstep into a crime scene; today's heated rhetoric still sometimes ends in threats and violence.
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