The $10 Letter That Wasn't Meant to Be Read
A Democratic congressional hopeful solicits a Republican postmaster for $10—using party paper, an insurance-company envelope, and a paper trail that ends up at the Post-Intelligencer.
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.
W. H. Hazzard, candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress, is so hard at work that he has forgotten what he did a few months before, and through this lapse of memory has allowed one of his characteristic schemes to fall into the hands of the Post-Intelligencer. The letter in question was addressed to the postmaster at Bothell, enclosed in an envelope of the Washington Mutual Life Stock Insurance Company of Tacoma, and sent on paper of the Democratic party of Washington. It is as follows:
[Facsimile.]
Aug. 1, 1894.
My Dear Sir: To assist in the preliminary work for our forthcoming state convention and the campaign to follow, I have been directed to request from you a voluntary contribution of $10 in the form of a bank check or postal order, payable to the order of Henry Drum, chairman and ex-officio treasurer. Please remit by return mail in the enclosed envelope. A prompt refusal of this request is better than uncertainty and delay. The amount asked for is a very small sum. I am, sir, yours truly, W. H. Hazzard.
P.S.—Don't fail to make remittance payable to the order of Henry Drum, and send in the enclosed envelope. W. H. H.
This letter was read by O. Erickson, the Republican postmaster at Bothell, and that is how it leaked out. Several months ago Mr. Hazzard offered, in consideration of money to be paid to him, to secure Mr. Erickson's retention in office. Mr. Erickson did not feel inclined to give up that sum for such a shadowy benefit, and the appointment of a Democratic successor followed, no doubt through Mr. Hazzard's exertions. The party assessor seems to have forgotten how slow the postoffice department is to make transfers and to have imagined that the man of his choice was now in possession. Hence he "struck" the postmaster for a small contribution, with the result that the scheme has been given away.
Really Mr. Hazzard should keep more careful record of the official changes in the state or the Democratic committee will have to find a new assessor.
“A prompt refusal of this request is better than uncertainty and delay.”
Political money and clumsy patronage deals are as old as Washington elections; this 1894 letter reads like a modern opposition-research dump. The detail that sinks Hazzard is not the ask but the paper trail—party stationery, an insurance envelope, and a postmaster who kept the receipt.
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