The Minister Who Called the A.P.A. a Political Machine—and Named Names
Rev. William Carnes says he quit Seattle’s A.P.A. lodge after it was used to carry secret school-board charges and promote candidates for sheriff, commissioner and coroner.
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.
Rumors had been circulating for several days that Rev. William Carnes, formerly secretary of the A. P. A. lodge meeting in the Hinckley Block, had been driven out of the order rather than resigning voluntarily. Mr. Carnes indignantly denied this. In an interview with a Post-Intelligencer reporter yesterday afternoon he gave his reasons for severing his connection with the A. P. A. and threw considerable light on the order’s recent movements. He said:
“It is a lie that I was forced out of the order. I left of my own choice, and for reasons I do not make secret. I think the principles of the A. P. A. right, but I will have nothing to do with it when a few schemers try to make it a political machine. As secretary I was blamed personally for what was done against Prof. Wilson and Miss Johnson of the public schools. As a matter of fact the lodge ordered Wilson’s doings looked up, and President H. H. Butterfield appointed W. S. Peet and one other man as a committee. I remonstrated, and the president replied with an oath that they would do as well as anyone else. After their report was made I was ordered to forward charges to the school board under the seal of the association and required to represent the association in person. I had nothing to do with the matter personally, although I was a cat’s-paw for other men in the matter. I soon saw that Butterfield, Dr. W. A. Egbert and I. P. Calhoun were walking around and giving people the impression that they carried the vote of the A. P. A. in their pockets. It was as plain a violation of the principles of the order as could be imagined, for in character the organization is supposed to be non-political. I looked upon Butterfield and the others mentioned as nothing more than political schemers, who were using the order to further their own ends. I then set to work to get Butterfield out of his position as president and did it. I suggested that we all resign and we did. I was not a candidate for re-election, but Butterfield was, and he was defeated. I don’t deny that I worked against him. After this I voluntarily retired from the order. I still have friends in it and believe in its principles, but until it is run differently I don’t want anything more to do with it. I fought before the primaries and from the outside of the convention against Butterfield, who wanted to be sheriff, Calhoun for county commissioner and Dr. Egbert for coroner. They beat me in the Eighth Ward primary fight and I don’t deny that, but I do deny that I was kicked out of the order.”
“I was a cat’s-paw for other men in the matter.”
Then as now, a secretive political organization could turn school-board charges and party primaries into a loyalty test. Carnes’s complaint—that a “non-political” order was being used as a machine—is the kind of backroom story that still surfaces when factions fight over schools and nominations. The A. P. A. itself was a nativist, anti-Catholic order; the story is less about its principles than about how those principles were weaponized.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.