Tacoma Councilmen Accused of Extorting Bank Loans in City Funds Scandal

The Tacoma Ledger of yesterday makes sensational charges against certain city officials. The Tacoma Evening Ledger says:

'Messrs. Baker and Hartman, members of the finance committee of the council, have had printed a card in which they pretend to deny certain rumors and insinuations that have been made during the past few days regarding the finance committee of the city council. As to print this afternoon where very few people would see it, as it was signed by only two of the five members of the committee, and for other reasons, it is worthy of special notice.

'These two of the five members of the committee take pains to say that they have not at any time received any money in the shape of a monthly allowance, or otherwise, in payment for services rendered to any bank holding city funds, and that we, as members of the city finance committee, court an investigation of our acts by any citizen or association of citizens, by the city council, and demand that any person or persons pretending to hold any proof of any such commission having been made, that they present such to the city council so that an investigation may be made by that body.

'If an investigation is to be made it ought to be made by some more competent authority than that of the city council. The information upon which the findings, whatever they may be, must be based ought not by any means to be submitted to the council. Let a special grand jury be called if an investigation is sought that will really amount to something, and the evidence, whatever it may be, be submitted to it. Let the jury call officers of the banks and compel them to tell who are extorting money from them on account of their indebtedness to the city, and in what amounts. It will be found that not only members of the council, but other people as well, have been after them, and with more or less success. Let the jury demand the agreement that was made between the finance committee and these banks and make it public. The public is a party in interest, and has a right to know how it stands after the agreement was made. If there is to be a want of evidence on the one side let the jury seek information from the city attorney and his assistant, the city comptroller, the city treasurer, and the mayor, all of whom were sufficiently near the transaction at the time it was made to know, or to think they knew, how the members of the finance committee benefited by the transaction. Let the jury find out from the treasurer how many members of this committee have applied to him for loans from the public funds, to how many of them he has explained the difficulty and impossibility of making loans, and how many of the demands have been pressed, notwithstanding explanations, or make him explain how it is he has complied with them. He will know whether or not it is true that the banks were to have paid the city interest on its deposits. If the members of this finance committee had kept the pledges made to the people when they were elected, they (the banks) would pay them a certain sum now and again, possibly once a month or so, to be distributed among the financiers. Possibly Mr. Lister and Mr. Hartman do not consider that "receiving any money in the shape of monthly loans."

'Then follows an attack on the personal integrity of Lister, Harris, Hartman, Alexander and Votaw, in which they are charged with extorting loans from banks and with making illegal gains. A circumstantial story is told of how the News got $1,000 out of two banks, one of them the Bank of Tacoma, for suppressing an article attacking them.'