The Political Gossip That Almost Toppled a Judge
In an era of vicious party-line journalism, a Seattle editor defends his local officials against accusations of being 'copper-heads' and 'carpet-baggers,' echoing today’s heated partisan discourse.
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.
All the attacks upon, and denunciations of Judge Lewis, by the Intelligencer, for appointing a 'copper-head' clerk, are now declared by the same paper to be utterly without foundation in truth; substantially, malicious lies. The man who was then denounced as a 'copper-head' for the purpose of assaulting the party integrity of Judge Lewis, the same paper now positively asserts was at that very time 'just as black a Republican as they ever make them;' though the individual alluded to never on any occasion or under any circumstances professed to be anything but a Democrat in politics, was recognized as a Democrat by the Judge at the time of his appointment and throughout his term of office, and openly announced his support of Tilden through the journal of which he was then the only responsible editor. So much for the veracity as well as consistency of a political nondescript whose statements and politics are like the auctioneer's suspenders: 'Long enough for any man, short enough for any boy, and warranted a perfect fit!' We can but repeat the police warning: 'Beware of mock auctions!'
“So much for the veracity as well as consistency of a political nondescript whose statements and politics are like the auctioneer's suspenders: 'Long enough for any man, short enough for any boy, and warranted a perfect fit!'”
This 1878 editorial highlights the volatile state of Seattle’s early political media, where newspapers functioned less as objective observers and more as partisan weapons. Much like today’s fractured media landscape, the 'Intelligencer' used inflammatory labels—like 'copper-head' (a pro-Confederate sympathizer) or 'carpet-bagger' (an outsider)—to undermine civic trust, showing that the struggle for accurate information is a founding tradition of the city.
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