The Newspaper Feud of 1876
A local editor’s blistering public breakdown of an auditor who dared to write letters to the editor.
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.
A man not heretofore distinguished for learning or profound thought, but who was generally respected and trusted in the common walks of life, became suddenly seized with a mania for writing for the newspapers, under the insane idea that with very limited education and no opportunities for study, he could controvert the conclusions of the most profound philosophers and writers upon the science of political economy. The multiplication of his contributions had become irksome to publishers and a matter of general protest on the part of their subscribers. Out of the most friendly personal regard for the writer, and only with the view of saving him from becoming a further butt of public ridicule, we made some jocular remarks upon his idiosyncrasy. At this he becomes as 'mad as a March hare,' and accuses us of a 'mean and scurrilous personal attack.' Mr. Booth assumes as the basis of all his arguments that the Government can create and maintain a currency from a substance of no intrinsic value. In conclusion, we will say that we have no desire or intention to injure Mr. Booth, but shall, as heretofore, support him in his present official position, with the ardent hope that he will not make himself an object of public ridicule by attempting what he has manifestly not the slightest capacity for.
“The multiplication of his contributions had become irksome to publishers and a matter of general protest on the part of their subscribers.”
Long before Twitter and comment sections, 19th-century newspaper editors engaged in brutal, long-form public feuds to gatekeep civic discourse. The 'Mr. Booth' mentioned here was a local official whose desire to weigh in on national monetary policy was treated by the press as a psychiatric failing—a reminder that the friction between local government transparency and institutional media gatekeeping has deep roots in Seattle.
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