The Mardi Gras Con Job
Tacoma's city government is accused of selling out to a traveling troupe of mediocre performers after being warned by Seattle newspapers.
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.
The Mardi Gras Carnival that opened in Tacoma last evening is nothing more than an aggregation of wandering sideshows and acrobats, and they are very poor ones at that. The city authorities allowed this money-grabbing outfit to set up on a paltry license fee of $5 per day, while charging the Floto circus $85 for a single day. In addition to this rank discrimination, the city provided them with electric lights for a week for $120, then spent $75 of that money on poles and wires. The city council allowed the Mardi Gras to come here despite warnings from Seattle newspapers. The strategy of this group is to find reputable local organizations, like unions, to sponsor them, but Tacoma unions refused to participate. Several local politicians, however, saw a chance to make money and induced the city government to back the venture, dragging the police and fire departments into a parade that turned out to be a great frost. The floats were cheap stage scenery on trucks, the attractions inside the tents were fraudulent, and those who went in search of 'big doings' quickly learned that they themselves were being 'done.'
“Those who went in pursuit of it soon learned that instead of finding the 'big doin's' they themselves were being 'done.'”
This 1904 report highlights a persistent Tacoma dynamic: the collision between boosterism, political patronage, and the city’s struggle to maintain standards against transient promoters. The skepticism regarding 'reputable' branding by private ventures remains a hallmark of local civic discourse.
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