The Midnight Flight of a Telephone Lobbyist
A franchise promoter vanishes before a bribery investigation, leaving behind a locked room and a trail of conflicting telegrams.
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.
Frank Mortimer, promoter for the Independent Telephone company, which had been seeking a franchise in Tacoma, hurriedly left town shortly before midnight last night after the city council ordered an investigation into bribery charges. Mr. Mortimer departed in such haste on the 11:45 train for Portland that he left his valise, papers, and other effects behind in his room at the Bay View Hotel. Councilman Conrad had sworn that Mortimer offered him a bribe to influence the franchise vote. When Mrs. J. W. Clark, proprietress of the hotel, investigated the room, she found it in wild disorder with a razor still lathered. Shortly after she discovered his documents had been mysteriously stolen from the locked room, Mortimer sent telegrams to various parties with conflicting instructions on his whereabouts. The city council has since formed a committee to subpoena witnesses and get to the bottom of the attempted boodling.
“Things looked decidedly black for Mr. Mortimer, who had left the state between suns, just before an investigation was to take place.”
Public suspicion of utility franchise deals and backroom lobbying remains a staple of civic discourse in Tacoma. This story captures the precarious nature of early 20th-century municipal governance, where a single accusation could trigger a flight from the city and a full-scale political scandal.
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