The Shadowy Franchise Fight
After accusations of a $132,000 bribe, the Tacoma City Council is forced into a formal inquiry over the Independent Telephone Company’s franchise bid.
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 Times has stirred up a bribery investigation in the city council that may lead to some startling exposures of corruption. On Friday, July 29, this paper first called attention to the peculiar actions of certain councilmen in connection with the fight being made by the Independent Telephone company to secure a franchise. Councilman Conrad had claimed that a representative of the Independent company, Frank Mortimer, offered him three thousand shares of stock, which Mortimer agreed to convert into cash at $44 per share—a total bribe of $132,000. Conrad initially brought an affidavit of these claims to City Hall, using it as a quiet lever to force another councilman, Bellingham, to flip his vote against the franchise. Bellingham, shocked by the disclosure of 'boodling,' voted against the measure, causing the Independent company’s bid to fail nine to seven. Following the vote, Bellingham demanded a full bribery investigation, a move which the council reluctantly ordered.
“If either of the contesting companies has resorted to bribery to gain a victory over the other, the facts should be brought to light and placed in the hands of the public prosecutor.”
Public utilities and the massive amounts of money flowing into municipal franchises have been a source of tension in Tacoma since the city's early days. The spectacle of council members using bribery allegations as political ammunition rather than for genuine clean government is a recurring theme in local governance.
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