The Political Departure from North Yakima
Defeated political candidates poke fun at their own misfortune through a satirical account of leaving town after a failed election cycle.
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.
City of Disappointment, County of Blighted Hopes, November 11, 1892. The ship 'Despair' left North Yakima harbor November 9, 1892, with T. M. Vance, captain; F. D. Eshelman, second officer; W. A. Cox, porter, and Joseph Stephenson, cook. The treasurer-elect, seeing our sad condition, came forward and handed us a deck of cards and a bottle of Kentucky's best, which he said he had won on a bet that he would carry the North Yakima precinct. Poor Cox sat in a corner adding up the other fellows' majorities, while supposing he had just taken an account of stock in his large store. With the cards given us by George, and our bottle by our side, we have been taught how to play draw poker, and Foster and Coe are now traveling as 'professionals' in this land of defunct political tricksters. I am wont to exclaim with all my soul, 'the American eagle is a humbug and the American voter a bum bugger.' Yours until 1894, F. D. Eshelman, late democratic candidate for county auditor, who failed for want of votes.
“The American eagle is a humbug and the American voter a bum bugger.”
Post-election bitterness is a perennial feature of the American landscape, though modern grievances are usually shared on social media rather than through satirical letters to the local paper. F. D. Eshelman’s dark humor serves as a reminder that political identity in Yakima has always been a high-stakes, often bruising, local affair.
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