The 'Mayor of Little St. Petersburg' Faces Perjury Charges
A political operative is arrested in Walla Walla for allegedly padding voter rolls with illegal naturalizations of Russian laborers.
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.
Adam Smith, known as the 'Mayor of Little St. Petersburg' and deep in the councils of the Burford-Smails machine in matters political, was arrested at his home at noon today by Deputy United States Marshal Short of Yakima. The charge preferred against Smith is perjury and brings to light what appears to have been a wholesale attempt to vote members of the Russian colony at the coming city election, who, it is alleged, had been granted naturalization papers by false testimony as to the length of time they had resided in the United States. The specific case is that of Henry Humburg, a Russian laborer, who with 12 other Russians took out their final papers ten days ago in time to register at the city election. Humburg, it is stated, has confessed that his papers were illegally obtained by the false testimony of Smith and George Gradwohl as witnesses, who swore he had been a resident of the United States for five years, whereas he had in reality come to this country in October, 1898. According to his own statements he could not legally obtain his final papers until next October. Smith was taken before Court Commissioner H. B. Strong, who placed his bonds at $1,000 for the preliminary trial tomorrow morning. Senator Ankeny and Asa LeCrow went his surety.
“The charge preferred against Smith is perjury and brings to light what appears to have been a wholesale attempt to vote members of the Russian colony.”
This 1903 case highlights how local political machines once manipulated naturalization status to manufacture voting blocks. It reflects an era where 'immigrant labor' was a tool for municipal power, a historical friction point that remains highly relevant to modern debates over urban representation and civic identity in Walla Walla.
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