The Walla Walla Election and the Railroad Machine
A political autopsy of the city election, where local rivalries collided with state-wide influence and the power of railroad interests.
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 Walla Walla election is practically the only topic of political conversation in the state. Now that the shock of battle has cleared away, a few remarks are in order. The election was a triumph for Governor McBridge and the railroad commission. Four out of six men on the Ankeny ticket were defeated. Newspaper dispatches reported that George H. Stevenson, Mr. Ankeny's senatorial campaign manager and head of the railroad machine, went to Walla Walla, accompanied by his henchman, Senator 'Link' Davis of Tacoma, in an attempt to stem the tide. When Stevenson personally mixed in, the importance the railroad crowd attached to this local contest was clear. The Ankeny people made a grievous error by permitting his personality to get tangled up in the fight for local petty offices. Had Mr. Ankeny's people not acknowledged that his fortunes and home standing were involved, the so-called 'boxers' might have elected their candidates without causing a ripple. The result means that Governor Miles C. Moore, after years of political inactivity, has once more become a positive, aggressive factor in the politics of the state, and Senator Ankeny will probably stay at home in the future, for the late row has proven that the politics of the county is not big enough to hold both of them.
“The late row has proven that the politics of the county is not big enough to hold both of them.”
This 1903 election post-mortem captures a moment when local civic battles were inextricably tied to state-wide corporate lobbying. The 'railroad machine' influence echoes modern concerns about how national or outside corporate interests can overwhelm local municipal governance.
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