The Political Feud Over Adam Schmidt’s Perjury Conviction
A fiery local editorial clash exposes the bitter rift between competing political machines in Walla Walla.
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 Yakima Democrat responded to an attack from the Walla Walla Argus, an Ankeny political organ, regarding the perjury conviction of Adam Schmidt. The Argus had criticized the Democrat for its sarcastic coverage of the trial, where Judge Hanford sentenced Schmidt to six years in prison. The Democrat defended its reporting, noting that Schmidt was widely known to be protected by Senator Ankeny, who acted as one of his bondsmen and benefited from Schmidt's political activity. The editorial went further to mock the editor of the Argus, accusing him of abandoning his former role as a reform journalist in favor of serving the Ankeny political machine.
“It is also a matter of common knowledge that the man was 'guilty as charged.' It is also a matter of common knowledge that the man was protected by Senator Ankeny and his friends.”
This reflects the volatile nature of early 20th-century 'party-line' journalism, where papers functioned as mouthpieces for specific political figures rather than independent arbiters of truth. Today's hyper-partisan media landscape mirrors this era's structure, where the credibility of local news was often secondary to the political agendas of the owners.
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