The Political Price of a Brother’s Seat
Tacoma residents accuse Congressman F. W. Cushman of trading the city's federal bench appointment for his own brother's gain.
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.
Congressman F. W. Cushman sold out the people to get a stand-in with the machine by voting for Joe Cannon and all he represents in obstruction to needed legislation. Now he has sold out his home city to get a life job for his brother on the federal bench in Alaska. In the meantime the people of his home city are strenuously signing petitions to President Taft demanding in the name of justice to Tacoma that a Tacoma man be elevated to the Federal bench here. But 'Cush' has forestalled the game, according to dispatches from Washington, by getting his brother a job on the bench in Alaska which gives Tacoma a mighty cheap notoriety and shuts the door of possible appointment for a Tacoma man to the federal bench here. And then 'Cush' agrees to have a Seattle man for the Tacoma judgeship. In the struggle against Seattle jealousy Tacoma stands little show when her own alleged representative plays into the hands of the King county gang for his own personal and family ends.
“In the struggle against Seattle jealousy Tacoma stands little show when her own alleged representative plays into the hands of the King county gang.”
This critique of cronyism and regional political power dynamics echoes a century of Tacoma's anxiety regarding its relationship with Seattle and federal representation. The grievance—that local interests were sidelined by a politician's personal leverage—is a recurring theme in Washington’s history of municipal frustration.
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