A Candidate's Pitch for 'Efficiency'
Practicing attorney D. V. Morthland visits White Bluffs to promote his campaign for State Senator, promising government reform.
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D. V. Morthland, candidate for the Republican nomination for senator for Yakima and Benton counties, was in White Bluffs and Hanford this week in the interests of his candidacy. Mr. Morthland is a young man, 36 years old, and a practising attorney in North Yakima, being the junior member of the firm of Davis & Morthland. 'If nominated and elected, I hope to be a useful and active member of the legislature in the interest of efficiency in business and government; economy in both public administration and private life and prosperity and development in all parts of our great state,' said Mr. Morthland. Mr. Morthland thinks that our taxes are away out of all proportion to the benefits received and that if some of the state affairs were differently managed more efficiency could be had at a great deal less expense.
“I hope to be a useful and active member of the legislature in the interest of efficiency in business and government.”
The language of 'efficiency' in government and 'tax burden' is a hallmark of political discourse in Washington state that persists unchanged more than a century later. Morthland's platform highlights the perennial struggle of rural districts to secure infrastructure like irrigation, a core political issue in the Benton County region.
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