A Mayor's Political Shell Game
Mayor Ronald's chaotic rotation of city employees is exposed as a cynical play to settle political debts and nepotism.
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.
There is an impression that Mayor Ronald has discovered a new way to pay off political debts. There are not enough offices to go around, and he has planned to let them out to all he promised places to and allow each man to enjoy a brief term. Dubose Fitten has had his term and now he is fired, to make room for Joe Gavin, whose experience as hydraulic engineer and soap manipulator at the Hamman baths, is held to especially qualify him for the position of assistant superintendent of the water department. Fitten's fate is rather a hard one. He applied for the position of street commissioner, but Mayor Ronald slated him for the position of superintendent of water-works. Fitten's fitness was not the point to be considered, but the necessity of finding enough places to go around.
“Fitten's fitness was not the point to be considered, but the necessity of finding enough places to go around.”
The practice of using public departments to settle political debts or fulfill promises to loyalists is a persistent shadow in municipal government. This account reveals how Seattle's administrative bodies struggled under the weight of patronage over a century ago.
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