The Partisan Vitriol Against J. Hamilton Lewis
The Post-Intelligencer launches a scathing attack on gubernatorial candidate J. Hamilton Lewis, labeling him an 'unscrupulous charlatan' and a 'political street fakir.'
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.
In a late issue, Mr. Mac Curdy of Port Townsend convicted Mr. J. Hamilton Lewis of most astonishing ignorance or deliberate falsification of well-known tariff facts. The speech delivered by Mr. Lewis at Port Townsend was characteristic of its author, who is nothing but a fluent political fakir and unscrupulous charlatan. Mr. Lewis, whether his topic is political, literary or social, is always a demagogue. There is not an intelligent, reading man in either party who could not without preparation make ducks and drakes of any public address delivered by J. Hamilton Lewis. He never loses an opportunity to prejudice the poor against the rich or to array labor against capital. If he is sincere, he is the most ignorant man that ever aspired to public office, and if he is insincere, he is one of the very cheapest and shallowest political fakirs that beat the air with bosh and buncombe from Port Townsend to San Diego.
“Lewis would make a good adjutant general on the staff of Governor Pennoyer, of Oregon, but the governor of Washington ought to be something better than a cross between a political street fakir and man-milliner in politics.”
This represents the intensely personal and aggressive tone of late 19th-century political journalism. It illustrates the 'machine' politics and partisan polarization of the era, where character assassination was a standard campaign tactic.
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