Ballard's Political Brawl
A heated public feud between a city councilman and the mayor spills into the pages of the local press.
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.
At the meeting of the council at Ballard last evening, the mayor referred to a communication published in the Ballard Enterprise by Councilman A. McDonald, in which he accused his colleagues of looting the city treasury. The mayor, who considered the Enterprise a 'despised sheet,' demanded that McDonald prove his charges. McDonald pointed to the city printing contract, which the mayor maintained was awarded to the lowest bidder. The dispute grew increasingly ridiculous as fellow councilmen expressed indignation, and the editor of the Enterprise, P. F. Morrow, attempted to intervene as a champion for the councilman, only to be ordered to sit down by the mayor.
“The mayor said in substance that anything that might occur in that contemptible sheet, the Ballard Enterprise, he considered as unworthy of notice.”
Local municipal squabbles between mayors and council members over public contracts remain a staple of city politics. This incident highlights how 19th-century papers were often openly partisan, serving as weapons for factions within the city government.
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