The Price of Criticism
The editor and business manager of a Tacoma cartoon weekly are indicted and jailed after publishing claims that city officials and financiers were 'faking' municipal bond sales.
Editor James Cooper Wheeler and Business Manager J. H. Wells of the 'True Blue,' a cartoon weekly in Tacoma, were indicted and held in the county jail on $500 bail. The indictments followed an attack on the sale of county bonds, which the paper alleged were fraudulent. Wheeler had previously claimed that City Treasurer Boggs threatened to drive him out of town if he did not cease reporting on the city's financial management. The treasurer's office at the time characterized the publication as a 'blackmailing sheet.'
“Wheeler stated some time ago that City Treasurer Boggs warned him to stop libeling the city's financial management, or he would drive him out of town.”
This case underscores a perennial tension in local politics: the fine line between investigative journalism and the potential for libel or extortion. It serves as an early example of the 'booster' culture of 1890s Tacoma clashing with vocal, independent presses.
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