Political spoils system triggers scandal at Yakima reservation
A Union veteran and agency worker is fired and replaced by a Confederate soldier after refusing to contribute to a Democratic party campaign fund.
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.
Representative Wilson brought a grievance to the House regarding the dismissal of William H. Embree, a Union soldier who served as a carpenter at the Yakima Indian reservation. Embree was fired after failing to contribute $30 to the Yakima County Democratic Committee for political purposes. His replacement was a Confederate soldier, an act Wilson framed as a betrayal of the administration's 'home rule' platform. Correspondence read in the House showed the county committee explicitly threatening employees to secure funding for representatives. Despite the outrage, the Secretary of the Interior approved the permanent change, citing alleged negligence by the dismissed veteran.
“Alaric and his Goths would have blushed with shame at demanding money from any old man, a Union soldier, out of his $40 per annum.”
This story exposes the 'spoils system' of the 1890s, where federal jobs were used as political currency. It serves as a stark reminder of the influence of post-Civil War identity politics on even the most remote federal agencies in Washington State.
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