Offices for a Senate Vote: The Backroom Deal in Jefferson County
A Democratic leader offers Populists half the county offices — and a customs-house appointment — if they will help elect Hugh Wallace to the U.S. Senate. Even party regulars call it a disgrace.
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.
PORT TOWNSEND, Aug. 24. [Special.]—The Jefferson County Democratic central committee met this afternoon in Mr. Tibbals’ private office, issued a call for a county convention and discussed the question of fusion with the Populists. The state central committee met last Monday, and as soon as Collector [name illegible] had conferred with the committee, Mr. Saunders politically controlled the situation.
Saunders favored fusion. He would like the Populists to indorse his legislative candidates, and in return thought it nothing more than proper for them to divide the county offices with the Populists. This official suggestion raised a breeze of indignant protests, but Mr. Saunders’ political whip-lash brought the recusants to time. Even Mr. Tibbals talked very straight. Finally, after much wrangling, it was determined to agitate the matter a little more and submit the question to the county convention for action.
After the meeting adjourned, Saunders, two of his deputies and two or three of the leading Populists were in private consultation.
A prominent Populist, who requested that his name be withheld for the present, said: “Mr. Saunders made us a fair offer. If we would indorse the Democratic legislative candidates, who would vote for Hugh Wallace for United States senator, the Jefferson County Democracy would divide the county offices equally with us. Nothing could be more fair than that. And he even went further and promised us the naming of a customs house appointment.”
The same authority says that Mr. Saunders’ representatives have made similar propositions to Populists in other lower Sound counties. The Kuhn-Tibbals forces realize that if Mr. Saunders wants fusion he will have it. He has the government patronage with which to accomplish his purposes, and the Democrats of Jefferson County fully realize and deeply deplore the disgrace the party leaders are heaping on their organization.
Strange as it may appear, after the meeting adjourned and Saunders’ action became street talk, stock in Kuhn’s congressional boom fell to zero. Democrats freely admit that if Kuhn is nominated for congress it will be after he has pledged his support to Messrs. Saunders and Wallace. That he will hardly do. Still he would like to have the nomination.
“If we would indorse the Democratic legislative candidates, who would vote for Hugh Wallace for United States senator, the Jefferson County Democracy would divide the county offices equally with us.”
Fusion tickets and patronage deals were ordinary Gilded Age politics; this story shows how county offices and federal appointments could be traded for a Senate vote. Modern coalition politics still turns on endorsements and plum appointments, though the bargaining is usually less visible.
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