The Primary That Ended in a Chokehold
In Ellensburg, a fight over a supreme court nomination turned a Populist primary into a brief, violent farce—and threatened to split the party before the fall election.
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.
Ellensburg, Sept. 1. — [Special.] — The Populist primaries here ended in a row, and knives are being whetted for a general slaughter of the ticket. Ever since Ready was nominated for the supreme bench there has been a wide breach and a bitter fight in the ranks. This was intensified by the action of the Ready faction in freezing out all opposition at the primaries. They kept the polls open only half an hour, and when one W. W. Stone, a minister, of the anti-Ready party, undertook to electioneer for his crowd, the chairman of the Populist county committee, Windy Green, attacked him and after severely choking him was pulled off. Green weighs 240 pounds, while Stone weighs only 88. Green was arrested, pleaded guilty and paid a fine. The affair created intense excitement, and the Populists are greatly worried over it. Many are threatening to cut loose from the party, and a number of the influential members declare openly that the party is disrupted beyond all hope, and now say the Populists will not be in it in the fall election.
“Green weighs 240 pounds, while Stone weighs only 88.”
A party primary collapsing into a physical fight over candidate selection has a distressingly familiar ring. The details are local and almost comic—240 pounds against 88—but the underlying story is about factional control of the nominating process and the violence that can flare when members believe the game is rigged.
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