The U.S. Senate Seat That Stalled Olympia
With Republicans split over Wilson and Ankeny, Pierce County played a double game and the governor's message shoved the Senate election to the back of the room.
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.
Olympia, Jan. 15.—Special.—The governor's message has been the topic of the evening, and the senatorial question seems to have been temporarily shelved. There are several new arrivals, among the more notable being ex-Gov. Miles C. Moore, Andrew F. Burleigh and C. H. Ellmer, of Colfax. The two calls for a caucus have dropped into oblivion. Wilson's attempt to get up a partial caucus in his own interest has hurt him by making the members suspicious. His friends refused to sign the caucus for the entire Republican delegation, and so demonstrated their insincerity. Even so good a friend of his as Senator Dykebach expresses the conviction that the caucus should be full. There are eighty-one Republicans. It would therefore take forty-one to form a majority. Mr. Ankeny is willing to go into such a caucus, as the result would be conclusive. Whenever eighty-one Republicans will go in and agree that it shall take forty-one votes to nominate, he is ready to submit his claims. Unless the Republicans are to be bound by caucus decision, nothing can be gained by attempting to anticipate the roll call of the legislature. Any effort to hold one except upon these broad lines would be subject to the suspicion of a trick.
Although McQuiltin, Belknap, Allen, Turner and Judge Blake are on the ground, it cannot be said that any one of them has declared his candidacy, and it is unfair to assume that all of them contemplate being candidates.
A funny incident in connection with the caucus rule is that when the Pierce county Republicans last night held one they voted by secret ballot, although they insist that the main caucus shall have open ballot. They took a vote which resulted as follows: Wilson 5, Jones 2, Ankeny 2, Pritchard 1, Belknap 1, E. W. Taylor 1. The result was a surprise to the Wilson people, who have been claiming all the Pierce men except two and possibly three.
It is absolutely false that the Ankeny people desire a secret caucus. They only insist that the full vote shall be polled. Hatch of King, who lives on Maury's island, has taken his seat with the Pierce county delegation, and declares his intention to act with them and to vote for Wilson. This is only one more indication that Pierce is less interested in Wilson than in combining against King, and Wilson is the best means at hand.
“It is absolutely false that the Ankeny people desire a secret caucus. They only insist that the full vote shall be polled.”
Before the 17th Amendment, U.S. senators were chosen by state legislatures, turning Olympia into a pressure chamber of caucuses and regional grudges. The 1895 deadlock over Wilson and Ankeny is a reminder that procedural fights over who gets to choose a senator can freeze everything else.
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