A $40 ‘Loan’ to a Judge Landed a Tacoma Editor in Jail
The Tacoma Evening Call’s W. A. Berry was arrested for criminal libel after allegedly saying Judge Fremont Campbell took $40 while Berry’s case was pending.
W. A. Berry, one of the proprietors of the Tacoma Evening Call, was arrested yesterday afternoon about 4 o’clock at his office, in the Fidelity Building, on the charge of criminal libel preferred by Judge Fremont Campbell, of the superior court. A warrant is also out for A. Partridge.
Berry, it is said, remarked that “Judge Campbell wants to borrow $100, and that as our case will come before him it will be policy to loan it even if we never get it back again. I told Campbell that I only had $40, and Campbell took that amount.”
““Judge Campbell wants to borrow $100, and that as our case will come before him it will be policy to loan it even if we never get it back again. I told Campbell that I only had $40, and Campbell took that amount.””
The arrest of an editor on a criminal libel charge—after he accused a judge of taking his money—captures a Gilded Age collision of press, courts and cash. Modern Washington still wrestles with judicial ethics and with legal threats aimed at journalists, though the venue has moved from the Fidelity Building to courtrooms and online.
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