A Special Train, 130 Stalled Homesteads, and a Vote That Didn't Count
The Interior Department has frozen some 130 homestead entries in the Walla Walla land district — and men who rode a chartered train to Franklin County to vote last year now find their residency there questioned. The ticket they backed lost anyway.
The holding up of about 130 homestead entries in this land office district by the secretary of the interior leads some men to fear that they have lost their right to vote at several elections in Walla Walla county for nothing. Moreover, the hiring of a special train to take Levites over to Franklin county to vote last year may have been a waste of time and money, as many of those who voted as residents of Franklin county now find their bona fide residence there questioned by a good republican administration. The principal object of the trip was to elect the Ankeny-Stevenson candidate for the legislature, but as the democratic candidate was elected, the expensive excursion was an instance of love's labor and Levi's money lost.
“The expensive excursion was an instance of love's labor and Levi's money lost.”
Contesting a voter's residence is the oldest trick in the American election manual, and 1903 Walla Walla had it down to a chartered train: move the men, swear the address, cast the ballot. The punchline is that the Interior Department's freeze on 130 homestead claims shows how thin the line was between land title and voting rights on the frontier — and how quickly a 'good republican administration' could question a residency it had happily accepted a year earlier.
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