A $5,000 Check and a Textbook Vote: the Supreme Court Says the Bribery Case Must Be Tried
Book agents accused of buying a state school-board vote with a five-thousand-dollar check get their indictment reinstated — and the case heads back to a Thurston County jury.
The supreme court has rendered a decision in the famous school-book bribery case, reversing the judgment of the lower court which sustained the demurrer. This is the case in which J. W. Womack and R. L. Edwards, book agents, and M. C. Sullivan and E. O. Eames, detectives, were charged with attempting to bribe a member of the state board of education by offering a check for $5,000 in order to secure the reconsideration of a vote by which certain text books had been adopted.
The supreme court thinks the indictment sufficient and that the lower court erred in sustaining the demurrer. Judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded with instructions to again proceed to trial.
The witnesses for the state were C. O. Eames, L. H. Leach, E. S. Ingraham, C. A. Noble, R. B. Bryan, E. P. Ferry, B. W. Brintnall, L. E. Follansbee, C. A. Tiffany, R. L. Edwards, D. G. Parker, M. C. Sullivan, Charles J. Thomas, Charles E. Laughton, Bertha M. Denton, C. M. Barton and W. K. Esling.
The cause will come up for trial this month in the Thurston county court. Judge Fremont Campbell heard the cause at the last trial. The opinion is written by Judge Dunbar, Judges Hoyt and Scott concurring.
“Charged with attempting to bribe a member of the state board of education by offering a check for $5,000 in order to secure the reconsideration of a vote by which certain text books had been adopted.”
A textbook contract, a $5,000 check and a state board vote — the ingredients of the 1892 school-book scandal are uncomfortably familiar. Washington's supreme court refused to let the charge die, ordering the case back for trial instead of letting a technical objection bury it. Curriculum and textbook adoptions are still fought over in courtrooms and statehouses, and the question of who gets to buy influence over what children read has not gone away.
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