A Bribe Offer on the Witness Stand
A Tacoma gambling inquiry turned stranger when the police chief mentioned an attempted payoff—then declined to name names before Friday.
Tacoma, June 19.—Special.—When Chief of Police Thompson was on the witness stand in the council gambling investigation yesterday, he dropped a remark that a gambler had approached him and tried to bribe him. The chief said he was not prepared to tell who the man was, and protested that he had nothing to do with the present [gambling]. The committee will meet again Friday. If the man is not on hand at that time, [the committee is] prepared to give up the names.
The persons to be examined Friday are Mayor Orr, City Attorney Wickersham, Ed Flanigan of the Haymarket, and Assistant City Attorney Gibbs.
“The chief said he was not prepared to tell who the man was.”
A police chief testifying about gambling and an attempted bribe is a familiar civic-corruption story in any century. The Tacoma inquiry shows how much of the fight over vice was really a fight over who controlled city hall and its enforcement power.
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