The Political Bazaar of 1891: How the Calkins Faction Tried to Buy the Senate
In a frantic scramble to seize power, legislative 'strikers' in Olympia flooded the capital with promises of patronage and political favors, mirroring the high-stakes, behind-the-scenes maneuvering that still defines state politics.
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.
The smoke of battle has lifted a little after the first hot skirmish that attended the meeting of the legislature, and the political atmosphere is becoming much clearer. The Calkins faction has made a spirited attack upon the Squire column, and has been repulsed with damaging effect. It is well known that Senator Squire has made actual gains of strength during the past few days. The tactics of the opposition have been to win votes from the majority by pledges of all sorts of beneficial legislation, federal patronage, and every sort of device known to wily politicians. No member of the legislature need go away from the Calkins headquarters without a promise. The Calkins strikers have a job lot of pledges, promises, and patronage that they retail with little discrimination and less judgment. A member must be hard to please indeed if he fails to draw what he wants in the Calkins lottery.
“The Calkins strikers have a job lot of pledges, promises, and patronage that they retail with little discrimination and less judgment.”
The 1891 battle for the U.S. Senate seat in Washington perfectly captures the 'patronage politics' of the Gilded Age. While the specific mechanism—handing out state jobs and committee favors in dingy backrooms—has evolved into modern lobbying and PAC spending, the core struggle over who holds the levers of power remains as fiercely contested in Olympia today as it was 130 years ago.
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