The Six Who Vanished: Tacoma’s Senatorial Scandal and the Art of Political Silence

THE SIX ARE SILENT After Kuril Vain Agnizing the "Generals Rest"

STUDY OF TACOMA HEADLINES.

Jan. 25. —[Special.]— The six leaders who led the Calkins cohorts to ignominious defeat in the late senatorial war have not been heard from for a day and a half, and it is to be presumed that the public will be allowed to rest undisturbed for awhile by the effusive official bulletins of these great men and mighty warriors. There are many things connected with the insidious history of the late fight that the public would like to know about, and if these literary fighters would vary the public a little and give a few inside secrets, they would find attentive and interested listeners.

Nor are Mr. Calkins' organs in Tacoma at all likely to shed any light on this or any other question touching the senatorial question. Judge Calkins' campaign, say his various champions, was conducted without dishonest use of money, patronage or trades. Not to mention the Metcalfe incident, it is notorious that the entire fight of Calkins was based upon malicious abuse of Senator Squire and by offers of trades and combinations, personally suggested; and urged by the great moral candidate himself.

Every member of the legislature who was closeted with Judge Calkins, and whose vote there seemed a fair chance to secure, knows this statement to be exactly true. The Calkins managers believed they had a majority of the Senate, and, to members east of the mountains interested in railroad legislation, the offer to assist a railroad measure through the Senate in consideration of a vote for Calkins was directly made. The main effort of the Calkins managers was to find out the pet measure of a member and then make a play to secure his vote through an open offer of assistance or implied threat of resistance. This programme was carried out boldly from beginning to end.

The Tacoma papers have been riddled since election with continued vilification of Senator Squire and of his managers for the "contemptible trick" by which Squire was elected, referring to the Metcalfe incident. They claim that it cost Calkins ten votes and the election. The friends of Senator Squire and all the public would be much interested in knowing who the ten men are, who, under other circumstances, would have voted for Calkins. It may be seriously doubted if the exposure by Metcalle had the slightest influence on the war or the other. The affair was of course highly sensational, but, after the first excitement the election proceeded in precisely the same manner it would have proceeded otherwise.

It is a little edifying to read the Tacoma papers of a week before the election and now. The paper of January 19 announces: "Squire is not in it." Some say that he can get forty votes. It has lost weight against the candidate's methods. Calkins gains heavily." Last Wednesday, three days before the election, the same paper says: "It looks like Squire." Thursday, the same paper says: "Never let the show blacks the on the First Ballot. And We Are Not the Only Ones Needed." Wednesday, they are not.

In striking contrast to the estimate of the Calkins boomers which a week before showed Calkins forty and Squire thirty, the actual claims of Mr. Squire, who said that Squire would receive sixty votes and Calkins thirty. The great difference between Mr. Squire's methods and the Calkins boomers this Mr. Squire knew what he was talking about; the Calkins managers did not.

One thing more about this late senatorial fight: The Tacoma organs have attempted to place on trial the investigating committee which investigated the Calkins bribery case. They declare in better tones that it is composed of two Senators, one friend to Calkins and two Democrats. The Tacoma organs, therefore, seem to expect that Clarke will not get a show, and impugn the motives and honesty of every member of the Committee. The composition of the committee is exactly as it should be, conspicuously and honestly. Messrs. Adams, county; Messrs. A. K., from Pierce, and the two Democrats Bowman and Holt—from and at human Kennedy, the chairman, who has so long been attacked in an open and covert manner since the investigation, being compelled to go into open house during the week, a report, side circulated, that he had declined to call the committee together, attempting to defeat the investigation until after the senatorial fight had passed.

So thus Squire's victory is secure. The Tacoma press has been silenced by the weight of facts and the silence of its own leaders.