The Fake Telegram That Almost Started a Diplomatic Incident
A bored telegraph operator in Blaine sparked a scandal after forging a message from Secretary of State James G. Blaine to a town assembly, causing embarrassment for local officials and leading to an investigation by the Pacific Postal Telegraph Company.
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 origin of the telegram purporting to have come from Secretary of State James G. Blaine, which was read by Mayor Cornish at the meeting at the Blaine opera-house after the spike-driving ceremony on the boundary, has been discovered. The supposed telegram was the work of a man named Gerrish and was written with a typewriter on Postal Telegraph blanks by the operator at Blaine, P. D. Harkness. Mr. Harkness claims that the document was brought to him to be copied, and that he inadvertently used Postal Telegraph blanks for the purpose. However, Mayor Cornish states that the people of Blaine are indignant and will push the complaint against Harkness, noting that this was the second such bogus telegram emanating from that office. The Pacific Postal Telegraph Company has launched a formal investigation into the breach of their strict rules regarding the use of company stationery.
“The dispatch was brought to us at the meeting by the Postal Telegraph messenger and we accepted it in good faith, supposing it to be genuine. Now we find that a trick was played by Pete Harkness.”
In an era of deepfakes and viral misinformation, this 1891 incident serves as a reminder that the forgery of 'official' communications to manipulate public sentiment or settle petty scores is a recurring civic anxiety. The struggle to verify information in real-time remains as volatile today as it was when the Blaine telegraph office became the center of a diplomatic hoax.
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