| "Vintage Reading® Stories Heard Over the Back Fence"
"How Beames Was Elected Coroner"
Adapted from an 1899 Short Story
By Rita Buday
JANUARY 2008 :: © 2008 Buday Books / Vintage Reading ® |
In
1883 Roy Beames arrived at Round Oak, Dakota Territory, with a
jaundiced outlook on frontier life, a foot-powered printing press, and some hand-set type, to start a
newspaper he called The Acorn "with a hard-hitting editorial policy that lets chips fall where they may" (though
the chips were few and far between).
That changed when citizens prepared to vote for the new county-seat
location, and to elect a new Coroner. Beames took his Acorn editorial axe in
both hands, showering chips by abusing and vilifying every man in the
rival town of Denton. He took special aim at Will Oldet, editor of the Denton Prairie News, who was given to writing obituaries Beames ridiculed as ending with "florid cloud-bursts of sorrow and tears."
The county-seat campaign was lively from the
start, though everyone complained about "mud-slinging" and "negative talk" in both papers, even as they stood
in line to buy the latest juicy newspapers' revelations.
News editor Oldet tried tit-for-tat by abusing and vilifying the citizens of Round Oak, but
he lacked Acorn's
arsenal of disparaging invectives. It was a pea-shooter versus 12-inch
guns; Round Oak's artillery outclassed Denton by several country miles and then some.
~
Electing the new Coroner was something else. For starters, the Coroner's only pay was the fee he charged for services if and when they were needed. But the fact was that Sitting Bull
County was
very peaceful; violent death was unknown. Since Coroner's services
were not needed, fees--and hence, pay--were nil.
Four years earlier when the County was organized, Doc Hadley was appointed
Coroner until someone else could be elected. Before the first
year ended, everybody in the County knew there was no money in it; therefore,
there were no candidates. It looked as though Doc Hadley was stuck with it
for the rest of his life.
~
This was News
editor
Oldet's golden opportunity for payback. He editorialized that Doc
Hadley was likely all worn out by failed expectations for rendering service; that
new blood was needed; and that citizens should put political rivalries
aside to elect their "esteemed and brilliant contemporary Roy Beames" as the
new Coroner. All this was done without his knowledge or consent, of course.
By the time Beames heard about it, his agitation was extreme; but by then it was a booming
bandwagon. All he could do was to "grin and bear it" when Oldet and
friends offered solemn congratulations. On election day Beames and his
Round Oak friends voted against Beames and for the county-seat at Round Oak.
His enemies at Denton, to a man,
voted for Beames and for the county-seat at Denton.
Round Oak-ers worried "that unscrupulous crowd"
at Denton might muster the most votes; so they found an 1872
Louisburg Directory and
freely voted three hundred Louisburg names, swelling Round Oak votes
to 'way over the actual population. They saw this as a necessary
device to locate the county-seat where it belonged.
Then they sat
on chairs and boxes at Acorn's
printing office to wait for election results. They leaned against the wall, the type-cases, the
paper cutter with that razor-sharp cutting blade, the
press--anything that promised to support weary political workers who
had done all they could.
About 9 p.m. a messenger rode up to announce Denton
tallied some 500 more votes than Round Oak! The assembled workers were
too disgusted even to swear. They just sat or leaned where they
were. At last, Beames broke the silence--"Great Scott! That
means I've been railroaded into being Coroner!"
"That's true," said the messenger. "Round Oak lost the County-seat, but you got a landslide for Coroner!"
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For the record, Beames refused the office which meant Doc Hadley remained Coroner. ||||| Several
months later it came out that for voting purposes, Denton had used an old New York City
directory; New York City being much larger than Louisburg, Denton won.
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