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No Proper Job for a Stranger
No Proper Job for a Stranger: The Political Reign of Mark Braffet
BY NANCY J. TANIGUCHI
A JANUARY 1927 OBITUARY ANNOUNCING THE DEATH OF Mark Braffet recognized him "as a political power in Carbon County." This was a modest understatement For over a dozen years Braffet had virtually ruled the county by controlling the votes of the employees of the Utah Fuel Company, the major coal- mining subsidiary of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. From his power base in the legal department of UFC he manipulated first the judiciary and, later, city and court officials to meet his company's audacious political and financial goals.
Braffet's political career epitomized the kind of devotion described by his contemporary, the notorious George Washington Plunkitt of New York's Tammany Hall: "The politicians who make a lastin' success in politics are the men who are always loyal to their friends, even up to the gates of State prison, if necessary; men who keep their promises and never lie." In a more scholarly vein, political scientist V. O. Key identified the techniques of political graft as including bribery and extortion, control of public funds, biased legislation and selective enforcement, unequal administration of services, and "auto-corruption," or the self-enrichment of the boss himself Mark Braffet excelled at most of these in the heyday of his career, when a combination of political and economic forces enabled him to rule as Carbon County's "king."
Braffet maintained his ascendancy, enriching himself and his employers, until his "friends" turned on him. Local independent (nonrailroad-affiliated) coal operators could never permanently remove him from power, despite their alliance with the Progressive party, active as nationwide reformers in the early 1900s. He remained in command until corporate infighting eroded his power base. His acerbic presence etched an impression on Carbon County politics that long outlasted the man himself
Braffet was a man of decisive preferences who decided early on who his friends were. He joined the colorful crowd who exercised free rein in eastern Utah, often without benefit of law. When he arrived in Utah from Illinois in the late 1800s, he settled in Scofield, then one of Carbon County's largest towns. He began his local political career by serving as the first Carbon County clerk in 1894. Then he struck up a friendship with C. L. "Gunplay" Maxwell, a notorious outlaw of eastern Utah. In 1897 Braffet and Maxwell liberated accused thieves from the custody of the sheriff at Scofield. A year later the men parted; Braffet went to work as the Scofield telegraph operator for the D&RG and Maxwell soon wound up in the Utah State Penitentiary for his role in a Springville bank holdup where two men were killed. For a time Braffet sold Navajo blankets, then he went to law school, passed the Utah bar examination, and joined a law firm in Salt Lake City. However, he spent most of his time in Carbon County where he entered the legal department of the Utah Fuel Company upon its incorporation in 1901. There he met Cyrus "Doc" Shores, a Rio Grande special agent an d former lawman, whose involvement with railroad coal lands would later bring Braffet grief Braffet's easy movement through the twilight of the law's fringe epitomized the talents with which he would make his greatest impact"
Not long after Braffet officially joined the Utah Fuel administration, in 1903-4, a volatile coal miners' strike shook Carbon County. Disdainful of the strikers, Braffet personified the position of the anti-union Rio Grande. In a much-publicized trial he claimed to be "assisting the county attorney" when he confronted William H. King, later a U.S. congressman and senator, who was defending an accused union organizer. The defendant, also a trained attorney, proved a special target for Braffet's wrath when he branded one of his statements an outright lie. Braffet exploded, "You shut up! You make a few statements like that and there will be real trouble here." In the courtroom packed with Utah Fuel guards and other officials, the defense pleaded for an end to such intimidation. The organizer was found guilty. After the trial King declared, "I have never seen a place where the desire to railroad a man through to jail is so manifest.... There is not another place where an attorney for a corporation is supreme to the court."
However, Braffet could act with impunity. Not only was "Doc" Shores among the Utah Fuel guards, but also another friend. Gunplay Maxwell, had received a timely pardon that enabled him to return to Carbon County to serve as Braffet's bodyguard during the strike. Braffet and Maxwell, cradling their weapons, arrogantly posed for a photograph in front of Utah Fuel's Castle Gate bullpen, flanked by unarmed, striking miners. After the strike ended. Maxwell partnered Braffet in a mining venture, worked in various enterprises, and remarried. When the outlaw murdered a man in Carbon County in 1907, Braffet helped put up the $5,000 bail. Horrified local citizens protested his release, noting, "... before C. L. Maxwell left Price with his bondsman, M. P. Braffet, he procured firearms which he concealed about his person." Local residents expressed fear as to where and how he might use them. Maxwell's undoing finally came with his addiction to opium. In 1909 the outlaw met his fate at the end of a deputy sheriffs smoking gun. Braffet eulogized, "He was a bad man, but a good servant."
Many people would have said the same thing of Mark Braffet, particularly in the heated campaigns that characterized the rise of Progressive reforms nationwide during the years from 1900 to 1917. The Progressive impulse reached Utah somewhat later than other parts of the country. It arose in the state's eastern coal fields after an unsuccessful 1906 attempt by the U.S. Department of Justice to break the Rio Grande Trust, which ended in an out-of-court settlement in 1909. Ironically, the government's failure to control the trust, along with the Rio Grande's self-congratulatory reorganization, tightened the noose that would finally force local Progressives to challenge Braffet's control. But that development was still years away.
Naturally, the Rio Grande gloried in the clear title to the most valuable coal lands in Utah which it had won as the result of the out-of-court settlement Braffet's star rose accordingly. Among the company duties delegated him in 1909 were "all matters in relation to lands, water rights, etc. in Utah .... [also] looking after the political interests of the Company in Carbon County .... [and] aiding . . . County officials in regulating . . . liquor traffic in and about the Company's camps."
The monopolistic D&RG and its saloon-owning subsidiary, the Magnolia Trading Company, represented only two of the known evils in early twentieth-century America The decade and a half just prior to World War I has been labeled "progressive" by historians because of nationwide attacks on the sins of the day. It was under this banner that President Theodore Roosevelt's Justice Department had filed the original indictments against the Rio Grande mining subsidiaries. The compromise of these suits belied Roosevelt's success in other areas: in the much-touted Northern Securities Case of 1902, which disbanded a railroad monopoly, and in the passage of 1906 reform legislation that included the Pure Food and Drug Act, the American Antiquities Act, and the Hepburn Act which struck at the root of railroad monopoly in coal.
The state of Utah experienced its own flood of Progressive reforms, including in 1911 the Utah prohibition referendum. Ironically, its passage actually strengthened Braffet's hand as, alone among Utah's counties. Carbon went wet, making the vending of alcohol which he supervised even more lucrative than usual. Other reforms, initiated in Utah by the dominant Republican party, included laws regulating child and female labor, food purity, minimum wages, and the tax structure.
Elsewhere in the United States, the power of the political boss, such as Mark Braffet, was beginning to draw heavy fire. This impetus gained particular strength after Theodore Roosevelt's affiliation with the Progressive party in the election of 1912. But, as historian Robert Wiebe pointed out, "Most progressives had acted as if the bosses would of necessity disappear in the face of modernity. Instead, with an impressive display of resilience, these professionals emerged late in the decade more powerful than ever." He identified the states as the final bastion of bossism and corporations as their accomplices. This system persisted despite the urgings of celebrated muckrakers like Lincoln Steffens who called for "a finer plan, a nobler ideal, a higher vision" in the treatment of labor—the voters who traditionally powered political machines such as Braffet's. Utahns followed this national pattern of unconcern, more worried over possible electoral dominance by the hierarchy of the Mormon church than by the manipulation of corporate power. Furthermore, no lesser entity would attack the Rio Grande where the mighty federal government had failed. In the corners of Carbon County's coal camps, Braffet could pursue his interest undisturbed.
Like all coal corporations of the (early 1900 s, Utah Fuel dominated its company towns. The miners, living in company-owned houses, were in perennial debt to the high-priced company store and saloon. Prior to unionization in 1933, bosses' wishes carried the strength of law. Since the coal camps nestled at the mouth of the mines, miles distant from service centers like Price, the miners had little recourse to outside stores and services. Their only transportation link, prior to widespread automobile ownership during World War II, was the D&RG Railroad itself Obviously, company men would notice a miner returning from town with a kitchen table or a keg of blasting powder. The offender would then lose his job. Consequently, miners had to pay close attention to bosses' whims, to include voting as directed in carefully observed company balloting booths. This system, backed by the apparently uncontestable power of the Rio Grande, made Braffet the "king" of Carbon County.
In 1910, just one year after Braffet accepted his new political responsibilities, the first published objections to his election activities appeared. The public exchange over his power, carried in the pro- Braffet Eastern Utah Advocate and the opposition-controlled Carbon County News, provided an excellent indication of his political influence. "The good people of Scofield are tired of politics as conducted in Carbon County," one writer complained. "While we believe the Utah Fuel company ought to have representation, the people here are extremely tired of Utah Fuel Company interference in politics."
But such remarks by themselves could not stop Braffet In fact, just before the election, the Carbon County News reported "Politics are dead in Winter Quarters [the Utah Fuel mine adjacent to Scofield]. The Utah Fuel Co. has voluntarily raised the wages of miners and laborers." The coal camp then voted as the company wished, according to the newspaper's analysis, as the linking of pay scale to political preference had cowed the captive miners.
Nevertheless, the rivulets of opposition to the Braffet machine were beginning to converge. During the period of the federal suit against the Rio Grande, a number of independent coal operators had entered the eastern Utah coal fields. By 1912 they had grown sufficiently muscular to pit themselves against the "king." Under the Progressive banner they sought to break his political grip. An economic power struggle for control of Utah's coal had become political, and Braffet was the most visible target
This Progressive fervor, and Utah Fuel's repressive tactics, led to the Braffet machine's first defeat During the 1912 campaign the independent-backed Progressive party arranged for use of the town hall in Sunnyside, largest of the Utah Fuel coal camps. When the speakers arrived they found the hall closed. They proposed a street meeting instead, but the Sunnyside deputy sheriff (also a Democratic nominee for four-year county commissioner) threatened to run them out of town if they said anything against his bosses. With that, the Progressives moved to the post office, presumably under the protection of federal law, where the candidates were able to speak Campaigning effectively against such repressive tactics, the Progressives won two seats on the county commission. They joined alone Democrat who was completing his four-year term.
The newly elected Progressives set out to get even with Mark Braffet and the power he wielded for Utah Fuel. Two weeks after being seated, they cracked down on gambling, a favorite pastime in local saloons, especially for captive miners in company towns. They also decided that the Magnolia Trading Company would no longer be the sole alcohol vendor in the towns of the Utah Fuel Company. Trying to preserve his hold on the liquor trade, Braffet took the commissioners to court and lost.
When this case was aired in the press, a News reader questioned "whether the Utah Fuel Company knows and approves of the fight its man Braffet is making on the duly elected county commissioners of Carbon County." The newspaper replied that the company probably did know since it had just cancelled its advertising with the proindependent News, restricting its business to the Republican Eastern Utah Advocate. The political affiliations of the two local newspapers soon provided a lively battleground for the continuing power struggle.
As the Progressive-Democratic commission sought to license various proprietors to sell liquor during 1912, they were dismayed to learn that the Republican county clerk, backed by Braffet, refused to issue the necessary certificates. During increasingly heated debate, the clerk remained in "constant telephone communication with 'King' Braffet, who had fled to Manti to obtain a restraining order from Judge Christensen" to prevent the licenses from being issued. The clerk also forbade his assistant, who just happened to be his wife, from processing licenses. The warring parties sought redress in the courts, and the county commission also filed suit against the clerk for insubordination.
In the two weeks before a legal decision was reached on the liquor certificates, local citizens were treated to further mudslinging. When the commissioners met again at the end of January, they faced hostility from the county treasurer and attorney as well as the continued recalcitrance of the clerk The treasurer had refused the commissioners the county's financial statement Yet it had been published by Braffet as an " Extra" in the Republican Advocate. Carbon County was insolvent, he proclaimed. Somehow, in the two weeks since Braffet had lost control of the county commission, this disgraceful condition had suddenly emerged. The News quickly issued a rebuttal headed, "The King Is Nutty! Pity The Poor King!" It continued:
At the final January meedng the county commission asked Republican county attorney C. C. McWhinney, who had supplied derogatory comments on the legality of commission decisions in the "Extra," to explain his remarks. He replied he "didn't consider it anybody's business." Discussion grew so acrimonious that a stenographer had to be called in to record the arguments. That afternoon the county clerk endorsed a specific person to serve as deputy in his absence, his wife having vacated the post, and refused to accept the person nominated by the commissioners. Nevertheless, the Progressives held firm. By the following week the newspaper could report "Peace Now Prevails at the Courthouse." The Braffet-controlled county clerk and treasurer had resigned their offices and were replaced by Progressive appointees. This move also broke the liquor monopoly of the Magnolia Trading Company in Utah Fuel camps, as licenses were finally issued to other proprietors.
Despite the apparent truce, the battle over liquor sales was far from moribund. Instead, Utah Fuel changed its tactics. Braffet carried the fight to the state level where he threatened to incorporate Sunnyside and Castle Gate, the two largest Utah Fuel coal camps, so that they could vote "wet" in the upcoming elections. Then, he claimed, he could guarantee that the rest of the county would go dry, giving Utah Fuel a liquor monopoly. In desperation, the Progressives hustled one of their Stalwarts to the halls of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was deliberating Braffet's bill on town incorporation. The legislation under discussion would require simply 100 signatures from municipal residents. The Progressives demanded that the number be changed to 300, with 100 of those being freeholders. Since no one within a company camp could own his own land, this proposal would effectively gut Braffet's plan. After discussion, the Judiciary Committee tabled the measure.
After Braffet's appeals to the state legislature faded, Utah Fuel took a more direct route to monopolize liquor sales within its domain. In April 1913 the company began fencing Sunnyside to keep unwanted salesmen off its property. The Progressive county commission retaliated by condemning land for a road that necessitated a large hole be left in the fence. Testing the company, an independent liquor dealer tried to enter Sunnyside but was arrested for an alleged illegality, despite holding wholesale and retail liquor licenses.
When the independent vendor went to court, Braffet approached him with a proposal. If the dealer would cease trying to trade in Sunnyside, Braffet would see the charges against him dismissed. Utah Fuel's attorney also characterized the Progressive commissioners as "crazy s-o-b's" (in the delicate newspaper wording of the day) and told the salesman he would "crush his head" if he couldn't stop him any other way.
After the judge dismissed the case, the vendor disregarded the threats, loaded up his wagon, and headed for the hole in the Sunnyside fence. There a handful of armed company guards tried to head him off; they were thwarted by a crowd of approximately 300 thirsty miners who escorted the salesman into Sunnyside and demanded their freedom to trade with whom they liked. As the dealer later testified, when he arrived in town he saw "Braffet and a few other Magnolia officials standing in front of the company saloon, expecting to enjoy the show." The company superintendent also met the throng on Main Street and gave an impromptu speech over the possible illegality of their actions. Braffet then asked "for a few words, but was informed by the miners they wanted nothing to do with him." He was forced to back down, and the happy miners got their liquor at a reduced rate. Clearly, the issue of liquor reform, so dear to the Progressives, held little appeal for voters in the camps.
The Sunnyside victory proved to be more symbolic than substantive, however. In the November 1913 municipal contest, the voters were bombarded with the issues of reform, Utah Fuel, and "King" Braffet The Progressives, wanting to continue their reign, engaged a detective to find damning evidence against the Utah Fuel Company. Their plan backfired when the man they had hired went to Braffet and gave him every scrap of confidential information on the Progressives he possessed. The local Progressive party chairman resigned his position, and Utah Fuel's Republicans rolled into office with pluralities of 31 votes and up. Braffet hosted the liquor-laced celebration at his Tavern Cafe, Price's most up-to-date watering place, where he toasted previously disgraced county attorney McWhinney as "the man who did it."
Obviously, the outgoing county commissioners could not stomach C. C. McWhinney nor his Utah Fuel friends. In the closing days of their terms of office they turned to the state attorney general for his removal. McWhinney, in turn, went to Braffet for legal counsel. At an informal, hearing in Salt Lake City, Mark Braffet heard complaints that his client was charged with selective prosecutions, ignoring the infractions of Utah Fuel bosses. Braffet issued a statement claiming that the county commissioners simply wished to harass their opponents into resigning and that the only poker game McWhinney had refused to prosecute included a Progressive-appointed deputy holding a hand of cards. While this case was repeatedly stalk;d in the courts, similar hostility characterized other Carbon County developments. Arguments flew in the press over the county printing contract and the light plant, as well as the usual law enforcement issues.
At this juncture, to further dramatize Utah Fuel abuses, the out-of-office Progressives mobilized their women who added to the list of local grievances their own particular complaint prostitution. Untd the political mobilization of the Carbon County women, this widespread abuse experienced only cursory regulation. Although the "soiled doves" were occasionally run out of town, a sense of sport predominated over moral indignation. For example, in the fall of 1913 a dozen prostitutes departed at police urging. As the newspaper cheerfully reported, "quite a number of their male friends [appeared] at the depot to bid them farewell."
Progressive women set out to make changes. In February 1914 the Democratic News announced the formation of a Women's Betterment League, composed largely of wives of the leading Progressives. The following month the league presented the Price City Council with a petition containing 215 females' signatures asking it to suppress "flagrant gambling and prostitution." Many men had reportedly asked to sign as well, but the canvassers refused them because they were "determined to clean up Price without the aid of the men . . . ." The embarrassed, Braffet-backed councilmen tabled the matter for further study, "until . . . the council could investigate and ascertain whether conditions were as bad as the ladies represented them to be."
Shortly thereafter the Women's Betterment League sponsored a public mass meeting which included a talk on prohibition by the Provo district attorney. League members also planned an economic boycott of businesses that had cancelled their advertising with the anti-Braffet News but were dissuaded by the editor.
However, the News was happy to spotlight other female political involvements. It published the poetic complaints of "Mrs. Grundy," local spokeswoman in the crusade against vice and Mark Braffet Her debut on March 26 lampooned "The Carbon County Vampire." This rhyme lamented vice gone unpunished thanks to "the Company, fierce as a shark. Whose principal tool's a fellow named Mark " Next, Mrs. Grundy complained of "Little bits of Braffet and his gaudy tribe/Make a man forget his horror of a bribe." In April "the scheming grafters," including the marshal and the "city cops," were all supposedly singing "Mark's Old Sweet Song." In the graveyard setting of the next verse, "A Dream of Price," the epitaph of" King Mark" read: "Here rests from his job Political Mark/Old Nick became so jealous and cut off his spark."
Unwilling or unable to counteract these accusations directly, the Utah Fuel Company turned to its employees to salvage political power. The economically captive miners heeded the remarks of the general superintendent who explained UFC's political position in a published address. As he explained it, the company, like any taxpayer, naturally wanted efficient and faithful public servants and nothing more. However, previous payroll robberies (the last had been in 1898) had involved the company directly in politics to counteract shoddy local law enforcement The local Progressives, when in power, had exemplified this slipshod sort of government For example: "Against the protest of all mining companies saloon licenses have been issued for the conduct of saloons two or three miles distant from human habitation . . . [affording] a rendezvous for agitators and the worst type of undesirable citizens . . . ." The scene at Sunnyside the year before still rankled.
In addition, the general superintendent complained about taxation, noting that the coal companies paid taxes based on 100 percent assessed valuation (of the original cut-rate purchase price), not the 30-to- 60 percent charged to private owners. Finally, he unveiled a threat If the Progressives won, taxes on company property would undoubtedly go even higher. With irony not lost on the miners, he asserted that as much as Utah Fuel valued its employees, it would then be forced to raise rents to pay these costs. He then called for the election of "a business administration," an unmistakable signal to miners on how they should vote.
Political maneuvering did not stop here. UFC continued an aggressive campaign until election day. It was to no avail. Independents now controlled more miners' votes than Utah Fuel. In November 1914 independent-backed candidates swept all the county offices with the exception of the clerk, an earlier appointee with a reputation for honesty and integrity.
Feeling it still controlled the judiciary, the UFC, led by Braffet, turned to the courts to contest the elections, again without success. The court ruled that although voting irregularities had indeed occurred, they did not interfere with the true will of the electorate.
The new Progressive county commission reacted as UFC had feared. It reassessed the company's coal lands at their 1914 value, abandoning the standard of the original purchase price. Levies on Utah Fuel's holdings soared. Braffet rushed to the local district court to sue for unlawful taxation. The court issued a temporary restraining order barring foreclosure of UFC properties for nonpayment of taxes while it deliberated the merits of the case. When the Utah Fuel tax cases finally came up late in 1916, the assessment was substantially reduced, as Braffet had requested. Most of the money paid under protest by Utah Fuel had to be reimbursed. Nonetheless, Carbon County was once again clearly solvent
Old issues returned in the city campaigns of 1915. In a perceptive editorial in June, readers were warned the "the dictator's old henchmen" had designs against the Price city government A new Democratic-renegade Republican amalgam, which billed itself as the Citizens party, had coalesced in opposition to Braffet and the UFC. When the Price city recorder, backed by Braffet, refused to print the new party's emblem on the ballot so that people could vote a straight ticket, the opponents again went to court Although the decision favored the Citizens, Braffet's Republicans won every contest in Price by over 50 votes. As the Democratic paper had previously warned, "Those people who thought when they dethroned the political dictator of Corbon [sic] county they could sit with their folded arms and allow things to run themselves have another guess coming." But Mark Braffet's practiced machine was clearly losing ground. Its only remaining stronghold was Price, the county seat Unaffiliated Democrats took Helper, the D&RG division town only six miles to the north.
Utah Fuel reacted angrily to this loss of its political hegemony. Even more crucial, it stood to lose actual coal-bearing acreage it had obtained by fraud decades before. In the roiling cauldron of its greatest challenge to date, tempers heated to the breaking point Company unity could not hold.
Part of the schism resulted from the installation of a new vice president and chief executive officer of the Utah Fuel Company, A. H. Cowie. In trying to establish his own authority, he tread on the very sensitive toes of Mark Braffet Almost immediately, the two men clashed over issues of command. As Braffet reported to his immediate superior, D&RG general counsel Henry McAllister, Jr., in April 1916:
However, Cowie had the clear backing of the Rio Grande system's president, E. T. Jeffery. When McAllister sought guidance from Jeffery on the Cowie-Braffet problem, he received this response: "We must have harmony .... If Braffet is unwilling to work harmoniously . . . Braffet should retire and you should with Cowie's concurrence select another attorney."
Any thought of a speedy resolution disappeared under pressure from new coal land suits. "Doc" Shores, former Rio Grande special agent and Braffet's friend, became one of the unwitting instruments of the "king's" final undoing. In the changing legal atmosphere created by the passage of several Utah coal land cases through the tiers of federal courts, laws were reinterpreted and new precedents set for the ownership of the mineral-bearing public domain. In this unstable situation. Shores had filed in 1915 on coal lands near CastleGate claimed by two other parties: another D&RG subsidiary—the Pleasant Valley Coal Company—and the Ketchum Coal Company. According to Braffet, this move would prevent the land's acquisition by hostile forces, which, by then, included his own company vice president, A. H. Cowie. Braffet wrote:
Braffet also complained of Cowie's interference in Carbon County politics. He stressed his own efforts in promoting
Cowie, on the other hand, accused Braffet of plotting with Shores against the Rio Grande. The vice- president also hired a private detective to shadow Braffet, resulting in a report that Braffet had been on a drunken carouse with the lawyer for the opposition in the Castle Gate land case. McAllister, writing to D&RG president Jeffery, concluded that "there was no truth in the statement," and sagely added, "I descredit a great deal that either says of the other. " Internal dissension had obviously reached new heights.
By the time this exchange occurred in September, elections were fast approaching. Jeffery had counseled McAllister to keep peace between Braffet and Cowie, "even though it be only to end this calendar year." For the first time since Braffet's 1909 mandate, Cowie's man ran the local elections. The results went exactly as Braffet had predicted. In 1916, despite the local demise of the independent-backed Progressive party. Carbon County voters selected a mixed party government outside of Utah Fuel control."
On January 10, 1917, Henry McAllister mailed two letters. The first went to D&RG president Jeffery, saying, "Mr. Cowie arrived at the office ... and [said he] would immediately tell some of his close friends of the imminent retirement of Mr. Braffet" To Braffet, McAllister sent this message:
Particularly galling to Braffet, he was instructed to surrender his "office and files" directly to A. H. Cowie."
Why did Utah Fuel fire Mark Braffet Was the rift with Cowie so severe. Or were there larger reasons? Perhaps in concentrating on running Carbon County, Braffet had achieved statewide notoriety that Utah Fuel Company considered detrimental. Politically, 1917 marked a watershed in Utah. For the first time since statehood, a Democrat, not a Republican, sat in the governor's mansion. The legislature elected with him, fired by typical Progressive reforming zeal, began to crack down on numerous abuses. The Rio Grande and its subsidiaries were directly affected as state legislators established a public utilides commission empowered to regulate railroads. They also passed a corrupt political practices act Braffet, the lightning rod for trouble in Carbon County, had become a highly visible political liability.
Local events could have also contributed to the corporate decision to retire Braffet The Ketchum Coal Company, counterclaimant to land claimed by Shores, had vigorously pursued its rights in the courts. By the time Braffet was ousted, three Ketchum suits were pending: a tramway condemnation suit, litigation over the Shores land, and, for the first time, an indictment that the Rio Grande was indeed a monopoly under antitrust laws that forbade a railroad to own its own mine. The last suit brought renewed fears of another Justice Department investigation and possible suit McAllister had also previously evaluated Braffet as shrewd, resourceful, and not disloyal, but "not a very able attorney." Perhaps the possibility of a new federal assault figured prominently in Braffet's demise, just as the first success against the Justice Department began his ascendancy. "
Whatever the hidden corporate reasons for Braffet's rise and fall, his reign had long-time political repercussions within Carbon County. It is still the stronghold of the Democratic party in Utah, despite Republican ascendancy in the rest of the state. Although most political scientists have attributed this aberration to the support won by the Franklin Roosevelt administration with the passage of the Wagner Act allowing unionization, the negative Braffet legacy is also a factor. For years he ran the county for the Utah Fuel Company under the banner of the Republicans. When the union arrived only sixteen years after Braffet's release, many of the electorate remembered all too well the unsavory reign of Carbon County's "king." The miners, freed by union strength from having to vote the will of the bosses, were undoubtedly doubly delighted to support the organization traditionally opposed to the party of "King" Braffet
Despite his political demise in 1917, Braffet continued his flamboyant ways. First he went to Salt Lake City to practice law; then he returned to Carbon County to pursue business interests, including managing his Price Tavern. He also attempted to wrest ill-gotten coal lands from his former employers in a case later coupled by the courts with that of Shores. Although the shifting national legal climate and other considerations led to his eventual defeat on this issue, he retained a certain grudging respect in the county he had once controlled. Upon his death on January 2, 1927, the newspaper stressed his prominence "in legal circles of the state and city " Except for a single line referring to his reputation "as a political power... and a shrewd business man..." his entire political career remained in shadowy silence." However, no one alive during his political ascendancy would ever forget the power of Carbon County's "king."
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