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| Year | Stories |
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32 stories matching stringent
- The Speaker’s High-Stakes Balancing Act
Speaker Meigs stacks the House Public Morals Committee with an even split of prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists, leaving the committee’s crucial legislative decisions deadlocked.
- The War on Cigarettes
A new, stringent state law bans the possession of cigarette papers and wrappers, sparking debate over government overreach.
- After the Clallam Went Down, a Seattle Man Asked Why No Puget Sound Steamer Had a Lifeboat That Floated
J. Walton wrote to the president and to Congress with a plain charge: not one passenger steamer on the Sound is properly equipped to save lives — and in two round trips to Nome he never once saw a fire drill.
- The Moral Gatekeeper: Snohomish’s New Battle Over Who Gets to Sell Liquor
A new state law requires liquor license applicants to prove 'good moral character,' turning county commissioners into judges of private virtue and sparking a fierce debate over who gets to define morality in the Territory.
- The Campaign to Exclude Chinese Workers
In 1885, a newly formed committee of Seattle citizens launched an aggressive effort to purge Chinese labor from the city, circulating petitions to prevent property owners from leasing to Chinese residents.
- The Invisible Killer in Your Milk: Seattle’s Health Officer Warns of Tuberculosis Cows
With consumption rates soaring and no dedicated veterinary inspector on staff, local officials admit the city is dangerously unprepared to stop diseased cattle from entering the food supply.
- The City’s Panic Over a Smallpox Outbreak
When an infectious disease arrived on the Seattle waterfront in 1876, the City Council and local editors turned to extreme rhetoric, calling for the forced removal of the city's vulnerable populations.
- The Sky Turned to Smoke: Forest Fires Choke Puget Sound
Fires across Whatcom, Skagit and the Olympic Mountains destroyed bridges, barns and a shingle mill, derailed a Great Northern train and left Puget Sound under a suffocating haze.
- Smallpox Outbreak Ignored at Snohomish Hospital
A health officer faces public backlash for failing to quarantine a hospital where a county pauper contracted smallpox.
- The Political Tightrope of Territorial Seattle
In a 1887 campaign speech, future Seattle Mayor T.J. Humes attempts to balance the demands of laborers, miners, and the controversial issue of women's suffrage.
- The Smuggler's Shield: How a Seattle Customs Chief Defended Himself in Tacoma
In the height of the 1888 opium smuggling scandal, Chief Inspector Gardner takes the stand in Tacoma, claiming he was set up by political rivals to cover his own failures.
- The Political Case Against 'Human Freight'
An editorial defending the exclusion of Chinese labor based on the philosophy of wage protection and the warnings of abolitionist Wendell Phillips.
- The Wet-Dry Tug-of-War: Voters Face Triplicate Liquor Initiative
As Washington state grapples with its new dry status, three competing liquor initiatives challenge the stability of the 1914 prohibition law.
- The Wharfinger's Narrow Escape
A jury rules that a dock owner isn't a common carrier, leaving an injured woman without recourse.
- The Looming Treaty Conflict
Washington state leaders fear that a new proposed treaty between the U.S. and China might undermine local exclusion laws.
- The War on Stray Dogs at Wright Park
Park commissioners order police to shoot all canines found loose in the city's green space.
- The Battle for Tacoma's Soul: Gambling vs. Reform
As municipal elections approach, the city faces a stark divide between Mayor Campbell’s clean-streets policy and the push for a 'wide-open' town.
- The 'Rat' Printers of Seattle
When an 1877 newspaper attempted to cut costs by firing union compositors, the resulting strike sparked a fierce, public feud between rival publications.
- The Bering Sea Arbitration: A Moral Victory for the Seal
A Paris tribunal rules against American claims of exclusive jurisdiction, yet grants the U.S. the stringent conservation regulations they sought to save the fur seal from extinction.
- The Health Crisis at Our Door
With cholera reported in New York City, local officials must act immediately to secure North Yakima’s sanitation before the plague spreads.
- The Mayor's Change of Heart on Prohibition
Seattle Mayor Hiram Gill publicly disavows his 'wet' past, citing the positive social impact of the state's dry laws.
- The Politics of the Red Light
Spokane's mayor refuses to suppress the 'social evil,' arguing that regulation in a restricted district is the only realistic approach to human nature.
- The Futility of Prohibition
A skeptical legislator warns that strict alcohol bans in Washington Territory will lead only to evasion, black markets, and public distrust.
- McGraw to Olympia: Cut Spending, Fix the Courts
With Washington $1.5 million in debt and revenues falling, the governor calls for retrenchment and warns that court costs shut the poor out of justice.
- The First Ward's Shadow Government
A group of unsuccessful job-seekers and disgruntled agitators formed an unofficial 'shadow council' to mock local civic power in 1884 Seattle.