The Delegate’s Missing Work
A Seattle newspaper calls out the territory’s Washington D.C. representative for feigning ignorance about a local land rights petition.
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.
It requires a great strain on our credulity to believe that Mr. Garfielde has been so oblivious to the facts as he professes to be. In one case at least, we have every reason to believe that Mr. Garfielde has been fully informed, with ample time to act long before this. In the case of the memorial passed by the Legislature asking Congress to cede the mud flats of Duwamish Bay to the city of Seattle. This is a matter in which the citizens think they have a large interest. Mr. Garfielde knew that such a memorial had been adopted, and he knew that if the Secretary did not honor him with a certified copy of the document, it was accessible to him at any time he chose to ask for it. That memorial passed on the 26th day of November last, Mr. Garfielde being here at that time. Copies of it were sent to not less than twenty members of Congress, and now, six months after its passage, our Delegate has never called it up in the House and professes to be entirely ignorant of its purport. The excuse for this neglect, that he has not been treated with proper consideration by the Secretary, is so shallow that we are forced to the conclusion more discreditable to his honesty, that our Delegate has not been served with sufficient inducements to cause him to do his duty in the premises.
“The excuse for this neglect... is so shallow that we are forced to the conclusion... that our Delegate has not been served with sufficient inducements to cause him to do his duty.”
This 1872 editorial highlights a perennial Seattle struggle: fighting for control over the city's waterfront and tide lands. Just as the paper questioned its congressional representative's dedication to securing the Duwamish mud flats, modern Seattleites continue to debate the future and management of the city’s vast waterfront and industrial lands.
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