The Council Strikes Back: Seattle Turns on Its Own Power Company
Mayor Humes vetoes saloon restrictions, but the City Council is far more concerned with a corporate power grab. They launch an investigation into the Snoqualmie Falls Power Co., accusing it of using legal injunctions to block the city’s water supply contracts and protect its private interests.
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.
CITY COUNCIL FLAYS THE SNOQUALMIE FALLS POWER CO.
The city council did a good many things last night that are not down on the record. Instead of making a specialty of Mayor Humes' veto of the saloon redistricting ordinance, which was presented, the Cedar River water question came up for discussion. In connection with the matter of the injunctions sued to prevent the award of contracts for the work, there finally resulted in a combined onslaught of the councilmen upon the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company, and the appointment of Hinckhart, James, Peterson, Miller and M. Anile as a special committee to investigate the recent actions of the company in order to determine the extent to which it has been trying to make a scapegoat of the council to promote its private business enterprises.
The committee is given power to present a resolution to deprive the power company of its city franchise, in case that the charges made against it are found to be correct.
Hinckhart presented the matter in a terse way. He summed up as follows:
"It now appears that the Snoqualmie Falls Power Company, through its hired henchmen and imported engineers and agents, is opposing the letting of the Cedar River water supply contracts, and has instigated one of their backers to bring a suit against the city which eventually stops the authorities from proceeding further. The alleged basis for this suit is that the council is not following the original plans of the system, as laid out by Benesttt [Benjamin] Williams.
"Ten years ago it was never the intention of the city to go to the top of the mountains for water. It is evident that this corporation desires to force the city into some measure by which a rival company, which desires to bring power from somewhere above Cedar River, shall be driven out.
"This racket that is doing this has been just warmed into life by the city franchise is not more than a year old, and now it turns like a snake and tries to sting the city. I want to say here, that no corporation created by the city is greater than the city. If we are to be bossed by any creature of the city, it is time that we knew it!
"I believe that this last action against the city, to prevent the letting of this contract, is fathered by retaliation."
This 1905 clash over water rights and corporate power mirrors modern debates in Seattle regarding public utilities, such as the fight for a publicly owned electric utility (Seattle City Light) versus private interests, or current tensions over housing development near protected watersheds. The council's accusation that a corporation was using legal injunctions to 'boss' the city feels remarkably contemporary to today’s struggles against corporate influence in local governance.
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