The Struggle for the Curb: Seattle's 1892 Market Fight

To the Editor: Knowing that the columns of the Post-Intelligencer are always open to the weak as well as to the strong, I shall, on behalf of the former, raise a few reasons why the proposed ordinance, which provides for an open market space on Front street, should not be passed. It is a well-known fact that the commission houses and other business establishments in that locality have a 'financial desire' for such an enterprise to be planted in their midst. If the poor man, whose little mite is invested in a peddler's or huckster's outfit, is to be driven from the public streets, in the name of humanity let us not drive them down to the wharves and muddy foothills, where they will be compelled to stand the blasts of the storms, the heat of the midsummer sun and other disagreeable periods of the climate.

Not alone this, but it must be remembered we lords of creation usually do not do the marketing. The poor, and even those in moderate circumstances, are not in financial condition to be blessed with the services of hired help, therefore our wives, daughters and old gentlemen invariably have the duties of marketing to attend to. For these, our weak ones, to be compelled to drag themselves down to the aforesaid described locality, returning with loaded baskets and other heavy parcels, to climb the steep grade to the cars, is asking a little too much of us. Again I say, if this city cannot be liberal enough to permit peddling, by all means give the hucksters and purchasers an even opportunity to be sheltered from the inclemency of the weather—a place convenient to the car lines—and open a market house on a level street. Our business public will surely take stock in such an enterprise. For one, your humble subscriber will start the ball rolling with a $1,000 subscription. - J. E. Robinson.