The Soapbox Fury of Pioneer Place
On a shivering evening in 1892, disgruntled citizens and Populist agitators took to the streets of Seattle to decry 'subsidized editors,' crooked bond issues, and the 'damnable state of things.'
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.
The orators of the People's party held forth from their wagon on Pioneer Place last evening to a shivering audience of a couple of hundred people, whom they vainly strove to keep warm by their sultry denunciations of everything and everybody. Captain May intimated that it would not be good for any boss to try to close his mouth, as was evident from the strength of his jaw. He denounced the other People's party faction for allying itself with the Democrats, calling its members low soreheads. Then he denounced the Democrats and told their sins, gave the Republicans similar treatment, and could not find a good word to say for anything but greenbacks. A man named Crawford, from Kitsap county, made a dramatic opening by pointing to the various banks and saying the subsidized editors of these institutions had called the People's party calamity howlers. J. F. Pike proclaimed that he was three score and four years old and would not stand corruption; he wanted reform. 'That's right; give 'em hell,' someone shouted, and he sailed into everybody with profuse profanity. He said that $950,000 of bonds were issued to buy an old frog pond and a few rusty, worn-out water pipes. 'This is a damnable state of things,' he exclaimed, whereat the audience bent double with laughter.
“This is a damnable state of things.”
Pioneer Square has remained a focal point for Seattle's political dissent for over 130 years. The 'sand-lot' rhetoric of 1892—targeting corporate-owned media and local corruption—mirrors the enduring tension between the city’s working-class organizers and the established political and financial elite.
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