The Battle of Yesler’s Wharf
When an opposition newspaper accused Seattle’s steamboatmen of being 'bogus' voters, the local press fought back to defend the right of the working class to define the city’s political future.
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 Democratic organ of Tacoma, The News, contains a four-column article assailing the Seattle registration. Here is a sample paragraph: 'Fully 132 names are reentered on the books from Yesler's wharf. Not a soul sleeps on that wharf, unless it be that the night watchman catches an occasional nap.'
Among the men who are charged by the News with engaging in the work of placing bogus names on the registration books are Patrick Kirk and Secretary Tobin, of the Firemen's Union. Every well-informed person knows that the voters who register from Yesler's wharf are the steamboatmen who make Seattle their home. They have a perfect right to register here and to vote here.
Whatever fraud there may be in the registration the Republicans are anxious to have exposed, for a clean and fair ballot always benefits the Republican party. If the Democrats hope to win by assailing such citizens as Patrick Kirk and Secretary Tobin, or by disfranchising the steamboatmen, their hopes will be blasted.
“Every well-informed person knows that the voters who register from Yesler's wharf are the steamboatmen who make Seattle their home. They have a perfect right to register here and to vote here.”
The attempt to invalidate the votes of transient workers living on the waterfront mirrors modern debates over residency requirements and the political representation of Seattle’s mobile, service-industry labor force. Defining who 'belongs' in a neighborhood or city remains a core tension in local politics, just as it was on the bustling docks of 1892.
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