The Night Seattle Painted the Town Red
After a landslide victory in the 1892 city elections, thousands of jubilant supporters flooded Pioneer Place to celebrate the end of a 'brazen, triple-plated' political ring.
The triumphant and jubilant Democracy painted Seattle a vivid red last night. A finer evening for a celebration could not have been imagined. By a singular coincidence, every Republican declared he had been certain from the beginning that defeat was staring his ticket in the face, and he explained how the party might have won if it had followed his advice at this or that crisis in the campaign. As the torrent of human beings poured into the big triangle at Pioneer Place, a huge bonfire was started, and whole batteries of rockets threw their lurid light against the sky. Such a crowd has seldom been seen in the city of Seattle. Every able-bodied man in the city, all of the children, and many of the women had turned out to see how the new mayor looked and hear what he would have to say for himself. James Hamilton Lewis bowed and smiled his way up the stairway to the platform, telling his hearers that the citizens had joined in shattering a terrible ring, brazen, triple-plated, three times welded, and gilded with infamy. Mayor-elect J. T. Ronald declared that the victory was in no sense a Democratic one, but a triumph of the people over the 'ring,' pledging that he was in duty bound to administer the city's affairs in the interest of no party nor faction, but for the welfare of Seattle as a whole.
“Seattle lifts her torch like a blazing gem in the gorgeous setting of the western sky. The light flashes across the Cascades... and wherever the rays of that light strike, it is known that the people and only the people can rule.”
The 1892 election—centered on breaking up a political 'ring'—highlights the enduring cycle of civic distrust in Seattle. Just as voters in 1892 looked to a new administration to curb special interests, modern Seattleites often debate the influence of concentrated power and corruption in city hall.
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