Two Men Sick, the Town Unwarned: Snohomish Turns on Its Health Officer
Smallpox cases sat undeclared for days while friends visited and a brother walked the streets — until fifty businessmen telegraphed Olympia demanding the state take over.
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.
SNOHOMISH, Aug. 23 — [Special.] — Public feeling against Health Officer McCready reached its height this morning when it was learned that two additional cases of smallpox existed here. L. Brown, the young man who has been employed as guard over the Sisters' hospital, has been sick since last Saturday, and A. P. Johnson, the hack driver and runner for the Exchange hotel, was taken sick at the same time, but in neither case did McCready give any intimation to the public that there was even a suspicion of smallpox, until this morning, when the cases were fully developed. Friends of each of the young men visited them as late as yesterday afternoon, and even this morning others were prevented from going directly to the houses by neighbors whose suspicions of the true state of affairs had accidentally been aroused. The city ordinance providing for quarantine regulations is framed after that of Seattle and vests in the health officer almost unlimited authority, but even under its provisions Health Officer McCready is totally incapable of coping with the disease. Even Frank Brown, the brother of the young man who is down with the disease, and at whose house he has been stopping, has been permitted the freedom of the city all day today.
This evening the following petition, signed by more than fifty prominent business men and leading citizens, was forwarded to the state board of health at Olympia:
"We the undersigned, citizens and taxpayers of Snohomish, state of Washington, hereby demand the immediate investigation of the condition of smallpox in this city by the state board of health, and that steps be taken for its suppression. Our local health officer is incapable of performing his duty."
The members of the city council are criticized by many for the indifference they have heretofore manifested in the matter, but this morning they provided a new pest house, the one formerly used having been burned. Many are agitating the calling of a public meeting and demanding the resignation or removal of Health Officer McCready, and this will probably be done if the state board of health does not take the matter in hand.
“Our local health officer is incapable of performing his duty.”
A small-town health officer with near-unlimited quarantine power simply declined to use it, and the town's confidence collapsed within days. The petition to Olympia is the 1892 version of every modern fight over who answers for a public-health failure — the local official, the council that appointed him, or the state that is finally asked to step in.
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