They Said Seattle's Ship Canal Was Hogging the Money. The Appropriations Bill Said Otherwise.
A Pierce County Democratic plank accuses Washington's senators of starving Northwest rivers and harbors to fund the Lake Washington canal. A Seattle paper answers with receipts — $2.3 million for the Columbia, roughly $100,000 for the canal — and an old rivalry with Portland and Tacoma underneath.
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.
From the Seattle Press-Times.
The Democratic Pierce county state platform's anti-canal plank condemns our senators for advocating appropriations for the Lake Washington ship canal to the exclusion of needed appropriations for the necessary improvements of our rivers and harbors.
This is either true or a lie. If true it is justifiable. If a lie it should snow the Democratic Pierce county combination out of sight.
What are the facts? The "improvements of our rivers and harbors" supported by our senators included: a contract to complete the present project of improvement of the Columbia river, $1,419,250; improving the canal at the Cascades of the Columbia, $326,250; improving the mouth of the Columbia, $350,000; improving the Columbia between the Willamette and Vancouver, $38,000; improving the upper Columbia, including the Snake river as far up as Asotin, $15,000; improving the lower Columbia below Portland, $150,000; removing obstructions between Three-Mile rapids and Celilo falls, $20,000; improving Swinomish slough, $20,000; improving the Nisqually river, $1,500; Puget sound and its tributary waters, $15,000; the Willapa river and harbor, $8,000; and the Cowlitz river, $3,000.
The sum total of the appropriations, excluding the war department's surveys, is $2,365,900, of which $2,313,000 was for the Columbia river improvements alone; yet because the Washington senators asked for $100,000 for the Lake Washington ship canal, less than 9 per cent of what the Columbia river received, they met with the hostility of the Oregon senators, and the consequent attacks of the subservient Washington Democracy and the envious opposition of Tacoma.
In other words, so long as the Washington senators acted with Oregon for Portland and the Columbia they were right. When they asked for a crumb of bread for one-fifth of the population of their own state they were stoned.
The Press-Times appeals to every man in the state to know if our senators, by this showing, are justly to be accused of working for the Lake Washington ship canal to the exclusion of other needed improvements of rivers and harbors? We are confident that when not only these facts, but all the facts, are made known to every voter in the state, the answer will be an overwhelming victory for the Republican party.
“When they asked for a crumb of bread for one-fifth of the population of their own state they were stoned.”
The Lake Washington Ship Canal was finally completed in 1917 and today defines Seattle's geography, from the locks at Ballard to the Montlake Cut. The 1891 fight over it — Seattle against Tacoma and Portland, and the perennial question of who deserves federal infrastructure dollars — rhymes uncannily with every modern regional transportation and waterway funding dispute.
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