Eastern Washington Farmers Question Canal Freight Claims
A local farmer challenges the Post-Intelligencer’s claim that a canal will lower freight rates, sparking a heated editorial defense on the economic future of the region.
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.
To the Editor: I notice in one of your editorials of yesterday you allege that the Lake Washington canal 'would mean cheaper freight rates for the farmers of Eastern Washington.' Now, if the canal will do so, that is just what we want. But, on this side of the mountains, we cannot see how it will in any wise affect our rates. You have made the above allegation many times in previous issues of your paper, but I do not recollect of a single instance where it was accompanied by the reasoning whereby you reached such a conclusion. Is it not a fact that by reason of the constant rapid improvement and cheapening in the carriage of goods by rail, the canal, within a few years, would lose all its imagined importance? - HARKER U. PLOW. The Post-Intelligencer replied: By the term 'cheaper freight rates' is not meant merely the rail rate from Eastern Washington to tidewater, but the terminal charges and the ocean freight to Europe. The construction of the Lake Washington canal would have no appreciable effect on the rail rate, but the other two items would both be greatly reduced. A vessel lying in fresh water long enough to receive cargo would have her bottom cleaned of all marine vegetable growths which accumulate so rapidly in the waters of the Pacific. It is stated by ship masters that a vessel whose bottom is cleaned in this way will make the voyage from Puget Sound to Liverpool in from twenty to thirty days quicker than if she remained in salt water.
“A vessel lying in fresh water long enough to receive cargo would have her bottom cleaned of all marine vegetable growths.”
The debate over the economic utility of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, completed in 1917, was a cornerstone of Seattle’s early 20th-century boosterism. Today, that same waterway is a beloved recreational and infrastructure asset, though it remains a subject of ongoing environmental and civic maintenance debates.
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