Seattle's Militia Plans for the World's Fair
Local guardsmen launch a private savings fund to finance their trip to the Chicago World's Fair.
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.
A sensible World's fair scheme has been adopted by the members of Company B of the regiment of the National Guard of this city. From this date, each member of the company will pay into a special fund the sum of $2 per month, and no man will be finally accepted unless he has made an average attendance of 75 percent and an average excellence in drill of 75 percent. This is designed to give zest to the work from now on and to provide an assurance that the Company will get to go in a body to the great exposition. When Lieut. George H. Fortson was East, he visited the grounds of the exposition, and he stated yesterday that the exposition authorities had set apart a park a few blocks from the grounds for the use of such military organizations as will attend. The grounds will be therefore provided, and all that Company B desires is that the state of Washington will furnish transportation to the men. The plan was adopted by the men of Company B without a dissenting voice, and they selected Walter Ely, of the Seattle National bank, as treasurer of the fund.
“The plan was adopted by the men of Company B without a dissenting voice.”
In 1892, Seattle’s citizen-soldiers were organizing to travel to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an event that defined the era's civic boosterism. Today, organizations like the National Guard are federalized components of the defense apparatus, far removed from the local, self-funded social clubs they resembled in the late 19th century.
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