An Election Day of Peace and Poll-Side Scuffles
While Seattleites crowded the streets to await national results, local voting remained largely orderly, save for a few spirited scuffles and one man brandishing a cane.
Although no election has ever aroused greater interest in Seattle, the voting was conducted with remarkable quietness and order. At some polling places in the Sixth and First wards, large crowds gathered, but there was no disturbance except an occasional discussion conducted with more than usual animation and sharp exchanges of personal opinions. Merchants and business and professional men were out early drumming up voters for McGraw and the canal. In the Fourth precinct of the First ward, John Wiley drove around in a buggy, and as soon as he jumped out, James Rochester struck at him with his cane. Wiley took the cane away from him and struck him on the head, causing the blood to flow freely. They were then separated, and Wiley jumped into the buggy and drove away, waving Rochester's cane over his head. Rochester said his reason for the assault was the statement Wiley made reflecting on his private character.
“There was no disturbance except an occasional discussion conducted with more than usual animation and sharp exchanges of personal opinions.”
Election Day anxiety and public gatherings in front of media headquarters (then the Post-Intelligencer building, now long gone) capture a moment when the city's civic identity was being forged through local, partisan, and infrastructure-focused voting. The transition from physical scuffles over personal honor at the polls to digital-age election polarization reflects a long, shifting history of Seattle's political discourse.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.