Seattle Citizens Plot to Block Monopoly: Injunction Threatened Over 40-Year Streetcar Franchise
A coalition of concerned citizens is mobilizing against the city council's potential grant of a forty-year monopoly to the Seattle Railway Company, warning that legal action will follow if the charter is violated.
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.
Giving Forty Year Privileges to Seattle Railway Co.
Citizens Will Meet at the Chamber of Commerce This Evening. Injunction Threatened.
A meeting of citizens who are not in favor of forty-year franchises being granted will be held at the chamber of commerce this evening. A petition is being circulated today calling for a convention of those who will be at the meeting of the city council next Monday, and to object to the granting of the franchise which is before that body.
The statement is made that if the council does grant the franchise, the committee will at once threaten injunction proceedings.
The petition offered by the citizens follows:
THE UNDERSIGNED, citizens of Seattle, hereby serve notice of their objections shall be:
To prevent and oppose the remains of street rail road facilities by the city council, especially to prevent the granting of any blanket or monopoly franchise such as is proposed at present, as contrary in time, spirit, and provision of the city charter in Article 10.
To insist upon the earliest possible adoption of municipal ownership of the street railways, as contemplated by the charter in "Alternative Proposition No. 1."
The officers of this committee shall consist of a chairman, two vice-chairmen, a secretary and treasurer, who shall constitute an active committee to have general supervision of the work authorized by the above signature, and to call meetings of the latter.
Other sub-committees shall be chosen by the whole committee to do special work.
H. Windsor, Clerk Mark. John Behren, J. Southard. Jay C. Alton, Sam Hult. O. D. Pierce, W. D. Wood. W. A. Ward, Am. H. Alton. Thos. J. Church, Charles Anglin. R. B. Sutton, J. W. Godwin. Geo. Russell, John O. Harris. J. D. McIntyre, H. C. Titus, and Geo. Simmons.
This 1905 struggle over streetcar monopolies mirrors modern debates about public transit funding and corporate power in Seattle. Just as citizens then feared a private monopoly would stifle competition and inflate fares, today's residents grapple with Sound Transit's budgeting, fare structures, and the balance between public ownership and private operation. The call for "municipal ownership" echoes current movements for publicly owned utilities and transit systems.
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