The Clamor of the Calamity Dodgers
A populist rally in Seattle draws a lackluster crowd, exposing the fading energy behind the local free-silver movement.
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 'silver mass meeting' was held yesterday afternoon in front of the office of the chairman of the Populist central committee of this city. It was a meeting of what his followers now call 'Calamity Bill.' The meeting aimed to warn against the overthrow of the government through congressional legislation, specifically the potential adoption of the gold standard and the defeat of free silver coinage, which proponents argued threatened the subjugation of the people to the Bank of England. Despite the dire warnings in the printed circulars, the meeting was regarded as fairly representative of the weakness of the silver cause in this city. A spirited dog fight would have attracted a much larger crowd, and the little band of Salvationists from the barracks in Old Whatcom drew a more respectful audience in the same vicinity.
“A spirited dog fight would have attracted a much larger crowd.”
In 1893, the national obsession with the gold standard versus free silver split the country much like modern-day debates over monetary policy and inflation. Seattle, then a booming frontier city, was a hotbed for these populist anxieties, which often focused on the perceived threat of 'Eastern elites' and foreign banks—a recurring trope in local political rhetoric.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.