The 'Bloody First' Ward Primary Fraud
A rowdy Seattle Democratic primary descends into chaos, ballot-stuffing, and mob rule as the John Collins-Considine faction fights to maintain control.
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.
The Democratic primaries were held this evening in the old-fashioned way, free from the constraints of the primary election law, and they hardly maintained the reputation of the party for making things interesting. Outside of the First ward they were very quiet. The 'bloody' First maintained its reputation for Democratic frauds; through gross outrages the John Collins-Considine ticket carried the ward by a vote of 221 out of 311. Contemptible methods were used to crowd away anti-Collins voters, who outnumbered the Considine crowd four to one, and the charge of ballot-box stuffing is made against those having the box in their care. The polls were held in an unoccupied store at 220 Washington Street, with a rear entrance from 'Gene' Way's saloon. When the doors opened, a mob of heelers and workers pushed to the front, preventing the entrance of anyone not known to be of the right stamp. Despite police intervention, the gang held their ground until the polls closed, leaving several hundred men unable to vote.
“The 'bloody' First has maintained its reputation for Democratic frauds in the manipulation of its primaries.”
The 'First Ward' of 1894—modern-day Pioneer Square—was the epicenter of Seattle's rough-and-tumble political machine, where neighborhood saloons often functioned as polling places. The intensity of this conflict over democratic access, voter intimidation, and backroom machine politics mirrors the ongoing civic tension regarding who has the right to cast a ballot in our city's history.
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