Seattle’s 1891 Election-Eve Alarm: ‘Watch Until the Vote Is Counted’

Never were indications for a sweeping Republican victory more promising than they are today. Good citizens are aroused to the necessity of wresting the government of Seattle from the control of the wreckers who are endeavoring to ruin it. Republicans are united and enthusiastic; on every side are signs of coming victory.

The only danger lies in the count. The wreckers are desperate, and they will hesitate at nothing to retain control of the city. An attempt to reverse the will of the people by corrupt means is not beyond them, and this must be watched for and guarded against. The appointment of judges and inspectors indicates what may be looked for in this respect. In some precincts men of the lowest character, even criminals and ex-jailbirds, have been entrusted with the sacred duty of receiving and counting the people’s ballots. Throughout the city the representation given to the Republican party on election boards has been most unsatisfactory; in many precincts no one even nominally a Republican was placed on the boards. These things may mean nothing, but they should at least be a warning to those who are battling for better government. Republicans should work until the polls close and watch until the vote is counted and recorded. The watching is no less important than the working.

The gentlemen who are interested in urging the election of the candidates for municipal offices upon the Citizens’ ticket indignantly deny that their movement is designed to assist in bringing about Democratic success. It has been repeatedly stated without denial that the Democrats were notified by Judge Burke that if either Wolfe or Jordan were nominated for Mayor, Mr. Chapin would be withdrawn and the members of the Citizens’ League would support Mr. Phelps, to whose fitness the majority of them had already testified by their willingness to make him their own candidate. Fearful that this threat would be carried out, the Democrats did not nominate either Wolfe or Jordan, but chose instead Mr. Durie, Wolfe magnanimously declaring that a vote for Durie would be the same as a vote for himself. Mr. Chapin was not withdrawn, Judge Burke and his followers apparently being willing to assist in the election of Mr. Durie, though unwilling to assist in electing either Wolfe or Jordan.

If anybody could doubt the desire of the management of the Citizens’ movement to assist the Democracy, that doubt must be removed by the active support given to the movement by John Collins’ West-Times, and by the aid and comfort it receives from John Collins’ Telegram, which is actively and openly supporting the Democratic ticket. The Citizens’ movement, whatever it was in the beginning, has degenerated into a Democratic side show whose only purpose can be to continue the wreckers in control of the city government. A vote for Durie is a vote for Wolfe, and a vote for Chapin is a vote half-way in the same direction.

The Democratic organ has the effrontery to “point with pride” to the record of the city administration which began with broken pledges and ended with the removal from office of its most important members. Democratic government in this city has been so rotten that even the Democratic mayor was compelled to interfere and hurl from office the men who appeared most culpable. The Democratic administration has suppressed gambling so far as the gamblers who supported it are concerned, or those who could make terms with them. The gambling of those who have stood in with the administration has been running openly and defiantly, and no effort has been made to interfere with their nefarious business. It has encouraged prostitution in Whitechapel and permitted it to exist openly and brazenly in streets that are the thoroughfares through which thousands of respectable citizens must necessarily pass in going to and from their homes.

It has permitted the looting of the city treasury by one of its more openly dishonest officials to the extent of a quarter of a million dollars. It has maintained and still maintains in office a comptroller so incompetent that he publicly and openly denied that colossal theft long after it had taken place, when any competent official in his position would have known the real facts. It has been responsible for hydrant contracts, brick contracts and street contracts that are redolent of corruption. It has squandered the people’s money and has left honest workingmen to starve on the streets while political heelers fattened at the public crib.

Such is the record of the Democratic administration. Such is the best that can be said for it. Such a record would condemn any party in any city and at any time.