The Mayor’s War on the 'Ring': A Candidate’s Plea for Clean Government in 1879 Seattle

Several weeks since, I was requested by a number of citizens of such character and position as to entitle their opinions to respect, to allow myself to be named as a candidate for Mayor at the approaching city election. Those who have personally made this request greatly outnumber all of those who have signed calls upon others upon the solicitations of canvassers specially employed for that purpose, and embrace a very large portion of the most enterprising, active and public-spirited men who have contributed most to the present prosperity of our city including a majority of those engaged in productive industry.

The request was based upon the ground that no man in this community had labored more earnestly and, apparently, unselfishly 'to promote the growth of the town,' and none had more courageously defended the right and opposed wrong, regardless of personal considerations. They said they wanted 'a live man,' whose commercial or professional relations would not bias his judgment, or intimidate his action: one who was devoted to progress and opposed to all private jobs and ring combinations for diverting public funds to private uses.

I gratefully accepted these repeated expressions of confidence, and very reluctantly consented to stand the canvass: not because I feared to pass the ordeal of public censure, but simply because I did not want the office. There was no secret in this movement; it was immediately known upon the streets, and has been a matter of public discussion ever since. It presented the issue fairly and squarely to the obstructionists.

It is well known that the chief obstructionists of the town are among its largest property holders; persons wielding power solely by virtue of their accumulations, derived almost exclusively from the labor and enterprise of others, which have reflected a value upon their possessions they would never otherwise have had. These men have prevented our commercial metropolis from ever having a public building beyond a disgraceful pen for temporary confinement of offenders. They have uniformly opposed every public expense for the health, convenience or comfort, of the citizens. They have driven away from us large enterprises in the way of manufactures and ship building, by refusing them any place for their business upon reasonable terms.

As might reasonably be expected... I find all that class of men bitterly arrayed against me. That is their right... But I deny the right of any member of a community to obstruct public progress or resist the public necessities. That is the very issue that I hope to make, and which they dare not meet.

They say that I would involve the city in oppressive taxation and a load of debt. Every intelligent man knows that the Mayor has no voice in levying taxes... The veto power in the hands of the man who has a contract for keeping papers, would be a dead letter in defending the public treasury from personal jobs.

I have constantly and persistently demanded economy in the public service, and a strict accountability for every dollar expended... I denounced both [corruptions] at my own cost, and came very near being closed out for my temerity. The man who inveighs most against high taxes is one who makes 30 per cent. a year upon depreciated county orders, which is so much additional tax upon the people.

BERNARD COSSEN.