The Unchecked Power of the Northern Pacific
A scathing editorial decries the 'bloodless, soulless' corporation for exploiting homesteaders and evading taxes while demanding public lands.
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.
Corporations have been born into existence, over whom the rider of the pale horse can achieve no victory, and against whom the efforts of the collector are equally impotent. These corporations have no moral sense, no patriotism, no gratitude. They are bloodless, soulless, human inventions, morally irresponsible, amenable to no social restraints. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company is one of these favored creatures of law. With head in New York and tail in Tacoma, it stretches crookedly across the continent, taking tribute, paying none. It persistently refuses to secure title to the lands it claims to have earned until after it has sold them. It has waited year after year for settlement upon the even sections within the limit of its grant, to enhance the value of the odd sections contiguous, permitting the hard-working homestead and pre-emption settler to pay all revenue necessary to support the schools, the courts, and other necessary and beneficent civil institutions, while the value of its lands has appreciated and its property has been protected.
“They are bloodless, soulless, human inventions, morally irresponsible, amenable to no social restraints, responsible but to themselves.”
This 1884 critique of the Northern Pacific's land-holding practices reflects a recurring Seattle tension: the struggle between public interest and powerful interests that hold land to speculate on future development, often at the expense of local tax bases.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.