New Whatcom’s Ledger Had a Credit Side, Too

WHATCOM'S CREDIT.

Whatcom, Jan. 6.—Special.—The Reveille, the leading paper of the city and county, contains a pertinent editorial on the Post-Intelligencer's review of Mayor Black's address to the new council Tuesday night. The editorial is an excellent summary of “the credit side” of New Whatcom as a municipality, and is quoted as follows:

“The Post-Intelligencer's New Whatcom correspondent gets back at the board of trade for its censure of a late article on finances by publishing the address of the new mayor on the financial condition of the city—significant, as the mayor is also president of the board of trade, the body which took exception to similar matter. The statement was not flattering, but was made as a matter of business. The city has suffered from a heavy defalcation, from the extravagance of some of its officials, from some unwarranted improvements, from loose business methods, and from the failure of the banks in the general crash of 1893; but there is another side to the picture.

“On the credit side, the city has the best water system of any place on the coast. Its arteries pulsate wherever there is a dwelling, and with such force that no fire has yet, in four years, reached beyond the building in which it originated. Instead of costing $1,750,000, like the Tacoma system, it has cost approximately $200,000. The fires of Seattle and Tacoma, which almost wiped them out of existence, are evidence that by the expenditure of cents we have accomplished more in protecting our city than those places have by the expenditure of dollars; and in this system we have a property which yields a revenue. We have a sewer system as perfect, so far as it goes, as that of any city in Washington, at a cost of $100,000. We have miles of streets as level as a rolling rink, and as smooth as wood can be laid. Our streets are connected with the great arteries of the country, and the trade of the merchants is greater this season, in a depressed time, than ever before. We have a city hall which is as solid, if not as beautiful, as the Parthenon, and which will suffice for the business of a city of 100,000 people. We have fire halls and other buildings which have cost money. We have expended large sums in litigation which was unavoidable, but which will never occur again.

“Altogether we have a very good credit side to the ledger, and without a careful scrutiny into the affairs of Seattle we are not prepared to admit that our financial condition is any worse than that of our beautiful sister city. The Reveille has never hesitated to publish the cold facts regarding city or county finances, or the mortgage record, and has no censure for the plain statements of others regarding the same; but in the dull time it is as well to look to the credit side of the ledger as well as the debt side, and not to imagine that our history runs backward instead of forward. The mayor, in his message, shows that he has been taking a look at the past and has confidence in the future; and now that we are satisfied that we have injured our credit, let us not dwell upon it, but let us compromise, pay our taxes, and restore it, and we hope our neighboring cities will do equally as well.”

All this is true. Few of the smaller cities of the state can boast of greater advantages. None has a more healthful and beautiful location, better rail or water transportation, or greater tributary resources. Whatcom County is rich in coal, timber, and lands adapted to agriculture, horticulture, stock and dairy interests. In area it is larger than Rhode Island and Holland. It has more land suitable for agriculture and dairying than any other county bordering on Puget Sound; an abundance of the best steam and domestic coal on the coast; the finest forests of fir and cedar; the greatest number of shingle mills; and at Point Roberts the greatest salmon fisheries in the state. The population increased from 534 in 1870 to 15,551 by the census of 1890. Whatcom and Fairhaven have grown from little cabin hamlets at the edge of the wilderness to fine young cities with a combined population of about 10,000, and the finest modern improvements in graded and planked streets, electric lights, sewers, waterworks, churches, schools and public buildings.

New Whatcom has thirty-two miles of graded streets, fifteen miles of sewers, and a splendid water system owned by the city, the supply coming from Lake Whatcom, eleven miles over 900 feet above tidewater and only two and a half miles distant from the city limits. It has six graded ward schools, a city hall costing about $85,000, a sewer, lumber and shingle mills, large wharves and warehouses, a splendid street railway system reaching to Fairhaven and Lake Whatcom, large coal bunkers, numerous handsome business blocks and fine residences, and, last but not least, a system of the finest public highways in Western Washington, radiating to all sections of the county, upon which about $150,000 was expended in 1894.

The board of trade, in a pamphlet recently issued, says: “Here is no other place on the Pacific coast more favorably situated for manufacturing purposes. Unlimited supplies of raw materials surround the city on every side: timber on all the valleys and hills for all kinds of lumber, furniture and wooden-ware factories or mills; wheat and oats for flouring and oat mills; iron, limestone and coal for establishing iron and steel plants or smelters; bark for tanneries; fish of many kinds to supply canneries and fish-oil establishments; fruit in abundance for fruit canneries; wool and flax for woolen, flax and oat mills; all within a radius of thirty miles.”