Seattle's Fire Department Was Being Run Like a Boys' Club

Matters are going along with a high hand in the fire department, and the citizens are looking on with patient interest. The interest is likely to last longer than the patience. The fire commissioners and the city council are the bodies charged with the responsibility of appointing a chief, and nobody can object to the exercise of their power in a frank and manly purpose to improve the department and serve the interest of the public. They may choose whom they will and appoint him, but the taxpayers have the right to condemn, and we condemn for them in unmeasured terms the silly boys' play which is now unnerving the whole department. Sullivan resigns and then he does not resign; he is allowed to do so, and without any concern for the discipline of the department he is permitted to upset the arrangements for conducting its business. Rumors are spread that Kellogg is to be elected, or Sullivan is to succeed Allen, and that Marlow is to be appointed. If a new man is wanted the board should select him and be done with it. The people hardly care who he is so that the present disgraceful condition of affairs shall terminate. If the people do not, after their experience of the past few years, take the first opportunity to abolish the board of fire commissioners entirely, they are the most gentle, suffering, patient brutes in the whole animal kingdom.