Walla Walla Debates County Bonds for Railroad
An 1877 debate over public bond issues for the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad reveals a city hungry for connectivity and skeptical of the 'blood money' demands of big capital.
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.
The Walla Walla Union, for some reason incomprehensible to us, is interposing obstacles to the success of the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad, which, if successful, would be of greater advantage to Walla Walla than any other public improvement that can be suggested. In regard to the Act submitting to the people the question of issuing county bonds to aid in the construction of the railroad, the Union says: 'No lawyer in the Territory is willing to risk his reputation by giving an opinion to the effect that the bonds of the counties issued to pay for the stocks subscribed would be worth the paper on which they are printed, unless Congress granted permission to issue them.'
We know that repudiation of public obligations has been attempted on several occasions, but it has never yet succeeded but in covering its advocates with infamy. If a proposed railroad has not virtue enough in it to induce capitalists to build it, it would not be a good investment for the public funds. There is not an instance in the history of railroads in the United States of a railroad with 'virtue enough in it to induce capitalists to build it' in the first instance. In the road under discussion, the people occupying the country adjacent to the line are to be benefitted by the construction of the road a hundred fold more than the capitalist who invests in it solely for an interest in its earnings; but the people have not the money to invest, and the capitalists don't care a fig for their necessities, only to wring 'blood money' from them. What idiot will argue that because capitalists do not invest in it, it would be a bad investment for the people whose whole material possessions are to be affected by it?
“The people occupying the country adjacent to the line are to be benefitted by the construction of the road a hundred fold more than the capitalist who invests in it solely for an interest in its earnings.”
The tension between public investment and private interest is a recurring theme in Washington’s history. Just as Seattle debated using public bonds to bridge the gap to Walla Walla in 1877, modern residents continue to grapple with how to fund public transit and infrastructure when private capital deems the projects insufficiently profitable.
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