Seattle’s New Year Outlook: A Refuge from the Gilded Age
An 1877 editorial contrasts Seattle’s frontier promise with the labor riots and extreme inequality ravaging the rest of the nation.
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 closing of the year and the opening of a new one is a period for reflection upon the past. We do not propose to inflict a homily upon our readers, but to call attention to the abundant cause of congratulation we have as a community. During the past year, the cry of 'bread or blood,' wrung from the necessities of starving operatives, has resounded across our continent. Our great cities are overrun with pauperism and crime. Continued drouth has made deserts of the most productive fields of California, and the Chinese plague of coolie labor has reduced the laboring classes to a condition of menial servitude.
The city of San Francisco presents a contrast of inordinate wealth acquired without labor, and abject poverty. The millions of dollars accumulated in the hands of a few, while thousands are starving, is the inevitable consequence of special privileges. The wife of a railroad magnate appears at a charity ball with diamonds of the value of a million dollars upon her person, every dollar of which was coined from the sweat of the very class to whom she was doling out scrimp charity. We, of this remote section, are favored by Providence. Labor has not lacked remunerative employment, nor prosperity failed to crown every honorable effort. As we look toward an organic law for our future government, let us be admonished to guard against the monopoly of land by individuals or companies. The right to a place to live should be as carefully guarded by the government as the right to life.
“The right to a place to live should be as carefully guarded by the government as the right to life.”
Writing in 1877, the editor critiques the 'Gilded Age' extremes of San Francisco—wealth inequality and land monopolies—as a warning to Seattle. Over 145 years later, as Seattle faces its own massive housing affordability crisis and wealth stratification, the editorial’s insistence that 'the right to a place to live should be as carefully guarded as the right to life' feels hauntingly contemporary.
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