The Forgotten Platform for a People's Washington
In 1909, a visionary reformer urged a fractured movement of grangers, socialists, and unionists to put aside their hobbies and unite behind a single platform of 'Majority Rule.'
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.
Never before have I known a state so ripe for a reform movement as Washington is today. Party lines are so forgotten that multitudes of voters care nothing at all as to what party ticket they vote. Everywhere little reform clubs are being organized. In my own precinct, the vote for township organization was six to one. The farmers and wageworkers are finding a new fraternity, much like the Knights of Labor and the Alliance back in the '80s.
Yet, with our reform forces divided—socialists, reform democrats, reform republicans, and women workers all pulling in different directions—special privilege will again triumph. Let us unite. Let us keep every popular issue on the platform and advocate our hobbies, but let us not burden our candidates with a single unpopular measure. Let us at once draw up our Majority Rule Platform.
I suggest the following: Exempt improvements from taxation to stop land speculators; adopt township organization so farmers can manage their own roads; secure direct legislation by the initiative and referendum; establish the power of recall; and enforce campaign pledges through immediate removal from office for violators.
We can easily elect the most popular candidates if they stand on a platform of the people's own choosing. Let us start the campaign like a whirlwind and keep it up until the 1910 primaries. It is time for definite and official action.
“Speculators hate 'improvement districts' as the devil hates holy water.”
W. H. Kaufman’s 1909 call to unite disparate reform groups—from tax-reformers to labor unions—prefigures the modern challenge of building cross-class coalitions. His frustration with the legislature's capture by land 'speculators' and the 'annual graft' of corporate interests remains a central, unresolved friction point in Washington state politics today.
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