The Passive Citizen: Why Tacoma’s Streets Stagnate
A biting critique of civic apathy toward the power and land grabs of the Tacoma Railway & Power Company.
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.
A local resident doesn't like the unsympathetic way in which The Times talked about his 'rubes' two days ago. Nor does he approve of our criticism of the Tacoma Railway & Power company. Such devotion, printed in this paper Saturday, deserves attention, for Mr. Hart is a sincere and honest public servant, and is not to be condemned for championing his 'rubes,' so long as his intentions are good and his language polite. But when it comes to defending the T. R. & P. in its various mercenary grabs and praising it for its benevolence in issuing transfers to the undeserving public, Mr. Hart treads on the corns of a good many people who are not 'rubes' and who object to being made part and parcel of a collective lot of 'good things' for the benefit of Mr. Dimmock's car company. In past years, when the golden era of impressive newspaper silence prevailed in Tacoma, the street car people got about all they wanted in job lots. All that they had to do was to ask and receive. Their franchises were built upon the broad gauge principle, liberal in planning and full of capacious loopholes through which they could run cars in and out, as occasion demanded. Today he is the same placid, passive Mr. Hart, citizen of Tacoma, willing to take his transfer from the T. R. & P. and wait any night in the rain on a dark corner for the half-hour car to come ambling along. Mr. Hart is a type. He represents a class of good citizens in this community who want profound and restful peace, who don't want trouble, and who will take trouble to avoid trouble. Frankly, Mr. Hart, placidity doesn't build cities. It will never build this Tacoma. What this city needs is less placidity and more pushing, aggressive work.
“Frankly, Mr. Hart, placidity doesn't build cities. It will never build this Tacoma. What this city needs is less placidity and more pushing, aggressive work.”
This 1904 editorial captures the timeless tension between public transit utility and the private monopolies that hold infrastructure hostage. The complaint about waiting in the rain for a 'half-hour car' is a familiar grievance for many modern Tacoma commuters dealing with limited bus service and service gaps.
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