The Six O'Clock Closing Battle
Walla Walla retail clerks organized to fight for a 6:00 p.m. closing time against a local firm's refusal to modernize.
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 regular meeting of the Retail Clerks' Protective Association of Walla Walla took place last Thursday evening at Trades and Labor Hall. The association's attention was called to the fact that the store operated by the Schwabacher Co. remained open after 6 o'clock. A committee of three was appointed to meet with the manager, Mr. Eastman, to learn if the company could close at 6 o'clock like all other major stores. The committee was informed in a very emphatic manner that the Schwabacher store would remain open until 8 o'clock, regardless of the hardship it worked upon others. The clerks have since appealed to the Central Labor Council to help adjust the difficulty. The clerks maintain they do not wish to antagonize any merchant, but believe that standardized, reasonable hours are a matter of human dignity and fair labor practice.
“The argument that one store out of the hundred in the city MUST keep open after 6 o'clock in the evening to accommodate the country trade seems just a trifle overdrawn.”
This 1903 dispute highlights a perennial tension in Walla Walla's business district: the struggle between maintaining a small-town 'country trade' model and establishing standard hours for retail workers. The rhetoric of the 'Clerks' Protective Association' echoes modern conversations about labor rights and the persistent pressure on workers to sacrifice personal time for commercial availability.
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