The Governor’s War on the Railroad Lobby
Governor Henry McBride calls out corporate influence in the Washington state legislature during a fiery speech to Whitman County farmers.
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.
At an annual picnic in Elberton, Washington, Governor Henry McBride delivered a blistering critique of corporate influence in politics. Addressing thousands of Whitman County farmers, the Governor challenged the 'cunning and greed' of railroad lobbies that he claimed manipulated legislatures and ignored the will of the people. McBride argued that public servants who accept bribes or betray their electoral promises should be treated as political lepers. He explicitly supported the creation of a railroad commission to hold corporations accountable, insisting that as creatures of the law, railroads must abide by the same statutes as every other citizen.
“If entering a vigorous protest against these abuses can be construed as hostility towards the railroads, then again I confess to that hostility.”
McBride’s 1903 struggle to regulate powerful corporate lobbies and the transit interests of the day mirrors the modern struggle to keep corporate lobbying out of state-level housing and infrastructure policy in Washington.
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