A Call to Oust the 'Corporate Oligarchy' at Olympia

Whatever may be his faults, there sits in the executive chair at Olympia a man who is battling almost single-handedly for the rights of the people against the corrupt and corrupting oligarchy which rules this state. Governor McBride, although bigoted and a rank partisan, is a giant as compared with any of those pygmies who grovel at the feet of corporation hirelings. Yet, go among Republican politicians anywhere in the state and one can scarcely hear a good word for this man who has made and is making such a courageous fight for the people's rights. A legislature, four-fifths Republican, was chosen a year ago pledged to give the people relief. Under the whip and spur of the railroad lobby, this sacred pledge was utterly repudiated and, with a millionaire senatorial candidate in the field to bleed, the meeting of the legislative body degenerated into a roaring farce and a carnival of corruption. How long the suffering people will permit these evil conditions to continue no man can tell. History must first repeat itself and send along another cataclysm in the way of a political deluge which will sweep away all the barnacles that now infest the old ship and give it a chance to right itself.