Tacoma Votes to Break the Power Monopoly
Citizens overwhelmingly approve a municipal power plant, aiming to reclaim control from private interests and slash utility influence.
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.
By a vote of practically three to one, the citizens of Tacoma Saturday declared for the municipal power plant and voted themselves freedom from the grip of private monopoly. The people have come into their own. Tacoma wants that power plant. The people have said it should be built, and they have laid $300,000 in bonds at the feet of the city administration to start the work by securing the land and rights essential. In the carrying forward of this project, should private interests clash with public good, the administration should hark back to this vote and remember that by three to one the people have declared not only for this power plant but against the trickery and deception which opposed it, and that the interests of Tacoma come first.
“The people have come into their own.”
This 1910 push for municipal power reflects a century-long struggle in the Pacific Northwest over public vs. private control of vital infrastructure. Today's debates over TPU's future and clean energy transitions echo the same tension between 'private monopoly' and 'public good' that defined Tacoma's early 20th-century progressivism.
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