A Temperance Victory Built on Small-Town Spite
After a chaotic night session, the Anti-Saloon League's local-option bill cleared the Washington House — not on moral conviction, but on rural resentment of Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane.
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.
OLYMPIA, Feb. 5. — The petty jealousy and animosity which the resident of a small community somehow feels it his duty to bear against that of a large city is the force that passed the Anti-Saloon League local option bill in the House.
Out of such small things frequently come great. The representatives of the cities of the third class and the towns of the state absolutely declined to allow an exception to be made in favor of Seattle, Tacoma or Spokane unless they could share in it. The result was the sudden disintegration of the majority of the House which was willing to amend the Anti-Saloon League bill.
To none of the members who talked long and laboriously for the bill, to none of the moral convictions involved, is the credit due, but the desired result was obtained by a rather childish resentment of the one-story man against the ten-story man.
The plan to make Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane units of themselves to vote on the question of local option was defeated because Shelton, Kelso and Cowlitz were not accorded the official distinction of being considered communities equally as important as the big cities of the state.
As a parliamentary victory the Anti-Saloon League's triumph is nothing. Those who opposed the measure were equally blundering; of political astuteness in the House there wasn't enough to ripple a town council. Aside from a half dozen members, there wasn't a man in the House capable of getting to his feet and saying what he thought, or if he was, so much the worse for his thinking apparatus.
The debate, with exceptions noted, was most of the time incoherent and not infrequently worthy of the linguistic distortions of Oscar and Rudolph. And this applied to both sides of the question. The final debates, when they were not dreary and inane, were ridiculous. As to speaking to the point at issue, it was impossible. The debaters stuttered and stammered, talked and talked, staggered through long and involved sentences looking for a convenient conclusion upon which to stop, but in vain.
It was proven on the floor that but 19 of the 96 members had ever read the bill.
And yet the House blundered along to a creditable bit of legislation. The liquor interests certainly got the worst of it. The whole question was the giving of the right to vote on the question to the people and how it should be done.
The local option bill has the Senate yet to contend with. The Senate judiciary committee will recommend a bill excluding all incorporated towns and declaring for prohibition in all unincorporated territory. Incorporated cities and towns can settle the matter for themselves.
If the bill passes the Senate, it will come to the House and once more the mighty battle of getting right on the record will be fought over. The Anti-Saloon League's local option is triumphant in the House, by accident. But the Senate is the nut yet to crack.
“It was proven on the floor that but 19 of the 96 members had ever read the bill.”
Washington's long fight over local option was really a fight over who gets to decide: state lawmakers, city voters, or rural districts. The same rural-urban resentments and legislative chaos shape modern ballot fights over alcohol rules, zoning and local control. The 1909 House passed temperance by accident — a reminder that sweeping policy often turns on small political injuries.
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