Seattle's Police Funding Fight
Debate rages in the City Council over whether to maintain an expanded police force, with councilmembers split on the necessity of high costs following recent civil unrest.
Councilman Young presented a petition from taxpayers asking for the reduction of the current police force. Councilman Furth thought the matter was very indefinite as set forth in the petition, and wanted the force kept on while it could be done with safety. He acknowledged he considered the Council largely to blame for the recent trouble in our city for not keeping a larger police force. He stated that the old force was not sufficient to enforce the law and that the prime cause of our recent trouble—the Chinese—would not be in about four weeks, and then the force could be reduced with more safety. Councilman Young countered that three-fourths of the citizens wanted the force reduced immediately, arguing the current cost was too great for the services rendered. Mayor Yesler favored a large force for some time longer, stating that the sudden troubles in this city took place when the police force was small. After further debate, the matter was laid on the table until the next meeting.
“Every man who owns a dollar's worth of property here should be a police lieutenant as to helping in keeping general good order.”
This 1886 debate over police force size and taxpayer cost, explicitly linked to the anti-Chinese exclusion movement of the time, mirrors the persistent civic tension in Seattle regarding public safety, city budgets, and the exclusionary history of the city’s institutions.
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