The Pilot’s Plea for Protection
A Puget Sound pilot is found cutting wood for a living because the lack of regulation has made the profession impossible to sustain.
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.
Port Townsend, Dec. 30. With reference to the pilot law controversy, Capt. K. Biondi, a member of the Puget Sound board of commissioners, makes the following statement: The pilot commissioners have only met once on business, at which meeting they reviewed what had been done by their predecessors and prepared an amendment to the pilot bill. We are not in favor of a compulsory law. We simply want a protective law, one that will protect the ship against loss on entering these waters. At present, when a ship master wants a pilot, he is obliged to walk out in the direction of some of the many additions in the outskirts of town, as our pilots can't afford to live in town. I met one yesterday about a mile back here cutting cordwood. I spoke to him and asked him why he was not down the Straits looking for ships. He replied: 'You may count on me being there as soon as the legislature passes a protective law, so that we may be able to make a living at the business.'
“I met one yesterday about a mile back here cutting cordwood. I spoke to him and asked him why he was not down the Straits looking for ships.”
The plight of these pilots reveals how the economic 'boom' of the 1890s failed the workers tasked with navigating the most dangerous waters on the coast. It is a striking image of a skilled professional driven into manual labor due to legislative failure, echoing modern labor struggles in the gig economy.
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