The Struggle for Dignity in the Logging Camps
A historic appeal from 1880s Snohomish invites laborers to seek fair wages and better conditions amidst the grueling demands of the frontier timber industry.
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.
To the working class: Where there is wealth, there is power, and wealth is created by labor. The wealth of this territory is being piled up by the labor of the working man. The men who labor in the forests and the mills, who risk their lives, their health, and their strength, are they receiving their fair share of the results of their toil? We say no. The wealth is being concentrated in the hands of the few, while those who create it are left in poverty. To the men of the logging camps: we ask you to be men, to stand for your rights, and to demand that which is yours. We are prepared to assist you in finding employment that pays a living wage. We invite all who are seeking work or wanting better conditions to call upon us, and we will do our best to serve the interest of the laborer.
“The wealth is being concentrated in the hands of the few, while those who create it are left in poverty.”
This 1880s call for labor solidarity mirrors current-day housing and wage struggles in the Pacific Northwest, where the workers who sustain the region’s economy often find themselves priced out of the very communities they built. The tension between concentrated corporate wealth and the value of labor remains the fundamental engine of local civic discourse.
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