The Fight for City Hall Reform
A committee clash over charter reform and the initiative process reveals deep divisions in Seattle's civic governance.
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.
Five men have succeeded in thwarting any effort to submit to the people whether or not there shall be one or two houses of the city council. At the meeting of the charter revision committee held last night, the ultimatum of the board of aldermen—that they would refuse to submit any proposition which did not perpetuate the terms of the five hold-over aldermen—was read. Republican member W.T. Scott expressed the opinion that it was hopeless to attempt to do away with one house. The committee discussed a proposal to allow citizens to petition for charter amendments, with advocates citing the 'initiative and referendum' system used in Switzerland. Mr. Donworth warned the committee that such power would lead to disastrous, inharmonious amendments, while Robert Bridges argued that the laboring people of the city fully supported the right to have a direct say in their local organic law.
“In Switzerland, the percentage was only 1 1/2. The system is called the initiative and referendum. As it is now, if five men object to an amendment it is not submitted.”
The tension between an entrenched city council and a populace demanding the right to initiate legislation is a classic Seattle story, echoing the 19th-century struggle for the initiative and referendum that would eventually define Washington State politics.
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