The Surprise Nomination of a Seattle Banker

At Olympia the Republican state convention nominated John H. McGraw, of Seattle, for governor on the first ballot. The Chehalis Bee wrote: When the name of Hon. John H. McGraw was first sprung for governor it created a sensation—not because any one questioned for a moment that Mr. McGraw was fully able in every way to be governor and fill the office with credit to himself and honor to his party and the state, but because he was entirely out of the field as a candidate for any office. There were few who would believe but that his name would be withdrawn at the last minute and the strength of the combination which had been so skillfully formed thrown to some other candidate. An hour before his nomination Mr. McGraw absolutely insisted that his friends should not force his nomination, giving as his reasons that simply as a matter of business he could not accept it.

Mr. McGraw is president of the First National bank of Seattle, and in that capacity receives $5,000 a year. The office of governor pays $3,000 a year, and is an honorable one to be sure. Mr. McGraw is not a rich man by any means, although by his very merits he has worked himself up to the position of president of one of the largest banking houses in Seattle. To accept the nomination meant three months of hard work and strain of a political campaign and the neglect of his business affairs. But Mr. McGraw's King county friends, who have honored him in the past, were not content to allow him to withdraw from the contest which meant his nomination and triumphant election to the highest office in the gift of the people of our state. They would not permit him to withdraw his name, and Mr. McGraw was nominated by a vote of 29 to 11 for the united opposition.

The man who is thus brought before the people of his state as a candidate for governor is a splendid exemplification of the American man and the American gentleman. A child of poverty, thrown on his own resources at the early age of 14, he has worked his way steadily forward. Self-made, self-educated, he is a living exemplification of the possibilities which life offers to every American citizen, however humble may be his beginning. Mr. McGraw is one of Seattle's most honored and respected business men. His election means the success of a progressive man enjoying good health, a man in the prime of life and one who in his administration of state affairs will be governor for all the people.