Port Townsend Refused to Help Seattle Dig Its Canal—Washington Still Paid for It
A Port Townsend meeting cheered resolutions against the 'Seattle ditch,' even as Congress was appropriating $100,000 to begin work on the canal.
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Before the meeting had been in progress five minutes it was plain to be seen that the sentiment was strongly 'agin the ditch,' and the suggestion of W. F. Rupert that the scheme of the 'visitor from Seattle,' with the first and last words quoted strongly accented, be frowned down on by the citizens of Port Townsend, was acceptable to the majority of those present. There appeared to be a sort of mutual understanding among the majority present that it was the duty of the citizens of Port Townsend to sit squarely down on anything that would in any way benefit Seattle. The suggestion of a 'Seattle scheme' seemed to inspire enthusiastic opposition, as it were, and the calm, dispassionate remarks of Judge F. K. Scotland and Judge E. A. Balinger, both of whom attempted to say that the old resolution of the Chamber of Commerce was, in their opinion, short-sighted and unwise, were not encouraged as were the excited words of W. F. Rupert, who seemed anxious only to bring to the surface all the prejudice that could be stirred up against Seattle. Mr. Rupert in his remarks could not suppress a feeling of pride that the resolution against the Seattle canal, which had been framed by him, had acquired some prominence in congressional circles, and the drift of his remarks was to the effect that Port Townsend must stand by her guns and prevent the 'scheme' from being perpetrated. He probably had not read the Associated Press dispatches from Washington City showing that while he was speaking the 'scheme' against which he was protesting was doubtless at that very minute being 'perpetrated' by an appropriation of $100,000 for beginning work on the 'Seattle ditch.' There is now no reason why Seattle should ask Port Townsend to rescind the famous resolution, and, indeed, no reason why she should care a continental whether any action is taken by the citizens here or not.
“There appeared to be a sort of mutual understanding among the majority present that it was the duty of the citizens of Port Townsend to sit squarely down on anything that would in any way benefit Seattle.”
The Lake Washington Ship Canal eventually transformed Seattle's relationship to its waterways, but the fight shows how regional infrastructure spending has always set towns against one another. Then as now, a 'scheme' that benefits one city can look like a threat to another's place in the hierarchy.
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