The School Bond Fight Turns on Who Gets the Work
As Olympia weighs a new high school, school board members promise home labor and local material—if the bonds pass. A workingmen's meeting wants that promise made binding.
Upon the subject of the proposed High School building, more or less apprehension is felt that the work will be given to a non-resident contractor who will employ non-resident laborers. It being a question of universal interest, particularly to the laboring classes, a TRIBUNE reporter interrogated each member of the school board upon the subject.
J. C. Rathbun expressed himself as being in favor of home labor doing the work. 'If the bonds are voted,' he continued, 'I shall favor showing a reasonable partiality to the material men of the city and the laboring men who have families here. I do not know how the matter will be presented to the board, if at all, but it is to the interests of Olympia to have a home contractor do the work, who will use home material and employ home labor.'
S. H. Barbee was likewise emphatically in favor of home men. He said: 'If the bonds carry I shall do all in my power, consistent with my duties to the public, to have the building erected by home labor. I think the people would favor paying to a home contractor a few hundred dollars more than to a foreign contractor.'
S. C. Woodruff is not impressed with the necessity for an additional school building and hopes very much that the bonds won't carry. Mr. Woodruff said: 'It will incur a useless expense and increase our indebtedness. More than that, we have plenty of room in the Lincoln building, and the erection of a high school will be just an additional expense of $3,000 per year to run it. I am greatly in favor of public improvements, but I cannot see the economy with our present accommodations. However, if the bonds do carry, I shall most earnestly insist on the employment of home labor, so far as consistent.'
The people can rest assured that if the bonds are voted home labor and home material will construct the building.
Tonight at Columbia Hall a meeting of the workingmen will be held to consider the school bonding question. The promoters of the meeting are not opposed to the project of building a new school house, but before voting for the bonds they desire to ascertain if the contract will be so let as to insure the employment of home labor in the construction of the building. They wish to guard against a repetition of recent experience in connection with public work, and prevent the importation of workmen who have no interests here.
“It is to the interests of Olympia to have a home contractor do the work, who will use home material and employ home labor.”
The 1892 argument over whether public school construction should employ Olympia labor echoes current debates over local hire and public-works contracts. Then as now, a building project was not just about classrooms but about which families got the paychecks.
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