The Fight to Keep Olympia's Public Works Money in Olympia
A local editor takes credit for shaming the city council into hiring home labor — and warns that out-of-town contractors are bleeding the capital dry.
The best governed cities in the United States are those that own their own water and lighting plants, do their own street and sewer work and keep out of politics as much as possible. The Olympia street improvements were largely peddled out last year to "boarding house" contractors. Our court house is now being constructed in that manner. Against this system The Tribune lifted its voice from time to time and spoke for home labor. It showed months ago that men who were living here and paying taxes had to go elsewhere to get employment. The persistent efforts it made in behalf of the city doing its own work had the effect of bringing the old city council to its senses, and it also woke up the workingmen to the fact that agitation of the subject was all that was needed to get Olympia labor for Olympians in the future. The school board has determined that the new brick high school must be erected by citizens of Olympia and built out of Olympia material. This is as it should be. It smacks too much of the Chinese system of doing things, to allow a crowd of peripatetic workmen from abroad to come into this city, do a big job of work for the city or county, get their money and then after finishing their contract, move on to some other point. No city in the Union can support its workingmen if such a system obtains a foothold. "Olympia for Olympians" should be the watchword.
“"Olympia for Olympians" should be the watchword.”
Then as now, the question of whether a city's tax dollars should hire its own residents — local-hire ordinances, prevailing wage rules, out-of-town contractors on public jobs — is one of the most durable fights in Olympia politics. Note the ugly turn of phrase the editor reaches for to attack white itinerant workmen: anti-Chinese rhetoric was the common currency of 1892 labor politics, only a few years after the Puget Sound expulsions. The same 'us or them' logic that won jobs for Olympians had already been used to drive Chinese workers out of town.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.