The City That Forgot Its Builders: Seattle’s Public Shaming of Its Own Founders

CONCERNING INDISCREET PERSONALITIES

In what this journal has had to say from time to time in the recent past concerning the urgent need for more business buildings in Seattle, there has been no direct or implied personal reference. The effort has been to direct public attention to what has seemed and still seems to be a vital public concern.

There are those, however, among the minor public prints here who, taking up the question, have made it the convenient handle for personal criticism, descending at times to vulgar abuse, of citizens who deserve very much kinder consideration. It should never be forgotten that it is every man's right to do as he wills with what is his own, and because he may not choose or find it convenient to do what we or others think would be wise and proper or even his duty to do, affords no just cause for terms that have by irresponsible parties been freely applied to certain well-known and honorable citizens.

Particularly does it come in bad taste from those who themselves do nothing for the public good to apply terms of discredit and contempt to men who have been among the staunch upholders of Seattle in her long struggle with those who have attempted to destroy her.

We believe that those who made and who have upheld Seattle in the past will not now desert her interests in her later necessities; that in any event, comes any lady now living here, in the enjoyment of the results of their early efforts, to call them hard names. The people of the present Seattle should have no terms save those of commendation and honor for those who made the Seattle of twenty years ago.