Seattle’s Turn Toward Global Power
While mourning lives lost in the Samoan crisis, local boosters embrace the promise of a massive naval expansion—and the federal contracts that come with it.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The loss of our warships at Samoa and the involuntary examination and scrutiny of our navy to ascertain what vessels will take the places of those destroyed shows more clearly than ever in what a deplorable condition we are and demonstrates the fact beyond contravention that our present fleet is a disgrace to the country. It will be, therefore, all the more gratifying to observe that our new secretary of the navy has hardly been installed in office when he gives signs of activity by ordering proposals to be prepared for the construction of eight new warships. No better use could be made of the vast sums at the disposal of the government than the construction of a respectable navy to protect our seacoasts and constantly increasing commerce. Had the United States possessed any sort of a modern fleet, it is highly probable that the Samoan difficulty would never have arisen, and many families in the land would not to-day be mourning the loss of fathers, husbands and brothers.
“No better use could be made of the vast sums at the disposal of the government than the construction of a respectable navy to protect our seacoasts.”
In 1889, Seattle viewed military spending as a catalyst for local industrial growth and national prestige. Today, the Pacific Northwest remains deeply embedded in the defense-industrial complex, balancing the economic benefits of naval contracts with the geopolitical realities of a city turned toward the Pacific.
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