Walla Walla Tells Its Lawmakers: Drop Everything and Fight the Railroads
The Commercial Club wired the legislature to back the Morgan bill—and warned that any half-hearted local representative would be treated as “an enemy to this town.”
Walla Walla, March 5.—Special.—The Commercial Club met at its hall at 7:45 p.m. today to consider a set of resolutions to wire the legislature regarding the passage of the Morgan bill when it comes up as a special order tomorrow. P. B. Johnson offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:
“The Commercial Club, an organization of several hundred representatives of every industry and business in the Walla Walla Valley, demands that the senators and representatives in the legislature of Washington from Walla Walla County drop all other matters and devote their time and abilities to securing the passage and approval of the bill for regulation of railroad charges now pending in the Senate, and the members of the club declare that they will regard every member of the legislature from Walla Walla who gives half-hearted support to the measure as an enemy to this town. The members of the Senate from other counties are requested to assist in the passage of this bill.”
“The members of the club declare that they will regard every member of the legislature from Walla Walla who gives half-hearted support to the measure as an enemy to this town.”
Railroads were the Amazon and Microsoft of 1890s Washington—private companies whose rates could make or break whole towns. Then as now, local business groups organized to demand that state government check concentrated economic power, and treated legislative deference as betrayal.
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