Seattle’s $400,000 Railway Subsidy Drive Hits the Streets
Boosters for the Seattle and Lake Washington Railway report nearly $400,000 pledged, with liquor dealers and suburban notaries drafted to close the deal.
Subscriptions to the subsidy of the Seattle and Lake Washington Railway Company are close to $400,000, and the committees are hard at work. The subscription list already included Governor John H. McGraw, W. R. Hayes, J. Johnson, W. J. Stephens of Missoula, Mont., and many other citizens and firms.
The precinct committees were not heard from yesterday, but it is expected they will report this morning on their day’s work, and the aggregate sum raised by their efforts will no doubt be flattering. Among those who have been doing good work in soliciting pledges is E. D. [name unclear]. Messrs. [names unclear] and Hull have also been enthusiastic workers, and yesterday they brought in $1,400. Alt Fink raised $1,000, F. H. Rense brought in $500, and J. K. Howard $565.
The committee to canvass among the liquor dealers of the city started to work yesterday, and reports are expected today or tomorrow. The executive committee needs the assistance of notaries who can go out into the suburban districts and take acknowledgments of subsidy contracts for land. It would save much time and be the means of securing many pledges that could not otherwise be obtained. A dozen secretaries for this kind of work are desired. By calling on Secretary W. L. [name unclear] at the offices of the committee in the Bailey building they will be assigned work.
Replies from out-of-town subscribers continue coming in slowly. A letter was received yesterday from W. J. Stephens of Missoula, Mont., enclosing $500. A Missouri man who has property interests here also wrote. As his friends remember him as a rustler, he is liable to miss the money.
“The precinct committees were not heard from yesterday, but it is expected they will report this morning on their day’s work, and the aggregate sum raised by their efforts will no doubt be flattering.”
In 1895 Seattle’s business class organized a private subsidy to bring a railway into the young city; today’s debates over taxes, corporate incentives and transit expansion still turn on the same question of who pays to make growth happen. The campaign’s street-by-street canvass also shows how boosterism was sold as civic duty.
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