Press-Intelligencer Backs Public Ownership of Seattle Wharf
A 1889 editorial argues that city ownership of the Seattle waterfront is the only way to save producers from the 'double-tax' of private warehousing.
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.
This is the main idea back of the effort made by the Press-Intelligencer: that the tide-lands belonging to the state should be held by the state, rather than sold to the greedy corporations. The people of Seattle and other commercial ports will find that with the property under private control, the business motive of gain will prevail over all higher ideas of public economy. They will find that by combination they can fix the rates of wharfage, storage, etc., far above the normal level and thereby exact much higher profits than under a system of fair and open competition. Who can doubt that in this era of trusts such a combination would be formed? That it would be maintained purely as a tax upon commerce and also upon the production of every article which must find its way to market across the docks of this or any other shipping port? Another element of cost under the proposed system of individual ownership would be the inconvenience resulting from separate facilities developed upon individual and inharmonious plans. Suppose a consignment of grain from Kent is offered for shipment and is stored in a warehouse at the city front belonging to A, to be shipped later from a dock belonging to B. There are two men to be paid, and there must of course be a transfer; and as A and B have built each upon an independent plan, there is no arrangement for easy, direct and cheap communication from warehouse to dock. The consignment must be loaded upon drays and hauled around from the place of storage to the place of shipment; and this transfer costs money, which along with all other charges, falls upon the producer. If, on the other hand, both warehouse and dock belonged to one owner, he would be satisfied with a single instead of a double charge. In the interest of the producer we maintain that the city front property of the state should be held by the state, improved upon a harmonious plan most convenient to commerce and administered upon plans calculated to save money for the producer.
“Who can doubt that in this era of trusts such a combination would be formed? That it would be maintained purely as a tax upon commerce?”
In 1889, Seattle's editorialists were warning that private control of the waterfront would create a 'tax upon commerce'—a sentiment that echoes today's debates about port automation, logistics monopolies, and the public's right to access the city's maritime infrastructure.
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