The Political Gamble of Statehood
As Washington prepares to enter the Union, party operatives sweat over the balance of power in Congress.
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.
Within three months, if all goes well and none of the constitutions are rejected by the people, four new States will be added to the Union and the membership of congress will be increased by eight new senators and five new representatives. With the political balance nicely adjusted, as it is, the introduction of this new element into the body politic will unquestionably disturb the equilibrium not a little. If, for instance, the Democrats should carry all four new states, the control of both houses of congress would be taken from the Republicans. The Senate would be made reliably Democratic, and the House of Representatives would be Democratic by a bare majority. If, on the other hand, the Republicans should carry all four States, both houses would be rendered reliably Republican. Washington, the fourth of the new states, is naturally Republican, and only the most unpardonable blunders on the part of the Republicans can give it to the Democracy. The chances are, therefore, that six of the new senators and four of the representatives will be Republicans, while two senators and one representative will be Democrats.
“The introduction of this new element into the body politic will unquestionably disturb the equilibrium not a little.”
In the summer of 1889, Washington was on the cusp of statehood, with political parties obsessed by the implications of the new electoral map. This anxiety over how demographic and geographic shifts will 'disturb the equilibrium' of federal power remains the central tension of every major political cycle in Washington state today.
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