The Political Plumes of Washington Territory
A partisan battle over which political party actually deserves credit for the birth of Washington State.
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.
It is customary for the Democratic party to array itself in borrowed plumes and to strut before the public, cawing loudly about the fine feathers with which it has sought to cover its own blackness. The latest attempt of the Democracy to claim credit for the good things which the Republican party has done is the absurd pretense that to the Democrats is due the admission of the Northwestern territories. The platform adopted at Ellensburg declares that 'Washington territory was wrested from British possession by Democratic courage, statesmanship and diplomacy; that it was first organized as a political division by a Democratic administration.' A more misleading series of statements could not be strung together. The admission of Washington was a product of the Republican party, and any effort to dissociate the one from the other must be both illiberal and dishonest. It is folly for the Democracy to deck itself with that bright plume. The facts show that it belonged to the Republican bird of paradise.
“It is customary for the Democratic party to array itself in borrowed plumes and to strut before the public.”
This 1889 editorial reflects the intense, high-stakes partisan bickering over the 'ownership' of Washington's statehood—a mirror to today's debates where civic identity and political legacy remain intensely contested ground in Seattle’s rapidly evolving local politics.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.