The Great Hose Heist: How a Seattle Fire Department Was Almost Scammed by a New York Manufacturer

PECULIAR BUSINESS METHODS.

At the meeting of the board of public works yesterday a letter was read from the Eureka Fire Hose Company, in which they declined to honor the contract made recently by Mr. McElroy, who represented himself to be their agent. He seems to have been justified by a telegram received by the Board of Public Works a few days before the contract was made. It was dated New York and said in substance that nobody but McElroy was authorized to make quotations on the Pacific coast, and that any contract made should be in his name or that of the Eureka Fire Hose Company.

The letter, which is a flat contradiction of the telegram, is as follows:

"The company is in receipt this morning of your official acceptance, dated January 1891, for 10,000 feet of hose delivered in Seattle, Wash., at 75 cents per foot, payable in warrants on the fire fund of the city of Seattle. Your official acceptance is made to conform with the proposal made by Mr. F. B. McElroy, copy of which you submit to us as follows:

'I hereby propose to furnish the city of Seattle with ten thousand feet of our Paragon fire hose, earned and delivered, at 75 cents per foot, payable in warrants on the fire fund of the city of Seattle. 'We can guarantee our hose to stand a hydraulic pressure of 100 pounds to the square inch upon delivery, and we also warrant the same to stand the wear and tear of your fire department for a term of five years from date of delivery. Respectfully submitted, 'The Eureka Fire Hose Co., Per F. B. McElroy, Agent.'"

The company decline to accept the proposition as made by Mr. McElroy, as he had no authority whatever from the company to make a tender touched in any such language, nor was he authorized to name the terms of payment as proposed therein, and unless the terms of payment can be modified and the guarantee made to conform with the guarantees established in the usual form by the company, which we enclose you herewith, we have no alternative but to refuse to receipt your order.

The company was unaware that the city of Seattle had made or intended to make any purchase of its Paragon hose until we saw an item taken from your city newspapers of December 10, 1890, that the contract had been awarded to this company at $1.10 per foot, for the 10,000 feet of Paragon fire hose.

We desire to say that the fire hose business of the company for the Pacific coast is controlled by our San Francisco office, and no other parties have any right to tender our hose in that territory. Our instructions have always been to our San Francisco office to charge ten cents per foot more for our brands of fire hose on the Pacific coast than they are sold for in the East, on account of the increased cost of delivering the hose and doing business there, and the price issued of $1.10 per foot for our Paragon hose was made without doubt by Mr. McElroy to cover the discounts on your warrants, and when we got your telegram of December 31, we were in total ignorance that your warrants were at a discount, and were totally ignorant of the terms of payment and guarantee made by Mr. McElroy.

We notice by a newspaper clipping taken from the Seattle Telegraph, January 1891, wherein the Paragon brand of fire hose is reported being sold to the city of Troy, N.Y. at the sum of 75 cents per foot, but the parties in this city who forwarded this information to their agents in your city maliciously failed to say in their communication that the city of Troy called for hose to be furnished without couplings, and all the bids tendered by this company, and other companies, were so based. We have been furnished with all the newspaper clippings showing the proceedings of the authorities to the purchase of this 10,000 feet of Paragon hose, and we have noticed all the wild statements that have been made therein and it seems to have been the policy of all the parties to circumvent the authorities in purchasing, in their opinion, which was the hose best adapted for their service, and it is a well-established fact that the Paragon brand of fire hose, as selected, has given better satisfaction wherever used than any other brands of hose offered to you, and none of these brands of hose or the manufacturers of the same can point to a record for years of durability and the fire service equal to our Paragon hose, and it appears by the newspaper reports it was a question with all these parties how they could prevent the board from purchasing the hose it desired. That appeared to be their main object we should judge by the newspaper reports.

We beg to return you herewith your official order, as we decline to fill it on the terms and conditions stated therein, but we will fill the order and deliver our Paragon fire hose in Seattle for the sum of 90 cents per foot net cash, or will accept your warrant payable on the fire fund of your city that will net us $9,000 net cash for the 10,000 feet of tire hose, and our guarantee will be such as the company has always made and has never authorized any other parties to make any different guarantees, which will be for a period of thirty-six months against all defects in manufacture, and will replace all such hose on return of the defective lengths, and further guarantee the said hose to stand a test pressure of 400 pounds to the square inch on delivery.

We enclose you our formal contract which we have filled up and signed, and trust that you will accept the same and return to us without delay.

If this readjustment of terms and conditions for furnishing the 10,000 feet of Paragon fire hose is satisfactory to you, you will please telegraph us your approval of the same, returning us the contract signed and we will proceed to execute it. We desire to apologize to the board for the unauthorized actions of Mr. F.B. McElroy, and were it not for the newspaper reports that we have been enabled to get it the proceedings of your board we would be in ignorance today of what has taken place in reference to your purchase of fire hose. We trust that you will receive this frank communication in the spirit in which it is sent.

Should you comply or not with our request, we thank you for your kindness, also to Chief Hogg, as we notice by the newspaper reports that he used diligence in ascertaining from the principal fire departments of the country as to the character of hose he did recommend and that he has the pleasure of knowing that the officers of the fire departments of our principal cities sustain him in his recommendations, and we beg to send you a statistical card showing you the quantities of your fire hose purchased by the leading cities of this Country.

Mr. Heibron moved that the communication be referred to the corporation counsel to ascertain if the contract was binding. The contract was made with the San Francisco agent directly, on a telegram received from the firm. This was agreed to.