The First Socialist Manifesto in the Washington Territory
A bold reader writes to the Post-Intelligencer to challenge a local minister’s sermon, demanding justice for the working class and defending socialist principles as the only path to economic dignity.
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.
On the occasion of May 1st, a lecture was delivered to the Workingmen by the Rev. Mr. Strange on 'Socialism.' Having read a report of the lecture, and listening attentively to what he had to say, I take the liberty of stating that the reverend gentleman’s ideas of socialism are rather vague; in fact, he has failed to grasp the fundamental principles of it or else he has willfully ignored them. Socialism is a better and more just form of government—a better economy. Socialism in the eyes of justice is simply the practical application of the right of each individual to receive the full value of his own labor—no less, no more. Socialism does not want to 'tear down everything'; it merely aims to reconstruct society on a scientific basis, one of absolute justice. Socialism does not want to 'divide up the wealth of the country,' as the reverend gentleman asserted, and I can only consider that sufficiently to nobody outside of a lunatic asylum proponents such a thing. It does want to prevent the loafers of the world from dividing up between themselves their thefts from the working people. Socialism would not 'level everything in one dead equality'; it would only give equality of chance to every man, breaking the barriers which the loafers of the world have erected in the way of the workers, and its motto today is, 'He who will not work, neither shall he eat.'
“Socialism in the eyes of justice is simply the practical application of the right of each individual to receive the full value of his own labor—no less, no more.”
This 1885 letter to the editor captures a pivotal moment of political organization in early Seattle, reflecting the same tensions of wealth inequality, labor exploitation, and housing precarity that dominate the city's discourse 140 years later. The writer’s plea for an economy that rewards the producer rather than the 'loafer' (or rentier class) provides a striking historical mirror to contemporary debates over labor rights and the cost of living.
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