The Women Who Stormed the Police Chief’s Office
In 1885, a group of Seattle women, frustrated by official corruption and the unchecked influence of saloons and gambling dens, launched a moral crusade to demand a new Chief of Police.
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.
Many of your readers are amused by the bold take by the ladies in our municipal affairs with fire such as might have surged over old Rip Van Winkle on waking from his deep sleep. They have set out on a moral crusade against vice and immorality, and are now storming that stronghold of the men, the office of Chief of Police. If, indeed, they can garrison it with a true, loyal man, the enemy will fall back with broken ranks. There is not a more important office than Chief of Police in the gift of the city. If arrests are not made, and vice runs rampant, it is the fault of the police force. A police officer is a peace officer. It is his province to see that safety and good order prevail in every part of the city; his duty to impartially enforce the city ordinances. The glaring sin of our police force is that a few paltry dollars will bribe them to wink at crimes which should be unsparingly prosecuted, especially those connected with saloons, gambling dens, and houses of ill fame. Whiskey strives to be respectable, and with the aid of corrupt policemen it is an easy matter to hide any disorder. For many years they have had police officers after their own heart, and they know what the loss will mean. Let us have a pure, intelligent, resolute Chief of Police, loyal and true to those declared in favor of law and order, and Seattle will be the pride of her citizens, the pride of the Territory, and soon, the pride of the State of Washington.
“The glaring sin of our police force is that a few paltry dollars will bribe them to wink at crimes which should be unsparingly prosecuted.”
This 1885 editorial highlights a recurring cycle in Seattle civic life: the tension between a rapidly growing urban economy built on 'vice' industries and a reformist public demand for law and order. Today's debates over police accountability and the regulation of street-level disorder echo this century-old struggle for control over the city's moral and legal landscape.
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