The Drive for Anti-Chinese Ordinances in 1885 Seattle
A local petition sought to bar Chinese laborers from laundry businesses and vegetable peddling, laying the groundwork for a wave of exclusionary legislation.
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.
A petition was extensively signed yesterday for presentation to the City Council tonight. The petition recites as follows: 'The undersigned would respectfully show and petition that a strong sentiment prevails in this city in favor of the City Council taking all lawful measures to free the city of all disturbing causes, and to enact such ordinances as will effectually prohibit the various nuisances incident to laundries; also to regulate the license ordinance so as to protect the labor of citizens to the same extent that the mercantile interests are protected. We therefore pray that your honorable body will so amend the license ordinance as to prohibit the peddling of vegetables by any person other than American citizens, or persons who have declared their intentions to become citizens. Also that an ordinance be passed prohibiting the establishment or the conducting of any laundry business without a permit by the Common Council, and that permits be granted only to citizens of the United States, and to those who have declared their intentions to become citizens.' The intent of this petition, as any one can see, is to shut out the Chinese. It will quite as effectually shut out other foreigners, who do not choose to become citizens of the country, and to this no fair-minded person can object. Those who are unwilling to become citizens, and to share with us the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, should be forbidden as many of its advantages as possible. As for the Chinese, a pursuit of the course suggested by this petition affords the easiest possible solution of the problem now sorely vexing the people of the Pacific States and Territories. With such ordinances in force, there would not be a single Chinaman in the city three months hence. Their going would be lawful, peaceful and unattended by hurtful effects.
“Those who are unwilling to become citizens, and to share with us the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, should be forbidden as many of its advantages as possible.”
This 1885 petition captures the intense anti-Asian agitation that defined late 19th-century Seattle labor politics. Today, we reflect on how civic power was leveraged through local ordinance to systematically disenfranchise vulnerable immigrant communities, echoing modern debates over who belongs and who is entitled to economic opportunity in a changing city.
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