The Political Tax Revolt of 1885
In a scorched-earth letter to the editor, a Whatcom resident decries the rise of 'Knights of Labor' candidates, claiming their victory at the polls signaled a collapse of property values and fiscal responsibility.
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.
The Whatcom city election on last Monday very forcibly demonstrated the fact that Whatcom is rapidly decreasing in population. The total vote in 1884 was 238, while this year it was only 88, a falling off in one year of over sixty-three per cent. So also does the assessment roll show an enormous degradation in the assessed value of property. In 1884 the assessed value of property in this city was something over $500,000. This year it is less than $60,000. Taxes last year were enormous, amounting to almost confiscation of property. This year it is a little better, owing to the fact that a majority of the City Council are conservative business men. But we have reason to apprehend that next year the taxes will again be enormous, because a majority of the Council elected on last Monday by the Knights of Labor pay no tax at all, and therefore will not care how much others are taxed so that they and their following may profit thereby. The prevailing sentiment among the Knights of Labor here seems to be that any one who pays taxes is unfit to hold office. As a circumstance to prove this, I herewith submit the ticket elected by them on last Monday, together with the amount of taxable property of each, as shown by the books in the office of the City Treasurer: Mayor E. H. Marcy, property $0, tax $0; P. E. Ihekenaon, property $0, tax $0; Wm. Powell, property $0, tax $0; Rufus Stearns, property $450, tax $1.75; John V. Collins, property $0, tax $0. Thus it will be seen that the Mayor and two members of the Council pay no taxes whatever, and that the entire Board pays only the insignificant sum of one dollar and seventy five cents. Let us all pray for down trodden, tax ridden Whatcom.
“The prevailing sentiment among the Knights of Labor here seems to be that any one who pays taxes is unfit to hold office.”
This 1885 editorial mirrors the classic 'taxpayer vs. tenant' discourse that persists in contemporary Seattle. The author's anxiety about non-property-owning laborers gaining political power captures the raw, class-conscious tension of the Territory's early development.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.