The Fracturing of Seattle’s Labor Movement
As industrial tensions simmered in 1886, a local newspaper editorial condemned the radicalization of the Knights of Labor, contrasting them with the more moderate national leadership of Terence V. Powderly.
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 views of General Master Workman Powderly, if they are really as published, are not exactly in harmony with those of his local disciples, or speaking more accurately, with those of the little ring of socialistic plotters and shallow knaves who belie the principles of the Knights of Labor in this community and who have by their treasonable utterances discredited the Society in the eyes of good citizens. If public utterances are to be relied upon, the anarchist clique have succeeded in weaning the local assemblies away from the parent Order and are steering a course of their own—steering it, too, as a blind pilot with a broken compass would steer a rudderless vessel. It is impossible to see what the representatives of the Knights of Labor in Seattle have in common with the main body of their Order. Powderly may be taken as a representative of the general Order. The official organ of District Assembly No. 95 and the officers of that assembly must be taken as representatives of the local branch of the Order. Powderly clearly repudiates lawlessness. The local anarchists continually use the bayonet both as a weapon and a threat, approve of violence, and glory in lawlessness. Powderly asserts his loyalty and claims to have nothing to do with nihilism. The local anarchists show no trace of loyalty and in some cases firmly avow their socialistic creed. Powderly was horrified at the Chicago outrage; the local anarchists undoubtedly endure that outrage and glory in it.
“The local anarchists continually use the bayonet both as a weapon and a threat, approve of violence, and glory in lawlessness.”
This 1886 editorial highlights the historic tension between moderate, institutionalized labor organizers and more radical direct-action groups in Seattle—a dynamic that defined the city's labor landscape for decades, mirroring modern debates over the efficacy of protest tactics versus institutional negotiation.
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