Online Histories of Snohomish County

The Death of the Washington Saloon

"Saloon" had become a dirty word to hundreds of thousands of Washington citizens by the early years of the century. It was associated with vice, immorality, drunkenness, and crime. Moreover, the number of places selling beer and whiskey had increased sharply because of the great profits to be made by bottled beer and swift rail networks for its distribution. Local breweries failed or were taken over by ruthless corporate giants and national distribution chains whose drive for profits forced saloon owners to increase their business with whatever means they could. Where money flowed, so did political graft and corruption.

American history tends to run in easily definable periods. The Civil War, The Great Depression, The sixties -- all evoke certain reactions among us. How accurate they may be is debatable. How come no Black cowboys or Chinese miners in Westerns, and would Custer have been a hero without his wife's tireless myth making?

In this case, the period was called The Progressive Era, a time of largely middle class reaction to the extremes of wealth that "robber barons" such as John D. Rockefeller and others were accumulating. The rich were very wealthy indeed -- no income tax then! The poor were often southern and central European immigrants forced into menial and factory labor jobs at minimal wages and horrible working conditions. No "safety nets" existed from the government, labor laws were minimal, and natural resources were there for the stealing.

For many people here, the evils of society called for reform. Conservation of national parks and forests, an eight-hour work day for women, initiative and referendum to give democratic powers to citizens and balance corrupt legislators -- all were on the agenda. The saloon too must go.

Most people in this state were not prohibitionists. By 1914, however, most were in favor of eliminating the excesses of saloon drinking. Experiments in local option laws to dry up towns or counties largely had failed. Businessmen freqently opposed them as harmful to profits, while the urban areas normally voted "wet", as opposed to rural "drys".

Why this voting pattern developed is a topic of discussion among historians. City vs. rural voting patterns are fairly consistent across the country, but this state was not really very "rural" in the sense that most people in Snohomish Conty or Washington lived on farms. They did not. Small towns and surrounding stumpland houses were more common. Over half the population also lived in cities, unlike the other Northwestern states.

What seems better to explain who was wet or dry and why the drys won is to look at patterns based on social class. Those reforms were made basically by the middle class and reflected their values: home, church, hard work, sobriety -- "traditional values" of the white Anglo-Saxon Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist beliefs.

If society could be improved -- and they believed it could -- then the less fortunate working and immigrant classes also could share the world if worldly evils could be reduced or eliminated. Better public schools, women's suffrage, and elimination of saloons all seemed worthy goals.

By 1914 leaders of churches such as the tall and fiery Rev. Mark Mathews of Seattle's First Presbyterian Church had entered the battle to destroy the saloon. Six and a half feet tall, flowing mane of black hair, a voice practiced in preaching since age 17 in Calhoun, Georgia, Matthews dominated a congregation which soon became the largest Presbyterian church in the country, having a building seating over 3,000 members. With cries to "kill sin" and live for other than the "blood-stained dollar", Mathews and other evangelicals tried to pass Initiative Number 3, the state-wide prohibition measure.

In Everett, 1500 children paraded with banners calling for "Less Booze, More Shoes". Newspapers such as the Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer bitterly fought against the measure. But on election day, November 3, 1914, 94.6 percent of the electorate cast ballots and gave victory to the "drys". Never had an off-year election brought out that many voters. Never has there been a higher total percentage of voters at the polls!

Fifty six percent of the vote in this county was in favor, 50.6 percent in the city of Everett. On January 1, 1916, the state effectively went dry. Movie theaters and automobiles began to provide outlets for people, while those who did violate the law with bootlegging and moonshine might find their premises smashed by the axes of the Dry Squad. The saloon was dead, not even to revive after the end of prohibition in 1933. So long, cowboy!