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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

100 years ago today: 35,000 strikers bring Seattle to standstill

From the Feb. 6, 1919 Spokane Daily Chronicle. (SR)

In Seattle, “streetcars stopped running, schools closed, restaurants and theaters closed, newspapers stopped printing” and the business life of the city came to a virtual standstill.

It was the first day of what would go down in history as the Seattle General Strike of 1919, as 35,000 union workers walked off their jobs in support of 25,000 striking shipyard workers.

Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson declared that he expected no “trouble or disorder,” but he also said 10,000 extra police would be deputized if necessary.

There were already signs that the general strike was not going the way union leaders had planned. The strike did not expand to Tacoma, as they had hoped. Most workers remained on the job in that city, except for the streetcar men.

No sympathy strikes were reported in either Portland or Spokane.

However, armed U.S. soldiers were “patrolling the streets” of Spokane, keeping an eye on “bolsheviks,” Wobblies and other radicals.

Spokane County Sheriff George L. Reid applauded that move.

“One can’t tell when we will be affected by the Seattle strike,” Reid said. “It is just like a smoldering volcano. Conditions are not the same, however, as they are in Seattle.”