booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

y rail and boarded another vessel for the trip up the Pacific Coast and into the Strait of
Juan de Fuca. She was the only woman on board and grateful that the men helped her care
for the children.
As a young man, Laurence Booth had been a Democrat. Disgusted by William
Jennings Bryan’s “Free Silver” presidential campaign in 1896, he “shifted his allegiance
to the Republican standard” and became an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt. A reformer,
Booth was active in the successful 1911 campaign to recall Seattle Mayor Hiram C. Gill,
whose “open town” administration was soft on vice. Brothels, gambling dens, dance halls
and saloons – shades of the days when Seattle was the gateway to the Klondike gold rush
– thrived in the “restricted district” south of Yesler Way. Booth believed Seattle needed
to shed its lusty image to become a truly great city. He was active with the Chamber of
Commerce for 45 years. Booth recalled Seattle’s freewheeling days with no fondness in
1933. American Mercury magazine published his blistering rebuttal to an article by James
Stevens, the popular Northwest writer. Entitled “The Natural History of Seattle,” Stevens’
piece said a brothel had played a role in the rivalry between Seattle and Tacoma. Mixing
boosterism with his first-hand knowledge of Seattle history, Booth wrote, “That brothel had
no more effect on” the “forces leading to the development of Seattle into a world city and
the creation of the Seattle Spirit … than the wart on the hand of a boy has on the character
of the mature man. …Seattle was never known as Madame Damnable’s town.”
“Like all rapidly growing cities,” Booth added, “Seattle has had its trouble with
the elements of vice and disorder, but it settles them in stride. In 1882, toughs sought
to terrorize the city. A vigilante committee in a night and day hanged three and drove
the others out. In 1910, gambling houses and houses of ill-fame were being openly
and brazenly run under the protection of a too complacent city administration. The
administration was recalled. … In 1909, the reds thought to take over the government of
the city. They were quickly and effectively squelched as will be modern gangsters if the
occasion arises.
“Seattle, today, fronts the western ocean, undismayed by the Depression,
alert, resourceful, self-reliant, ready to avail itself of every helpful influence and to take
advantage of every opportunity, confident, however, that it is the master of its own
destiny. Mr. Stevens as a writer of entertaining fiction outdoes himself when he gives to his
creations the garb of history.”
The bit about Seattle being undismayed by the Depression was a combination of
wishful thinking and whistling past a graveyard. Washington was one of the hardest hit
states in the nation. A conservative investor, Booth appears to have weathered the 1930s
far better than many of his fellow movers and shakers in Seattle. He was “well known in
club circles,” holding membership in the Seattle Athletic Club, the Arctic Club and three
country clubs, as well The ’89ers, an exclusive group of pioneer Seattleites. Booth was
a fourth-degree member of the Knights of Columbus. He also served on the executive
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