Document 18: "Seattle, Ten Years Hence"
R. H. Thomson, "Seattle, Ten Years Hence" [speech, c. 1928], 1, 3-4, 6-7. R. H. Thomson Papers, Accession 89, Part 1, Box 13, Folder 5, University of Washington Libraries.
The existence and growth of a city is dependent upon its hinterland. Broadly speaking, no hinterland, no city; also, no expanding or developing hinterland, no growing or developing city.
It requires no mathematical demonstration to show that to serve an enlarged hinterland, better means of transportation must be secured and brought into operation. When Seattle’s pioneer fathers located at Alki Point they sensed that they had settled on a spot which, by means of the highways of the nations, would put them in touch with the whole civilized world as hinterland. Therefore, speaking as though it were already accomplished they declared that they were, and were not just some time, to be, but were New York. New York to them was the center of distribution to a great hinterland. The accepted spot on Puget Sound would, therefore, prove to be the center of distribution to a great hinterland…
Whenever a settler locates upon a virgin tract of land, before he can reach the soil and get returns therefrom, he is compelled to subdue the natural growth thereon and to change the character of the animal life indigenous to the soil. In forestry belts he must fell and destroy magnificent timber. On the plains he has had to destroy the thousands of buffalo and antelope that covered the range. These things had to be done before the soil at his command would return those products necessary to be used in trade. The process of the removal of the capital stock afforded by nature cannot be kept up forever, and to any extent to which this disposal of nature’s gifts is carried, man with his genius must compel nature to provide him with articles of trade and commerce of superior value to those things found in the country’s original state. In city life all is based upon the magnitude of trade. Trade again is largely based upon facilities of competition in manufacture and economic access to market.
As we stand today and look at Seattle we see that during the years that are passed she has developed trade with her hinterland first in lumber; second in coal; third in fish, all natural product. As our means of transportation have improve and new centers of population have been opened to us we have engaged in barter in trade on a larger scale. In exchange for our lumber we have bought from foreign countries articles for domestic use as well as many articles for re-manufacture, and from the products of our fields which have been rescued or developed apart from their natural state we have sent forth our shiploads of grain; our shiploads of apples and other fruits and received in return the products of other lands…
Looking forward from today after looking backward over the years that have passed I see that Seattle is in a position, if she develops her opportunities which she now enjoys, such that in the fullness of time she can compete with many other localities of trade, not only in the sale of her natural resources and in products of the ground, but where she can enter into the sale of a multitude of manufactured products and re-manufactured products…
We look particularly to Alaska, to Japan and to Siberia as part of our most profitable hinterland. Why? To Alaska because the people there have not opportunities for cheap manufacture and are dependent upon their returns from the sale of nature’s products, that is to say, the things from the mine and from the water for their income. As they secure returns from these sources they must call upon us for those things we can prepare for their use at less price than they can be had elsewhere. To Siberia—a country vast in extent, of vast opportunities, a territory where millions of people may find happy homes—whose growth is dependent upon stable government and though clouds now hand low over this country and strife prevails, the very fact of this strife is an index of movements which in time will bring these people more and more largely into market.
Upon Japan because its process of manufacture to a large extent has been developed along liens very diverse from ours, and therefore we can make in exchange other manufactured articles and a great variety of food stuffs. Here as elsewhere we must consider “ability to pay” and her ability, as I can see it, is dependent somewhat upon the extent of her peaceable relation with other countries and particularly with China. The Chinese are shrewd traders, but the Chinese as a people have been trained to do as their ancestors did. Through a long period of time they have been taught that they were a superior people; that theirs is the oldest and most highly polished civilization in the world. That as compared with themselves other people are as dogs. Whilest China remains wholly Chinese fairly slow entrance can be made for the sale of American goods in comparison with the population as compared with per capita purchases in the United States…
I look upon these territories as our especial hinterland because they are largely in our temperature zone, in a large extent use our food, our clothes—some lightly, of course, and some heavily…
In 1938 the wheels of industry at Seattle will be busily revolving, urged on to some extent by the products of the coal mines, urged on principally by the current generated by the water of our rivers, and as we develop electrical power every fraction of a mill that we are able to sell that power for less than it can be provided and sold for in another territory give us that much greater leverage by which to control the locations of factories and thus tend to dominate trade in the Civilized World, and in full proportion to an enlarging hinterland we will steadily advance so that in 1928 we can notify the U.S. Census Bureau that if in 1940 it does not find over one million population in Seattle, the Bureau will be charged with incompetence and misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance in office.