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Marching Toward War

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DAN KERLEE THEN: The view of the parade is looking south on Fourth Avenue through its intersection with Spring Street to the Seattle Public Library, left of center. The north façade of the Rainier Club at Marion Street is also evident, right of center. PAUL DORPAT NOW: Some 90 years later, part of Seattle's striking downtown library sparkles at left.

THE NATIONAL GROCERY Company's dapper marching band was nearing the end of perhaps four hours of tramping through the Central Business District when this photo was taken on the hot Saturday afternoon of June 10, 1916. The last of two reviewing stands was constructed on the stairway to the Carnegie Library, at left, facing Fourth Avenue, and the serpentine procession's estimated 25,000 marchers disbanded just behind the unnamed photographer at Fourth and Seneca.

With war raging in Europe, the occasion was the Preparedness Parade organized by the Northwest Business Men's Preparedness League. In all, 20 bands entertained the 200,000 or so spectators who packed the avenues to watch. It was a parade of flags, mostly. The few floats were simple ones like the truck that carried Herbert Munter, his aeroplane and employer Bill Boeing, or the stuffed-elephant float followed by 500 Republicans chanting "Hughes, Hughes, Hughes."

Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes was their candidate for the presidential election that Democratic President Woodrow Wilson would still win in part on his reputation as the one who "kept us out of war." On this day, though, the aim was to show we were ready. The marching members of the King County Democratic Club carried a banner that read "Down with Jingoism, Imperialism and Militarism. We are celebrating the enactment by Congress of Wilson's preparedness program."

The powerful Central Labor Council of Seattle had advised its members to stay away from the event, which it said was designed to "increase hysteria (and) thwart the cool, calm and deliberate judgment, which is so necessary to the proper solution of this great question." The question was answered the following April, when America joined the war.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.