(3 of 3)
"A whole carload of beer and finer intoxicants rolled in, in connection with the scandalous midnight proceedings by authorities in Washington 30 years ago, fastening the name Rainier upon the mountain, thereby prostituting this noble mountain to be an advertising agency for a brand of intoxicating liquor; such are the two things whose memory is perpetuated in this insulting name upon America's grandest mountain — the British marauder's atrocities and a brand of lager beer.
"A shame, a burning shame is this to the lofty toned America of 1917 and 1918. A lasting insult to the men of 1776 who fought our battles and won our freedom for us. The writer is not a swearing man; if he were he would lift aloft the Henry Watterson war-cry in the late Hohenzollern strife and paraphrasing it devoutly cry: 'To hell with the name Rainier from Mount Tacoma.' "
Said The Great Myth:
"Aside from Dr. Cook's fanciful voyage to the North Pole, no fiction of modern times approaches that involved in the movement to change the historic name of Mount Rainier bestowed by its discoverer, Captain George Vancouver, in 1792, in accordance with time honored custom, to Mount Tacoma, on the plea that the latter was the aboriginal name. The rank and file of the people of Tacoma are sincere and honorable—a typical cross section of the genus Americanus. They have been told—and are told daily— that the Indian name was Mount Tacoma, and they are ready to fight for it.
"The bitter and vindictive spirit in which the campaign for Mount Tacoma has been conducted has been detrimental to the cause and has resulted in the alignment of practically the entire State of Washington against Tacoma, not only in the matter of the Mountain, but in the way of sympathy and fellowship.
"Any person or any organization that opposes Tacoma's pet ambition is subjected to vilification and misrepresentation.
"It would seem that only a hysterical craving for notoriety is responsible for a monumental selfishness as huge as Mount Rainier itself. It looks like the biggest land grab since Noah homesteaded Mount Ararat."
Further, The Great Myth contends:
1) That Admiral Rainier was not an obscure villain. In 1778, as a lieutenant in command of a sloop, he captured a large American privateer after a hard action in which he was severely wounded; soon after he was sent to the East Indies, rose steadily in rank to Admiral, retired, became a Member of Parliament and died leaving one tenth of his large estate to reduce the national debt of Great Britain.
2) That the name Tacoma was never heard or printed until Winthrop brought out his book in 1862; and that he either invented it or corrupted from some Indian word which he did not understand, such as "tkohph" (white), which his guide might have used in pointing to the snowy mountains.
3) That there was no brewery or beer in existence to bribe the Geographic Board in 1890; the brewery and the beer did not appear until some three or four years later.
The State of Washington watches the action of Congress with anxiety, divided against itself. If Tacoma loses, she has still the option of following the example of the ancient prophet: she may change her own name to Rainier.