The "Seattle Daily Times" and the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" from February through September 1897 were reviewed to determine their reaction to President Grover Cleveland's executive order that abruptly withdrew from further private claims huge stretches of land remaining in the public domain. Specifically, the study sought to determine whether these newspapers reflected and encouraged the viewpoint of the commercial community to the exclusion or ridicule of supporters of conservation. Results indicated that the "Post-Intelligencer" served as an organizational focus for the commercial community opposing the reserves by sponsoring protest meetings, printing the times and locations and giving extensive coverage to speakers who attacked Cleveland's action. The "Times" also opposed the reserves editorially and printed articles describing the Seattle Chamber of Commerce campaign. Sentiment in favor of conservation was either ignored, or, in the case of citizens too prominent to ignore, belittled or ridiculed. These results suggest that a relationship involving political communication had formed between the commercial press and the merchant community that informally resembled the relationship between political party and subsidized press in the Jacksonian period. (HOD)