The Price of 'The Reform Administration'
A juror protests the Seattle municipal court's practice of fining sex workers as a de facto monthly licensing scheme.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
To Joseph M. Glasgow, Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Seattle: I, the undersigned, respectfully petition your honor to strike my name from the list of jurors selected to serve in your court. The city attempted to convict the defendant by the evidence of two prostitutes and one drunken man. Both female witnesses confessed in open court that their profession was common prostitution, and stated that they pay $10 monthly into the treasury of this city for the privilege of practicing their profession unmolested. Officer Philbrick, a police officer in the employ of the city, substantially verified every word that the prostitute witnesses had testified to. He plainly stated under oath that when a woman pays her fine of $10, he does not again bother about her for a month. The evidence proves that the city herself, through her reform administration, is daily violating law by compounding crimes. The main object of the city bringing a misguided wretch before your court is to collect a debt. I cannot conscientiously aid the city in employing the criminal courts of our government in collecting its illegal debts.
“The city clearly does not bring these cases before your court for the purpose of suppressing crime, for its officers state on oath that if the defendant had paid her fine of $10 she would be permitted to practice prostitution for a whole month.”
This 1891 letter exposes the 'fine-as-tax' system, a common Victorian-era tool used by cities to manage vice while generating municipal revenue. It highlights the recurring tension in Seattle history between official moralizing and the city's reliance on the underground economy for funding.
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