Tacoma Blasted Seattle’s Sin—Then Got Its Own Saloons Counted
A letter to the Post-Intelligencer turns a morality fight back on New Tacoma, where the writer counts seven brothels, twenty-eight saloons and ministers barring non-Christians from church.
To the Editor of the Post-Intelligencer:
I have just finished reading the little dab the Leader has been giving Seattle in regard to the wickedness abounding in this place. All is fair in war, and now we will make a comparison. For instance, New Tacoma has a population of about four thousand, and there are within the city limits seven houses of prostitution, hurdy-gurdy halls and twenty-eight saloons and beer halls.
Now I would like to ask the city fathers of New Tacoma what they are doing. Those who live in glass houses should never throw stones. And to make matters worse, the ministers of the gospel have given notice that none but professing Christians will be allowed in the house of God. Choir singers who are …—such is the state of things that exists in the good, the pious city of New Tacoma.
— New Tacoma, Aug. 15.
“Those who live in glass houses should never throw stones.”
City-booster morality fights are an old Seattle-Tacoma genre. Then as now, civic leaders advertised their virtue while nightlife and vice paid rent downtown; the letter’s glass-house warning could be posted over any modern debate about downtown disorder and who gets policed.
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