Tacoma Mayoral Race Centers on Clean Government
As the mayoral race heats up, the local press weighs in on the divide between a 'closed' city and the advocates for a wider-open town.
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.
The Tacoma Times is frequently asked for an editorial expression upon the mayoralty contest now in progress in this city. Mayor Campbell has made a good mayor. He has stood for clean government and not for dirty politics. This fact is generally admitted. Nobody accuses the mayor of having thrown the town wide open to all sorts of iniquity. His only opponents are those who feel that he has gone too far in the way of cleaning up the town. They want things something more like Seattle has had them under Humes. There is a considerable element in Tacoma which favors a wide open town. This element does not want the present mayor continued in office. The fight upon Mayor Campbell is a fight between the advocates of the present municipal policy of keeping the town closed to gambling and tenderloin evils and the advocates of a modified policy which will permit of much more laxity.
“The fight in Tacoma this year is a fight between the advocates of the present municipal policy of keeping the town closed to gambling and tenderloin evils and the advocates of a modified policy which will permit of much more laxity.”
Tacoma’s struggle with its own identity—between moral regulation and the desire for a 'wide-open' city—has been a recurring theme in its civic life for over a century. The tension between downtown growth and the enforcement of social standards mirrors contemporary debates over land use, nightlife, and urban regulation.
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