Tacoma’s Mayor Denounces City’s Partnership with Vice
Mayor Campbell vows to end the 'social evil' and clean up city hall, rejecting political backroom deals that traded tolerance for revenue.
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.
Mayor Campbell, in his speech to citizens of the Seventh ward last night, defined his position on gambling and the social evil in language which left no doubt as to his future policy, if re-elected. He said: 'I was approached recently by a man well known in this community, and one of my old friends, who said: "Campbell, if you just let up a little in your zeal for keeping the slot machines out of town, and let the word be passed around, I will guarantee that you will be re-elected by the largest majority ever given to a mayor of Tacoma." I said to my friend: "No, I will not do it. If I must be re-elected by conniving at a violation of law, I want to be defeated. So long as I am mayor of this city, NOT ONE SLOT MACHINE SHALL RUN, NOR SHALL THE CITY COLLECT ONE DOLLAR IN FINES FROM GAMBLERS FOR THE PURPOSE OF REVENUE."' The mayor described a corrupt past where the city acted as a partner to gamblers and fallen women, collecting revenue from them as a form of municipal taxation. He decried this system as a moral failure, calling it the most contemptible form of governance.
“The city was practically in partnership with gamblers, and fallen women. The municipal court was being used for the purpose of collecting revenue from both classes of law-breakers.”
This speech captures the early 20th-century push for 'good government' and moral reform in Tacoma. The tension between municipal revenue-generation and the criminalization of poverty and vice remains a recurring debate in city politics.
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