The Political Battle for Tacoma's Soul
As the 1904 municipal election looms, Democratic mayoral candidate George P. Wright faces intense pressure to define his stance on 'open town' vice policies and city regulation.
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Democratic mayoral candidate George P. Wright and his allies have recently been challenged by The Tacoma Times regarding rumors that Wright favors an 'open town'—a city where gambling and other vices are tolerated. When pressed by a reporter to define his position, Wright declined to commit to a binary 'yes' or 'no' on the 'closed town' label, stating instead that his focus is on state law, and that he would personally 'suffer no inconvenience if there were no saloons in Tacoma.' Wright pointed to the Democratic platform’s plank regarding vice, which states that 'any vice that cannot be suppressed by law must be restrained by strict police surveillance.' Meanwhile, Mayor Campbell’s supporters, including Senator Lincoln Davis, are framing the current administration’s 'stubbornness' as a virtue, claiming Campbell has cleaned up the city and halted the influence of 'fallen women.'
“I would suffer no inconvenience if there were no saloons in Tacoma.”
The 1904 debate over whether Tacoma should be an 'open' or 'closed' city mirrors modern tensions regarding the regulation of nightlife and public order. The political theater of local candidates dodging accusations of saloon-sympathy shows just how central the policing of morality has been to Tacoma’s municipal identity for over a century.
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