The Prosecutor’s Moral Crusade
As H.G. Rowland leaves office, the city reflects on his strict campaign against gambling, illicit Sunday activities, and prizefighting.
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The reign of H. G. Rowland is ended; he was succeeded yesterday as county prosecutor by Judge J. L. McMurray. Washington law makes the prosecutor practically king so far as public morals go. He can let lawlessness thrive or he can enforce the law and land the lawbreakers in the county jail. Mr. Rowland has attempted to do the latter. Although in his case discretion has not always been the better part of valor, the indications have been that Rowland's intentions were good and that he was trying to live up to his oath of office. During the reign of Rowland, slot machine gambling disappeared from Pierce County. The Sunday saloon has ceased to be. The prizefighter has given Tacoma a wide berth, and there has been a general respect cultivated for the elements of public virtue embraced in the statutes of the state. Whether his methods were always wise or not, Mr. Rowland deserves credit for what he has accomplished. It is for Mr. McMurray's record to show what the future holds; if the bars are now to be let down in the least, there will be trouble ahead for the new prosecutor.
“Washington law makes the prosecutor practically king so far as public morals go.”
Tacoma’s long history of 'moral crusades' against gambling and vice reflects the city’s recurring struggle to define the boundaries of acceptable urban behavior. Today's debates over zoning and nightlife regulation mirror these early 20th-century attempts by local officials to impose order on a burgeoning frontier city.
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