The Scandal of the Sandberg District
City council members launch a blistering investigation into a protected 'vice syndicate' they allege is forcing hundreds of women into a restricted district.
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 Sandberg vice mill is again in full blast. Over 400 women have been imported to Tacoma and are herded into cribs where all-night revels now prevail. The receipts of the vice syndicate are $1,000 a night, and they expect to increase it to $5,000. Every woman must pay $2.50 nightly to the owners for rent in the underground cribs. The council committee alleges that police officers have been detailed to guard the place, protect agents in forcing the women to pay, and arrest any men who interrupt the business. Detectives have driven women who had rooms elsewhere into the Sandberg joint, ordering them to pay the syndicate or be banished from the city. The committee is now demanding a grand jury to investigate the 'slave drivers' and the city officials conniving in the scheme.
“The whole police department of the city is being used to herd the women into Sandberg's hole and compel them to pay the outrageous tribute demanded by the owners.”
This 1909 report exposes the dark reality of 'segregated' vice, where police and city leadership turned a blind eye to—or actively profited from—exploitative housing and human trafficking. The tension between 'scattering' versus 'segregating' vulnerable populations remains a hauntingly familiar debate in modern urban policy.
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