The Sermon That Demanded a Vigilante Raid
Local clergymen spar over how to handle a notorious 'dive' in Tacoma, with one pastor inciting his congregation to take the law into their own hands.
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.
Ten thousand women of Tacoma should arise and go down to this dive and clean it out by a raid. That is the remedy for the Lindberg joint on Fourteenth and Court A, called to public attention by the police and license report in the council last week, as prescribed by Rev. Sharman Wallace of the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. Mr. Wallace last night discussed the presence of the evil in Tacoma in his sermon. He spoke plainly on the matter and then threw the burden of solving the problem on the women. 'What are the women of Tacoma going to do about it?' he inquired. Rev. William D. Buchanan of Park Universalist Church argued that such immorality should be treated like any other social disease, suggesting fallen women be restricted to a district and enclosed behind a high iron fence. Conversely, Rev. Herbert Judson White of the First Baptist Church laid the responsibility at the feet of the city administration, urging the arrest of landlords who profit by renting buildings for immoral purposes.
“Ten thousand women of Tacoma should arise and go down to this dive and clean it out by a raid.”
This 1909 debate over the 'Lindberg joint' reflects a recurring historical tension in Tacoma: whether to rely on moral crusades and vigilante-style action or to enforce systemic accountability through the law. The language of 'social evil' and 'dives' reveals how public policy, policing, and moral panic once fused in the city's approach to housing and vice.
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