A One-Woman Crusade Against Gambling
Following a violent confrontation between her husband and a slot machine owner, an Everett church worker vows to clean up the town.
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.
As the result of an altercation last night, in which a slot machine and her husband were involved, Mrs. U. P. Degman proposes to inaugurate a war against slot machines and gambling. 'I will make them think that Carrie Nation has been turned loose in Everett,' she declared. 'There is gambling going on all over town, but the police walk by and refuse to see it.' Her husband had a dispute over what was due him in playing a slot machine, and finally threw it into the street and smashed it. The result was a fight with the owner, and he was arrested. Mrs. Degman has taken the matter up on that account. She says that she believes that it is due her home that conditions which permit of its being disgraced should be changed. Her husband, she says, had nothing to do with the move. Mrs. Degman is an active church worker.
“I will make them think that Carrie Nation has been turned loose in Everett.”
The 'Carrie Nation' reference signals a specific era of moral panic, yet the conflict over local police apathy regarding illegal gambling remains a perennial point of tension in city governance.
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