The Politics of the Red Light
Spokane's mayor refuses to suppress the 'social evil,' arguing that regulation in a restricted district is the only realistic approach to human nature.
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.
If Chief of Police Woydt issues an order to suppress the social evil in Spokane, he will do it without the consent of Mayor Boyd. When asked if he favored the abolition of houses of ill fame in the city, the mayor gave an emphatic negative. 'I said to the preachers' committee, and I still believe, that we have had the social evil with us from the beginning of time,' he said. 'I believe firmly that the sane and sensible policy for any city the size of Spokane is to confine the evil in a restricted district and govern it by stringent regulations. An attempt to suppress the social evil will simply result in spreading it, putting it under the nose of respectable people living in blocks and in the face of families living in the residence sections.'
“You cannot suppress the evil as long as human nature is what it is.”
Mayor Boyd's defense of a 'restricted district' captures the classic 20th-century civic struggle between moral reform movements and the practical administration of vice. This 'managed vice' model was eventually replaced by total prohibition and city-wide policing efforts, mirroring the shift in how American cities grapple with marginalized industries.
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