The Battle for the Sabbath
Tacoma sees its first-ever Sunday theatrical performance, inciting an immediate protest from the city's Ministerial Alliance.
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.
TACOMA, Dec. 25. — The Olympic theater opened tonight, giving the first Sunday evening theatrical performance ever held in Tacoma. The house was over three-fourths filled. At the Congregational church, petitions opposing Sunday performances were passed among the congregation and signed by all present. Without an order from the mayor, the police refused to act upon City Attorney Murray's advice and close the theater tonight. There is, the police claim, no ordinance covering the subject. The police refer to the state law authorizing the closing of theaters on Sunday nights. Mark L. Wilson, proprietor of the Olympia, says the state law authorizes the closing of places where liquor is sold, and under it his theater cannot be closed. He claims that the attendance shows the people want Sunday evening performances. The Ministerial Alliance will continue to fight against the Sunday theater. Wilson has the pledges of twenty citizens to support him in Sunday evening amusements.
“The Ministerial Alliance will continue to fight against the Sunday theater.”
The late 19th-century struggle between religious moralists and the growing demand for secular urban nightlife highlights how deeply contested 'Sunday blue laws' were in early Washington. Modern Seattle has largely shed these restrictions, though the tension between neighborhood quiet and nightlife culture remains a recurring civic argument.
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