Anacortes Moral Reformers Take On the Restricted District
The local W.C.T.U. brought an evangelist to Anacortes for a week of lectures against the 'white-slave traffic,' pressing to close the town's red-light district even as some businessmen warned the campaign could backfire.
ANACORTES, Feb. 9 — The local W.C.T.U. is conducting a campaign for the closing of the restricted district, in harmony with a similar campaign by other branches of the union all over the state. They have brought here Rev. Sidney G. Price, who is making a week's lecture onslaught on the white-slave traffic. There is opposition to the movement among certain business men, who believe the success of the movement would defeat its purpose.
“There is opposition to the movement among certain business men, who believe the success of the movement would defeat its purpose.”
Anacortes' fight over a 'restricted district' was part of a statewide temperance and moral-reform push that treated sex work as both a sin and a traffic to be policed. The businessmen's counterargument — that closing the district would make things worse — is a familiar refrain in modern debates over sex work and public health.
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