Herbert Yemon Cartwright Jr. used to run a diaper laundry service. Eight years ago he was elected mayor of Galveston, and set out to prove that cleanliness is for diapers, not for Galveston.
Texas law, as it happens, prohibits pros titution, gambling and sale of liquor by the drink. In Galveston* (pop. 65,000) all three flourish. When a state crime committee investigated the situation, Herbie Cartwright told the legislators frankly that the laws of Texas are vio lated in Galveston because Galvestonians think the laws are wrong.
Freedom of Religion. Herbie was backed up by other witnesses and heartily applauded by the cityfolk. Dominant public opinion in Galveston, concluded the committee, believes "that whether an activity is a 'vice' is a matter of purely personal philosophy; that a country that guarantees freedom of religion has no right to make laws about morals ; that public opinion is divided as to whether smoking, drinking, gambling and professional sex service are vices; that the church has the right to teach these certain acts are wrong, but has no right to prohibit them." This view is connected with the belief of many leading Galveston businessmen that sin is good for business; that the tourist trade would fall off if gambling and prostitution were sup pressed.
Two years ago a young West Texan lawyer named William Kugle, who moved to Galveston in 1950 and was elected to the state legislature without being asked his views on vice, tried to shut down the city's notorious red-light district on Post Office Street. Mayor Cartwright's police commissioner. Walter Johnston, at first resisted. Then he calculated that the doxies would fan out into the residential neighborhoods, setting up a counter-Kugle pressure from the citizenry to restore Post Office Street to its old game. Johnston acted, he said, "with great reluctance," for, in following the prostitutes to the neighborhoods, "we will be faced with insurmountable odds." Post Office Street was darkened, but last year, for his pains, Bill Kugle was defeated for reelection.
This year Herbie Cartwright came up for reelection. But Herbie had made the mistake of turning off George dough's water supply and firing him as city radio repairman. Reason: Clough (rhymes with rough) operates radio station KLUF, which had been accusing Herbie of overcharging for water and mislaying $18,000 in city funds. George Roy Clough, 64, and 24 years Herbie's senior, decided to run for mayor.
The issue between George and Herbie was not morals but method. Herbie stood for a "regulated city." George's platform was "clean but liberal." It soon became apparent that Clough was planning a wider-open city than Herbie had run.
"What do I mean by clean?" he asked, explaining his policy on bawdyhouses: "Keep the chippies (juveniles) out of the place. Don't handle dope in any way, shape or form. No showing of lewd sex movies." Above all, he added, reopen the old red-light district in Post Office Street.