100 years ago in Spokane: Evangelist and theater enthusiast trade insults

From our archives, 100 years ago

Dr. Lyon, a Spokane evangelist, created plenty of drama when he blasted the theater as immoral.

Before an audience of 5,000, Dr. Lyon said that “since the time of Shakespeare, the theater has found its greatest appeal among people of loose morals.”

Secondly, he said, the majority of actors and actresses “live immoral lives.”

Thirdly, “the plays themselves are, as a rule, bad … and are founded on plots filled with sin.”

This prompted an immediate letter to the editor from William Ernest Wilkes, who ran one of Spokane’s theater troupes. He called the minister’s tirade “absurd” and “an insult.”

Wilkes said that thousands of people, week after week, were attending “fine, moral plays, many of which exert more influence toward the uplift of society than any sermon ever preached.”

He also pointed out that actors and actresses did a great deal of charity work and were “doing as much for the progress of the human race” as anyone. Wilkes also pointed out that he knew “a lot more about” what theater people were actually like than the minister.

Wilkes also added this zinger: “More ministers and others who were connected with churches are serving time in prison than actors.”