the last book I ever read (Herbert Asbury's The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld, excerpt ten)

from The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld by Herbert Asbury:

The fame of New Orleans as the gayest place on the North American continent was spread by the ballrooms, the cafes and coffee-houses, the hotels and restaurants, the elegant gambling-establishments, and the unrestrained merriment of the Mardi Gras festival. But the fact that at the same time the city was notorious throughout the world as a veritable cesspool of sin was principally due to the prevalence of prostitution, which in turn was due to the tolerances with which it was regarded by the authorities and the people generally. This attitude, eagerly embraced by the American politician because of the protection it afforded to one of his most lucrative fields of graft, was based upon the Latin viewpoint that prostitution was an inevitable and necessary evil, to be regulated rather than suppressed; it became such a definite municipal characteristic that it persisted until comparatively recent years. From Bienville to the World War commercialized vice was the most firmly entrenched phase of underworld activity in New Orleans; it was not only big business on its own account, owning some of the best property in the city and giving employment to thousands, but was also the foundation upon which the keepers of the concert-saloons, cabarets, dance-houses, and other low resorts reared their fantastic structures of prosperity. Without the lure of the harlot it is doubtful if such districts as the Swamp and Gallatin Street, and the Franklin Street area which Bison Williams described as “the only locality in the city where decent people do not live,” could have existed.