St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-01-07
The Republican Illegitimate
Police Commission Has Not
Reformed the World.
Ven Bet on the High Card as
of Yore--Some Horrifying
Revelations.
An Interesting Controversy
Over the Property Of Peter
Morris, Deceased.
GAMBLING IN MINNEAPOLIS.
The Striking Discoveries Of an
Evening PAPER.

ESenlnS I'aper.
When the immortal police commission
was foisted upon the city of Minneapolis
by the political dishonesty of the Re
publicans several great reforms
were said to be expected. Sa-
looms were to be automatically
sealed houses of prostitution
and designation baniShed, while gam
bling was to cease altogether. OF course
this has been done-''with copper" to
borrow a professional expression used
in sensational expose of the gambling
iniQuitieS of this city of 100000 people,
that appeared in the Evening Journal of
last evening. The account of the pa
per'S cyclone detectives evening ramble
among the gilded dens of iniQuity is
prefaced by narrowing tale,
which almost equals in its
thrilling interest Judge Shaws
famous letters about my son."
To be brief, the fakelet runs about as
follows: Two young men, moral,
highly connected, holding responsible
positions, enjoying confidence and all
that: younger about to we'd; n
becomes moroSe, shattered nerves.
laudanum. embeZZleS, engagement
broken otf-cauSe, not cigarettes, but
gambling.
THE NARRATIVE
of the daring reporters experiences
probably caused many Shudder around
family hearthStOneS last night, when
pa sat down after supper i'll his easy
chair and read out loud 10 the startled
wife and timid daughters the revelations
about the lairS he had visited. To the
"men about town." of whom the re-
porter speaks with such significant fa-
miliarity, it would seem that some re-
porter who is used to day work had come
down town at night for the first
time in six months, and had stayed up
after O'clock. He found a red door at
the head of a stairway on Hennepin
avenue. He raped; some one looked
at him through a hole, and, after sizing
him up, wouldn't let him in. Over a Sa-
loon on Nicollet avenue he heard the
"click, click of ivory chips" heard
strange Oaths, found a man with straw
hat dealing stud" and another with a
red muStache turning a wheel that
wasn't exactly water-wheel. He
also discovered room up an alley
somewhere which he did not enter. but
concerning which he gives the public
the benefit of his sage convictions. Next
he SwellS back Office game in which a
number of well-to-do young men en-
gage on Washington avenue as another
HELL and then gets up purely mag
mary description of gorgeous establish
ment which is indefinitely located on
Washington avenue, thorough
care which. by the way
is seven miles long. What
the reporter heard a night-watchman
say to policeman, and other gush of
the sort concludes the blood-curdling
article.
For the benefit of the guileless re-
porter and the public in general the
GLOBE can give the assurance that
there is gambling going on in Mime
apOlis and just as much of it as ever in
the history of the city. There are over
dozen private gambling rooms,
several very swift games going
in al least three very prominent hotels,
and the back room stalls of number OF
saloons. Probably more men are cheated
out of their money by brace games than
ever before. It's all very natural. too.
Before the police commission was estab-
IiShed. the fact that gambling was
an evil to be at least recognized,
if not a necessary one. led to
sufferance of three square" gam
bling houses that were practically
public and which were conducted under
police surveillance. The police commits
sion, in its owl-like wisdom, Immediately
ordered them closed, and there was APP
plauSe from many sincere but unsOphiS-
ticated persons, who supposed that
gambling had been stamped out. Since
then gambling has been done under
lock and key in rooms in business
blocks, hotels, saloons, alleged ''clubs'
and in such places as were not
apt to attract attention. 1t may
interest the Journal to know that there
are within half block of its office no
less than four poker rooms, and that
they are not ''Snide" games either, for
at one of them three aces generally as
sumo value of $50 or whereabouts.
The claim that the police do not
know about these places is in measure
true, aud if they do that they
are often powerless to move is
equally as true. For instance,
a gambler who runs a rOOm-within a
block Of the JOurnal-in which several
games are going, at which high-rOllerS
frequently sit, has openly defied the po-
lice and has said more than once: why
don t YOU pull me?"
The point the GLOBE wants to make
is that the pushing out of sightOf gamb-
ling and kindred vices like refuse into
alleywayS should deceive no one
and that the hypOcrital pretense that
any reforms have been accomplished,
as claimed by the Tribune and other
political steal which created the police
commission are simply ridicuiousIy
false. The GLOBE thanks its evening
contemporary for Occasioning the OBJ
pOrtunity afforded of discussing a sub
ject which should be ventilated before
the people.