St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-12-17
THE QUEER GAMR
Worked by a Made-Over Box Car
and a Blanket Sheet.


Minneapolis Tribune. Dec. Is.
| Many complaints are heard from cities
and towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin and
Dakota at what is termed a wholesale
confidence game which the st. Paul Pho
neer Press has been working for the
last eight months. Prominent men in
numerous places have characterized the
scheme of this paper to increase its
waning circulation as no better than
obtaining money under false pretenses
"a scheme which, if it is honest in its
intentions, is resulting in securing
something for nothing, deception on
the people who are one party to the un-
der taking. The complaint comes from
the methods employed by that paper.
and the men whom it sends out as its
representatives IN the advertising car
'sSuccess." 1t goes as novel enter
prise to boom the paper, and the scheme
it adopts is certainly novel as part of
the work of an alleged newspaper.
80
The methods employed in securing
the dollars of the people whom this car
has visited are these: The car arrives
at certain town, and representative
of the Pioneer Press calls together some
of the prominent business men, who
visit the car in body and see what a
marvellous interets the st. Paul concern
has shown in their place, to send it there
for a stay of few days. Everything is
very smooth. The men who are III charge
represent that they are there to make
business proposition which will result
in making that particular town or city
the metropolis of the Northwest. If the
business meh Of the place know their
opportunity. they are told, they will ac-
eept the proposition and at once expert
ence a boom in real estate, become
wonderful railroad center, develop their
building interests and be transformed
into a treasury for the receptacle of
Eastern capital. 1t is simply: "Drop
nickel in the slot and see city grow"
~
In addition to the write-up of page,
in return for subscription list, the citi-
to full column of space in the paper
each week. This was to be filled by
matter sent in by correspondent, whom
the paper would allow the people of the
place to select. He could boom the
town in this as the people wished, pro-
yided that personalities and politics
were left out. The correspondent was
to be paid by the paper. and the people
were told that he would be under their
own supervision for one year. 1t was
simply promising to let the people be
their own editors for one year. and their
copy was to ''go." In return for this
privilege of using the columns of the
paper, the citizens were to turn out and
help the representatives of the paper
hustle for subscriptions. The size of
the list obtained at $40 each, payable in
advance, would determine just the
amount of space to which that town
would be entftle every week. If there
were 100, the space should be one
column.
The terms of theagreements have not
been lived up to on the part of the
Pioneer Press, is the complaint the peo-
ple make. The car has fingered in the
town three or four days, and some hun
dreds of thousands of dollars have been
collected, the car has gone and after a
page of boom matter has been published,
and in twenty or more eases nothing
whatever has appeared, that town has
been forever blotted from the memory
sOf the big corporation at st. Paul, which
only wanted the ducats, and the town