St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-09-05
Shall st. Paul Have a Mag
nifieent Fete the Coming
Season?
The Benefit to the City the
Ice Palace Has Been in
the Past.
Merchants Discuss Something
to Tide Over a Winter
Dizziness.
If 1t Is to Be a Carnival, Work
Should Begin at
Once.

st. Paul must have an ice carnival
next winter, and must make it an event
far surprising in brilliancy all previous
efforts in that line.
The conclusion has forced itself upon
more than one business man of st. Paul.
while feeling the contraction cOnse-
quent to what has universally been
termed a hard winter. that the CONNER
cial dizziness of that season might have
at least been ameliorated, if not over
come, by such carnival season as
would have drawn strangers to the city
and forced outside money into circula-
ton here. Such a thought has never
been publicly discussed since the carni-
val for this year was formally aban-
doned, but no discussion was necessary
to institute a comparison between the
business of last winter and Of the sew
eral winters Immediately preceding.
When the unusually warm weather of
January made the ice palace practical
impOssibility there was general sigh
of relief at the announcement declaring
it off, The fact was that the winter car
nival was becoming somewhat stale.
The previous celebrations had been en-
tered into with such overwhelming zest,
zeal and spirit that the natural reaction
set in and ST. Paul people were tired of
them and were secretly rej0iced that,
without a voluntary abandonment, the
weather made the palace impossible.
They seized upon the theory that it
would be a great advertisement to send
out the news that Minnesota winters
were too mild to admit of ice festivities,
and they did send it out. We had no
carnival, and we did have the dullest
winter the Northwest has known in
series of years.
Coincidence and causatiOn are two
different things, and while the omission
of the winter carnival may have been
simply an incident. and not the cause of
the prevailing dullneSS-fOr st. Paul
was better off than other Northwestern
cities-a feeling is working up that it
will be advisable not only to revive the
carnival, but to revive it on new and
improved scale of magnifcence that
will attract the attention of the nation,
and draw here the roaming thousands
always on the alert for the novel and
sensational. In the past the ice palace
has been a great card for st. Paul, and
the accruing benefits are not easily to
be computed. Whatever st. Paul does
st. Paul does well and the carniyals have
demonstrated it. They were invariably
successful and the winter knew no local
dizziness when enlivened by the pres
ence of the Ice King. Merchants all
testify to the general business activity
of that usually quiescent perlod.and the
activity assumes exaggerated proper
tons when compared with the stagna-
ton Of the slushy days Of January last.
In view of these facts, and after the
rest of two years, with the new ideas
that time and experience naturally
bring, shall st. Paul have a grand and
gorgeous winter fete during the coming
season? In the awakening of the ener-
gieS of trade and commerce which fol-
low period of depression. shall the old
spirit of enterprise which animated st.
Paul during the past csrnivals again
appear in new and expanded winter
fpStiValP