Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-04
THE POOL ROOM WAR
Has Stopped All Gambling in Chicago
For a Time at Least.
A PROTEST FROM THE RACE TRACK
Against the Town Establishments Leads to
General Crusade.
PROBABLY ONLY A sPAsM OF VIRTUE

rsrHcIAL rBLEenAM TO THE DrsPArcH.I
CHICAGO, August 3.-The short tele-
| grams of the Associated Press have not
| given to outsiders any adequate idea OF
what a high old time there has been for the
last few days in what might be termed in
reportorial English. Chicago poolroom
circles. There has been the biggest kind Of
fuss and it has had q result no less re-
markable than the abrupt closing of all the
gambling dens and poolrooms in Chicago
! as far as honest and energetic effort on the
part of the police could do 1t.
The fight opened with the picturesque
figure OF big, clustering Chicagoan, of
Milesian extraction, Edward Corrigan, by
name, in the fore front. Corrigan is the
lessee of the Northside race track and the
season there is just at its height
A PECULIAR FEATURE.
BY popularity in the law of Illinois it
is no intensely illegal thing to run q pool
room anywhere, but provision tackled onto
the statute says that its provisions shall
not apply to the actual inclosure of fair or
race track associations that are incorporated
under the laws of this State during the
actual time OF the meeting OF said associa-
tions, or within "a hours before said meet
ing"
Now the race track is away out on the West
side, and great many people who want to
buy pools cannot leave the heart OF the city
during business hour, but notwithstanding
this, in some previous years the downtown
poolrooms have closed during the season at
the Westside Park, and all the pool selling
has been done there,
This year no such arrangement Could be
made by Corrigan. The downtown pool
rooms did lively business all the time and
the pool selling at the races was not very
heavy and at times the attendance was none
too good.
A MATTER OF MISREPRESENTATION.
Corrigan determined to close up the down.
town resorts. He visited the Mayor, and
asked his cooperation to enforce the law
against poolrooms, but the results were not
satisfactory to Corrigan. Then he went
into court with long bill in equity in
which sensational charges were made to the
effect that the downtown poolrooms were
allowed to run by the city authorities in
consideration of q certain proportion of the
revenues thereof finding their way to the
pockets Of certain hungry people in the
CITY Building.
Practically that availed nothing, and then
Corrigsn had recourse to private detective
agencies. Informations were made by Cor
rigan before several Justices OF the
Peace in remote sections OF Cook county,
and private detectives, armed with war
room and forced everybody whom
they found doing business to go off
IL or 10 miles to the suburban towns of
Bremen or Arlington Heights or Cicero or
Evanston to give bail for hearing. Those
remote points were chosen because Corigan
wanted to make it impossible for the men
to get back in time to do any more work
that day. But the downtown poolroom men
were equal to the situation.
They provided successive relays OF men
and when one set were arrested and marched
off to a remote corner of South Chicago, an
other set sprang quickly into their places
When Corrigan ''got onto" this be pro-
vided successive
RELAYS OF DETECTIVES
and pulled the places as fast as the informa-
tions could be made out, and the warrants
placed in the hands of his men. Back of
Harry Alden's "PittsBurg Whisky" saloon
on South Clark street, a poolroom was
pulled no less than ten times in one day
Thursdsy-and it took the tenth pull to
close it for good, no other men being avail
able to run it.
Then the Mayor took hand in the game.
He sent to the city law department to
ascertain what he could do with Corrigan's
race track pool room, and the oracular re-
sponse was that Corrigan could not be
molested so long as he confined himself to
getting pools on the races then in progress
on his own track, but that be had no right
to sell pools on any other races, or on any
sporting event at any other point.
Thereupon His Honor detailed squad of
officers to 60 to Corrigan's establishment
and arrest any man who attempted to sell
pools on foreign events, and rather than
be interrupted in that style Cor
rigan's pool room people closed up
their place. The Mayor at the |
same time had passed around word to the |
down town pool room men that the war was |
about to be inforced and mo foolishness,
and on Friday and Saturday nights for the |
first time in great while there was no pub |
lie gambling in Chicago.
ONLY A SHAM.
The spasm of virtue has not vet spent its |
force. The poolrooms are still closed. The
gamblers are standing around wondering
what the next development shall be.
The city law department is now prepar-
ing an opinion as to the right of the private
detective agency employees to make arrests,
as they have been doing. of which the Mayor
may make use later on,