St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-11-18
MASON FIRED OUT.
The Mayor Realizes the Fail
upe Of His Police Admin
iStratiou,
And Will Put McGinn at the
Head of the Detective
Force.
Meantime the Robberies and
Night Assaults Grow in
Number.
Several fragrant Cases Added
to the Number YeSter-
day.
A change in the police force.

| a change in the police force.
That is what the people of st. Paul
have demanded and that is what will be
done by the first of December.
The city of st. Paul is now and has
been for some months past in the hands
of sneak thieves, sand-baggers and
Sluggers. Robberies occur rightly,
hold-ups occur daily and the entire city
is at the mercy of these vampires almost
every hour out of the twenty-four. The
detective force is powerless and the po-
lice stand paralyzed with stupidity.
When the reform administration went
in last spring their first move at reform
was reforming the police force, but the
reformation turned out so disastrouSly
that another attempt at reforming will
be made, to take effect the first Of next
month.
The blue-cOated guardians Of the law
in this city have for years been the
pride of our citizens, and were pointed
to as model by manyOf the chiefs and
country. Today they stand in the most
demoralized condition imaginable, the
police force is farce and the detectives
dummys. The reports Of outrages at
the central station average nearly a
dozen a day, while the arrests can be
summed up as nil. The chief of the po-
lice force is Straining every nerve to
keep these facts from the public. and
the head of the detectives looks wise
and neither says or ndoes anything.
The chief executive of the city has
been called upon, but, owing to political
reasons and personal favoritism, he has
been 10th to do anything. The strong
pressure brought to bear on his majesty
has lately been increased, and to such
an extent that he could hold out against
it no longer; the die has been cast ard
the change will be made.
John G. McGinn will be the new
chief of detectives.
After numerous consultations and
many sessions of the mayors private
cabinet, it was decided that something
must be done to stay the course of crime
in this city, and the result will be that
after the 1St day OF December John G.
McGinn, superintendent of the National
PinkertOn Detective agency in st. Paul,
will step into the shoes of the present
chief of the detective force, who has
been unable for the past several months
to even partially check the career of
the hordes of criminals that have
infested the city, but has allowed
it to increase to such an extent
that the citizens have concluded to take
a hand in the matter and demand a
change.
Supt. McGinn is said to be man who
mas had considerable experience IN
handling criminals, but whether he will
be able TO clear the city of thugs before
spring comes around will remain to be
seen. One fact remains certain, how
ever, and that is that even with the
hardest kind of work it will take him
years to put the police force in the state
of perfection it was when turned over
to the new administration by Chief OF
Police John Clark and Chief Of Detec-
tives John j. O'Connor. The ruin that
has been wrought in the short space of
six months by an entirely unwarranted
political interference, and by men who
had neither experience nor ability in this
line, will leave the st. Paul police force
in state OF useless Ornamentatlon for
years to come and to put it in prime
condition again will require men of re-
markable executive ability and men who
will do their duty fearlesSly and not
bow the knee to few paltry politicians
who think that with election they have
become the owners of the police force
and can use it indiscriminately as a
means of paying political debts and re-
warding so-called political friends.
1t is also rumored that if this
change does not bring about the
desired result there are others on the
tapiS that will cut deeper, and it should
surprise no one if the next three months
should show an entire revolution among
the civil protectors of the welfare and
interests of our crime-ridden city.