The Saint Paul globe., 1897-04-19
WHOSE TURN TODAY.

There is something refreshing, in these
days of acrimonious contests and much
complaining and discomfort, in the en-
tertaining show which the Doran ad-
ministration continues to furnish for
the promotion of the gayety of nations.
Where it will be before nightfall we do
not pretend to know. For last week it
executed one of the neatest bits of
ground and lofty tumbling ever seen
upon the sawdust of the political arena.
1t turned down the Christian Citizen
| ship league with vim and vigor, be-
cause it had not votes enough to COM
mand the administration respect
Then, when it began to ooze slowly
through the official mind that some
persons were offended and that there
were votes in danger of being lost
there is a turn Of the wheel. Without
| word Of warning the order goes forth
on Saturday night to close the concert
halls, order the stage performers to go
home like good little girls, and inform
the proprietors that they must take
their medicine. Before this time it
has doubtless occurred to our wonder
full mayor that he has lost more votes
by this act than by all the others that
he has performed put together; so what
he will do next to set himself right for
| the second term" we must leave to
the Imagination to conjecture. Mr.,
Doran is as far beyond Imagination as
| he is beyond ordinary reason. He is
unique. He is a phenomenon. The
| city which claims him is a whole dime
museum and could charge an admis-
sion fee from visitors
The last act Of the mayor, committed
at the time and in the manner that it
was, is indefensible. These concert
halls have been running without hind
rance and without any indication that
they were to be forbidden. Their per-
| formances have not been of the low
order They were favorite resorts for
| people who like that form of amuse-
ment, and who cannot afford or do not
care to patronize the theaters. And
when the Saturday evening is part over,
with all the performers engaged at their
work, the mayor, in an off-hand way,
tells the officers to go around and close
! them up. He could give plenty of
notice and repeated warnings to the
viiest resorts that the city ever con-
tanned. To these people, engaged in
! something never hitherto forbidden and
harmless in itself, he could not convey
a whisper of warning. 1t probably
struck him suddenly that the second
term would profit if he propitiated
the Christian Citizenship league, and
! he took this extraordinary way of do
ing it. If he could have heard the COM
ments upon his action Saturday even
4 ing and yesterday, he would probably
! have had another spasm, and mayhap
all the concert halls would have been
running again ere now. 1t is hard to
criticise such a man with the severity
that he deserves, because his limitations
are so painfully apparent. 1t is like
/
work of a full grown man. But the
amusing side does not appear either
to those whose petition for orderly
government he mocks, because he con-
cludes that there are not many voters
among them for the Republican party,
or to those upon whose amusements
and business he lays the heavy hand of
municipal authority because his slow
mental machinery in some way got a
! jolt in that direction. Such a peremp-
tory interference, unjust in method
and tyrannical in manner, is very wide
! ly resented. Whose turn it will be next,
or what crazyquilt of policy the present
week will disclose, no human being can
! tell. You might as we'll look for the
airship as to prognosticate the policy"
| of this singular being whom the Repub-
| lican party has inflicted on the people
1 of st. Paul.