The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-04-18
THROWING OFF THE MASK.

THROWING OFF THE MASK.
The local administration has reached
a point where it finds it impossible to
maintain even the semblance of re-
gard for a popular element to which
1t catered and appealed at the last
election. It will be remembered that
the friends Of Flaw and order were
urged in pathetic tones to come to
the rescue of the Republican munich
pal ticket as against "the gang" While
a number Of the candidates on that
ticket, including some very high up on
the list, were making their daily and
nightly rounds Of the saloons and tell
ing the proprietors that they would
learn who their friends were if they
stood by the Republican party. others
were appealing to the advocates of
independence in political action, and
stirring up the same people who are
now in sympathy with the Christian
Citizenship league to put an end to
what they claimed to be a ''wide-open"-
policy, and promising that the con-
duct of city affairs would be such as
to make proud and happy the advo-
Gates Of a highly moral administra-
ton. Both of these horses the mayor
and his council have attempted to ride,
until, finally, they have reached the
plight of everybody who attempts that
acrobatic feat
They have had several trying cpl
sodes in their brief career. There was
the revival of the nickel-in-t he-slot
machine, to which the authorities, after
an exposure by the G o b e, were com
PEELED, with grief and reluctance. to
put a stop. There was a neat begin
ming of public gambling in various
parts of the city upon which, after an
other exposure by the G o e, a tenn
Porary check had to be placed: at
least, pending the adjournment of the
grand jury for the summer. There
was the disgraceful incident concern
ing the operation of a low place of
amusement in the city, where only the
most indignant protests of people
whom the mayor could not afford to
ignore, after other repeated exposures
by the G 10 b e, obliged him to take
action.
The strain of these constant efforts
to keep one foot on each of the two
badly matched running mates has been
too much for the administration. Such
fragments of Judgment as remained to
1t have yielded to an outbreak of tenn
per. One branch Of the council togeth-
er with the mayor, have now given the
hand of ice and the marble heart to the
Christian Citizenship league and its adj
herents. They don't propose, they state
to pay any further attention to what
these people desire. A man or woman
who can find anything to criticise in
the Doran administration is not fit to
be listened to, anyway. What consid-
Grafton, says an eminent Republican
representative in the assembly, and
what, echoes his honor, is due to any
body who does not vote the Republican
ticket and vote it straight all the time
without making any faces over the
dose? What kind of a standard. say
our admirable rulers, is this that some
practical people are trying to set up?
What is a party victory for if it is
not to run the machine for all there is
IN it? The idea that man who does
not vote the Republican ticket has any
claim to a respectful hearing before a
Republican council the idea that a
man not a Republican has any rights
which a Republican administration is
bound to respect merely because he is
a citizen and taxpayer in ST. Paul, is
to them a monstrous and a Iudicrous
thing. They are not going to have
any more nonsense about 1t, but
they are going to dispose their favors
where they will do the most good, and
TO shape their policies, with little refer
ence to the demands of public morality
or good administration. according 10
what will, they think, be Of the great
ct advantage to the Republican party.
This is not wholly Objectionable, in
asmuch as it is a throwing off Of the
mask, and at least moderately sin
cere announcement Of what Republic
anism means in our local government.
We congratulate the council and exec
utiye upon the relief which they must
experience in at last freeing their
minds about the impracticable people
who chatter to them of good govern