The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-12-09


set themselves to wedding from the
department every officer whose politics
were of the wrong kind and whose re-
movaI it was thought could be effected
without harm to the-existng administra-
ton. This was not done to the same
extent by Mayor Kiefer; but he, too,
naturally enough, had to yield to, parti-
san considerations. The outcome practi-
cally was that a new police department.
was created, with it's personnel complete
ly changed Has this result been so en-
tirely acceptable to the people of st.
Paul that the danger of changing it,
which is impending through the action,
past and prospective, of the commission,
should cause them serious alarm? Practi-
cally every efficient policeman on the
force eight years ago, who protested
Democratic opinions, has been removed
in the interval, and his place taken by a
Republican.
But the Pioneer Press insists
that the new appointments on
the police force are ward heelers.
Well, if that be true, either
John O'Connor is wonderful police Of
fetal, or else the ward heelers are an
entirely different class of persons to
what the Pioneer Press would have US
believe. Concededly we have a good
police force today, far better than we
have had under Republican control Here
is what the Pioneer Press itself says of
Republican changes:
1--WE have no quarrel with the COM
mission for appointing John OColnor
chief of police. For he is undoubtedly
the most efficient chief of police that
ST. Paul has ever had-eVen better than
John Clark, who. notwithstanding his
rabid partisanship, was a far better chief
than any of those appointed to succeed
him by Republican mayors
Can it be true, then, with the record Of
police incompetency which we have under
successive Republican administrations,
and with the wholesale removals for par
tisan reasons which have been accom-
pished against Democrats and which the
books of the department. show, that some
terrible danger is impending unless the
prevailing changes in. the police depart
ment are checked and the practice ended
of removing Republican incompetents
and appointing in their stead those who
are described as ward heelers by our non
partisan friend, the Pioneer Press? The
answer suggests itself. A man is a
ward heller if he is a Democrat and is
tod
removals when made by Democratic Of
fcials are entitled to the utmost present
reprobation. When they are effected by
Republican officials it is time enough,
according to our contemporary policy,
to condemn them six or eight years after
the event even if, in the meantime, and
largely as the result of them the city
is overrun by crime until the people are
compelled to insist, and to insist through
their ballots, that there shall be a revolu-
ton in the existing police administration.
The revolution is taking place, and it
hurts oficeholding and ofticeseeking
Republicans, and they fly for comfort to
the thirteenth story of the Pioneer Press
building.
But there is more than this in our
contemporary vain appeal to the SUI
preme court. It and its partisan asso-
ciates are in dread of approaching ex-
piration of official terms in the fire de-
partment and on other boards. The terms
of three Republican fire commissioners
will end with the opening of the new
year Will the Pioneer Press kindly ex-
plain to the public on some strictly non
partisan basis, how it happens that all
the boards of the city government are
today in Republican control, and that all
the officials in the various boards whose
terms are coming to a close are, with
one solitary exception, all Republicans?
Partisanship is truly a bad thing in gov
eminent administration; but it is just
as bad when practiced by Republicans
as by Democrats, and it is hardly suf-
ficient ground on which to base an APP
peal to judicial authority to so adjust
it's decisions as to furnish protection for
one school of contending political par
tisans.
When the Pioneer Press is able to show
that the changes which have been made
by Democratic authority or may be made
hereafter in the police or any other de-
partment of city government are oper-
ating or likely to operate any worse than
those which have been made by Repub
lican authority, or that the city will be
any the worse off in any direction by
the making of them, it will be time
enough to invoke judicial or other aid
to overturn the express will of the peo-
pie Of the community, clearly and une-
quivocaIly expressed by them through
their suffrages.
II MAY BE THE PANAMA CANAL.
Fortune seems just now to favor the i'll
starred Panama canal. It is possible cir
cumstances may so shape themselves
that the United States, bent upon own
ing an interoceanic canal, will turn to
the much-abused child of Ferdinand de
Lesseps and adopt it into the family.
The canal commission which has been
investigating the two routes favors the
Nicaraguan proposition. All might be
r1oir caiIiu4 -Uara II not. foy fha intar,,a