The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-06-11

Does the public Of this city ever stop
to think what they have received in the
way of creditable and efficient police adj
ministration since the advent of the pres
ent city administration? They are told
from time to time that they are having
forced on them a hopeIessly partisan no.
hce administration, in which politics is
made to do duty for intelligence and dis
elimination on the part of the police adj
ministration and personal favoritism
takes the place of Individual fitness. In
f1uenced by the periodical outbreaks Of
our virulent non-partisan neighbor. the
Pioneer Press, there are no doubt still
some very good people who think. that
even compared with the police situation
existing in Minneapolis through the con-
troll of Republican executive our state
here in ST. Paul is indeed a parlous one.
For four years We had the most open
and notorious collision between GER
tain leading police officials and the Grim
1nal classes. Day after day the peoples
homes were broken into citizens wera
held up, often on their very doorsteos
confidence games ran riot, and strangers
in the city were beset on every street cor
ner by the representatives of bands of
criminals who were here under Police pro.
lection. The interesting situation was
presented, it will be remembered, during
the carnival of crime which prevailed, of
the police charging the mayor with equal
completely with the criminals by letting
property owned by him for gambling pur-
poses.
Side by side with that condition of I'm
bridled lawlessness there existed an
equally complete paralysis of the prose-
cutting agencies Of criminal law. The ex-
ceptionally stupid criminal who forced
himself into the clutches of the police
annex found sort of supplementary
agency existing for his protection in the
helpiessness OF. the then county attorneys
| Office when conviction was most desired.
There were few criminals arrested, and
still fewer found their way to the peni-
! tentiary after they had been arrested.
Indeed it looked for a considerable period
as if the functions of criminal law were
exercised in this city more for the pro-
lection of the criminal than of the pub
lie
How is it now? Can any man look at
the police representatives of social peace
and order who stand on every street
! corner, erect and vigilant, the very in
carnation of watchfulness for the safety
and security of the citizen, without
feeling thankful that the old order came
to close and the new was inaugurated?
And what is the daily record of crime
committed and going UNPUBLISHED today?
There is nc need to compare it with the
record Of even the most harmless period
during the time of police Incompetence
and criminality that existed for the four
years preceding June of 1900. Indeed COM
parison is impossible.
For the past two months thousands OF
strangers have been coming and going
Each succeeding convention has brought
in its wake a greater or less number of
criminals. How many crimes against the
citizen have been committed in that
period which had not purely local
origin in the personality of the criminals
and Of their victims? And of all the
crimes which have been brought to trial
since tine first of January of the
present year under a Democratic prose-
cutting attorney, what proportion have
gone uawhipped of justice:
Our Republican contemporaries do wen
to keep their editorial mouths shut on
tae police department these days. Let
them fill them up with soap and keep
them filled, lest that they will utter a
murmur-cither on this score or on the
subject of the ideal conditions Of official
probity which now prevail, for instance