The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1906-08-24
Sensational Attack on Him by q
Cold WaterIOrgan.
EXECUTIVE SURPRISED AT CHARGE
But He Does Not Propose to Let HI
Personal Habits Enter Into
His Campaign.
F., EEE

Minneapolis, Aug. Announcement
that Mayor David Percy Jones was a
candidate for reelection as chief magis-
trate of Minneapolis, has attracted at
tention not only locally, but in the
ranks of prohibitionists throughout the
United States.
1t would naturally be supposed that
the mayors well-eXecuted reform meas
ures in connection with the closing of
the Sunday saloons would entitle him
to the support of all prohibitionists.
But The Defender, national prohi-
bition weekly, of New York, of which
William P. f. Ferguson is editor, says
some scathing things about Mayor Jones
in its issue of Aug. 8, having sent a
special correspondent to Minneapolis for
no other purpose than to study the
local situation.
The attack appears to be either the
product of extreme radicalism or in
spired by the opposition to Jones en-
gendered by his rigid enforcement Of
the Sunday closing and anti-gambling
laws.
The report of the special correspond
ent covers some two pages and there IS
also lengthy editorial on the mayor.
A small portion of the attack follows:
"Mayor Jones is being recommended
to the prohibitionists of Minneapolis
as fit to receive their votes for re-
election as mayor of that city, because
he has happened to close few soloons
on Sunday. He is the man against
whom the phohibitionists of that city
should conduct the hottest campaign of
the party's history"
Other charges, which are characterized
by Mayor Jones' friends as absurd, fol
low:
"Though a professed Christian, he
drinks intoxicating liquors, uniting
himself thereby for such high duties as
those that devolve upon the mayor of a
great city and setting thereby most
pernicious example to the young men of
the city, who of necessity must look up
to him as a model of manly conduct.
mayor Jones let's the gin mills of
Minneapolis defy the law every night.
"He is the mayor who lets gambling
machines run in saloons, hotel lobbies
and cigar stores, in defiance of law, be-
cause the owners of the saloons prom
Use to give cigar to every man who
CANDLES.
"He is the mayor who allows sixty.
five great houses of fame to flourish
in Minneapolis, with more than 700 I'M
fortunates to tempt boys and young
men to ruin-every house, as well, SELL
ing liquor-in violation of the statutes
and in contempt for the laws of de-
cency and virtue, allowing them to
throw open their doors to open the
pathway to hell for the boys and young
men of his city.
''The maintenance of slot gambling
machines is prohibited by law, but to
print list of places selling liquor after
eleven o'clock at night and of those
that operate gambling machines would
be to publish directory of the saloons
and cigar stores of the city. And the
mayor knows it and so does the chief
of police"
When asked if he drank, Mayor Jones
replied: ses
81 do not intend to have my personal
habits brought into this campaign. Any
stories that reflect on my personality
will find me mute as clam. l am sur
prised that this New York paper should
have attacked me. l believe some per-
son, in the guise of friend of the pro-
hibition cause, has sought to do me
hurt. If they can swallow me here in
Minneapolis, where they know me and
see my work, l don't see why the far
away prohibitionists of New York can't
swallow me, too"