The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-11-18

Authors Of ION the Trail of the Immi-
grant, Describes Conditions as They
Were When "a Wide Open Town"
Was Considered the Only Kind Pos
sible-Times Have Changed.

Minneapolis gateway, the Union
station and vicinity, has gone into lit
erature, and in way not at all to the
credit of the city. Edward A. Steiner,
author of '''Oh the Trail of the Immi.
grant, tells in his book Of the impress
sion the surroundings Of the Minneap-
oils: Union station once created on a
company of new arrivals.
It, was at the time Of Mayor A. A.
are different now. They were at their
worst then. Nevertheless, the record
stands, and, as the book is one that il
likely to be widely read, Minneapolis
Will suffer yet further as the result of
the wretched Ames regime.
r. ~ Travels steerage. 49,.
Mr. Steiner is professor, in Iowa
college, Grinnell, Iowa. Twenty-Five
years ago, tho a highly educated man,
he came across the Atlantic as steer.
age. passenger, an immi grant. His ex-
periences on that trip created in him
keen interest. in immigrants in gen
eral and since then he has ten times
crossed and recrossed the Atlantic, oft
en- as q Storage passenger, in order to
study the immigrant at close range.
On one of his trips westward he fell
in with a company Of Scandinavian i'm
migrants on their way to. the northwest,
and offered to pilot them thru Mime
apolis, having highly praised the city
to-, them beforehand. Then came the
establishment, a series Of unpleasant,
rot o say s a2 experiences s. at the
.Es Comes With Swedes.
~ joined party of young swedes
who were travelling from Chicago to the
northwest. They were Disguised by
that city, by its moral and physical
filth, Its noise and it's few glimpses of
God g heaven, and I congratulated them
upon going to Minneapolis, which I de-
scr5bed in glowing terms: as clean
population Of New England descent
combined with this wholesome Scandi.
navian element in making model city.
Eager to have. America shine to them
in its best light I offered myself to
them as their guide thru the city, an
offer which they readily accepted. =
"We had scarcely stepped out Of the
Union depot before wished that had
not: said anything about the goodness
of Minneapolis; for we were set upon
by thugs, fakirs and lewd women in
such numbers and in such disgusting
manner that thought for moment /
had struck the Bowery in its palmiest
days. Dozens Of squares around the
depot and deep into the heart Of the
city were filed by brothels of the most
disgraceful kind; pictures were dis
played in show windows and in the open
poFticos of museums which would make
q. Paris street gamin blush, and the
whole city seemed stricken by some IA
tai: disease. -. ~-~..
Fl. 1s; Wide Open Town.
"Policemen were neither; ornamental
nor useful; city detectives were: EN-.
! ployed BY gamblers to hustle the
deeced stranger out Of town; the mayor
the sheriff, and who knows who else
were N league with gamblers and
thieves, while vice was everywhere
rampant and did not even have to
defy the law, for there was no law
Professor Steiner well. puts this in
the past tense, for it has all been
greatly changed under the adnlinistra
ton of Mayor Jones, but it shows how
horrible the conditions were, the dan
gers that confront an ~ill-guarded city
and above all the good or bad impress
sion that q city''s gateway may make
upon new arrivals. j: -. ~. ~.