The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1907-08-23
Yet the Place Is a Settling
Mass of Vice.
MONEY FROM EARTH's BOWELS
Banking Capital 10 Not So vsye Large
But the Deposits Run Into
the Millions.

ton of desolation. That is Butte, and
no other language does the town JUS
tice. 1t would be impossible with the
agency of mere words to convey to the
unaccustomed minds of those dwelling
among the green fields east of the Mis-
sissippi an adequate idea of blasted,
treeless, brassless, flowerless, Godfor-
saken Butte. Butte, the rich mans cof-
fer but not his abiding place. Butte,
where vice walks abroad by day and
by night unrestrained, unclothed and
unshamed. Butte, which claims to be
the Chicago of the west and verify
outdoes Chicago in all forms of wick
edness.
Conceive, if you can, a city of 10000
inhabitants where green lawn is so
rare as to be an object of wonder and
surprised admiration; where even the
commons are as bare of vegetation as
the palm of a mans hand; where
money was poured out by the tens of
thousands. in an almost futile attempt
to find some trees that would make
even a dwarfed growth in Clarke's
public gardens in the suburbs; where
dollars are so plentiful as almost to
roll along every gutter yet natural
comforts are practically unknown;
city upon mountain top in which
people dwell solely for the high finan-
cial returns there to be attained and
in which bestiality is the single re-
Taxation of a large share of the popu.
lation.
Yet the Lids On.
And yet Butte has reformed. The
people tell you that now the town is
being run with the lid on. A few
months ago the gambling hells were all
with the open door, as free as gro
ceries and many times better patronized
while half-naked women roamed the
business streets at will At this time
you can only see half of the roulette
wheel peeping from under the lid and
you often have to look through glass
for passing peep at faro and poker
and piles of chips and gold. As for the
fallen women, they have been relegated
to the alleys. Blocks and blocks of the
alley buildings have been subdivided
into little eight-foot dens at the door
of each of which stands an abandoned
female clad with the utmost conceivable
economy, while through the alleys
saunter apparently the major portion
of the male population of the city
exchanging with the women such
corrugated repartee as one would expect
to find the common language of no
place this side the bottomless pit.
Butte, it must be remembered with
all this, is a city which knows neither
night nor day. The mines are under the
town. Shaft houses rise everywhere.
One winds its drum without ceasing
within quarter of a square of the
principal hotel, which hotel is for
the stranger and is as fine as a hotel
need be anywhere. The miners work,
in eight hour shifts, and thus their
coming and their going fill the streets
with people at all hours. No man who
works underground gets less than 81
a day, while some receive much more.
The monthly payroll is said to be-
in the neighborhood of $l,5OO,O0O, while
in some of the industries such as the
street car lines the men are paid off
every day. In order that there may be
no break in the ceaseless flow of money
through all the channels of the un-
godly place many of the saloons have
a little cage like ferry ticket office,
over the window of which is the sig
nifcant sign: "Checks Cashed Here"
Wickedest on Continent.
And saloons! Seek you the princi-
pal street intersections of the city, and
at 80 per cent of them you will find
a saloon on each of the four corners.
Walk down the streets from corner to
corner and in many cases you will
find every other place of business q
saloon. Where the drought comes from
to keep enough people thirsty enough
to support them all is one of the UNI
solved mysteries of the great west.
And scattered about among the saloons
are pool rooms where bets are made on
horses of every track in the country,
and loafing, lounging, pasty-com-
plexioned youth with "tin horn" and
"piker'' written all over them abound
in small armies. Butte contains
many good people, of course, and some
few comfortable homes, but the in-s
delible impression made upon the
stranger is that at its very best it Is
the most wicked place, bar none, on
the American continent. Yet only per
cent of the population of the city
proper is placed under arrest each year
and the inhabitants tell you that for
a real tough place you ought to have
seen it a few years ago. gin the old