The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-20
AMERICAS MOST
 WICKED CITY Reno Is Last Stand of the
 Bad Men AN UNSAV0RY REPUTATION In This Nevada Town Everything Goes Except Women Gamblers. Making Hard Fight Against
 Total Extinction.
AN UNSAVORY REPUTATION


 The banner town for pure, unadulte- rated wickedness is now Reno. Nev. In the story of bad towns in the west there has been an apostolic succession of lo- ealities, one following the other and passing on the distinction, but generally moving westward with the Star of Elm pire. In this progress the Pacific coast has been at last reached and on it's shores the last of the bad towns is fight ing for existence, but Is marked for de- cay and disappearance Meantime 1t IS the real thing, and with feverish purpose hastens to its finish, which cannot be long delayed. Already the blightlng hand of reform is reached out to destroy it's reputation, and while 1t has not had any perceptible effect upon its morals 1t has written its sentence of extermination upon the city wall.
 With the construction of the railways west of the Missouri river began the his tory of the bad town. Before that there were the Kansas raiders, who were diff ferent from their successors in that they had an aim to obtain in the establish ment of slavery in the new state They were swept out of existence by the Civil war, and were followed by the bad men who were just bad because they loved to be so and moved west with the ad- vance guard of settlement, stopping for a time at Lawrence, Junction City, Abi lene, Kan; Venita, Indian Nation; Wieh- ita, Ft. Dodge, Kan; Sydney, Neb., Cheyenne, Wyo., Ogden. Utah, and finally rested at Reno, where they have remained because, except in Alaska, there was no place else to go. They ex- tended themselves spasmodically to Leadville and Cripple Creek, Col, and to Butta, Mont, to Tonopah, Goldf1eld and Rawhide, New, but their capital city has been Reno, and apart from the fact that it alone remains of the whole group 1t Is their last fortress-Alaska and the Yu kon are too cold, California has come under the healthful influence of agricul- ture, and, generally speaking is as moral as Massachusetts, and the gambler, the man with the pistol and the thug have in fact only Reno left in which to live and, in a measure, thrive.
 The town itself has 150OO inhabitants and a floating population of some 2,O0o furnished by the current of travel and visitors to and from the mines of Gold Helu, IOHOpdH anu IbdWlllQo. u ouppOiAo in fair prosperity, 1,2S1 saloons, all of which are gambling resorts. It has record in five years of 123 murders, in- numerable highway robberies and hold ups, unrecorded lists of suicides, and sup ports 133 houses of i'll fame with 1,40O in- mates, and boasts with pride that 1t is a wide-open town. It is a handsome city, situated on the Truckee River, which flows pure and limped through its center. It has fine buildings, good hotels, pros porous banks and stores, is the site of a state university, has some IS or 20 churches, the see of a bishop of the Epis- copal churches, has a considerable and efficient clergy, good schools and hand some residences, with all the improved and modern conditions of civilized life So that Reno is not without the agencies of decency, although they are not cor rective of her way of life.
 The 1,2O0 saloons never close. There Is one street of two blocks, known as Gamblers Alley" which Is built up solid, and every house is drinking and gambling place. The bars for the most part are by no means deadfalls in ap- pearance. They are, many of them, as finely equipped as, say, Stewards or the Hotel Breslin bars, in New York City. The barkeepers are the social equals of anybody in the town, and the life of faro dealer or the keeper of keno wheel is a career that young men in the town look forward to in the same spirit that in other communities the professions of medicines or law are regarded. This IS not a mere newspaper statement. The Bishop of the Diocese, Right Rev. Henry D. Robinson, referred to 1t in a recent address in the following terms:
 "The greatest evil with which Nevada has to contend at present is gambling. This vice. unrestrained by law, is openly Haunted before the public in every town in the state. Here in Reno, as elsewhere, there are gambling saloons which prac- ticaly never close their doors. At any hour from sunset until sunrise, from sun- rise until the light fades behind the Western hills, the gamblers ply their trade. The effect upon the boys and the young men is of course demoralizing. Gambling Is an everyday affair l know of many instances where mere lads look upon it as they look upon baseball or any other innocent sport. Some of them look forward to the day when they may be in charge of a roulette wheel or own a gambling saloon, just as in other states | they look forward to legitimate trades and professions. The citizens of Nevada are so accustomed to the evil that 1t Is difficult for them to perceive how insid- ] iously 1t has eaten into the moral fiber of the community. It Is scarcely believable, yet I am assured 1t is a fact that some of our business men favor the contin- uance of gambling on the ground that it brings them trade. They seem unable to realize that they are putting the morals of the community into one side of the scales and their pocketbooks into the other.
 It is almost impossible for an outsider to realize how the vice of gambling has dimmed the moral vision of Nevada Some of our polticians--not all of them, thank God-are after the votes of the gambling element, and therefore, lack the courage to join the opposition The
 Income derived by the community from licensing the gambler Is so large that many fear lest Nevada's municipalities could not maintain public Improvements were this income lost. Here again we may perceive the dimness of the moral vision. Nevada's Improvements are weigh ed against Nevada's morals. The tact assumption seem to be this Nevada with good streets and bad morals is more desirable than Nevada with bad streets and good morals"
 To the credit of the respectable people who live in Reno 1t should be said that they do not condone present conditions, but they have agitated for clean town, and are fighting to get it.
 It would not be possible for Reno to support as many saloons. gambling houses and vicious resorts but for the large floating population 1t attracts. As the widest-open town in the world 1t has a great fascination for many persons. To the miner 1t Is the first place he thinks of when he makes strike ut arxrht AfA Wall