El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-10-22
(By G. A. MARTINI


terrible mess. Seattle wanted g
wide open town and got it, and now
Seattle wants closed town and ma
not get it. Seattle is worked up to a
frenzy over it and there is no telling
what is going to happen. Just now q
petition is going the round for the re-
call of mayor Hiram c. Gill, who gave
| them just the sort of a government
they asked for and is now getting the
hook from the very men who put him
| in office to give it to them.
It all happened because the business
men of Seattle thought they wanted a
| lawless town, when they didn't They
used to have a lawless town. Every
! thing was wide open. Gambling was
rampant and virtue was at a premium
+, when Seattle was little place where
! shipping steamers from the orient
| stopped adm started, and when gold
| was found in Alaska, Seattle became
! the mecca for the men who acquired
| wealth in the frozen north Seattle
grew like a mushroom and was soon a
| city, a big city. and it got too big to
| stand for the vice that had in its early
| days helped to make it grow. They
| shut up gambling, put the lid on the
saloons and made the scarlet women
take to the back streets, or at least
the back rooms in the hotels.
Tne Rush SLOWS down.
BY this time, however, the wild rush
from the Klondike had settled down
and the money spending delirium was
about over Seattle felt it. There were
many who blamed Seattle's sudden
stagnation-at least it seemed like
stagnation to merchants who had been
used to selling big bills of goods to
the gamblers who had fleeced the min
ers who had dug the wealth and
brought it sOuth-on the enforcement
of the law and there came a cry for a
wide open town again. They failed TO
realize that Alaskan conditions had
changed. They blamed it all on ''the
lid" Mayor Gill ran on a ticket which
promised them what they wanted. He
kept his promise after he was elected.
The man with the red nose and the red
vest voted alongside the man with the
silk hat and the kid gloves. all for
Gill Seattle united-save for a few
upon a mayor who would restore the
conditions of old and as they believed
turn back the big end of the cornuco-
pia Of plenty into their harbor. Sa-
looms disregarded the closing regula-
lions; private games and games not
private were opened in back rooms of
the places where men leaned against
the mahogany with feet on the rails
and blew off the foam; women with
more clothes than virtue, and more
jewelry than good breeding, scattered
over the city again, and Seattle was
wide OPEN
But the gold did not flow back; the
gamblers did not buy the furIined over
coats as of old; miners drunk with |
sudden fortune did not buy out a cafe
for night so that a company of wo- |
men could dance on the tables. The
of ~ RI
period was dead. It had gone never to |
return
Home Folks GambIed
The business men who voted for a |
wide open town, found only that their |
working men were spending their mon
ey on the tickle goddess of chance and /
that grocery bills were unpaid and
families were left unshod and uncloth-
ed it was the same condition that
faced FL Paso before the good people |
arose in their might and demanded law
enforcement. The people Of Seattle re-
allied their mistake and they began to
seek remedy. They saw that it was
not morality that had caused their an
parent StagnatiOn; they realized that |
the boom days had passed and that a
clean town" was best. The mayor they
had elected on promise to open. the
town was told that it was a mistake
ana that he must remedy the matter.
He did, partly, but now he is charged
with all manner of things and a petit
ton is in circulation to GUST him from
office because he was elected on a plat
form that was mistake and because
the men who elected him have discov-
cred it.
Want to Dust Their Mayor.
The saloon men, like Ell Paso reac-
tionaries still bawl out for the wide
open town." but the business men re-
alize that they want anything else but
a wide open town; that the games of
chance are not Turing the reckless min
er any longer and that the only mans
money they are getting is the working
mans. The result: His family spends
less than ever and the gambler and his