Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 247, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1910 — The Lid Put on Tight in New York [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Lid Put on Tight in New York

NEW YORK.—Spurred on by Acting Mayor John Purroy Mitchell, Police Commissioner William A. Baker has caused several raids to be made on the gambling joints of this city, and the lid has been jammed on so tightly that $1,000,000 of capital invested in such places is idle Just now, while the owners are wondering, “what next?” Impatient over the vexing delay, Acting Mayor Mltchel in a letter, following several raids, has put squarely up to Commissioner Baker an responsibility for the non-enforcement of laws against gambling and vice. He charges the police with being grossly derelict in their duties, and declares that the situation his secret service men report could not exist without police connivance. There is panic in

the ranks of the gamblers as well as with the police. Since the shooting of Mayor Gaynor placed him at the head of affairs Acting Mayor Mitchel has received many complaints. Some were appeals from mothers who declared that their sons were losing money in gambling places, and many were specific in their character. _r_ Men from the office of the commissioners of accounts, the secret service department of the city government, found for Mr. Mitchel the violations of the law. The raids began and keys were soon in the doors of 40 gambling places along the Great White Way between Thirty-second and Sixty-ninth streets, and J 1,000,000 of invested capital went out of business. The managers who were not crating their roulette wheels, their faro layouts and their Klondyke sets in preparation for the exodus, were mournfully parading the streets in the vicinity of their houses, warning a why prospective customers. It was the saddest day the gamblers have known since the Ag-new-Hart racing bills went into force.