Minneapolis, a city blending New England traditions with Scandinavian thrift, illustrates, in its experiences with "Doe"Ames, the maneuvers of the peripatetic boss.Ames was four times mayor of the city, but never his own successor.Each succeeding experience with him grew more lurid of indecency, until his third term was crystallized in Minneapolis tradition as "the notorious Ames administration." Domestic scandal made him a social outcast, political corruption a byword, and Ames disappeared from public view for ten years.
In 1900 a new primary law provided the opportunity to return him to power for the fourth time.Ames, who had been a Democrat, now found it convenient to become a Republican.The new law, like most of the early primary laws, permitted members of one party to vote in the primaries of the other party.So Ames's following, estimated at about fifteen hundred, voted in the Republican primaries, and he became a regular candidate of that party in a presidential year, when citizens felt the special urge to vote for the party.
Ames was the type of boss with whom discipline is secondary to personal aggrandizement.He had a passion for popularity; was imposing of presence; possessed considerable professional skill;and played constantly for the support of the poor.The attacks upon him he turned into political capital by saying that he was made a victim by the rich because he championed the poor.
Susceptible to flattery and fond of display, he lacked the power to command.He had followers, not henchmen.His following was composed of the lowly, who were duped by his phrases, and of criminals, who knew his bent; and they followed him into any party whither he found it convenient to go, Republican, Democratic, or Populist.
The charter of Minneapolis gave the mayor considerable appointing power.He was virtually the dictator of the Police Department.
This was the great opportunity of Ames and his floating vote.His own brother, a weak individual with a dubious record, was made Chief of Police.Within a few weeks about one-half of the police force was discharged, and the places filled with men who could be trusted by the gang.The number of detectives was increased and an ex-gambler placed at their head.A medical student from Ames's office was commissioned a special policeman to gather loot from the women of the street.
Through a telepathy of their own, the criminal classes all over the country soon learned of the favorable conditions in Minneapolis, under which every form of gambling and low vice flourished; and burglars, pickpockets, safe-blowers, and harlots made their way thither.Mr.W.A.Frisbie, the editor of a leading Minneapolis paper, described the situation in the following words: "It is no exaggeration to say that in this period fully 99% of the police department's efficiency was devoted to the devising and enforcing of blackmail.Ordinary patrolmen on beats feared to arrest known criminals for fear the prisoners would prove to be 'protected'....The horde of detective favorites hung lazily about police headquarters, waiting for some citizen to make complaint of property stolen, only that they might enforce additional blackmail against the thief, or possibly secure the booty for themselves.One detective is now [1903] serving time in the state prison for retaining a stolen diamond pin."The mayor thought he had a machine for grinding blackmail from every criminal operation in his city, but he had only a gang, without discipline or coordinating power, and weakened by jealousy and suspicion.The wonder is that it lasted fifteen months.Then came the "April Grand Jury," under the foremanship of a courageous and resourceful business man.The regime of criminals crumbled; forty-nine indictments, involving twelve persons, were returned.
The Grand Jury, however, at first stood alone in its investigations.The crowd of politicians and vultures were against it, and no appropriations were granted for getting evidence.So its members paid expenses out of their own pockets, and its foreman himself interviewed prisoners and discovered the trail that led to the Ring's undoing.Ames's brother was convicted on second trial and sentenced to six and a half years in the penitentiary, while two of his accomplices received shorter terms.Mayor Ames, under indictment and heavy bonds, fled to Indiana.
The President of the City Council, a business man of education, tact, and sincerity, became mayor, for an interim of four months;enough time, as it proved, for him to return the city to its normal political life.
