Seattle Police Force Illegal Gambling Dens to Close
After weeks of unchecked operation, Chief of Police Jackson issues a stern ultimatum to local gambling houses under threat of force.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Gambling, which has been allowed to run practically without check for weeks, has been closed for a time. Houses have been doing a flourishing business without let or hindrance, other than the annoyance of having to close down for a few minutes occasionally when they knew the police were coming to make a 'raid.' The police invariably found the games closed, and never arrested more than one man, whose nominal fine would be paid on the following day. The fact that no less than five public gambling games were running openly in the city was stated as a matter of news in the Post-Intelligencer yesterday. At 11 o'clock last night Chief Jackson sent Detectives Cave and Roberts to the houses with the information that they must close. He instructed the officers so that bystanders could hear him: 'Go down to the houses and tell them to close, or I will come down and burn their goods.' The mandate was communicated to the houses, and the officers found the games closed. One man from each house—the M&N, People’s Theater, O&B, and Pacific—was taken to headquarters and released on $75 bail.
“Go down to the houses and tell them to close, or I will come down and burn their goods.”
This routine dance between Seattle’s law enforcement and the gambling underworld mirrors the modern struggle to regulate illicit business in a rapidly growing city. While the methods—threats of arson by the Chief of Police—are archaic, the cycle of performative raids followed by quick bail and business-as-usual persists in local civic arguments.
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