Open Letter to the Mayor: Stop Gambling, You Misfit!

Helena, Montana, 1906
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To the Mayor

Good morning, Mr. Lindsay. This is beautiful weather. Do you enjoy it. Helena, the Capital city of the Treasure state, is the making of a splendid city, is it not?

You are the mayor of this city, the chief executive.

Did you lie when you swore to enforce the law?

If not, why have you failed to abide by your oath?

Gambling is a crime, Mr. Mayor.

You swore to suppress crime.

You have not done what you swore to do.

Are you ashamed the walk the streets? Are you apologetic? Are you a liar?

It is for you to say.

Your administration thus far stinks in the nostrils of decency.

Is that plain?

Your own party is "sore" and mad by reason of your scandalous performance. You are a joke, and a political jest is worse than a crime.

Why don't you stop gambling?

You swore that you would.

What is your word worth in the presence of your oath?

Are you afraid? Are you a coward? Do you know that the republicans who were once willing to believe in you are now laughing at you? They think you are a misfit, a counterfeit, a false alarm.

It doesn't matter what party you belong to. You won't belong to any party if you persist in your dogmatic indifference to the demand for communal decency.

Assuming that you are not keenly aware of the value of anything else, yet may we ask, do you know the significance of an oath sworn by an elected official?

You swore to enforce the law.

Mr. Mayor Lindsay, you are the living shame and scandal of your city. You are not the mayor. You are the counterfeit presentment of bum government.

You are a shine.

You haven't got the courage of your own convictions.

You are repudiating the law and insulting the people.

And The Independent will take all that back when you stop gambling. Not sooner.

You have scandalized Christianity, stultified your own constituency, blasphemed citizenship, ridiculed law, smeared public service with the filth of political servitude and made a wanton jest of your own prestige. –

BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE COURAGE TO STOP GAMBLING AS THE LAW REQUIRES AND AS YOU SWORE TO DO.

Never mind partisanship. Never mind the fact that the city "needs" the money. Aren't you ashamed, Mr. Mayor Lindsay, to persist in your miserable failure?

Why don't you stop gambling?

Who are you to thus openly connive at the debauchery of the law?

How can you walk Main street and look your fellow men in the eye? They all suspect you. None will believe in you.

Don't be stubborn, Mr. Mayor. You know.

--The Helena Independent, Helena, Montana, September 28, 1906, page 4.