A. A. Ames - The Wages of Sin

The Wages of Sin

Planning for the new administration began soon after election results were known from the 1900 election. Doc Ames organized his advisers and announced he would install his brother Fred W. Ames as the city's chief of police. Once in office, the Ames brothers flushed out the police force, replacing experienced officers with known crooks. New openings were even offered up to the highest bidder. The new police force became a supporter and purveyor of organized crime, extorting money from illegal businesses of various kinds. They also released many criminals from the city's jail, and promoted Minneapolis to robbers across the country. Ames had been suspected of scandalous behavior in his preceding terms as mayor; but due to his actions in 1901 and 1902 as part of a "reform" administration, Ames's behavior would prove he was corrupt himself.

Through his final term as governor, illegal businesses multiplied. There were more saloons, opium joints, gambling parlors, and houses of prostitution blossoming throughout the city of Minneapolis. It was even speculated that women were setting up candy stores to run a legitimate business to children and workers out front, but provide sexual services to any man who would pay in the back. The head of a major gambling syndicate in the city became a detective in the Minneapolis Police Department. The police would go and collect "fines" from these businesses in a way that would more closely resemble the intake of Mafia protection money today. Prostitutes were said to have made monthly trips to the city court's clerk to pay $100 and to have been strong armed into buying tickets to the police baseball games. Vast amounts of money were taken in at all levels. However, the rampant criminal activity soon began to swirl out of control as the cops and politicians began to swindle each other.