The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-04-16
THE GAMBLING QUESTION.

Il
as q License was wymly discussed.
Some of the members werr, in favor of taxing |
these establishments O sum about equivalent
to that which the Sts..se demands of them, and |
others desired to place the tax OF SO high |
figure as to amount to practical prohibition. |
One Of our Contemporaries intimates that the |
council his no right, in its exercise of the |
taxing Lower, to destroy business which the |
Legis. ature has legitimated. 1t appears to
us feat this view, equally with that of some
Of the members of the council, is tainted with
a fallacy which, mainly on account of an
erroneous legal nomenclature, has taken pos
session of the public mind. This fallacy is
involved in the assumption that the right to
conduct business, to engage in trade. or to
exercise q profession, is derivative, and not
original-that il is conferred by constitutions
and laws, and that it is privilege which, in
the absence Of express Legislative enactment,
could not be enjoyed by the citizen. A corol-
larry from this doctrine is that a "license" is
legislative permission to do business, and
that, by means of the "kcensing power, the
Legislative authority may legitimate any kind
of business whatever. This fundamental
and pernicious error arises from the use
of the word "license "a word which
etymologically considered, certainly implies
pvrr1,5ufuu but -~-assoa, -; -.-;-tiy lAoai
sense cannot be construed otherwise than as
a synonym for taxation. But taxation is Q
power which can be exercised by govern
ments only for the purpose of collecting
revenues for governmental purposes. Rigidly
such revenues should be limited to the
amount necessary to sustain the machinery
requisite for the protection of life and pro-
perty and personal rights. In practice no
government Is yet conducted on this theory;
but certainly it cannot be commended that, in
the exercise of power conceded for the pur-
pose of protecting rights, governments have
the right to destroy such rights In other
words, the moment that taxes are imposed
with view to the destruction, or even the
obstruction, of the rights of property and
the rights of property involve the right to
prosecute any legitimate branch of industry
such taxation implies a perversion of the
very objects for which governments are
instituted Similarly governments cannot,
or ought not, to legalize occupations in them
selves immoral; nor ought the imposition of
a tax on such occupations to be construed as
"license" to pursue them The occupa-
ton of gambling has, hitherto, been con-
demned by the law-that is to say, by the
municipal ordinances of New Orleans. Those
are still in effect they have not been repealed;
and gambling is, therefore, just as illegal as
it ever was The fact that the Legislature has
imposed tax on it does no. make it legal,
unless the city should legalize it. According
to our definition of the nature of the taxing
power, this proposition is indisputable.
The opposite opinion results, as we have, said
from an error based upon a false Technology.
The State taxes gambling houses it is true;
but it cannot tax gambling houses unless such
establishments exist, and they cannot legally
exist, as long as the law specifically prohibits
them. Those gentlemen, therefore, who are
opposed to the new system have no necessity
to resort to the expedient of destructive rate
of taxation; especially as sucn an expedient
assumes the very questionable power of using
the agency of taxation for a purpose quite
foreign to its real nature. On the other hand
the argument that these establishments ought
to be forced to contribute to the public reve-
nue., because experience has shown the i'm
possibility of suppressing gambling, seems
to us essentially vicious. Hence we
cannot admit the position assumed by one Of
our contemporaries, that perhaps the Legisla-
ture did not carry this principle far enough
that the ''social evil being an evil impossible
of suppression, might, therefore. be eli
censed," as the term is. In the present state
of morals there are many vices which cannot
be suppressed. The law, perhaps wisely
enough, for that reason ignores them, but it
does not, or at least it ought not to encourage
them. Even crime cannot be suppressed by
law-it can only be punished. And yet, in
spite of laws and punishment, there are muir
ders and burglaries and larcenies. Will it be
contended that we ought to "license" murder
and burglary and larceny that because we
cannot prevent those crimes, the public treas
ury should share in the profits of the highway
man and the theft 1t may be said that the
tax imposed on gambling establishments, and
gavely suggested in the case of the 'social
evil" operates not as an encouragement, but
measurably, as q repression. We should not
lose sight of the fact, however, that
the true design of taxation is protection and
not repression; and that the moment gov
eminent imposes tax on an occupation it
owes to that occupation a proportionste
amount of protection. Under the ''license"
theory, then, it would be the duty of the au-
thorities to protect gambling establishments,
and houses of ill-fame, Just as well as it is
the duty of the authorities to protect the
merchant and the manufacturer in their re-
spective avocations. If such theory should
prevail it would prevail either in opposition
or in conformity to public opinion. If it
were opposed to public opinion it could
scarcely be more than temporary experiment.
If it conformed to public opinion, such con-
formity would be a symptom of a change in
public morals by no means to be desired If
it should happen that the people of New Or
leans should ever come to recognize legal