Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-03-07
Not worse Than Others.


make Los Angeles appear in the light
of the wickedest city in America. To
read the outpourings of one of our con-
temporaries on this subject, stranger
would take it for granted that our city
was given over to thieves, gamblers
and harlots. But the picture is much
blacker than we deserve. In its moral
aspect Los Angeles will compare IA
vorably with any cosmopolitan city
in the United States. 1t is popularity
of very influential class OF the Ameri-
can people that they deliberately refuse
to recognize the fact that there are GER
tain kinds of evils which always have
and always will exist in cities. These
people live in the haze of delusion
which makes them believe that these
evils are somehow eradicable. They
tell you that if the law were enforced
against gambling it could be sup
pressed. Yet the fact remains that
the most stringent measures have
never in any city succeeded in doing
80, They have only succeeded in
driving it into more secret places
and thus rendering it more injurious
to the community. The practical
statesman would say to these vision
aries that when an evil cannot be
abated it is the work Of wisdom to
contr ol and regulate ito SO far
recognize it legally as to bring it out
of its dark and secret places and take
away from it its most dangerous prin-
ciple by keeping it under strict police
surveillance. But proposition to do
this would be received with an ex-
clamation of virtuous horror by the
goody- goody portion OF the COM
munity. To recognize gambling or
any other ineradicable evil by licens-
ing it and placing it under po-
lice regulation would be held as
compounding with the evil one. Let
us take, for instance, the gambling
so-called Grain Exchange, that has
been carried on openly here for
months. Nobody doubts the charac-
ter of the business carried on by this
"exchange." 1t is what Council
man sententiously designated as a
self-working faro-bank driven by cleo
tricity. Yet we are sure that the
very fact that this new-fangled gam
bling contrivance is carried on openly
renders it much less dangerous than
if it were driven into dark corners
whore the public eye could not look
upon it. Now any employer whose
confidential clerk should play at this
game would be spotted at once,
before he had time to seriously
injure the man he worked for. On the
other hand, if the game were carried
on in secret places he might ruin his
employer before it was known that he
had been playing in automatic margins.
The legal adviser of the city has not
been able to find any law to place
this game in the legal
category Of games Of chance
and therefore it will doubtless
continue to be played openly
The best way therefore, under the
circumstances, to deal with it il
to place it under high license. This
will permit it to exist under the eye
Of the public and the surveillance ol
the police. If there is no objection to
licensing this game, why should
there be to licensing other gambling
games, really not less pernicious to
the morals Of the community
than the margin gamble
We may say that regular gambling is
prohibited by statute; but we know
that in this case prohibition does not
prohibit. It is nice question to de
termine the value of q law which
theorstically suppresses, but which
practically, instead Of suppressing,
AeRravates the evil it aims to correct.